Researching Conceptual Metaphor in a Parallel Corpus

Abstract

This article will explore the translational treatment of conceptual metaphors in a parallel corpus of American self-help texts on marriage relationships and their Arabic translations. The focus here on conceptual metaphors is primarily motivated by the need for a definitive account of the challenges posed by such metaphors in translation, the sorts of procedures used to handle them, and the actual factors contributing to the ease or difficulty of their translation. These issues have not been adequately addressed in previous analyses, which have concentrated largely on individual metaphorical expressions rather than on concepts that give rise to them. Little information was therefore available on the translation of different kinds of conceptual metaphors that characterize a particular discourse. This study introduces a detailed and replicable methodology for researching conceptual metaphor within the context of a parallel corpus from a descriptive perspective.