This translation strategy refers to the fact that in some cases, the conceptual metaphor and the metaphorical expression are not retained; they are translated by different metaphorical expressions, resulting in (or due to) different conceptual metaphors.
Back translation: Let us suppose that a central bank injects on the market a certain amount of “money-gift” (that is money equally distributed to everybody).
The metaphorical expression helicopter money is new in English as well (it is also explained in English and placed between inverted commas). A different image (bani-cadou – “gift money”, “money offered as a gift”) was used. The translator opted for a particular expression which led to a change in the conceptual metaphor – not necessarily because the two languages/cultures conceptualise things differently, but because a literal translation would not trigger the same associations as the metaphor triggers in the source text for the source readers. Thus, in the target text another image was used, that better renders the meaning and connotations of the metaphorical expression in the source text. Another metaphor that can be noticed in this extract is MONEY IS AN OBJECT (drops a certain amount of money), which in the target text is replaced by another conceptual metaphor, MONEY IS A LIQUID
(injectează pe piaţă o anumită sumă de bani – literally, “injects on the market a certain amount of money”). A reason for adopting this strategy is that, according to Dagut (1976), a metaphor that is effective in a language can become unusual, even unintelligible in another language if it is translated literally and not adapted to the target culture. Moreover, it can be observed that MONEY IS A LIQUID is a prevalent metaphor in the corpus of texts and operates at text level.
Example 14
minus future predetermined net drains on foreign currency holdings owing to repurchase and forward transactions.
minus tragerile nete viitoare din deţinerile în valută datorate operaţiunilor reversibile şi exporturi, datorită cererii externe robuste, şi
111 demand, and the rebuilding of inventories
after a significant drain on inventory levels in 2009.
de refacerea stocurilor după scăderea substanţială a acestora în anul 2009
(Annual Report 2010)
Back translation: The recovery was mainly supported by exports because of the robust external demand and the remaking of stocks after their substantial decrease in the year 2009.
In Examples 14 and 15, the metaphorical expression drain, with the underlying conceptual metaphor MONEY IS A LIQUID, is not retained at sentence level. It is replaced by a different conceptual metaphor: MOVEMENT ALONG A VERTICAL LINE. In Example 14 drain is translated as trageri (“drawings”) and in Example 15 as scădere (“decrease”). These are two different meanings of the term drain and both metaphorical expressions reflect the underlying conceptual metaphor related to
MOVEMENT (UP/DOWN).
5. Conclusion
This paper has examined strategies that translators at the European Central Bank use for translating economic metaphors from English into Romanian. Using Lakoff
& Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory and corpus analysis, it focused on two dominant conceptual metaphors – MONEY IS A LIQUID and ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM. It has been found that five strategies were the most frequent: retaining the metaphor and the metaphorical expression, retaining the metaphor but changing the expression (image shift), demetaphorisation, addition and changing the conceptual metaphor and the metaphorical expression. The most prevalent ones among these five are retaining the metaphor and image shift. This might suggest that generally, the conceptual frameworks of both languages for the analysed metaphors are similar, but English economic terminology is more developed and sometimes different metaphorical expressions are used in the source text and target text. Inconsistencies in translating metaphorical expressions were found even at sentence level, which points out that the economic vocabulary in the Romanian language is still evolving.
Moreover, some metaphors were weakened, changed or demetaphorised because of their novelty and the cultural implications.
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