Metaphorical Reasoning in Comprehension And Translation: An Analysis Of Metaphor In Multiple Translations

Metaphor is largely seen as a problem for translation (Philip 2016), but very little empirical research has been conducted to illustrate precisely how it is problematic and – crucially – how translators deal with it in practice. This study seeks to fill the gap: it uses corpus linguistics methods to compare multiple translations prepared by Modern Languages students (EQF level 5, English proficiency C1-C2) over the course of their year-long module on English-to-Italian translation. The translations of each source text are submitted weekly by email and converted into a small corpus to facilitate viewing of examples for comment and analysis in class. By projecting KWIC concordances of the translations for each language item of interest, it is possible to compare similarities and differences between the students’ translations, and to comment on the translation strategies adopted (consciously or otherwise). These include: a tendency for weaker students to translate metaphorical meanings as literal and to translate unfamiliar literal meanings as metaphorical; an overall tendency for metaphors to be flattened out (Baker 1993) and/or simplified (ibid.) in translation, with general terms being used in favour of specific ones, and evaluative/ pragmatic aspects of meaning very often overlooked entirely; explicitation (ibid) of culturally-specific metaphors; and considerable difficulty in detaching meaning from form, particularly by maintaining the source language’s metaphor source domain when a different source domain would be more apt in the target language. The presentation will discuss the relationship between general translation strategies and the translation of metaphor, including examples of the problems identified.