Article,
A Cognitive Approach to Translating Metaphors
The Translation Journal, (2007)
Abstract
Translation of 'metaphor' has been treated as part of the more general problem of 'untranslatability.' This trend builds on the fact that metaphors in general are associated with 'indirectness,' which in turn contributes to the difficulty of translation. Different theories and approaches have been proposed with regard to metaphor translation, each of which has tackled this problem from a different point of view. In this paper, I favor of a cognitive framework for metaphor translation which builds on the 'Cognitive Translation Hypothesis' (Henceforth CTH) proposed by Mandelblit (1995). Using authentic examples from English and Arabic along with their translation, this article discusses translation of metaphors with reference to two cognitive schemes of the real world and cultural experience mapping, namely: 'similar mapping conditions' and 'different mapping conditions' according to the cognitive approach. The core of this framework builds on the hypothesis that the more two cultures conceptualize experience in a similar way, the more the first strategy, 'similar mapping conditions,' applies and the easier the task of translation will be. Otherwise, the second strategy will apply and the task will be more difficult.
