Transplanting The Seed-the Translation Of Metaphor In Chinese Official Statement

This study is to explore the translation of metaphor in Chinese official statement from the linguistic, textual and cultural perspectives mainly by virtue of Peter Newmark's relevant theories. It analyses and elaborates on three metaphor translation approaches as well as common hurdles encountered in the translating process with an aim to searching for appropriate channels of transplanting Chinese metaphorical seeds into the foreign soil and meanwhile transmitting accurately the original information and effect.Metaphor is pervasive in languages with its study traced back to the age of Aristotle, who believes"metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else."(董宏乐, 2005: 21) Along with deepened researches, people have expanded their study of metaphor from rhetoric to the cognitive field, viewing it as not only a figure of speech, an ornamental device, but also an important cognitive instrument and a thinking mode. In essence, metaphor is"to understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another."(Cortazzi, 2001: 57) The image and sense are two key elements in the structures of a metaphor. As for the official statement, it belongs to the operative text type, in which the language is concise and precise, analytical and impressive. To transform the unknown into the known and facilitate people's better understanding of political states, metaphor becomes the best choice of official statement producers and is employed as an effective persuasive and promotional device."The translation of any metaphor is the epitome of all translation, in that it always offers choices."(Newmark, 2001a: 113) For quite a long time, people have just focused on the translation of metaphor in the literary texts while overlooked that in the non-literary texts to a large extent. Besides, people in China have turned most of their attentions to the rendering of English metaphor into Chinese, but ignored the transplant of Chinese metaphor into English-speaking countries. In order to fill up the gap in these two aspects, the author reviews and analyses relevant theories about metaphor and metaphor translation; on the basis of these theories, dozens of typical metaphors and their original translated versions are selected from officially released materials and under detailed and classified investigations. Altogether three general translation approaches, namely, semantic translation, communicative translation andthe combination of the two, are put forward. In the translation of metaphor in Chinese official statement, source image, cross-cultural elements and reasonable reproduction of the original sense and effect can be the most decisive factors.In the final analysis, this study, through discussing metaphor translation in this distinctive text type, tries to testify that the metaphorical seeds can be transplanted onto the new land for healthy growth and the target recipients can have the chance of understanding and experiencing a genuine China through the translated versions.