Metaphors rendering as a literary translation problem: a theoretical review

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Metaphors rendering as a literary translation problem: a theoretical review

Ababilova N.M.,

Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Theory and Practice of Translation from English Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University

Summary

The article is devoted to the problem of metaphors rendering, which is extremely relevant today, as literary translation plays a special role in society and affects readers' minds. Despite the fact that metaphors are used in the texts of different functional styles, they are most inherent in artistic speech, creating the basic aesthetic value of the literary text and adding expressiveness to images. Literary translation requires translators' linguistic competence, cultural awareness, professionalism, creativity and ingenuity, as in works of art there are various expressive means, including metaphors. In modern linguistics metaphor is increasingly interpreted not only as a certain semantic comparison, but as a key tool in the world cognition. The difference between cultures, the originality of the author's thinking, the difference in aesthetic and moral traditions and the lack of correlation between the systems of metaphorical representation used in the source and target languages constitute the difficulties of translating metaphors. Analyzing the existing classifications of metaphors translation, based on their semantic structure, types, it has been stated that there is no exact universal technology of correct metaphors translation and it largely depends on the metaphor type , the translator and the literary text he works on. Metaphors can be rendered by retaining the image of the original in the target language; changing the image of the source language in the standard way of the target language, which does not contradict the culture of the target language; by simile with the preservation of the image (but with a possible change in expression); by simile (or, sometimes, metaphor) with the interpretation of meaning; description/explanation; deleting the metaphor if it is redundant (optional); and preserving metaphor and concretizing meaning in order to reinforce the image. For the full functioning of the dialogue between cultures and a full understanding of foreign culture, the translation of metaphors is of great importance.

Key words: metaphor, literary translation, ways of translation, problems of translation.

Анотація

Абабілова Н. Відтворення метафор як проблема художнього перекладу: теоретичний огляд

Статтю присвячено проблемі передачі метафор, що є вкрай актуальним в наш час, оскільки художній переклад відіграє особливу роль у житті суспільства та впливає на свідомість читачів. Не зважаючи на те, що метафори вживаються в текстах різних функціональних стилів, найбільше вони притаманні художньому мовленню, створюючи основну естетичну цінність художнього тексту та додаючи виразності образам. Художній переклад вимагає мовної компетенції, лінгвокультурної обізнаності, професіоналізму, творчого підходу і винахідливості перекладача, оскільки в художніх творах використовуються різні виразні засоби, зокрема метафори. Встановлено, що в сучасній лінгвістичній науці метафора все частіше трактується не лише як художній засіб, певне семантичне порівняння, а як основний елемент пізнання світу. Розглянуто труднощі перекладу метафор, до яких віднесено різницю між культурами, оригінальність авторського мислення, різниця в естетичних та моральних традиціях та відсутність кореляції між системами метафоричного відображення, що використовуються у вихідній та цільовій мовах. Проаналізувавши існуючи класифікації способів перекладу метафор, за основу яких взято особливості семантичної структури метафор, вид метафори, встановлено, що немає безумовно точної технології правильного перекладу метафор, це здебільшого залежить від самого перекладача і від художнього тексту, який він перекладає. Перекладати метафори можна зберегаючи образ оригіналу у мові перекладу; змінюючи образ мови джерела стандартним образом мови перекладу, який не суперечить культурі мови перекладу; за допомогою образного порівняння зі збереженням образу (але з можливою зміною експресії); за допомогою образного порівняння (або, інколи, метафори) з тлумаченням значення; відтворюючи семантику метафори описово; вилучаючи метафору, якщо вона є надлишковою (необов'язковою); та зберегаючи метафору та конкретизуючи значення з метою підсилити образ. Для повноцінного функціонування діалогу між культурами і повного розуміння іноземної культури, переклад метафор має неабияке значення.

Ключові слова: метафора, художній переклад, способи перекладу, проблеми перекладу.

Introduction

metaphors rendering literary translation

Expressive means and stylistic devices in literary works and literary translation in general have been and remain a thought-provoking object of study, as they are a factor in the development of socio-aesthetic consciousness, a powerful element in the interaction of literatures and cultures. One of the most crucial features of literary translation is the constant use of various figures of speech used to maximize the disclosure of the text content. Metaphor translation is particularly difficult, as this language expressive means includes evaluative, nominative and aesthetic components, so their translation involves the preservation of the two associative plans: a plan based on the direct meaning and a plan based on the interaction of indirect, figurative and contextual meanings. Adequate rendering of a literary work figurative information in the target language remains one of the most challenging and complex aspects of the theory and practice of translation.

Analysis of recent researches and publications

When working on the translation of a literary text, it is important for the translator to be able to highlight and transform the style of the original work. Problems of literary texts translation have been studied by such national and foreign scholars as І. Galperin, V. Koptilov, O. Danilov, T. Nekriach, Т Nikolaeva, N. Shcherbakova, A. Smirnova, Yu.Chala and others. N. Arutiunova, H. Skliarevska, D. Davidson analyzed the functional aspect of metaphorization. The works of M. Johnson, J. Lakoff, M. Larson, P. Riker are devoted to the classification of metaphors and their functions whereas Broek van den Raymond, E. Burmakova, T Kazakova, I. Karaban, V. Komissarov, N. Magurina, P. Newmark, J. Yasynetska and others devoted their researches to metaphor translation.

The aim of the article is to analyze the difficulties and peculiarities of metaphor reproduction in literary translation; to compare various points of view on the problem and its possible solutions in order to let readers realize the author's intent.

Main material presentation

Literary translation is one of the oldest and most complex types of translation, as it involves the exchange of two cultures, societies, ideas, emotions and associations. Its value lies mainly in the fact that the reader gets the opportunity to get acquainted with the works of art in their native language.

The analysis of scientific researches on the essence and specifics of literary translation has proved a certain theoretical discrepancy in its interpretation. Literary translation is viewed as a special way of intercultural communication based on a well-defined system of verbal forms that carry meaning and significance, expressed by one language (the source language) and recoded in another (the target language) through various transformations that cover all levels of contact language systems (N. Shcherbakova, D. Romero Intriago and O. Danilov). In the process of literary translation the cultural features and emotional color of the original work should be preserved as only then the main task to achieve equivalence in order to attain an equivalent impact on the readers of the original text and of the translated one can be realized (A. Smirnova).

T Nekriach and Yu. Chala single out the problem of perception, understanding and interpretation of a literary text among the main difficulties of literary translation. Researchers note that from the point of view of the theory and psychology of creativity, a literary text is a verbally expressed stream of the author's consciousness, which has a certain ideological orientation, poetic structure and special means of expression of these components. It reflects everything that worries the author, his worldview and idiostyle. Proper understanding of the specifics and essence of the author's flow of consciousness is crucial in his works' analysis. Thus, before starting to translate a literary text, a translator has to analyze it in terms of compositional structure, genre features, reveal the system of visual aids and their aesthetic effect, explore the actual linguistic and extralinguistic levels of the text. Only such a detailed analysis of the original is the key to its objective interpretation and contributes to successful literary translation [1].

To our view, V Koptilov defined the term “literary translation” quite accurately and we consider this definition relevant in the context of the research “a reflection of writers' or poets' thoughts and feelings with another language, the transformation of their images into the material of another language” [2, p. 3].

So, the literary translation peculiarity is that it includes speech expressiveness, which, in turn, requires creativity and talent. This type of translation can be considered a literary activity, because the reproduction of the aesthetic effect of the original text in the translated text involves painstaking creative work and implies the accurate selection and successful use of translation linguistic means. Literary translation is a challenge for a translator, which is explained by the difference between literary and non-literary texts, namely: the creation in accordance with the laws of associative and figurative thinking; transforming life material into a kind of small universe and presenting it as the author sees it, so in the literary text there is always a subtextual, interpretive functional plan, secondary reality behind the depicted pictures of life; the use of various stylistic devices and expressive means to maximize the impact of the text content.

One of such expressive means is metaphor, which is treated by some scientist as “a hidden comparison, which is carried out through the application of the name of one object to another and thus revealing a certain important feature of another” [3]. To our point of view such a definition doesn't reveal the true character and essence of this figure of speech that is not a mere literary stylistic device, but a key tool in the world cognition [4]. It should be noted that recently a cognitive approach to metaphor translation have been broadly accepted and explicated. More and more scientists define metaphor as a cognitive process that conceptualizes people's minds and thoughts linguistically in similar or different ways in languages [5].

According to M. Crofts there are three main reasons of metaphors usage. Firstly, they help describe the unfamiliar which is already known. Secondly, metaphors bring to readers' minds a group of connotations. And finally, they serve to please the literary preferences by introducing vividness and color [6]. Being built on unusual similarities, metaphors have great figurative potential, as they evoke completely unexpected associations; promote positive or negative evaluation, expressively complementing the representation of emotions and feelings of communicators depicted in the text, thus performing stylistic-descriptive and descriptive-evaluating functions.

Metaphor is used in the texts of a number of functional styles, but to the greatest extent metaphor is inherent in literary speech, and literary metaphors are the most difficult to translate. They create the basic aesthetic value of the literary text, and add expressiveness to the images. Some scholars claim that “however culture specific, metaphor is not a case of untranslatability, but a challenging phenomenon in term of unpacking its complexity in a source language and culture and re-packing it in a target language and culture” [7, p.6]. The idea is backed by E. Monti who sees metaphors translation is a challenge and states that the translator's aim is to recreate an equally coherent and evocative system of images and connections in the target language [8, p. 118].

There are several reasons for difficulty in the translation of metaphors. On the one hand, it is the originality of the author's thinking, the need and importance of adequate transmission of figurative information and reproduction of the stylistic effect of the original text in translation. On the other hand, there are differences in metaphorical systems inherent in different languages and cultures, as well as the lack of “instructions and guides to determine what metaphors mean or render” [9].

N. Arutiunova sees differences in cultures as the main problem in the translation of metaphors, because certain metaphors evoke completely different associations. The scientist also emphasizes the fact that the source of metaphors in the socioculture of the community of the source language does not play a significant role. For instance, metaphorical images typical of the English language are often absent in Ukrainian, and vice versa. Therefore, it is not always possible to reproduce metaphors from Ukrainian into English or conversely. Accordingly, there is a need to use metaphorical image substitutions. This replacement helps to retain the level of expression of the original and make the translation more idiomatic. Also, certain problems in the reproduction of metaphors are associated with a metaphorical image, which can be national (linguistic) or individual (author's). It is the translation of the latter that creates principal problems in translation, as it has no equivalents and is rarely repeated in other authors' literary texts [10].

B. Larson agrees to the idea that when the image used in the metaphor is not recognized in the target language it leads to some difficulties in translation. Furthermore, he suggests some more factors causing problems while rendering metaphors, namely: the topic of the metaphor is not clearly explained; the point of similarity is implicit and difficult to be recognized; the point of similarity can be interpreted differently depending on the culture; there is no comparison for the metaphor in the target language as in the source language; every language has their differences in the frequency of using metaphor and also the difference in the way they are created [11].

In the process of metaphor rendering Raymond van den Broeck points out the necessity to consider such things as collocation rules and morphological potentialities; extra-linguistic factors (i.e. cultural context); and aesthetic convention and tradition, the differences in aesthetic and moral standards in the target and source languages [12].

As it can be concluded from the abovementioned views, metaphors are culturally-bound and to successfully perform the translation of a literary text, one should beware of both source and target language cultural background.

The theory of translation has long formulated the “law of retaining metaphors”, according to which the metaphorical image should be preserved as much as possible in translation. Failure to comply with this law leads to the fact that the meaning of the phrase changes, and its aesthetic and pragmatic effect is reduced [13]. P. Riker also adheres to this point of view, considering metaphors omission in translation as a serious and very common way of distorting the author's creative idea. Moreover, metaphor may be one of the connecting elements in the text, other stylistic devices and lexical units can be dependent on it, and if it is not paid attention to, this interdependence may be lost in translation [14].

Reflecting on metaphors rendering, N. Mandelblit comes to conclusion that lack of correlation between the metaphorical mapping systems used in the source and target languages contributes to difficulties in translation. In general, he is of an idea that metaphorical language has received little attention in general translation theory because metaphors have been thought mainly as an ornament, a figure of speech, whose purpose is that of coloring the language, it need not be taken all that seriously and its importance lies only in the realm of poetic or rhetoric translation. To his mind translation implies not only a transfer process from one language to another but also a transfer from one way of conceptualizing the world into another, so metaphor translation may be a more internal cognition problem. The scholar developed a “Cognitive Translation” hypothesis, in which he presented two scenarios for metaphor reproduction. The first is defined as a similar mapping condition and is used if there is no conceptual shift between the languages. It is further subdivided into similar mapping condition into a “same wording”' and “different wording”' groups. The second, the different mapping condition, is used in the case of a conceptual shift between the original and translated languages [15].

E. Burmakova and N. Magurina see metaphor translation as the intercultural process, explaining that it is too hard to translate the metaphor adequately without deep knowledge of intercultural ties. According to the authors the practical rules of translation suggested by cognitive linguistics' researchers are the same as traditional ones and are as follows : substitution (metaphor into different metaphor), paraphrase (metaphor into sense), comparison or deletion [5].

Classification of the ways of metaphors translation depending on the retaining or changing the metaphor semantic structure, proposes V. Teliia. She distinguishes two groups. The first group contains metaphors of structurally equivalent correspondences to which belong metaphors in the original structures which contain information equivalent to the information of the original; metaphors, the structure of which has more information than the structure of the original; and metaphors, in the structure of which there is a narrowing of information compared to the information in the metaphor of the original. They are to be translated by using transformations in order to retain the semantic structure of the metaphor, if this does not prevent equivalent rendering of this figure of speech, which preserves its imagery. The second group of metaphors includes structurally nonequivalent metaphors, in the structure of which the relations between the concepts of metaphor are vividly expressed, and the object of metaphor is included in the comparative phrase. This group of metaphors may also be translated by nonequivalent ways, i.e. not equivalent to the original, which leads to the loss of its structure and pragmatics, and therefore leads to the loss of image [3].

The first attempt to create a translation methodology of metaphors belongs to P Newmark. He pointed out that a translator is to decide such tasks as: to choose the necessary translation principle when working on the text and to translate metaphors. Any metaphor, to his opinion, has a semantic component with a negative or positive color; therefore, when translating a metaphor, a translator should evaluate the type of the component that underlies the comparison (positive / negative) and provide a denotative or connotative definition. Nowadays, P. Newmark's classification of metaphors translation is considered to be the most comprehensive. The scholar advocates retaining the original form of the author's metaphor to full extent, but agrees that excessive following the original may imbalance the overall style. The way of metaphor translation is determined and depends on the functional style, the number of individualauthor metaphors in the text (whether the text is overloaded with them or not) and how appropriate it will be in a particular situation to retain metaphorization. P. Newmark proposes to render metaphors in accordance with their types. In case of standard or stock metaphors it is advisable to select an equivalent with a similar figurative component. Adapted metaphors presuppose adaptation, in case this is not possible “fitting” the metaphor as far as possible in the target language following the author's style. Original metaphors are to be rendered with the help of loans and if the metaphor contains cultural component and will be incomprehensible in the target language translation by adaptation of the image (though in some cases loss of imagery is possible). Dead metaphors usually do not cause difficulties because they have constant equivalents in the target language. Metaphors-cliches require analysis of the most commonly used expressions, especially in political statements. In case there is no expressive analogue, it is better to sacrifice the imagery of metaphor to prevent its misperception. Translating recent metaphors it is necessary to analyze their components, understand their content and then choose the equivalent. Summing up each type of metaphors translation ideas the following ways of metaphors in general are distinguished: 1) reproducing the original image in the target language. This way of translation is thought to be the most appropriate one for the translation of stock metaphors, most frequently, idioms; 2) changing the image of the source language according to the norms of the target language, and the image does not contradict the culture of the target language;

3) simile with the retaining of the image (but with a possible change in expression). This way modifies an emotive metaphorical expression to suit the target language if that context is not as emotive in character as the source language; 4) simile (or, sometimes, metaphor) and description of meaning; 5) description only; 6) deleting the metaphor if it is redundant (optional); 7) preserving the metaphor and concretizing meaning in order to reinforce the image. In the process of translation the metaphorical image can be changed under two conditions: firstly, if metaphor is traditional in the source language, and in the target language there is another traditional equivalent; and secondly, if metaphor used in the informative text is rather strange and its preservation in the language of translation would be inappropriate [9].

Having come across metaphor in the literary work, it is up to a translator to decide what the best way to render metaphors is. Translators should not forget that in a literary text, the aesthetic effect is no less important than other components. In such cases, the loss of metaphor can lead to failure to manifest the content in full, and therefore the preservation of the metaphorical image is very important [16].

Conclusions

Despite the fact linguists have put forward their theories of metaphors translation from the source language to the target one, rendering metaphors still remains a serious dilemma. Since there is no exact instruction for the correct metaphors translation and that is why it largely depends on the translator and the situation. The translated work is considered intercultural communication, which is carried out within the dialogue of cultures, and metaphor is a unit and affiliation of culture, its peculiar language. Thus, for the full functioning of such a dialogue and a full understanding of foreign culture, translation of metaphors is of great significance. Considering the proposed metaphor translation approaches, it is obvious that for providing adequate translation a translator should make certain amendments to the text taking into account readers' socio-cultural and psychological aspects, as well as to deeper study linguistic environment, i.e. a broad context; the author's individual style; kinds of metaphors and their frequency of usage; their associative and figurative content and expressive potential. Although the need to preserve the image in the target language has been and is obvious, this is still not always possible. When reproducing metaphors, a translator must choose the way of their translation that will contribute to the adequate reproduction of figurative information of the source text in the translation without any losses.

Further research presupposes the analysis of changes in literary translation current trends.

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