A Hermeneutic Approach To Metaphor Translation

The thesis explores metaphor, especially conceptual metaphor translation, under the guidance of hermeneutic theories by drawing upon the latest theoretical achievements of cognitive research on metaphor.A great number of current subjects, including linguistics, not merely aim to have exhaustive description of the object investigated, but also take interpretation as one of their final goals. With the rapid progress of translation studies, more and more scholars and experts start to focus on the research of interpreters/translators' understanding in the translation process, in other words, the subjective initiative of interpreters/translators. Hermeneutics is just such a profound and archaic philosophy which takes understanding and pre-understanding of interpreters/translators as the essence, showing full respect to pre-understandings originated before and after the translating and reading process, seeking for rational and objective meanings of the text. From a hermeneutic perspective, translation studies regard the original author, the interpreter/translator and the reader as a whole in an integrated system, fusion of the three horizons being the distinguished feature.The metaphor we study in this thesis is not merely a rhetorical device but a metaphorical thinking that forms our cognition and understanding. In other words, the metaphor referred in this thesis is what Lakoff and Johnson call "conceptual metaphor" (1980) which constitutes our daily conceptual system. It is a synthesis of featured historical condition and social elements. Its meaning is open and infinite. Therefore translation is not just a pursuit of objective meaning and the interpreter/translator should take concrete backgrounds and historical situations into account. Interpretation of the interpreter/translator is based on their understanding and pre-understanding as well as the existing horizons. Besides the interpreter/translator, the original author and the reader hold their different horizons. In a word, hermeneutic translation is a fusion of horizons based on such different understandings and pre-understandings of different subjective initiative of human beings. The final goal of translation lies in the elimination of distance and alienation between the past historicity and the interpreter/translator upon legitimate pre-understandings and fusion of horizons. How to evaluate the final translation and interpretation, the final reader is a better standard over pure objective meaning. Reader reception of the translated text best measures the interpretation and thus fuses the reader's horizon with the present horizon of the translated text, working toward a more integrated translation system.