A Cognitive Approach to Translation of Conceptual Metaphors in Documentary Films

Abstract

The present paper favors a cognitive approach to metaphor launched by Lakoff and Johnson’s influential book, Metaphors We Live By (1980). The aim of the study is to identify the aspects of similarities and differences of conceptual expressions between the source and target languages, and try to explore the translation strategies used by the translators based on the most outstanding translation hypothesis proposed by Kovecses (2005). The corpus comprises two collections of documentary films which are nine hundred minutes altogether. The results obtained from the comparison of linguistic and cultural peculiarities of the metaphorical expressions between the two languages revealed that similarities in metaphorical expressions increase translatability, while differences hinder the translation process. The analysis also showed that the translators tended to copy the original and reproduce in the TT the same image as given in the ST. It seemed that the tendency towards isomorphism is resulted from the translators' poor knowledge concerning cognitive approach as related to conceptual metaphors.