On The Translation Strategies Of Metaphors Of Thematic Images In Big Breasts And Wide Hips From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Since the time of Aristotle,the study of metaphor has been focused and researched for two thousand years.In the traditional studies of metaphor,metaphor is only regarded as a language phenomenon and a rhetorical device.With the proceeding of the researches on metaphor by the western scholars and the rise of cognitive linguistics,this traditional view has changed greatly.In 1980,Metaphors We Live By was published by Lakoff and Johnson,which is regarded as the beginning of metaphor study from the cognitive perspective.Conceptual Metaphor Theory is proposed in this book.According to this theory,the essence of metaphor is to understand one concept by means of another.Moreover,this theory settles the foundation for metaphor translation.Big Breasts and Wide Hips is a representative work of Mo Yan,the winner of Noble Prize for literature,and the novel reflects the author's praise of home,the earth and the spirit of human.The English version of this novel is translated by Howard Goldblatt,a famous American sinologist,and it is very popular with the western readers and receives high praise.There are a great many metaphors in this novel.Among these metaphors,breast metaphors and animal metaphors echo the theme of this novel closely.On the basis of Conceptual Metaphor Theory,with the qualitative approach,this thesis has made a comparative analysis of two kinds of metaphors in Big Breasts and Wide Hips with the aid of the software Ant Conc and then makes an analysis of the translation strategies.The conceptual metaphor is to use the source domain that is concrete,tangible and familiar to perceive the target domain that is abstract,intangible and unfamiliar.According to their metaphorical meanings,breast metaphors and animal metaphors are mapped onto different target domains,such as human being,substance,earth and universe.Through the comparative analysis,this thesis draws the conclusion that there are two main methods for metaphor translation adopted by the translator:one is to retain the original image of the conceptual metaphor in the target text,and the other is to sacrifice the original image.Moreover,there are five translation strategies corresponding to them respectively: metaphor to the same metaphor or similar metaphor-reproducing the same and similar image in the target text;metaphor to a different metaphor-reproducing a different image in the target text;metaphor to non-metaphor-conveying sense only in the target text;deleting the metaphor in the target text;metaphor to simile-reproducing simile in the target text.Among these strategies,metaphor to the same metaphor or similar metaphor that reproduces the same or similar image is adopted frequently by Howard Goldblatt,which is conductive to retaining the special features of Chinese culture,and keeping faithful to the original text.