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Article published In:
Metaphor in Education: A multilingual perspective
Edited by Katrin Ahlgren, Anne Golden and Ulrika Magnusson
[Metaphor and the Social World 11:2] 2021
► pp. 212–234

Learner translation of metaphor

Smooth sailing?

| Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
| Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences

This article explores metaphor translation strategies of novice translators: university students translating from L1 Norwegian to L2 English. We first describe the translation strategies they employ in their translated texts, thereby offering evidence of what translators do with metaphor based on multiple translations of the same metaphor-dense source text. We then go beyond this descriptive analysis to discuss why these translators make their particular choices, analyzing the students’ in-class discussion and individual written reflections about their translations. We thus illuminate the challenges that the novice translators consciously perceive (that is, is metaphor a problem?), as well as their motivation for and evaluation of their translation solutions. In this way, we shed light on the concept of the ‘successful’ translation of metaphor.

Keywords: learner translation, metaphor in translation, MIPVU, translation corpus, translation process, horoscopes
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Data and methodology
    • 3.1The Norwegian source text
    • 3.2Metaphor identification
    • 3.3Categorization of metaphor translation strategy
    • 3.4Observation and student comments
  • 4.Product-based findings: What translators do with metaphor
    • 4.1ST-based strategies
      • 4.1.1M→M translation strategy
      • 4.1.2M→M2 translation strategy
      • 4.1.3M→Non translation strategy
      • 4.1.4M→Ø translation strategy
    • 4.2TT-based strategies
      • 4.2.1Non→M translation strategy
      • 4.2.2Ø→M translation strategy
  • 5.Process-based findings: Why translators do what they do with metaphor
    • 5.1Three main factors that shape translations
    • 5.2Culture-specific metaphors
  • 6.Concluding thoughts
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 October 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.00016.nac
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