Translation of Economic Metaphors
THE METAPHORIC DIMENSION OF ECONOMIC TEXTS
The Translation of Economic Metaphors
The paper aims at presenting the main types of the most commonly used English economic metaphors, focussing on the translation strategies that could be used for rendering them into Russian.
Introduction.
The problem of translation acquires a tremendous importance not only in fiction, but also in non-fictional texts, especially those are related to newly developed or upcoming areas of human activity, such as the domain of Economics. When dealing with the specialised language of the field of Economics, one may often be at a loss regarding the translation of certain terms or structures from English into Russian. Such a task proves to be even more difficult but still demanding in the case of the so-called “economic metaphors”, which require the translator`s utmost attention and skills in order to adequately decode, and then render the infrotmation into the TT. Metaphors are taken to be the most fundamental form of figurative language, carrying the assumption that terms literally connected with one object can be transferred to another object.. Defined as the transference of some quality from one object to another, or, in psycholinguistic terms, “from one conceptual sphere or cognitive domain to another”, metaphors seem to be in all cases “departures from a norm”, the result of the use of words with deviant typicality conditions. Although seen as the typical rhetorical devices, Peter Newmark states that “metaphors help the reader to gain a more accurate insight, both physical and emotional and may be added to the technical terminology of a semantic field and therefore contribute to greater accuracy in the use of language”. In keeping with the same theory, Lakoff sees metaphor not as a figure of speech, but as a mode of thought defined by a systematic mapping. So, economic metaphors are used in many West-European financial columns, financial data, market analyses etc. and
The Translation of Economic Metaphors
The paper aims at presenting the main types of the most commonly used English economic metaphors, focussing on the translation strategies that could be used for rendering them into Russian.
Introduction.
The problem of translation acquires a tremendous importance not only in fiction, but also in non-fictional texts, especially those are related to newly developed or upcoming areas of human activity, such as the domain of Economics. When dealing with the specialised language of the field of Economics, one may often be at a loss regarding the translation of certain terms or structures from English into Russian. Such a task proves to be even more difficult but still demanding in the case of the so-called “economic metaphors”, which require the translator`s utmost attention and skills in order to adequately decode, and then render the infrotmation into the TT. Metaphors are taken to be the most fundamental form of figurative language, carrying the assumption that terms literally connected with one object can be transferred to another object.. Defined as the transference of some quality from one object to another, or, in psycholinguistic terms, “from one conceptual sphere or cognitive domain to another”, metaphors seem to be in all cases “departures from a norm”, the result of the use of words with deviant typicality conditions. Although seen as the typical rhetorical devices, Peter Newmark states that “metaphors help the reader to gain a more accurate insight, both physical and emotional and may be added to the technical terminology of a semantic field and therefore contribute to greater accuracy in the use of language”. In keeping with the same theory, Lakoff sees metaphor not as a figure of speech, but as a mode of thought defined by a systematic mapping. So, economic metaphors are used in many West-European financial columns, financial data, market analyses etc. and