Metaphor, Meaning and Translation

Mirella Cristofoli,Lilian Stage,Gunhild Dyrberg

doi:10.7146/hjlcb.v11i20.25454

Abstract

Over the last decades, metaphor has been subject to intensive research within philoso-phy, psychology, psychiatry, pedagogics, etc., whereas there has been less focus on the study of metaphor as a linguistic utterance. But to a translator metaphor is a very intriguing practical linguistic problem. How do we translate for instance the Danish metaphor blæksprutte? In this article, we will discuss to what extent ordinary dictionaries may be of use (can you look up the metaphor blæksprutte?) and will describe the data-base of metaphors that we are establishing with examples from economic and political texts in Danish, French and Italian. The database is organized as a thesaurus where metaphorical utterances are categorized under Meaning and Source domain and where translators may find inspiration when having to render metaphors in the three lan-guages.

Highlights

In a pilot study on the interpretation of metaphors, Bruce Fraser (1993: 338) has examined the importance of the context for the interpretation of a novel metaphor
Would a database like the one we are establishing provide the translator with an answer to the problem of rendering the Danish metaphor blæksprutte in example (2) in French? If we search in the field Meaning for a metaphor expressing activity, we will, among others, find the following example: (28) Dans le cadre de notre développement, nous recherchons
When translating examples like the Danish example (2) into French, the translator might use homme-orchestre or “femme-orchestre” in inverted commas

Summary

Introduction

In a pilot study on the interpretation of metaphors, Bruce Fraser (1993: 338) has examined the importance of the context for the interpretation of a novel metaphor. He created a number of anomalous sentences, i.e. sentences considered unusual by native speakers. When our students were asked to translate this metaphor into French, they proposed all sorts of blæksprutter: pieuvre, seiche, poulpe, octopode. Those who chose the word seiche revealed that they do not know much about that animal since the seiche does not have long arms! The question is what does a translator do in a case like this?

Metaphor theories

Conclusion