Metaphor Translation Studies From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory And Skopos Theory

With the acceleration of globalization,China has gradually formed a pattern of opening to the outside world,steadily improved its international status,greatly increased its international political participation,and constantly strengthened its political ties with other countries.As a material for external publicity,the translation of political texts has become increasingly important.Government Work Report(hereafter The Report)is an official document of the government of the People’s Republic of China,whose content usually includes a review of the country’s economic and social development in the past year,as well as the outlook requirements and task arrangements for this year’s work.State of the Union Address(hereafter The Address)is the official document of the American ruling class.At the beginning of each year,American President gives an annual report to congress on the state of affairs both at home and abroad,as well as the policies of the authorities.Hence the importance of the two official documents is self-evident.Traditionally,political texts tend to be stereotyped with a lot of arcane jargon and dull mechanical expressions.However,The Report with rich metaphorical expressions breaks the stereotype.As a rhetorical device,metaphor itself is well known to the public.However,in the 1980 s,Lakoff & Johnson proposed a new concept to view metaphor from a cognitive rather than a linguistic perspective.They believe that metaphor is not only a rhetorical device,but also a way deeply rooted in our minds of looking at the world,which is reflected in our daily verbal expressions and the way of thinking.People form some fixed usages of metaphor through their daily physical experience.In turn,the change of metaphor application can also infer the change of ideology behind the metaphor.This paper from the perspective of skopos theory,combining the theory of conceptual metaphor,through the comparative analysis of metaphor modes in The Report(2018)and The Address(2018),explains the metaphor translation strategies under the skopos theory,as well as tries to answer the following questions: 1.In the past,some scholars pointed out that the report translation is kind of Chinglish.Does the metaphor translation have the same problem? 2.Under the three rules of skopos theory,what translation strategies are adopted in the English translation of metaphors?Do they conform to the cognition of western readers and achieve the translation purpose of political texts?From the perspective of skopos theory,this paper makes a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences of metaphor modes in The Report and The Address,and draws the following conclusions: 1.The metaphor translation retains Chinese characteristics as much as possible on the premise of achieving the purpose of external publicity.2.When metaphor models are the same,they are kept through literal translation;models similar,transformed through free translation;models different,deleted through liberal translation,which make the metaphor translation conform to the western readers’ cognition and maximize its publicity purpose.