The Interpreting Skills Of Metaphors

With the acceleration of globalization,China,as the world's second largest economy,places greater emphasis on external publicity than ever before.The C hinese government work report released annually by the State Council is an important part of China's foreign publicity,which aims at building the country's international image and expanding its influe nce overseas.Therefore,the interpreting of the C hinese government work report is of vital importance.Metaphor is a common rhetorical method used in political discourse.Correspondingly,metaphor interpreting is crucial.However,metaphor can be difficult for interpreters because metaphor describes an entity,event or quality more comprehensively and concisely and in a more complex way than is possible by using literal language.Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to help interpreters understand and deal with metaphor better.First,the author introduces the definition of metaphor on the basis of Lakoff and Johnson's theory.Then the author investigates how metaphor functions in political discourse.Later,the author classifies metaphors in the 2017 Chinese government work report into four types(metaphors having a concrete target and a concrete source;metaphors having an abstract target and a concrete source;metaphors having a concrete target and an abstract source;and metaphors having an abstract target and an abstract source)and analyzes the target and source of metaphors chosen from the report.Finally,the author analyzes examples from the 2017 C hinese government work report and sorts out four skills of interpreting metaphors: literal translation,substituting the metaphor with its sense,replacing the metaphor in the source language with a new metaphor in the target language and omitting the metaphor in the source language.