Abstract
This article deals with metaphor translation emphasising the common ground between translation theory and Cognitive Linguistics (CL). Within the framework of CL, a comparative study of two Danish translations of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca ’s ‘Poeta en Nueva York’ is presented, focusing on a selection of metaphors that form networks throughout the work in question. It is then analysed if and how these metaphoric networks have been successfully transferred into the target language (TL). In conclusion, some remarks are made on the contribution of CL to the overall discussion of the translatability of metaphors.
Highlights
This article deals with metaphor translation emphasising the common ground between translation theory and Cognitive Linguistics (CL)
The title of the present article is an expression from Federico García Lorca himself
If metaphors are cognitive and not exclusively an ornamental phenomenon, it must be assumed that one of the main causes for difficulty in translating them consists in the fact that there is no automatic similarity between the metaphor systems of SL and target language (TL)
Summary
The title of the present article is an expression from Federico García Lorca himself. According to Alexieva, difficulties in translating metaphors arise not so much or not always because of the occurrence of metaphors per se, but in a possible difference in domain structuring between SL and TL This difference may be due to the fact that the two cultures involved organise their background knowledge differently, or to the fact that a given author works with a highly specific or idiosyncratic organisation of domains (which is often the case in poetry). If metaphors are cognitive and not exclusively an ornamental phenomenon, it must be assumed that one of the main causes for difficulty in translating them consists in the fact that there is no automatic similarity between the metaphor systems of SL and TL If both languages use different mappings to express the same meaning, and these mappings are conceptual and not merely ornamental, translation consists of a transfer, not just from one language into another, and from one conceptualisation into another. My own analysis suggests (tentatively, I should emphasise) that at least as far as the translations of Poeta en Nueva York are concerned, there has in several cases been a fixation on the TL metaphoric system as well (see 3.4.)
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