《metaphors of translation》.pdf

40 METAPHORS OF TRANSLATION Tan Zaixi, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong thtan@hkhu.edu.hk Abstract The study described in the present ariicie investigates Chinese and Western metaphors of translation that have appeared since antiquity and which illustrate the central rote of metaphors in descriptions of translation. Tlie article discusses more than 270 Chinese and English language metaphors frotn descriptive as well as diachronic and synchronic points ofvieio. It analyses ihe issues metaphors give rise to, and offers in-devth analyses and discussions of how metaphors can provide us with insights on the ways in which we see translation. Key words: Chinese-English; metaphors of translation; history of translation; images of translation; Western metaphors; Chinese metaphors. Introduction From the very beginning of discussions on the nature of translation, meta- phors have been part of the vocabulary that translation scholars and translators used for describing translation work. Among the earliest metaphors of transla- tion in the Western tradition were Ciceros pronouncement in De optimo genere oratorum (46 B.C.) that he translated as an eloquent orator and not as a literal interpreter (ut interpres), and Philos comparison of the translators of the Sep- tuagint to prophets and priests of my mysteries in his De vita Mosis (20 B.C.). The earliest figurative uses of language on translation in the Chinese tradition included the famous fourth-century Buddhist translator KumarajTvas compari- son of translating to feeding someone with masticated food {^i^^M^X. My translation) and that a translation w^as a bottle of diluted wine, a view held by his contemporary, Dao-a