基于关联理论的隐喻翻译研究

A Study of Translation of Metaphors Based on Relevance Theory

基于关联理论的隐喻翻译研究

1.0 Introduction介绍

The study of metaphor has a long history. It is said that since Aristotle’s time, people began to pay attention to the phenomenon of metaphor.
隐喻的研究有着悠久的历史。有人说，自从亚里士多德的时代以来，人们已经就开始注重隐喻现象。

Metaphors are commonly used in all languages，not only in works of literature but also in everyday conversations. Metaphors bring indefinite convenience to our communication; meanwhile it leaves vague obstacles for cognition. On the one hand, proper use of metaphor avoids weirdness and anxiety of speaking something out directly. It makes interpersonal relationship harmonious. On the other hand, the essence of metaphor is to talk about other things in form of one and that makes recognition and comprehension of metaphor not so easy. Under some extreme circumstances, the use of metaphor even destroys a successful communication. Thus we see the importance of metaphor to communication. As one of communicative act, translation should deal with metaphor properly.因此，我们看到使用比喻来进行沟通的重要性。作为交际行为之一，翻译时应妥善处理比喻的现象。

In order to improve Grice’s cooperative principle, Sperber and Wilson proposed their relevance theory in the book Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Though the theory was not aiming at translation, it offers scholars and translators a new cognitive perspective of translation. If we say that relevance theory was a cognitive linguistic theory to explain communicative act, later the application of relevance theory in translation is a reasonable extension consistent with its own cognitive function. Communication is ostensive-inferential by nature so that it could move on smoothly. As a cross-cultural communication, translation is also ostensive-inferential. Translators need to achieve optimal relevance when doing translation. http://www.ukassignment.org/uklunwen/

作为一个跨文化交际的行为，翻译也时一种明示 - 推理的行为。翻译需要在进行翻译时达到最佳关联。

2.0 Metaphor and Translation隐喻与翻译

2.1 Definition of Metaphor隐喻的定义

There are various explanations of metaphor: 比喻有各种不同的解释：

Aristotle, a pioneer in metaphor study, gave a definition of metaphor in his Poetry and Rhetoric: “Tropes are the application of the name of a thing to something else” and he regarded metaphor as “the figuring trope of all tropes”. He took metaphor as a figure of speech which uses the name of one thing to denote another在使用名称的事情上.，他把隐喻作为一种修辞。

Encyclopedia Britannica (Vol. IV, 1980) offers the definition that “Metaphor, figure of speech, that is, in its simplest definition, an implicit comparison between two unlike entities, as distinguished from similes, an explicit comparison signaled by the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. The distinction, however, is not simple. The metaphor makes a qualitative leap from a reasonable, perhaps a prosaic comparison, to an identification or fusion of two subjects, to make one new entity partaking of the characteristics of both. Many critics regard the making of metaphors as a system of thought antedating or bypassing logic.”

According to Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literacy Term(2000:134),we obtain the following definition: “Metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing, idea or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea or action so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two.”

In Webster’ shares dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (encyclopedic edition), metaphor is “a figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, different thing by being spoken of as if it were that other; implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily and primarily used of one thing is applied to another (e.g. screaming headlines, ‘all the world’s stage’); distinguished from simile.” 

Features of the definition are: regarding metaphor as a figure of speech；metaphor is a substitution of words and phrases；metaphor concerns similarity between concepts or things；metaphor is a particular form of simile.比喻涉及一些概念或事物之间的相似性，隐喻是一种特殊形式的比喻。

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (6th edition) defines metaphor as “a word or phrase used in an imaginative way to describe sb/sth else, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the description more powerful, for example She has a heart of stone; the use of such words and phrases .”

Traditional theories about metaphor see metaphor as a language phenomenon, a figure of speech which is used to modify discourse.
关于隐喻的传统理论，是可以作为一种语言现象的，它是用来修改话语的数字语音。
Nevertheless, metaphor is not only a来看隐喻 language phenomenon; what’s more, it is a human cognitive phenomenon,

Lackoff and Johnson also think that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. They define the metaphor as “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” (1980:5)

Hence metaphor is not merely a lingual phenomenon. In essence, it is a perceptual instrument for human to understand the world around them.

 Metaphor and Translation

Since metaphor represents thoughts and words in an implicit way, translation of metaphor is a little bit complicated. Indeed, there are certain methods to translate metaphors as well as some problems. Many scholars propose their own understanding of metaphor translation and give some constructive suggestions.http://www.ukassignment.org/uklunwen/

Peter Newmark researched metaphor translation in his A Textbook of Translation and Approaches to Translation, and advised several methods to translate metaphor. His research is done in the conventional way. The followings are his methods of translating metaphor: 1) Reproducing the same image in the TL (target language); 2) Replacing the image in the SL (source language) with a standard TL image; 3) Translation of metaphor by simile; 4) Translation of metaphor (or simile) by simile plus sense; 5) Conversion of metaphor to sense; 6) modification of metaphor; 7) deletion; 8) reproducing the same image combined with sense.(Newmark,2001: 35)

Newmark also classifies six types of metaphor: dead, cliché, stock, recent, adapted and original, and discusses them in relation to their contextual factors and translation procedure. “In translation, an adapted metaphor should, where possible, be translated by an equivalent adapted metaphor, particularly in a text as ‘sacred’ as one by Reagan. As to the original metaphors, in principle, in authoritative and expressive texts, these should be translated literally whether they are universal, cultural or obscurely subjective” (Newmark, 2001: 38)

Gideon Toury offers six ways for translation metaphor: 1) metaphor into "same" metaphor; 2) metaphor into "different" metaphor; 3)metaphor into non-metaphor; 4 )metaphor into smile; 5) non- metaphor into metaphor; 6) smile into metaphor(Toury, 2001: 98).     E. A. Nida proposes three ways to translate the idiom which includes metaphor: 1) to translate the idiom literally; 2) to render the meaning of the idiom; 3) to use an equivalent idiom in the receptor language (Nida, 1964: 67).

All these methods give us a general framework of metaphor translation. Their ways of translation are effective and helpful.

 Acceptance of Metaphor in Target Language

The comprehension and acceptance of metaphor is a process during which the recipient understands the context and relates new assumptions of the received text. Finally, he or she gets the implicature of metaphor. 

In the light of the relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson, one could understand metaphor from three different perspectives: l ) Metaphor is regarded as a   descriptive use of language，namely metaphors involve a descriptive relation between the speaker’s thought and actual state of affairs; 2 ) Metaphor is regarded as an effort-imposing loose talk，namely, metaphor involves representation by a looser resemblance and extra processing effort; 3 ) Metaphor is regarded as the optimal relevance，namely metaphors are a type of indirectness argument，which is relevant enough to be worth processing，     and should require as little processing effort as possible.

Whether a metaphor translation is successful depends on how much translators achieve optimal relevance, that is to say, if they could capture the essence of metaphor in source language and covert it to target language by using proper image, that is a success. The major point is how to find this kind of consistency. Generally speaking, there are two normal ways to deal with metaphor translation. First one is domestication. It is most widely accepted by readers for the reason that it is much easier for readers to think about the familiar language phenomenon in their native language. This kind of translation cancels the feeling of weirdness and alienation, and it makes metaphor easier to be accepted. Retrieving from the established schemas is always less difficult than creating a new one. The other way is foreignazation. It is a way of translation when there is no familiar or resembling image in the target language, so translators reserve the original image and to introduce a new language to the readers. Sometimes, explanations are necessary in order to maximize the acceptance of translation in target language.#p#分页标题#e#

Sadly, no need for baby quilts, yet I just don’t seem to be getting a visit from the stork.

真让人伤心，没必要准备婴儿的被子了，似乎鹳鸟不会光顾我了（注：英语神话故事中，传说小孩都是由鹳鸟带来的）

Here if without explanation, readers are very likely to be confused with that image of stork, they do not know the relationship between stork and child, so this concept is totally strange to them. Because of the explanation the acceptance of metaphor is established.