Preserving Style in Translating Metaphors of a Literary Text from English into Arabic

Ibrahem Mohamad Khalefe Bani Abdo
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Ibrahem Mohamad Khalefe Bani Abdo: School of Foreign Languages, University of Jordan, Aqaba, Jordan

Journal of Social Sciences (COES&RJ-JSS), 2020, vol. 9, issue 4, 1559-1574

Abstract: This paper investigates the stylistics issues in translating metaphors of George Orwell's Animal Farm from English into two different Arabic translations and whether the metaphors’ style is maintained or not in the target texts. The research presents concepts related to metaphor translation such as text types and semantic/ communicative translation. This study is based on Newmark’s (1988) classifications of metaphors. The data are selected randomly from the novel, then the target texts equivalents are provided to investigate the maintaining of metaphors’ style in TT (1) and TT (2) as compared to the ST. The study concludes that the translators try their best to reproduce the same image in the TT (target text) as closely as possible. Although, it is important for a metaphor to be retained in the translation, however, the study reveals that some metaphors has been translated word-by-word in both target texts (TT1 and TT2). TT (2) follows the target readers’ culture (Arabic culture) in translating some of these metaphors to some-extent more than the TT (1). Metaphors are translated in both denotative and connotative associations. TT2 has deleted some metaphors from the translation (TT2) which may cause some loss in meaning. TT1 is to some-extent successfully conveyed all metaphors which may express the translator’s fluency as a well-known author. Omissions reveal that TT2 is conventional to the target culture. Finally, the study concludes that TT1 is more restricted to the ST style; whereas, TT2 is restricted more to the target language (Arabic).

Keywords: metaphor; linguistic; irony; accent; Figures of speech; translation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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