The Translation Of Conceptual Metaphors In The English-Chinese Translation Of Popular Science Text

This translation report is based on the English-Chinese translation of chapters 1to 4 of Artificial Communication: How Algorithms Produce Social Intelligence,which mainly illustrates the basic mechanisms of algorithms and their use in communication and other areas.This report focuses on the translation of conceptual metaphors and summarizes the difficulties and corresponding solutions.The source text is a popular science text,characterized by high information density,rigorous presentation and strong popularity.To achieve popularization,the author of the source text makes frequent use of conceptual metaphors to illustrate abstract algorithmic concepts to help readers understand the text content and improve the entertainment value.Given the linguistic characteristics and communicative functions of popular science texts,how to translate the conceptual metaphors in this text appropriately is a major challenge.Guided by Lakoff & Johnson’s theory of conceptual metaphor,the author adopts the translation methods of literal translation and free translation for ontological and structural metaphors;and adopts idiomatic translation for orientational metaphors,supplemented by translation techniques such as extension and addition.The author upholds various translation methods and techniques based on different types of conceptual metaphors and specific contexts,to convey the information accurately and reproduce the conceptual metaphors vividly.In the process of writing this translation report,the author sums up the translation methods and techniques commonly used in the translation of conceptual metaphors in popular science texts,and gains a more thorough understanding of conceptual metaphors.The author hopes that this report will provide a reference for the translation of conceptual metaphors in popular science texts.