Metaphorical translation strategies of the white paper "China's Green Development in the New Era"

Authors

  • Wenting Liu

    Faculty of International Studies, Beijing Language and Culture University

  • Zhonggen Yu

    Faculty of International Studies, Beijing Language and Culture University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59400/fls.v5i2.1858

Abstract

In recent years, the use of metaphor in white papers has proliferated as it plays a significant role in cognitive processing. In order to shed light on the intricate relationship between humans and the natural environment, this study focuses on the analysis of metaphor usage in a particular white paper titled "China's Green Development in the New Era" within the field of ecopolitics. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, namely the utilization of a self-built corpus and case studies, is employed to categorize the translation strategies of metaphors. The findings of this study demonstrate that the metaphors utilized in the white paper effectively capture elements of social cognition and ideology. Moreover, with the assistance of part-of-speech tagging tools, it is observed that most translated metaphors strive to maintain the salient features of the source text, aiming to achieve equivalence in both form and meaning.

Keywords:

metaphorical translation, self-built corpus, ecopolitics, China's Green Development in the New Era

References

[1] Chilton P, Ilyin M (1993). Metaphor in political discourse: The case of the ‘common European house’. Discourse & Society 4(1): 7–31. doi: 10.1177/0957926593004001002

[2] Davies M (2014). Home and state: Reflections on metaphor and practice. Griffith Law Review 23(2): 153–175. doi: 10.1080/10383441.2014.962447

[3] Dickins J (2005). Two models for metaphor translation. Target: International Journal on Translation Studies 17(2): 227–273. doi: 10.1075/target.17.2.03dic

[4] Feng Z, Yuan M (2022). Translation of conceptual metaphors in ‘Xi Jinping: The Governance of China’: Taking the topic “A Community of Shared Future” as an example. Journal of Luoyang Normal University 41(10): 76–81. doi: 10.16594/j.cnki.41-1302/g4.2022.10.022

[5] Glebkin V (2013). A socio-cultural history of the machine metaphor. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 11(1): 145–162. doi: 10.1075/rcl.11.1.04gle

[6] Group P (2007). MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22(1): 1–39.

[7] Halliday MAK (2001). New ways of meaning: The challenge to applied linguistics. In: Fill A, Mühlhäusler P (editors). The Ecolinguistics Reader. Language, Ecology, and Environment. Continuum. pp. 175–202.

[8] He S (2021). Cognitive metaphor theories in translation studies: Toward a dual-model parametric approach. Intercultural Pragmatics 18(1): 25–52. doi: 10.1515/ip-2021-0002

[9] Holy L (2021). The metaphor of “home” in Czech nationalist discourse. In: Migrants of Identity. Routledge. pp. 111–137.

[10] Lakoff G, Johnson M (1980). Metaphors We Live by. University of Chicago Press.

[11] Li H, Bisiada M, Xu Y (2023). Applying the discourse dynamics approach to metaphors for women in the Spanish translation of the Chinese novel Wei Cheng. Perspectives. doi: 10.1080/0907676X.2022.2164735

[12] Li T, Pan F (2021). Reshaping China’s image: A corpus-based analysis of the English translation of Chinese political discourse. Perspectives 29(3): 354–370. doi: 10.1080/0907676X.2020.1727540

[13] Li T, Zhu Y (2020). How does China appraise self and others? A corpus-based analysis of Chinese political discourse. Discourse & Society 31(2): 153–171. doi: 10.1177/0957926519880036

[14] McEntee-Atalianis LJ (2011). The role of metaphor in shaping the identity and agenda of the United Nations: The imagining of an international community and international threat. Discourse & Communication 5(4): 393–412. doi: 10.1177/1750481311418099

[15] Newmark P (1981). Approaches to Translation. Pergamon Press.

[16] Rojo A, Ibarretxe-Antuñano I (2013). Cognitive linguistics and translation studies: Past, present and future. In: Rojo A, Ibarretxe-Antuñano I (editors). Cognitive Linguistics and Translation. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 3–30.

[17] Shao L, Yu Y (2021). A cognitive stylistic analysis of the classification and translation of metaphor: Illustrated with examples from the English translation of Chen’ai Luoding. Foreign Language Research 219(2): 90–96. doi: 10.1080/23306343.2023.2191468

[18] Stefanowitsch A (2005). The function of metaphor: Developing a corpus-based perspective. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 10(2): 161–198. doi: 10.1075/ijcl.10.2.03ste

[19] Tang G, Qu Y (2022). Translation-related shift of nominalizations in C-E translation of official documents (Chinese). Chinese Translators Journal 43(1): 158–165, 189.

[20] The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China (2023). China’s Green Development in the New Era. Available online: https://english.news.cn/20230119/b9b902af9308417db57bf08ca7a74a9e/20230119b9b902af9308417db57bf08ca7a74a9e_XxjwshE007008_20230119_CBMFN0A001.pdf (accessed on 7 August 2023).

[21] Yan M (2002). On metaphorical universal in poetry and the translation of poetry. Foreign Language and Their Teaching 163(10): 43–46. doi: 10.13458/j. cnki. flatt. 002393

Downloads

Issue

Article Type

Article