Statistics-based Chinese-english, English-chinese Translation Of Metaphor Comparative Study

The paper conducts a contrastive analysis of translating metaphorical expressions between English and Chinese, with statistic analysis of two-way parallel linguistic material about English and Chinese translation. The research indicates that literal translation is often used when translating metaphorical expressions, it accounts for 65 percent in Chinese-English translation and 81.9 percent in English-Chinese translation. Comparatively, literal translation is used the most frequently in English - Chinese translation.Amplification and omission are used differently in translation. In Chinese-English translation, amplification is used less frequently than omission (the ratio is 21: 50). On the contrary, in English-Chinese translation it is used more frequently than omission (the ratio is 90:5). The element added or omitted is mainly adverbial, or attribute. This proves that the Chinese language pays more attention to figurative components.Conversion accounts for 17.2 percent in Chinese-English translation and 12.4 percent in English-Chinese translation, which indicates that conversion in Chinese-English translation has a higher frequency than that in English-Chinese translation. Of metaphorical expressions in original text, free translation accounts for 17.8 percent in Chinese-English translation and 5.7 percent in English-Chinese translation. It also proves that free translation in Chinese-English translation has a higher frequency than that in English-Chinese translation.In addition, we also compared the metaphorical free translation of common expressions in original text and the common free translation of metaphorical expressions in original text. We find that in Chinese-English translation, there are more metaphorical expressions in the original text. On the contrary, in English-Chinese translation, there are more metaphorical expressions in the translation. It proves that English often uses the tool of vocabulary while Chinese prefers to use metaphor to convey the same semantic meanings.We also find that in almost the same amount of language material (about one million words) Chinese use more metaphorical expressions. The ratio is 3:2. This also proves that the Chinese language prefers metaphorical expressions. Besides, whether in Chinese or in English, simile is used more frequently, metaphor less, and metonymy the least. This accounts for the commonness in cognitive psychology between the Chinese and English people: The tenor and vehicle in simile can be connected through imagination, and are easily understood, so simile is adopted the most frequently, while imagination is difficult to construct in metonymy and because of difficulty in understanding , metonymy is adopted the least frequently. The understandability of metaphor is between that of simile and metonymy, so it is adopted less frequently than simile and more frequently than metonymy.