基于语境参数论的经济新闻中的隐喻翻译研究

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1  The Significance of the Study

Among  all  forms  of  human  language  works,  business  language  has  drawn  intense attention  from  scholars  as economic  development  is  playing  an  increasingly significant  role  in  human  society.  And  because  of  the  prosperity of  China’s economic cooperation with the world, there is an ever demanding need for financial discourse  translation.  Due to the  complexity  of  business  language  and  metaphor itself,  metaphor  translation  has  become  a  huge  hurdle  in financial  and  economic news translation. In China, the study of metaphor didn’t gain much popularity until the  1990s,  and most  of  whose  focuses  limited  in  the  patterns  and  functions  of metaphors. Nowadays, the cognitive approach enjoys  great popularity in this field, generating  fruitful  outcomes.  However,  there  remains  a  long  way  to  go  along the road. 

Metaphor is among the most distinct characteristics of business language. It is prevalent that metaphors are widely adopted in business discourse to make business language  more  interesting,  attractive  and  to  facilitate  readers’ understanding  of unfamiliar,  complex  or  abstract  concepts.  Since  the  business  English  is  heavily metaphorical, business metaphor comes as a core research topic in business English study. Some abstract concepts, like INSIVIBLE HAND, GOLDEN PARACHUTE, SUNRISE  INDUSTRY,  BUBBLE  ECONOMY  etc.  have  been  conventionalized  as economic  jargons  in  the  field.  Especially  in  the  stock  market,  metaphors  are frequently used to refer to the economic events, some of which are easily understood like BULL MARKET and some of which are not, like FALLEN ANGELS. Besides the noun metaphors, we can find piles of metaphors in financial and economic news at lexical, sentential and paragraph levels. It’s an interesting phenomenon that worth further study. 

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1.2  The Rationale of the Study

Since the early days of economic theory, abundant metaphors have been employed to  explain  and  clarify  economic concepts  and  processes.  Some  versions  have  been widely recognized. The 21st century is an era of information. News from all walks of life has permeated into our daily life and become an integrated part of it. Financial and  economic news  is  among  the  most  significant  content  in  business  English learning.  It  covers  a  lot  of  ground,  like financing,  trading,  logistics,  industry, marketing etc. Financial and economic news comes as the most focused concern of the  readers.  While  economic  activities  are  comparatively  abstract,  complex  and unfamiliar  to  the  masses,  the journalists  have  to  try  every  means  to  make  the expressions more interesting and understandable. And metaphors come as their most favored choice to replenish their writings. It is of great value to study metaphors in financial  and economic  news  because  of  its  timeliness,  specialness  and interestingness, through which the cognitive competence of language can get largely improved. Yet, to some degree, its importance is still underestimated.

This research is conducted basically out of the following considerations. Firstly, the  need  for  financial  and  economic news  translation  is  increasing  day  by  day.  In order to  catch  up  with  the  ever-changing  economic  world  and get informed  of  the international  business  trends,  we  must  process  piles  of  business  information  every day, especially those who specialize in international business and business language learners.  Business  discourse  is  playing  a more  and  more  critical  role  in  language learning.  An  insightful  comprehension  of  metaphors  in  English  financial and economic  news  can  enrich  our  understanding  of  the  business  world,  cultivate  our cognitive ability and enhance our language competence.

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CHAPTER TWO  LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1  Previous Studies of Metaphors

The  dictionaries  all  explain  metaphor  as  a  figure  of  speech.  According  to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2003), metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of  another  to  suggest  a  likeness  or  analogy  between  them”,  which  is  from  the rhetoric  perspective.  The following  part  draws  a  rough  sketch  of metaphor  studies along the history.

From  the  perspective  of  research  content  and  methodology,  western metaphorical  study  has  gone  through three  stages:  rhetorical  study,  semantic  study and multi-discipline study (Shu Dingfang, 1996). 

Traditionally,  metaphors  and  metonymies  have  been  regarded  as  figures  of speech, i.e. as more or less ornamental devices used in rhetorical style. Traditional linguistics  treats  metaphor  as  a  language  phenomenon.  If the speaker  wants  to express something, he  can always  find a non-metaphorical, straightforward way to reach  the  goal of  communication.  Metaphors  are  used  just  to  achieve  a  specific rhetorical  effect  or  to  facilitate communications.  From  300  A.D.  to  1930s,  the rhetoric functions of metaphor attract much attention.

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2.2  Previous Studies of Metaphor Translation

Metaphor translation has long been a focus of contrastive linguistics and translation studies. Due to the gap between languages, cultures and cognitive ideas, it is a hard nut to crack to transfer metaphors from the source language to the target language. A lot of approaches and strategies have been put forward to resolve the handicap home and abroad. 

2.2.1 Oversea Studies of Metaphor Translation

According  to  Peter  Newmark  (1981:83),  metaphor  is  in  fact  based  on  a  scientific observable procedure: the perception of a resemblance between two phenomena i.e. objects  or  processes.  Sometimes  the  image  may  be physical  (e.g.,  a  ‘battery’  of cameras),  but  often  it  is  chosen  for  its  connotations  rather  than  its  physical characteristics (e.g., in ‘she is a cat’).

The question of metaphor translation is first formally brought up by Menachem Dagut (1976) in his paper Can ‘Metaphor’ be Translated. Dagut (1976: 32) claims that the framework of “possible” metaphors for any given language is determined by a  combination  of  the  accumulated  cultural  experience  of  the  members  of  that language-community and the “institutionalized” semantic associations of the items in  their  lexicon.  According  to  Dagut  (1976:  23-24),  translation is taking  place between two different systems of language competence and depends essentially on the bilingual competence of the translator. He regards every metaphor as an entirely new and unique creation and emphasizes the language competence of the translator.

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CHAPTER THREE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ....... 23

3.1  The Theory of Contextual Parameters ................. 23

3.1.1  Definition of Context .......... 23

CHAPTER FOUR UNDERSTANDING METAPHORS ....... 29

4.1  Categorization of Metaphors in Financial and economic news .... 29

4.1.1  Conventional Metaphors ............ 30

CHAPTER FIVE TRANSLATION OF METAPHORS ........... 59

5.1  Translation of Conventional Metaphors ............ 59

5.2  Translation of unconventional metaphors ............ 61

CHAPTER FIVE  TRANSLATION OF METAPHORS

5.1 Translation of Conventional Metaphors

Many  scholars  have  studied  the  translation  of  metaphors  and  it  has  been  widely accepted that for conventional metaphors, the optimum choice is direct translation. Tan Weiguo (2007) claimed that English-Chinese metaphor translation is supposed to  adopt  direct  translation  at  first,  especially  for  English  metaphorical  images  that have corresponding  counterparts  in  Chinese  or  whose  connotative  meanings  and associative meanings are the same in the eyes’ of Chinese readers.

Conventional  metaphors  have  already  accepted  as  a  part  of  the  vocabulary system of a language thus their translation does not require much analytical work. It is  very  easy  to  get  the  linking  similarities  between  the  vehicle and  tenor,  which makes direct translation the first choice.

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CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSION

6.1 Summary of the findings

What  matters  most  in  E-C  metaphor  translation  is  a  proper  understanding  of  the metaphorical meaning based on the analysis of context. It is a cognitive ability that every translator needs to develop and enhance. As for English learners, although it seems very abstract to the decoding the contextual meaning of a language unit, it is worth doing in the aspect of understanding a text as well as cognitive competence development. This thesis introduces the practical usage of conceptual parameter theory in metaphor understanding and how to generate proper translation based on the context-dependent meaning. It shows that context can be described and analyzed through parameters and gives possible translating strategies.

This  research  categorizes  two  major  types  of  metaphors:  conventional metaphors  that  have  been  recognized as an  integrate  part  of  language  and unconventional  metaphors  whose  meaning  can  change  between  contexts. For the latter  categorization,  there  are  two  sub-groups:  unconventional  metaphors  without cultural  differences  and unconventional  metaphors  with  cultural  differences.  This categorization  is  to  assist  the  understanding  and translating  process  of  the metaphors.

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