COGNO‐CULTURAL ISSUES IN TRANSLATING METAPHORS

Abstract

Metaphor translation has been treated as part of the more general problem of ‘untranslatability’. This trend stems from 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, the writers argue in favor of a cogno‐cultural framework for metaphor translation based on the ‘Cognitive Translation Hypothesis’ (henceforth CTH) proposed by Mandelblit (1995). Using authentic examples from English and Arabic along with their translation, the paper discusses translation of metaphor with reference to culture, and ‘similar mapping conditions’ as well as ‘different mapping conditions’ proposed by the cognitive approach. The core of this framework is based on the hypothesis that the more two cultures conceptualize experience in similar ways, 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.

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