On The Translation Of English Metaphor

Metaphor is traditionally viewed as a rhetoric device, and is employed in all kinds of writings such as poetry, prose, drama, scientific and other non-literary writings. Metaphor is both a shortcut to make language attractive or lively and a better way to convey ideas effectively. When carefully and skillfully employed, it can make the thought more striking and effective. As a matter of fact, metaphor plays an important role in speaking and writing.However, it is not enough just to study it as a rhetoric means or a linguistic phenomenon, for metaphor, as an important means of thinking, is involved in human cognitive process. It is pervasive in our daily life. In essence, metaphor is a perceptual and conceptualizing tool, by which man understand the changing world around.The thesis is composed of six chapters studying from the brief introduction to the research made by the scholars both at home and abroad. It also points out the deficiency , the purpose as well as the significance of the work done in the thesis.The study of metaphor witnesses a long history beginning with the study made by Aristotle. Later scholars discussed it from semantic perspectives. Metaphor is, as a direct consequence, important to psychologists, sociologists, scientists, advertising copywriters, poets, literary commentators, philosophers, historical linguists, semantic researchers. It is clear that the previous research shows that metaphor has been of interest to scholars in a wide range of disciplines and the study of it has reached a high level. However deficiency still exists. Few researches are made on the translation of English metaphor. That is why I set myself in the thesis to make a tentative approach to the translation of English metaphor from semantic and cultural perspectives.Chapter two probes its origin, definition, and functions of metaphor with specific emphasis on its diversified functions, such as the rhetorical function, the linguistic function , the cognitive function and the social function. Like the other rhetorical devices, metaphor is used as a kind of decorative addition to ordinary language. It is widely employed to gain certain effects at certain time ranging from turning abstract, complex and dull terms into concrete, simple and vivid conceptsor images to achieving novelty and euphemistic functions.Metaphor plays a pioneer role in the change of language. It is proved that the polysemy and novelty of linguistic signs benefit from the creation of metaphor. In the process of language change some metaphors have become dead metaphors and thus they passed into literary language.Cognitive linguists argues that metaphor belongs to a kind of cognitive phenomena, having a close link with the way of thinking and the process of thinking development. It is an important means for people to understand the world and to view things from new perspectives. What's more, metaphor can be used in social interactions to increase intimacy among people .Chapter three discusses the theories on the understanding of English metaphor. A metaphor consists of the presentation of some underlying analogy or similarity in the form of a condensed simile. Our interpretation of metaphor is accompanied by converting each expression into a complex simile-like form. So a metaphor makes us attend to some likeness between two or more things.Blake's interaction theory enable us to apply a "system of commonplaces" associated with the metaphorical word to the subject of metaphor. In the theory of conceptual domains projection metaphors are viewed as mapping across conceptual domains, naming the source domain and the target domain.Chapter four and chapter five deal with the translation of English metaphorical expressions from the semantic and cultural perspectives. The translation of English metaphor can be thought of as the presentation of the proposition derived from the expressions plus context. The best way to achieve the function and effect of original metaphorical expressions in translation is to examine particular metaphors in a given context.The conclusion...