Metaphors we tour by: effects of extended conceptual metaphor theory on tourism translation

Abstract

Metaphor is a complex phenomenon in translation practice. Translators might omit or generalise metaphors into the target language due to metaphor being a translation problem. This study, however, argues that metaphor is a solution to promote tourism translation. The present research focuses on translation procedures of metaphors in tourism promotional materials by conceptualising source domains within metaphors. A small corpus is collected from an official tourism promotional website as research data. The ultimate purpose of the present research is to enhance the destination image of China by exerting the effects of twelve contextual factors employed with Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory (ECMT) on metaphor translation. By conducting a comparative analysis between original and suggested translations, the research finds HUMAN as the most common source domain in metaphors of tourism promotional materials. Besides, to fill in the gap of contextual factors in metaphor translation, a new concept, sub-translation, is also created in this research. The concept emphasises the contextual factors within metaphors, which provides translators in tourism sectors with a mediated space to sensibly select metaphor mappings in translation. The concept is potentially instrumental in facilitating the translation procedure and intercultural communication towards target tourists, thus promoting destination image.

Keywords

• Metaphor in translation
• contextual factors
• sub-translation
• Chinese-to-English translation
• tourism advertising
• Destination Marketing