A Study Of Metaphor Translation Strategies In News English

This thesis explores the principle and strategies of metaphor translation in news English from the cognitive approach.Metaphor has been traditionally regarded as a form of rhetoric, a method of decorating language. However, cognitive linguistics sees metaphors as powerful cognitive tools for our conceptualization of abstract categories. Metaphor translation theory has been for a long time considered as an issue of inter-lingual transition on the rhetorical level. From the view of modern cognitive linguistics, the traditional translation theory on metaphor has obvious disadvantages. This thesis analyzes the features of metaphor within the cognitive linguistic frame, and intends to show how metaphors reflect cognitive and cultural human experiences. In particular this thesis is an argument in favor of a cognitive approach in the translation of metaphors based on Mandelblit's "Cognitive Translation Hypothesis".As News English is quite different from other styles of English, it needs particular translation criteria, methods and principles. Because of the linguistic and cultural barriers between English and Chinese, the ideological differences in cross-cultural communications and the lack of theoretic guidance, Errors and problems are often found in News English translation, in particular, the translation of metaphors in News English.This thesis studies metaphor translation through the angle of news English which embodies a far vivid feature of metaphor. The author, based on a large number of news selected from our daily life, presents a research into the strategies of metaphor translation in News English from the cognitive approach. The strategies are: remaining the same metaphorical image, converting to simile and nonmetaphor. Then the author develops these strategies into six methods: reproducing the same image in the target language, replacing the image in the source language by a standard target language image, remaining the same metaphor combined with paraphrase, translating metaphor to simile, translating metaphor to simile plus paraphase, converting metaphor to nonmetaphor.