A modern bestiary: a contrastive study of the figurative meanings of animal terms (original) (raw)

A Comparative and Conceptual Study on the Translations of Animal Metaphors

Social Sciences Studies Journal, 2021

From a traditional view, metaphors refer to one object in terms of another implying a resemblance between two objects. Challenging the traditional perspective Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have developed a conceptual approach to metaphors in their seminal study Metaphors We Live By. The debates on the translatability of metaphors have been at the centre of research for the last 50 years. In particular, the conceptualisation of emotions becomes a challenge for translators in the process of transferring the implied meaning in the source culture. This problematic translation issue has paved the way for scholars and translators to suggest different strategies in transferring metaphors to the target language. In this regard, the present study aims to comparatively analyze the translations of the animal metaphors and similes expressing emotions in the two target texts of The Virgin and The Gipsy (1930), a novella by D. H. Lawrence. In order to do so, the metaphors and similes conceptualising emotion in terms of animals were identified in the source text and analyzed from Goatly's (1997) perspectives. Then, the Turkish translations of the data were classified according to Newmark's (1988) procedures. As a result of the multi-facet analysis, the present study has revealed what animals are utilized to express what kind of emotions in the source text. It has also been observed that the translation procedures adopted by two translators in translating animal metaphors differ considerably in most instances. In Target Text 1, the translator omits 45 % (n = 9) of the data by adopting the procedure of deletion. However, in Target Text 2, 55 % (n = 11) of them are rendered by reproducing the same image in Turkish.

Final-Copy-a semantic and cultural study of animal names in English and persian

The aim of this paper is to study the meanings and applications of the animal names in English and prison proverbs. Most of the animal expressions reveal the way of thinking and the cultural particularities of each society, so translation of some animal expressions from one language to another one may cause many cultural or communicational misunderstandings. In other words, animal expressions fulfill semantic and sociolinguistic functions in human languages. Most of the animal expressions developed from the culture, society, human relations, and their thoughts. So animal expressions have different positive or negative values and usages in each lingual society.

The Origins and Motivations of Animal Metaphors

Published in 2015, in the proceeding of the International Meeting on Languages, Applied Linguistics, and Translation – LALT 2012, Évora, Portugal, Dec. 2012, pp. 217-227. Also to be published by the University of Évora with the title Recent Developments in Language Studies – Selected Papers

A semantic and cultural study of Animal Expressions in English and Persian

Abstract The aim of this paper is to study the meanings and applications of the animal names in English and prison proverbs. Most of the animal expressions reveal the way of thinking and the cultural particularities of each society, so translation of some animal expressions from one language to another one may cause many cultural or communicational misunderstandings. In other words, animal expressions fulfill semantic and sociolinguistic functions in human languages. Most of the animal expressions developed from the culture, society, human relations, and their thoughts. So animal expressions have different positive or negative values and usages in each lingual society. In this research we will deal with the names of some animals that may make cultural or communicational misunderstandings. Keywords: Animal names, proverbs, semantic features, And cultural misunderstanding.

Connotation &animals

Since language is taken as the reflection of culture, the examination of it and the culture-bound terms have always been considered of the most important parts in translation studies; among such culture-bound terms, animal connotations play significant roles. The present study aims at elucidating some of the similarities and differences of the animal connotations in the proverbs, idioms, and sayings between the two cultures of Persian and English. A further goal of the study is to analyze the procedures applied by the translator(s) in translating such culture bound terms. To meet the goals of the study, the following steps were taken; first, cultural correspondence between the cultures was investigated, second, the strategies applied in translating the culture bound terms were examined, and finally the similarities and differences between the two cultures were shown. The results of the study revealed that the similarities arise from the issue of the universality of concepts among languages and the linkage between the two cultures, and the differences rooted in the historical, religious, and environmental diversities. multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

A Contrastive Analysis of Animal Metaphor in English and Persian

Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 2015

Learning a second language for Iranian students may not be simple at all parts, and it may be difficult for them, especially in some parts that is different from their first language principles. One of these parts is Metaphor, which is different in most languages according to their culture and history. This article is a kind of comparative study which aimed to describe some differences between English and Persian interpretation of animal metaphor. We have three categorization for animal metaphor and different examples according to cultures of both languages.

The Comparison of Connotative Meaning in Animal Words between English and Persian Expressions and their Translation

2015

Abstract: Animal words and expressions have slowly become a significant member of the basic vocabulary of many languages in the world. Iranian and English are no exception. Some animal words in Persian and English are the same or similar in cultural connotations, because Iranian and the English people have some same capabilities of thought, some same laws of cognition, and some animals have the same important role in the human life of these two nations, and have the same attributes and features. But some of them are dissimilar or different. The cause of it is that the English people and the Iranian people are different in religion, history, geographical environment, and customs and so on.The present study is within semantic – pragmatic framework. Over the years there has been an interest in research about metaphors, idioms, and proverbs within different frameworks, but studies on animal expressions are few in both Persian and English. This research is an attempt to show some lingual...

PAMIES, A. 2012 "Zoo-symbolism and metaphoric competence". In: Szerszunowicz, J. & Yagi, K. (eds.) Focal Issues on Phraseological Studies (coll. Intercontinental Dialogue on Phraseology, 2). Univ. Bialystok (Poland) & Kwansei Gakuin Univ. Osaka (Japan) : 291-314. ISBN-978-83-7431-302-5

This paper analyzes some semantic mechanisms underlying figurative lexicalized expressions in the sub-corpus of zoonymic phraseology in several languages. It focuses on the cultural motivation of idioms, in contrast with the inverse possibility: the influence of lexicon itself on world vision and culture. 31). Two idioms can have the same historical origin but, at the same time, be borrowed one from the other, as demonstrated by Mieder (2009) in his brilliant research on Biblic proverbs recently loaned by German from English, in spite of the existence of genuine old German variants of the same metaphors (attested in Luther's translation), which however had little popularity, while the really conventionalized variant is a modern translation from American English. 9 E.g., eng. constant dropping wears the stone lat. gutta cavat lapide is known in 39 languages including Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese (Paczolay, Op. cit.). Zoo-Symbolism and Metaphoric Competence 293

A Comparative study of Translation of Animal-Related Words in English, Portuguese and Persian

The study aimed to illustrate how exploring the origins of metaphors contribute in a better understanding of the nature of metaphors and, thus, in preventing mistranslation. In translation of animal personification, where the metaphoric meanings of animals in the source language (SL) are different from or contradictory to those in the target language (TL), the translators usually choose a different animal in the target text (TT) whose characteristics match the ones attributed to it in the source text (ST). The task becomes more complicated in translation of Animal Farm (Orwell, 1945) (the present study), where the image of some animals is different even between the SL and the ST. Accordingly, different translation strategies were proposed depending on the relationship between the SL, the ST, and the TL. We studied personification in three languages of Persian as a high-context culture, Portuguese as a low context-culture, and English as a lower-context culture language in comparison with the Portuguese. We tried to examine if the degree of context culture between languages involved in translation influences the degree of differences in personification of the animals in theses languages. The proposed translation strategies were based on the premise that a translator in normal circumstances would go through these translational phases. However, this study (translation of Animal Farm) revealed that theory cannot bring about a satisfactory answer to all the translation problems. Because theories are descriptive and each text is singularly different from the other and nothing can be deemed wholly predictable in terms of translation.