Abstract
The paper considers metaphors with a special focus on the metaphors used in the economic discourse and discusses some peculiarities in translating such metaphors from Vietnamese into Russian. A general definition of metaphor is given and some methods that were developed for translating metaphors are described. The metaphors from the Vietnamese economic newspapers and the difficulties that appeared at their translating into Russian are reviewed and analyzed. The study aims to analyze the economic metaphor in Vietnamese newspapers, to identify the main methods of their translation into Russian. The leading Vietnamese newspapers in the electronic version were the material for this study: “Vneconomy.vn”, “Dantri.vn”, “Vietnamnet.vn”, “Vnexpress.net”. The main research methods are the descriptive method, the method of contrastive analysis, the comparative method and the method of component analysis. Due to some cultural differences, translation is viewed aa a complex process. As a result of the study. The results of this study can facilitate the task of a translator, where the main task of the translator remains to choose the most suitable translation method. Based on the analyzed examples, we found that when translating metaphors and economic metaphors, in particular, from Vietnamese in Russian, some difficulties arise due to the differences in the realities of the two languages, different cultures, and value systems. Therefore, the result of the study is justified by the possibility of using its materials in translation practice, some textbooks on the stylistics of the Vietnamese and Russian languages.
Keywords: Economic metaphortranslation of a metaphortranslation methodsRussianVietnamese
Introduction
A metaphor is a way of understanding one object through another. In this sense, a metaphor is one of the ways to represent knowledge in a linguistic form. The metaphor remains a serious challenge not only for readers but also for professional translators.
The main in the definition of a metaphor done by Aristotle was the transfer of the name of one object to another. The metaphor, according to Aristotle (1978), gives the ground "to speak of something real, to connect something impossible with it" (p. 86). One of the best examples of the metaphor is Shakespeare’s phrase, “The world is a theater”. The world is not a theater, but people in Western countries extrapolate this metaphor to their lives and imagine that they are just playing roles.
A metaphor is considered one of the most complex linguistic phenomena, because to create and translate metaphors you need to know much of linguistic elements, including the culture of the original language (usually a deep section of the culture of the ancient times) and the author’s creativity of the metaphor, used according to his 'brainchild'. A metaphor can also be completely new, lively, original (individually belonging to an author’s style), and this sometimes raises some sharp questions and challenges regarding translation or senses convey. As Komissarov (1999a, 1999b) rightly states, each language creates a peculiar "linguistic picture of the world", which is one of the reasons for challenges appearing in translation. When considering the metaphors in terms of their translation from one language to another, it should be remembered that translation is, first of all, the exchange of information between representatives of different cultures. A translator, while translating a metaphor, often encounters a challenge of forced guesses (when a text does not give a full and unambiguous information) and he/she needs to relate his/her knowledge to the knowledge of other people, what they had in mind, both native speakers of a source language and native speakers of a target language.
Problem Statement
A large number of studies can be found in Russian and foreign scientific literature, which illustrate some research of the journalistic style and its expressive language means. The study of a metaphor is under continuous learning and development. In Vietnam, the issue of a metaphor is not new. There are many works devoted to metaphor's functioning and its integral role in the cultural life of a human being. In his work "Metaphor in the Stream of History", Trần Hữu Thục (2012) conducted a study on a metaphor and its role in developing the world culture. Trịnh Thị Thanh Huệ (2012) analyzed the metaphors of Vietnamese and English poetry. In Trịnh Thị Thanh Huệ’s (2012) dissertation, some examples of the metaphors of human body parts in Chinese and Vietnamese were compared.
However, among the studies conducted in this domain, there have not been yet any works on challenges in terms of translation of the economic metaphor from Vietnamese into Russian.
Research Questions
The paper discusses some metaphors, to say precisely, the peculiarities with the reference to translating the economic metaphors from Vietnamese into Russian. A general definition of a metaphor is given and some translation methods are described. The economic metaphors taken from the Vietnamese economic newspapers are reviewed and analyzed, similarities and differences of metaphors in Russian and Vietnamese economic texts are described, as well as the challenges in translating these metaphors into Russian.
Purpose of the Study
To achieve the goal implies solving the following tasks:
identify a metaphor concept.
consider and analyze the examples of the economic metaphor in the Vietnamese newspapers; describe the developed methods for translating these metaphors into Russian; consider the features, similarities, and differences of the metaphors of the Vietnamese and Russian languages.
identify the difficulties in translating the metaphors in economic journalism from Vietnamese to Russian.
Research Methods
The main research methods are the descriptive ones, the method of contrastive analysis, the comparative method and the method of component analysis.
Findings
Newspaper metaphors are usually divided according to the degree of “novelty”, according to which, they can be divided into two groups: individually-copyrighted (“living”) and commonly used (“habitual”) (Kovalevskaya, 2009). Newmark in his work “A textbook of translation” proposes to divide metaphors by the method of their formation, while the metaphor can be general, adapted, original, disappeared, clichéd, and new (as cited in Shikalov, 2010).
Whatever the type of a metaphor, the methods of its translation will be chosen. When translating commonly used metaphors, one should go in line with commonly used analogue in the target language – cliché. The author’s metaphors are recommended to translate as close as possible to an original text. The main task in translating some individual author's metaphors is to keep the meaning and style of an author. In the works of Komissarov and Koralova (1990) the author differentiate the various ways of translating metaphors. However, they were not categorical in applying a certain method of translating metaphors. Newmark noted that the translator himself must decide to keep the image of a metaphor or to take it off, taking into account an author and a recipient, a type of text and information and their target orientation (as cited in Shikalov, 2010). The paper describes the methods developed by the author of the research on how to translate metaphors from Vietnamese into Russian, which can become the basis for the development of some translation techniques aimed at translating metaphors of an economic text.
This section details the economic metaphors and their translation.
Literal translation, in which the figurativeness of the primary metaphor is kept
Common metaphors coincide in frame-type composition if they fall into both Russian and Vietnamese as borrowings. To translate these metaphors, a translator uses the “literal translation” method, keeping the metaphorical image with the original metaphor. We put this method in the first place since a translator's primary task is to convey the metaphor in its original form.
In the Vietnamese newspapers, the expression
Consider the expressions often used in the Vietnamese newspapers, for example:
Replacing the Vietnamese metaphor with the equivalent metaphor in Russian
The second method of translating a metaphor is used when there is no similar metaphor in the target language or it has a different meaning in the source language. The problem is that such metaphors cannot always be translated verbatim, because some of the images on which the metaphor in the source language is based may not coincide with the metaphors in the target language. In this case, a translator must find the expression in the target language, which will have the corresponding image with the metaphor in the source language. In other words, this method is called – replacement with the equivalent metaphor or the translation based on the similar image. For example,
Metaphor
There are many figurative metaphors used to describe the growth and decline in prices in the economic market. For example, the expression
We also found popular metaphorical models in Vietnamese with the image
Another example
Translation of a metaphor with a neutral, non-metaphorical expression
You should be aware of the big challenge in translating metaphors dealing with the process of creating images, as a result of which a completely different image may arise. In such cases, metaphors should be translated as neutral, non-metaphorical, often descriptive expressions. The problem is that the metaphorical images diverge in two cultures and it is not possible to provide the equivalent-based translation, even with substitutions. One of the four methods proposed by Komissarov and Koralova (1990) – translation with a non-metaphorical explanation. Consider the following practices: “
Consider the metaphors:
The following metaphor is considered to be an individual one, within the author's style of writing: “
Other Examples: "
Transmission of a metaphor through comparison, keeping the image in the source language. Translation of the metaphors with cultural elements
Metaphors used in the economic discourse are also culturally colored. Some metaphors in Vietnamese contain elements representing cultural realities. The translation of such metaphors can provide some difficulties for a translator. In Vietnamese culture, the images ao làng – village pond, con đê – dam or trái ngọt – sweet fruit they are all the agricultural symbols of the country.
In some cases, a translator can translate metaphors through comparison. This method was proposed by English professor Newmark (as cited in Shikalov, 2010). We call this translation procedure – the translation of a metaphor through comparison, keeping the image in the source language. With this method, sometimes you have to change the syntactic structure of a sentence when translating. During translation, “repeating the structure of the original sentence in its translation does not always allow to keep accuracy and expressiveness of the source language” (Perfilieva & Galankina, 2015, p. 175).
For example, the image
The Vietnamese expression
We use the second method for the next example:
We also use this method to translate the expression
Considering the metaphors that contain cultural elements, one cannot but mention proverbs, adages, and phraseological units that are based on metaphors. Example One. "
As the following example, we cite the Prime Minister of Vietnam when he was speaking about the export issues in the country: “Thủ
Besides, there are expressions in the Vietnamese language that are formed by using metaphors, but when they are translated into Russian, they will become non-metaphorical expressions, for example, “bỏ túi” – “put into a pocket”, “rót tiền” – “pour money”.
Conclusion
Having examined the metaphors found in the Vietnamese economic journalism, we can conclude that the optimal ways to translate them into Russian are:
Literal translation, in which the figurativeness sense of the primary metaphor is kept.
Translation by substitution with an equivalent metaphor (culturally appropriate target language).
Translation of a metaphor with a neutral, non-metaphorical expression.
Translation of a metaphor through comparison, keeping the image in the source language.
The analysis showed that the metaphors in economic journalism are very common. The following can be concluded:
When translating metaphors, a translator may encounter some difficulties indicating the impossibility to translate verbatim. Based on the analyzed examples, we revealed that when translating metaphors and the economic metaphors, in particular, from Vietnamese in Russian, some difficulties arise due to the differences in the realities of the two languages, different cultures, and value systems.
The Vietnamese language differs from the Russian language and any European language in terms of lexical and grammatical structures, syntax, therefore, in translation; in some cases, it is necessary to change namely the structure of sentences.
There are individual author’s metaphors that are used only in the Vietnamese language, metaphors that contain cultural elements like “dam” or “village pond” ... or phraseological units based on metaphors, but you can always find a translation method that as accurately as possible will help to convey the meaning and sense of a metaphor.
We proposed four ways to translate an economic metaphor from Vietnamese into Russian, which can facilitate the task of a translator. Therefore, the result of the study is justified by the possibility of using its materials in translation practice, in a textbook on the stylistics of the Vietnamese and Russian languages.
References
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31 October 2020
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Cite this article as:
Nguyen, T. H. N. (2020). Translation Peculiarities Of Economic Metaphors From Vietnamese Into Russian. In D. K. Bataev (Ed.), Social and Cultural Transformations in the Context of Modern Globalism» Dedicated to the 80th Anniversary of Turkayev Hassan Vakhitovich, vol 92. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 799-806). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.10.05.107