Translation Of Metaphorical Chunks In Business English Based On Prototype Theory

Numerous metaphorical chunks in Business English(Hereafter abbreviated for BE), characterized by conciseness and vividness, not only simplify the expressions, but effectively convey economic information, thus these chunks play a distinctive role in business communication. However, in practical translation of BE, translators are unfamiliar with metaphorical chunks, and often make inappropriate translations, which usually damage business communication. So considering the features of metaphorical chunks in BE and their incorrect or impertinent translations, this thesis, based on the Prototype Theory in Cognitive Linguistics and the classification characteristics of metaphorical chunks, discusses translation prototype of metaphorical chunks in BE from the three levels of fuzziness, typicality and Idealized Cognitive Models(Hereafter abbreviated for ICM) through the comparative analysis of English and Chinese metaphorical chunks, and puts forward that translation prototype plays a guidance role in the translation researches of metaphorical chunks in BE.Theoretically, it is believed that there is a close relationship between translation and Prototype Theory. Prototype Theory emphasizes the prototype of category and fuzziness of its boundary, so it largely overcomes the cognitive defect that everything is either the one or the other. Likewise, it can help translators better understand translation issues and find most proper translation. Translation shares the prototype features and it is a practice with “translation prototype” as its typical member. So the process of translation is a cognitive activity to find most typical translation prototype in the target language. Based on Prototype Theory, this thesis holds that the translation prototype manifests itself in three notions, namely fuzziness, typicality and ICM, from which three correspondent translation methods are put forward.Structurally, this thesis is divided into six parts: Chapter One introduces the research background, key questions, methodology and the overall framework; Chapter Two makes a literature review on translation studies of metaphorical chunks in BE; Chapter Three discusses the definition and classification features of metaphorical chunks in BE; Chapter Four analyzes the development of Prototype Theory, its relationship with translation and notions of prototype translation; Chapter Five further proposes appropriate translation strategies and demonstrates their application with a large number of metaphorical chunks in BE; Chapter Six summarizes the above researches and points out future direction of this study.From the researches on translation of metaphorical chunks in BE, this thesis comes to the following conclusion: Prototype Theory can effectively guide translators to achieve better translation of business metaphorical chunks. By means of fuzziness-oriented translation, typicality-centered translation and ICM-loaded Translation, translators can achieve optimal translations, enhancing the sense of identity of readers both from source and target languages towards translations. In this way, we can avoid the mistranslations, eventually realize effective business communication.