On Transitivity In Metaphor Translation Of Documentary Subtitling From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The study of metaphor has gone through two stages: traditional metaphor study and cognitive metaphor study.Traditional metaphor translation regards metaphor as a rhetorical device that helps polish and ornament language.Metaphor,from the cognitive point of view,is a way for people to understand and conceptualize the world.Language results from the interaction of human cognition with the outside world,and thus translation is also a cognitive activity including a mapping from the source language onto the target language.Absolute equivalence of language is no longer the golden standard for metaphor translation,and translators should reproduce the mapping process so as to better convey cognitive meanings of the source texts.With an integrated approach combining cognitive metaphor study and Systemic Functional Linguistics,the thesis,aiming to offer a new perspective on metaphor translation study,makes an initial attempt to integrate Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory with Halliday's transitivity theory in the analysis of metaphor in the subtitling of BBC documentary Wild China.It explores three questions:(1)What are the features of conceptual metaphors in Wild China?(2)What are the features of transitivity from the ST to the TT?(3)How does the preservation and conversion of transitivity types help transfer the cognitive meanings of metaphors?Based on the analysis,the thesis reaches the following conclusions:(1)Ontological metaphor has the largest share,followed by structural and orientational metaphors.Concepts such as “China”,“forest” and “land” frequently appear as the target domain of ontological metaphor.“China is home” and “time is money” are typical structural metaphors,while “having control is up”,“hot is up” and “cold is down” are typical orientational metaphors.(2)Both the preservation and conversion of transitivity types help transfer the cognitive meanings of the source texts.(3)Verbal and behavioral processes are least adopted in Wild China;all conceptual metaphors prioritize the preservation of and conversion between relational and material processes.The preservation of mental and existential processes mostly occurs in translating entity and substance metaphor.Structural metaphor,entity and substance metaphor and personification have converted more relational processes into material processes.(4)The clauses with no process can be translated through materialization by adding a material process.These rules can shed light on future documentary translation practices.