Can a tiger change its stripes? How we make sense of literally translated culturally specific metaphorical expressions (CROSBI ID 653471)
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Podaci o odgovornosti
Marinić, Ivana ; Schmidt, Goran
engleski
Can a tiger change its stripes? How we make sense of literally translated culturally specific metaphorical expressions
In Croatian language, like in many other languages, there is currently a strong tendency to import English words and phrases, either as loanwords, literal translations or calques. This is mostly done through translation of English texts in the media, advertising and literature. Some of these English words and phrases are based on culturally specific metaphors which are in this way introduced into Croatian language and culture, e.g. majka tigrica ‘tiger mother’, helikopter roditelj ‘helicopter parent’, stakleni strop ‘glass ceiling’, etc. The main research question of this study is: How do people make sense of such new metaphorical expressions? Do they understand them in the same way as English speakers do? Our hypothesis is that the comprehension of culturally specific metaphors significantly depends on the knowledge of the source culture. Since the relevant cultural knowledge is not always readily available, misunderstanding is bound to happen. We would like to investigate whether literal translation of figurative language, specifically metaphor- based expressions, can lead to alternative conceptualization in the target language, and therefore completely or at least partially miss the point of translation, which is prototypically the transfer of meaning. Our study also investigates the circumstances under which selected examples of literal translations (calques) of English metaphorical expressions were introduced into the Croatian language, the way they have been used in Croatian public discourse, and the way speakers of Croatian understand them. The comprehension will be tested empirically by psycholinguistic methods. This study aims to show that literal translation of figurative language may be counterproductive in the sense that such expressions may be construed differently in the target language, and that in order to comprehend culturally specific metaphors it is not enough to be able to cognitively process metaphor ; one has to know the conventional meaning the speakers of a certain language associate with such expressions.
calques, Croatian, English, comprehension, source culture
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Podaci o prilogu
2015.
objavljeno
Podaci o matičnoj publikaciji
Podaci o skupu
2nd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (FTL2)
predavanje
28.10.2015-30.10.2015
Pavia, Italija