Considerations on the meaning and translation of English heart idioms. Integrating the cognitive linguistic approach

Abstract

Idioms have long been an intricate part of language both from a semantic and a translational point of view. According to Cognitive Linguistics, many idioms do not always have an arbitrary meaning, as postulated by their traditional definition. The purpose of this article is to bring into focus the contribution that the Cognitive Linguistic approach can make to the process of selecting appropriate target language counterparts of source language idioms while applying translation strategies. To this end, we attempt at identifying appropriate Romanian counterparts of several English heart idioms on the basis of the same cognitive mechanisms (conventional knowledge, conceptual metaphors and metonymies) which motivate, to a certain extent, their meanings. Moreover, considering its specificity, this study is structured by drawing on the first three strategies suggested by “Baker, Mona. 1992. In other words. A coursebook on translation. London & New York: Routledge,” which translators can make use of when being faced with the challenging task of rendering idioms from the source text into the target text. In addition, our analysis is exclusively concerned with systemic equivalent idioms in terms of language as a system (Kvetko, Pavol. 2009. An outline of English phraseology. 3rd revised edition. Trnava: Univerzita Sv. Cyrila a Metoda).

Keywords

• heart idioms
• cognitive mechanisms
• translation strategies
• systemic equivalents