Abstract:Metaphor has merely been viewed as a figure of speech for long; and its translation, traditionally, was measured according to the standard whether it could reflect the form and meaning of source language. However, in 1980, the famous book Metaphors We Live By published by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson greatly changed people’s opinions toward metaphor. Conceptual metaphor put forward in the book points out that metaphor is more than a rhetoric device yet a way of thinking and cognition and provides us with the possibility to pick out parts of our experience and treat them as discrete entities or substances of a similar kind to understand some intangible concepts.

Due to the trend of economic globalization, numerous abstract concepts in business news flooded into people’s daily lives. Metaphor, hence, served as a vital role in the process of understanding these new terms by connecting them with what one has already experienced. Meanwhile, the increasingly frequent communication among different countries paved the way for these news to be broadcast not only within English-speaking nations but all around the world. Non-native speakers of various occupations, say, teachers, students, etc., might often encounter news of this kind. As a cognitive tool, the translation of metaphors used in business news, therefore, was more likely to be emphasized. Thus in the process of translation, it became a great challenge for the translators as how to maintain the metaphorical features of source language while successfully convey the original meaning the writer wants to express so that source language and target language could achieve the same cognitive function.

Based on previous studies, the thesis tried to apply contemporary metaphor theories, especially the conceptual metaphor theory, to explore the characteristics and translation strategies of metaphor in bossiness news to help people enhance metaphorical awareness and get a better understanding of the complicated economic concepts and phenomena in both English and Chinese.

Key Words: metaphor, business news, cognition, translation

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Data Collection and Research Methodology-1

1.3 Organization of the Thesis-2

Chapter 2 Literature Review-3

2.1 An Overview of the Development of Metaphor Theory-3

2.2 An Overview of the Previous Metaphor Studies in Economic News-3

2.3 An Overview of the Previous Translation Studies of Metaphor-4

Chapter 3 Metaphor and its Cognitive Functions in Economic News-7

3.1 Introduction into Metaphor-7

3.1.1 Definition of Metaphor-7

3.1.2 Working Mechanism of Metaphor-8

3.2 Characteristics of Metaphor in Economic News-9

3.2.1 Universality of Metaphor in Economic News-9

3.2.2 Cultural Connotation-10

3.3 Cognitive Functions of Metaphor in Economic News-11

3.3.1 Serving as the Foundation of the Conceptual System-11

3.3.2 Understanding or Experiencing One Thing by Means of Another-11

3.3.3 Providing New Perspectives to the Knowledge of Things-12

3.3.4 Reasoning Things Out by Virtue of Analogy-12

3.4 Classification of Metaphor in Economic News-13

3.4.1 Orientational Metaphor-13

3.4.2 Structural Metaphor-13

3.4.3 Ontological Metaphor-14

3.4.4 Container Metaphor-15

Chapter 4 Translation of Metaphors in Economic News-17

4.1 Reservation of Metaphor Image in Source Language-17

4.1.1 Replication of Metaphor Image in Source Language-17

4.1.2 Replication Plus Metaphorical Meaning-18

4.1.3 Replication Plus Notes-19

4.1.4 Replacement of Metaphor with Simile-19

4.2 Alteration of Metaphor Image in Source Language-20

4.3 Abandonment of Metaphor Image-21

4.3.1 Difficulty in Understanding Literal Translated Image-21

4.3.2 Disagreement between Literal Image Translation and Chinese Language-21

Chapter 5 Conclusion-23

5.1 Findings-23

5.2 Limitations of the thesis-24

5.3 Suggestions to future studies-24

References-25

Acknowledgments-27