Disease and disaster : On the translation of illness and natural force metaphors in a journalistic political essay

Abstract: This essay deals with the translation of certain metaphors in a journalistic political essay. It focuses on metaphor as a conceptual and rhetorical device, and on the translation of metaphors that make use of the source domains NATURAL FORCE and ILLNESS. The aim of the essay is to investigate to what extent the two source domains are transferred to the target text in translation, and to show how the fact that metaphors are both conceptual and rhetorical is reason for why they should be transferred when possible. The study is quantitative in that it looks at frequency of source domain transfer into the target text and at the frequency of a few metaphor translation methods, and it is qualitative in that it explains how the metaphors are both conceptual and rhetorical choices on behalf of the author, and in that it explains and analyses the processes leading to certain metaphor translation strategies. The study finds that four different methods are used when translating the metaphors in questions and that it is by far most common to directly translate them. The second most common strategy allows for the source domain to be transferred to the target text but for the actual lexemes or phrases belonging to it to be exchanged for other lexemes or phrases within the same source domain.