Strategies of Translating Metaphor

2.3.2 Strategies of Translating Metaphor

The theory implemented in order to analyze the strategies for translating metaphors in this study is proposed by Newmark 1981:88. Besides, Newmark’s theory is applied as the main theory in this study. He proposes seven procedures, each is illustrated below: 1. Reproducing the same image in the TL ‘provided that it is comparable in frequency and used in the appropriate register’. One word metaphors are more commonly translated using this method, while the translation of complex metaphors or idioms depends on cultural overlap. Reproducing one-word metaphors representing sense of an event or quality instead of an entity is more difficult e.g. ‘elbow one’s way’. Similes are more cautious than metaphors, and must normally be translated in any type of text. Lastly, animal abuse can have cultural or subjective connotations but can be quite universal as well ‘swine’ is a symbol of filth and dirt everywhere 2. Replacing the image in the SL with a standard TL image provided that is culturally compatible in TL, and ‘presumably coined by one person and diffused through popular speech’. Euphemisms are also metaphors and often have to be replaced by cultural equivalents, unless the reader has to be informed in a similar way as the SL reader. 3. Translation of metaphor by simile, retaining the image. This modifies the shock of metaphor, ‘particularly if TL text is not emotive in character’. This procedure can be used for any type of word, and original metaphor. 4. Translation of metaphor or simile by simile plus sense or metaphor plus sense. This is a compromise procedure and combines communicative and semantic translations together which address both layman and expert reader. The main focus here is on the ‘gloss’ rather than equivalent effect. It is noteworthy that some metaphors may be incomplete in TL without the addition of a sense component. 5. Conversion of metaphor into sense. This procedure can be applied in any type of text, and preferred when SL to TL image replacement is extra broad in terms of sense or register. To perform this procedure, the sense of metaphor should be analysed componentially because image is ‘pluridimensional’. 6. Deletion, a rather radical approach is to delete the metaphor along with the sense component if it is redundant. A caution is that SL text should not be ‘authoritative’ or ‘expression of writer’s personality’. The translator should make a decision after weighing what is more important and less important in the text. An empirical justification of such deletion comes if the ‘metaphor’s function is being fulfilled elsewhere in the text’. 7. The same metaphor is combined with sense. Sometimes the translator wants to make sure that image will be understood properly so he adds a gloss as well. Thus he transfers the same metaphor along with its sense. e.g. “The tongue is a fire” can be translated into “A fire ruins things; what we say also ruins things”. This may suggest lack of confidence in the metaphor’s power and clarity, but it can be useful if metaphor is repeated.

2.3.3 Translation Shifts