摘要：Metaphors, along with similes, are often viewed as translation problems. Many prescriptive guidelines for how to treat them have been proposed, but there is a paucity of descriptive analysis on the nature of the transformation of metaphors, especially between languages that are linguistically and culturally distinct, for example, between English and Asian languages. Furthermore, the study of multiple translations within one language is even more limited. The present paper descriptively analyzes multiple English translations of the same Japanese literary text published in the past century. It shows that: i) a metaphor's life can be ceased or revived; ii) a metaphor's strength, markedness, linguistic state, pragmatic domain, and sociocultural base may change; iii) explicit metaphors and implicit metaphors interact; iv) a metaphor may be deleted or newly created, through translation. These findings empirically show that metaphors are open expressions with some room to be filled, left open, eliminated, or altered through translation, and thus they can serve as venues for varied translation approaches.
其他摘要：Metaphors, along with similes, are often viewed as translation problems. Many prescriptive guidelines for how to treat them have been proposed, but there is a paucity of descriptive analysis on the nature of the transformation of metaphors, especially between languages that are linguistically and culturally distinct, for example, between English and Asian languages. Furthermore, the study of multiple translations within one language is even more limited. The present paper descriptively analyzes multiple English translations of the same Japanese literary text published in the past century. It shows that: i) a metaphor's life can be ceased or revived; ii) a metaphor's strength, markedness, linguistic state, pragmatic domain, and sociocultural base may change; iii) explicit metaphors and implicit metaphors interact; iv) a metaphor may be deleted or newly created, through translation. These findings empirically show that metaphors are open expressions with some room to be filled, left open, eliminated, or altered through translation, and thus they can serve as venues for varied translation approaches.
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