Metaphor Cognition And Its Enlightening Effect On Translating Metaphors

The study of metaphor has a long history of more than two thousand years. Traditionally, metaphor was always confined to rhetoric and was viewed as ornamentation of language. Nowadays, the research on metaphor has expanded to a broader range of disciplines and become interdisciplinary, such as philosophy, semiotics, linguistics, semantics, pragmatics and cognitive psychology. The new school of linguistic—cognitive linguistics, which is based on cognitive science, reveals a brand-new explanation for metaphor: metaphor does not only serve as a decoration, it is a universal phenomenon of human language and an important way of cognition as well. It is a cognitive activity that understand and experience one kind of thing in terms of another. Metaphor pervasively exists in the course of our cultural and art activities. The approach of cognitive description towards metaphor has highlighted the cognitive nature of metaphor itself. In terms of translation, the theory of cognitive linguistics has provided a new angle and theoretic base for translation research. Generally speaking, most of our traditional translation theories were based on understanding of metaphor as a figure of speech, overlooked the cognitive nature of metaphor and had been focused on static comparisons of differences between linguistic forms, literary styles and cultures. Analyzing from the cognitive perspective of metaphor, translation is a kind of cognitive activity that people illustrate or understand the experience of one language community in terms of another, otherwise, translation could not achieve the purpose of cultural communication between nations. Metaphor and translation are closely related. Now that cognition is the foundation of forming metaphor which is the common core of expressing meaning in all human languages, it is not advisable to talk about rendering metaphor by avoiding cognition. This thesis probes into metaphor cognition and its enlightening effect on translating metaphor and provides five approaches for translating metaphor. The whole paper is divided into five chapters:Chapter One introduces the definition of metaphor and the interrelations between metaphor, language and translation.Chapter Two elaborates the basic theories about metaphor, such as comparison theory, substitution theory and interaction theory. In the later part of this chapter, emphasis is given to discuss the classification of metaphor and cognitive reasons for the production of metaphor. It is the nature of metaphor that determines its translation as a mental cognitive process in essence. Chapter Three focuses on the cognitive functions of metaphor. Metaphor is a cognitive tool for forming conceptual system and conceptualizing experience. It has provided a new angle of view for understanding the world.Chapter Four introduces the essence of translation and cognitive conception of metaphorical translation. As a way of cognition, metaphor is a kind of cultural conduct and contains abundant cultural connotation. Translating metaphor in an appropriate way by spanning cultural differences and realizing the images transference can make translation vivid and expressive. According to the features of English and Chinese metaphor, the author proposes five approaches for translating metaphor, including literal translation, conversion translation, free translation, transference between metaphor and simile and retaining the original image with explanatory note, and discusses the application in the detailed examples.Chapter Five draws a conclusion. For translating metaphor, translator should seek the proper translation strategies and avoid mistranslating.