Metaphor translation from English into Malay in engineering discourse

Abstract

Metaphor comprises unique linguistic characteristics and cultural elements that belong to the Source Language (SL). In the engineering writing landscape, metaphors are used in the recontextualization of complex and abstract concepts as a tool to disseminate the content to the non-engineering audience. This study examines the metaphor translation of an engineering text from English to Malay. The “Metaphor Identification Procedure” (MIP) by the Pragglejaz Group is applied in the process of gathering examples while a combination of Newmark„s (1988), Deignan„s (2005) and Lakoff and Johnson„s (1980) classifications of metaphor are used to categorize the SL and TL metaphorical expressions. Metaphor translation procedures identified were benchmarked to those proposed by Newmark (1988). Analysis of the 154 ST and 83 TT engineering metaphors in the TL discloses that the ease of translation and the identification of suitable engineering metaphors are also partially dependent on cultural and linguistic factors. Metaphor translation procedures as outlined by Newmark are found to be unable to account for all the examples, which results in the creation of the two variants of one of his translation procedures, the proposal of three new ones that are identified and the abandonment of two of his procedures. The selection of translation procedure appears to be dependent not only on the metaphor type but also on whether the translator simply decides to use equivalent SL metaphors or non-metaphorical expressions in the TL. It is also highly likely that the type of text being translated plays a role.