A Cognitive Analysis On Conceptual Metaphors Of Plant And Animal In The Red Sorghum And Its Translation

There are a large amount of conceptual metaphors in Red Sorghum, which is the key for the foreign readers to understand the essence of this classic work. As the important artistic features of the novel, description concerning plants and animals acts more than rhetoric ornament. Through "humanizing" plants and animals, the author succeeds in sublimating the novel’s theme, improving the whole artistic appeal of the novel. This paper mainly discusses the conceptual metaphor of "red sorghum" and "water lily" in respect of the plant category and that of "dog", "mule" and "weasel" in respect of the animal category.Lackoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory ushers a new path for the studies of the metaphor translation. Scholars in China have carried out a great deal of researches on the translation of conceptual metaphors in literature works from different perspectives. However, there is still a long way to go. So far, few theses and studies on conceptual metaphor translation of plant and animal in the Red Sorghum have been done.Based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Mapping Theory, image schema structure and other related theories of cognitive context, this paper makes a study on the conceptual metaphors of plant and animal in the Red Sorghum and their corresponding translations in the English version by Howard Goldblatt. Results of this study show that when dealing with the metaphor translation, Mr. Goldblatt used three strategies:literal translation, free translation and omission of image. These strategies are conducive to the reproduction of metaphors in the original work, helping readers understand the theme of the novel better.