Translation Of Metaphors In News English From The Perspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

Metaphor is an ?°omnipresent principle of language?±, according to I. A. Richards, as there is on average one metaphor for every three sentences spoken in our daily language as indicated by statistics. It has aroused people?ˉs interest for thousands of years, and the first scholar who studied metaphor in the West is generally known to be Aristotle, who held that metaphor is essentially a rhetorical device used to ornament speech. Aristotle?ˉs view of metaphor was to influence many linguists, philosophers and writers after him as the orthodox creed. However, the birth of cognitive linguistics in the past decades has revolutionized the conventional idea of metaphor and offers a deep insight into its nature and mechanism. Research on metaphor comes in vogue, with new ideas and theories contributed by lots of cognitive linguists, so much so there appears a so-called ?°metaphormania?±around the globe. Metaphor abounds in news English or journalistic English in that it affects the vividness, accuracy and the understanding of the reading public. Hence, the translation of metaphor in news English is of great importance.This thesis studies metaphor and metaphor translation in news English. By drawing upon the new theories of metaphor, the author will pay much attention to the nature and interpretation of metaphor. Firstly, the author categorizes metaphors into the different types according to metaphorical degree, and go on to discuss the working mechanism and principles of metaphor. Cognitive linguists hold that the understanding of metaphor is a highly encypedic process closely associated with people?ˉs cultures, experience and language backgrounds. This undoubtedly brings lots of difficulty to the understanding of the metaphor in a different language. However, the understanding of metaphor, as the language itself, is based on the common physical and psychological conditions of man. This makes the translation of metaphor, though very tricky, indeed possible. In the last part, the author will employ different theories in cognitive linguistics, such as relevance theory, to present a complete strategy of metaphor translation. It is my intention to maximize the information conveyed in news English by tackling the problem of cultural and cognitive discrepancy.