Translating English Metaphors In Children’s Cartoon Films

Due to the flourish of cartoon movies all over the world, cartoon subtitling has developed more rapidly than ever. However, studies concerning cartoon subtitling are few and far between. Besides, children audience, a special group of audience, did not receive enough attention.The present author intends to study metaphor translation in cartoon subtitling from the perspective of children’s cognition. The author intends to explore the translatability of metaphor and difficulties of metaphor translation in cartoon subtitling as well as methods of metaphor translation under the guidance of cognitive-developmental theory.Because of the distinctiveness of children audience, the present author relies on the theory of cognitive-development as the theoretical background. The elaborate arguments come to the conclusion that cognitive-developmental theory can be used in metaphor study in cartoon subtitling, which offers a new approach in this field. In addition, metaphor translation in cartoon subtitling is never an easy task. Difficulties are caused by the limitation of children’s cognition, the insurmountable cultural barriers and distinctive features of cartoon films. However, in spite of that, the principle of isomorphism and "language universals" ensure that metaphors in cartoon subtitling are still translatable.The present author studies metaphor collected from cartoon films and summarizes five practical methods of metaphor translation which are audience-oriented.