A Study on the Chinese Translation of English Metaphors from an Aesthetic Perspective

Abstract

Metaphor, as a highly condensed and aesthetically rich mode of expression in language, carries abundant imagery, emotion and cultural connotations in literary texts. The translation of metaphor is not merely a transformation of meaning, but a process of aesthetic re-creation. For a long time, research on metaphor translation has mainly been conducted from the perspectives of cognitive linguistics or functional equivalence, while systematic exploration of its aesthetic value remains relatively insufficient. Taking translation aesthetics as its theoretical framework and integrating conceptual metaphor theory, this study conducts a comparative analysis of English metaphors and their Chinese translations in literary texts, with a particular focus on the reproduction of imagistic beauty, formal beauty and emotional beauty in the process of metaphor translation. The findings suggest that, on the basis of fidelity to the original meaning, translators should give full play to their subjectivity and achieve aesthetic reconstruction in the target text through strategies such as image retention, image transformation and aesthetic adjustment. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the aesthetic dimension of metaphor translation and offers valuable implications for literary translation practice and translation pedagogy.

Keywords

• translation aesthetics
• English metaphor
• Metaphor translation
• Aesthetic re-creation
• English–Chinese comparison

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