A Study Of The English Translation Of Conceptual Metaphors In Report On The Work Of The Government In 2020

Metaphor study has been a long-term focus of linguists.Instead of combing metaphor study with human cognition and communication,traditional metaphor research regards metaphor as a pure rhetorical device.As a result,the key issue of metaphorical mechanism was not explored completely.Contemporary metaphor research regards metaphor not only as a rhetorical phenomenon but also as the universal and fundamental cognitive pattern for human to define the concrete world,which can be used to explain the formation of concepts,the development of mind,the process of cognition,and the basis of behavior.Lakoff offers the whole new explanation of metaphor from the perspective of concept.He holds that metaphor is a kind of cognitive method that is employed to understand or experience one entity through another entity,and he introduces metaphor study to cognitive science.Metaphor translation is the exchanging process of two languages.Lakoff also points out that cognitive linguistics believes that language is the result of the organization of human experiences derived from the cognition of the real world.Only after being perceived by humans,the objective entities can obtain their meaning of existence.Since cognition is the basis for the formation of metaphor,it is not scientific to study metaphor translation without taking the cognitive perspective into consideration.The Report on the Work of the Government is one of the official documents of China,which highly reflects the resolutions of the Communist Party,with the timely and profound collection of the ideology and governing concept of the government.It serves as a kind of authoritative and representative political discourse.Recently,the research on the metaphors in political discourse has increased.This thesis is based on the Report on Work of the Government in 2020 to explore the metaphors and cognitive translation strategies used in it,and discuss the following research questions:(1)What kinds of metaphors are used in the Chinese version of Report on the Work of the Government in 2020?(2)How are these metaphors disposed in the English version?(3)What are the cognitive strategies for the metaphor translation employed in the English version?This thesis is based on the framework of cognitive translation studies,cognitive metaphor translation assumption and cognitive translatology,which are proposed respectively by Wang Yin,Xiao Kunxue and Martin.Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are used in this thesis.The research results suggest that firstly,there are nine dominant conceptual metaphors in the Report on the Work of the Government in 2020,namely the war metaphor,construction metaphor,machine metaphor,body metaphor,journey metaphor,organism metaphor,plant metaphor,water metaphor and family metaphor.Most of the metaphors are directly translated or paraphrased into English.Secondly,the similarity of conceptual metaphors in Chinese and English versions of the report major refers to the similar metaphorical expressions which are produced by the direct translation.The differences of conceptual metaphors in the two versions mainly include conceptual metaphors omitted,conceptual metaphors paraphrased,and conceptual metaphors only exist in the English version.Thirdly,major cognitive strategies for metaphor translation include equivalent mapping,domesticating mapping and transplant mapping.It is under different mapping strategies that these conceptual metaphors can be translated into English with appropriate and complete meanings.Therefore,this study tends to provide more insights for metaphor translation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics,through analyzing conceptual metaphors in the Report on the Work of the Government in 2020.