Where the Water Goes : Translation of the Gerund-Participle, Metaphors and Similes in a Scientific Report about Ocean Science

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to discuss which strategies may be used in translation from English to Swedish of a scientific text on oceanography. Focus is on how to deal with translation of the gerund-participle form, metaphors and similes. The source text is Mapping the Deep; the Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science, written by Robert Kunzig (2000), from which a selection of interesting and challenging examples are chosen to be discussed and analyzed. A theoretical background is given about the gerund-participle form according to Huddleston & Pullum (2002) and Ingo (2007), and about metaphors and similes according to Ingo (2007) and Newmark (1988). The discussion and analysis is framed around Vinay’s and Darbelnet’s translation model presented in their Comparative Stylistics of French and English (1995),  a model with a linguistic approach, based on two general translation methods – direct translation and oblique translation.                      The examples analyzed in this study are translated with both a direct translation strategy and oblique translation strategy using varying procedures. As a result, the analysis and discussion show that there is no particular given strategy or procedure that applies to the translation of gerund-participles, metaphors and similes from English to Swedish, but instead each and every example and situation needs to be carefully assessed in aspect to the context, as well as source and target language structure and culture.