Abstract
The paper investigates how translation is conceptualised through metaphors employed in academic texts in English and Lithuanian focusing on translation problems. As established by previous research, metaphors are tools of rendering abstract thought in terms of more concrete experiences. The methodology of this investigation is based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory and further development in metaphor research, the main principles of Metaphor Identification Procedure and metaphorical patterns. The results suggest that English tends to more frequently conceptualise translation as human and also as a dynamic activity, whereas Lithuanian opts for more static conceptualisation of translation in terms of object and material. Such tendencies might be linked, among other factors, to very different etymologies of the verb ‘translate’ and its derivatives in English and Lithuanian as well as other senses of the word.
Highlights
Metaphor and translation: four intersecting pointsMetaphor and translation have been studied from many different perspectives; they can be overviewed as four intersecting points
When the second sense is understood as a text, it could be interpreted in the framework of metonymy, with mappings occurring in the same domain where the process of mentally changing words of one language into those of another coexists with the result of such change: a written or spoken text
Journey is indicated by the words direct, translators are described as deviating from the text, they are unable to keep pace, translation is guided by research, genre conventions function as signposts, e.g.: (9) The translation was not very literal as it was guided by research. (EN_3) (10) (...) the Danish genre conventions functioning as signposts when translating statutes into English. (EN_4) In LT, the realisation of the metaphor is limited to translator encountering difficulties, translators following closely the original or moving further away from it, or translators lagging behind the speakers in oral translation
Summary
EISSN 2335-2388 Respectus Philologicus registers (Semino, 2011; Abdullah, Shuttleworth, 2013), metaphor universality and cultural specificity (Schäffner, 2004; Kövecses, 2014; Ibarretxe-Antuñano, 2013). The etymological overlap between metaphor and translation, which has possibly given rise to the theory-constitutive metaphor of transfer, by some authors is described in reference to its Greek origin and claimed to be EN-specific In contemporary LT the meanings of pulling down and turning over have been preserved in the senses of the word versti (LKŽ, 2005; DLKŽ, 2011) Professional discourse such as legal, philosophical or political due to highly abstract content relies on metaphors to a very large extent (Lakoff, Johnson, 1999; Šeškauskienė, Stepančuk, 2014). The research question focuses on whether the way we write about translation tells us anything about how we reason about it considering vast encyclopaedic knowledge including the etymology of the word for translation and its adjacent senses and taking into account the role of metaphor in reasoning
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