Embracing metaphors in translation : A study on the translation of embodied metaphors in a nature book

Abstract: This study focuses on the translation of metaphors with a special focus on embodied metaphors. It is based on Newmark’s (1981:84−91) translation strategies and uses chapter 15, “Currents and Tides”, from Tristan Gooley’s nature book How to Read Water, Clues & Patterns from Puddles to the Sea (2016) as corpus for metaphor translation analysis. Through a prescriptive and descriptive approach to translation analysis, this study aims to investigate how metaphors are translated from the source language English to the target language Swedish.              The findings of the study indicate that the most common translation strategy is to reproduce the metaphor in the target text, followed by either a) finding an acceptable equivalent, or b) conversion from a metaphor to sense in the target language. This suggests that the level of embodied reading is lower in the target text than in the source text. However, because of the limited range of this study, no firm conclusions can be made.