AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 2, Number 4. October 2018 Pp.

144-151
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no4.10

Translating Metaphorical Expressions in Political Discourse: A Comparative

Conceptual Study (English – Arabic)

Mansour K. Thajeel Aldanani

Department of Physics, Faculty of Science
University of Sumer,
Alrifai City, Dhi-qar, Iraq

Abstract:
This paper is to analyze the conceptual metaphors underlying the metaphorical expressions in
political discourse, it explores the role of conceptual metaphors on political language and the
translation strategy adopted to translate. To prove this, a cognitive approach to metaphorical
expressions translation in political discourse is used. The study focuses on the analysis of the
conceptual mapping of the abstract concept of politics into some other source domains. The
given examples are used to argue that we use existing physical concepts to conceptualize abstract
concepts for easy understanding. The results obtained reveal that the set of conceptual metaphors
underlying the political expressions are almost similar in both languages in terms of the source
domains used as well as their collocation patterns. The paper adds a further support to the claim
that metaphors are not only a rhetorical tool used by literary men but it reflects our thinking when
dealing with abstract issues in terms of concrete experience. The study has pedagogical
implications for media translation students. They can compile their own glossaries using the
collocation patterns relevant to each metaphorical expression.

Key Words: metaphor, cognitive concepts, collocation, political, domain, mapping

Cites as: Aldanani, M. K. T. (2018). Translating Metaphorical Expressions in Political

Discourse: A Comparative Conceptual Study (English – Arabic). Arab World English
Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 2 (4). 144-151
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no4.10

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Translating Metaphorical Expressions in Political Discourse Aldanani

1. Introduction
According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary (1999), metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a
word or phrase denoting one kind of object, or idea and is used in place of another to suggest
likeness or analogy between them, like drowning in money”. The etymological origin of the word
metaphor is from the Greek meta which means with and phor which means carry. Scholars defined
metaphor in a variety of ways. For Charteris-Black (2004:21), metaphor is “a linguistic
representation that results from the shift in the use of a word or phrase.” Lakoff and Johnson
(1980), claim that the metaphorical expressions are not mere words, but they are part and parcel
of our cognitive system and the way we conceptualize things.

Literature Review:
2.1The Traditional Turn in Metaphor Studies:
In the traditional literature, metaphor is understood as a term of speech and writing. It is a style of
language. In literary texts, metaphors can play the role of serving poetic imagination Lakoff&
Turner (1989). Shakespeare, one of the greatest masters of metaphor, compared the world to a
stage and human beings to players on the stage. As a literary device, metaphor can help the writer
delight the audience or readers and persuade them to accept his argument Lakoff& Turner (1989).
Later on the 1980s, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) changed the research direction when they provided
readers with their cognitive theory on metaphor.

1.2 The Cognitive Turn:

In their seminal book Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) identify the major
implications of metaphor in language. They argue that metaphors are not arbitrary, because though
they may vary from one culture to another, they are still derived mainly from peoples’ physical,
social and cultural experiences. Therefore, metaphor can be defined from the cognitive perspective
as the understanding of one conceptual domain in terms of another one Lakoff& Johnson (1980;
Kövecses (2009). Lakoff claimed his opinion again in his book about metaphor as a way of thought
from a philosophical perspective (Lakoff:1987).

In the cognitive view of metaphor, “conceptual domain” is a critical concept in cognitive

theories of metaphor Kövecses (2009). We rely on our knowledge and experience on one concept
in order to understand another abstract concept. Hence, one conceptual metaphor is formed by two
conceptual domains (Kövecses:2009:p.17). These two domains are called target domain and
source domain respectively (Lakoff &Johnson:1980; Lakoff:1992; Kövecses:2009). We try to
understand the target domain by the use of the source domain. It is not possible to reverse source
domain and target domain Kövecses (2009,p.29). For example, we do not talk about journey in
terms of life. Cognitive linguists (Lakoff &Johnson:1980; Lakoff:1992; Kövecses:2009) pointed
out that concept of systematic correspondences and the conceptual correspondences are referred
as mapping.

1.3 Classification of Metaphor:

According to Lakoff (1987) and Lakoff-Johnson (1998, 2005), our conceptual system is
metaphorically structured and defined. Thus the way we think, what we experience and what we
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do every day is often a matter of metaphor. Cognitive linguists assume that concepts such as [love,
happiness, anger, fear, time, wealth, desire, etc.] are structured on our concrete, physical
experience like {human body, buildings, machines, animals, plants, etc.). In other words,
conceptual metaphors always combine two domains: a concrete, well bounded "source domain"
and an abstract, "target domain"

Lakoff and Johnson (1987) identify three major types of conceptual metaphor: Structural
Metaphor, Orientational Metaphor and Ontological Metaphor. They are going to be discussed in
turns. Lakoff and Johnson explained structural metaphor by using the example: ARGUMENT IS
WAR. They talked about argument in terms of war. Sentences like I have won the argument with
him. / He shot my argument down. From these sentences, we can find out that people can not only
have an argument, but also can win or object to an argument. The person who is against my
argument is considered as an enemy or an opponent. I tried to defend my point of view when he
tried to shoot me down. / I attacked his argument when I tried to win an argument. As a matter of
fact, the things we do about the argument can be structured in terms of the concept of war. In
ARGUMENT IS WAR, we are trying to structure the things we do when we are in an argument.
Arguing-as an activity, is metaphorically structured in this way. The definition of structural
metaphor is “one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another” Lakoff &Johnson
(1980,p.14).

The second type of metaphor is Orientational Metaphor. Instead of structuring one concept
in terms of another in Structural Metaphor, orientational metaphor is about a total conceptual
system. They mainly come from human body experience. Orientational Metaphor connects firmly
with spatial orientation in most cases. Examples are such as up-down, in-out, and front-back. This
sort of metaphor gives a spatial orientation to a concept, such as GOOD IS UP. BAD IS DOWN.
Here, the concept of GOOD is oriented UP. The metaphorical linguistic expression is such as
Things are looking up Lakoff& Johnson (1980).

The third is Ontological Metaphor. Container metaphor is one of the major subtypes of
ontological metaphor. In a container metaphor, a human being is treated as a container, the rest of
the world is divided from us by our skins. There is an in-out orientation Lakoff& Johnson (1980).
There are some entities which have always been treated as containers, such as room, flat or houses.
So we can say I have moved out of his house. /Let’s open it and see what is inside it. As a matter
of fact, even for something which does not have obvious boundary, we can still view it as container.
We try to quantify it ourselves and impose boundaries. For example, we often say: Are you out of
your mind? / I think I have fallen in love with her. The bounded items can be quantified much
clearer. For example, we can say: There are a lot of people in Hong Kong. Both of the people and
Hong Kong itself are regarded as containers. However, they belong to the different types. The
former one is a container substance and the latter one is container object Lakoff& Johnson
(1980,p.30).

Personification is another one of the major ontological metaphors. It treats physical object as a
human being. In that case, the non-human substances can be understood in terms of human
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activities, feeling, and characteristics and so on. We can understand something in human terms
more easily Lakoff& Johnson (1980). Examples are like: Her faith guides her through all the
difficulties. /Actions speak louder than words.
What is more, personification does not represent only one process. Different personifications
choose various aspects of people. For example:
Depression has attacked me seriously.
My biggest enemy now is depression.
Depression is treated as a person, but it is not the only message it delivers here. It is more specific.
The above two examples give people the information about how to think about depression and
how to deal with it Lakoff & Johnson (1980).

2. Translating Metaphor - towards a Communicative 'transeme'

Like 'morpheme' in morphology and 'phoneme' in phonology, as the smallest structural units,
'transeme' can be the smallest unit in discourse which is communicatively transferred from one
language to another regardless of the similarity in image schema El-Batal (2009) [my translation].
According to Deignan (2005,p.27), collocations, especially those with abstract nouns, evidence
the frequently co-occurring lexical units with the analyzed metaphor which allows drawing
inferences on the metaphorical thinking. Drawing on English collocation patterns, 'transemes' are
arranged according to their frequent co-occurrence in these expressions. These metaphorical
'translation units' can come in various structural and semantic patterns. These patterns, both in
English and Arabic, occur in these structures:
1. Noun +Noun [ a health, energy, fuel, debt, midlife, etc. crisis]
2. Verb + Noun [ deal with, defuse, overcome, resolve, face, deal with, forestall a crisis]
3. Adjective + Noun [a financial, a political, a health, acute, humanitarian, international, , etc. crisis]

The word 'crisis' can collocate in different patterns. These translation units differ from the regular
entries in bilingual dictionaries. Their equivalents depend communicatively on context and other
collocates they come with (ibid.).[my translation]. To clarify, the word 'hunger' which means
)‫ (جوع‬in the expression "to go in a hunger strike" has different meaning when translated in Arabic
"‫ "االكل والشرب‬in the expression [‫]يضرب عن الطعام‬. El-Batal (2009). This means that we depend on
the communicative rather than the lexical meaning of words and expressions.
Consequently, translators encounter different kinds of challenges when translating metaphorical
expressions in media discourse. These challenges are mostly related to inability to find a target
language equivalent and unawareness of pragmatic, formal and semantic characteristics of
idiomatic expressions, unawareness of the cultural differences between English and Arabic and
unawareness of idioms’ categorization namely (proverbs, metaphor, similes and binomials).

For that reason, Schäffner (2004, p.126) identifies five types of metaphor translation in an
investigation of translations of political texts:

(1) a conceptual metaphor is identical in source text (ST) and target text (TT) at the macro-level
without each individual manifestation having been accounted for at the micro-level; (2) structural
components of the base conceptual schema in the ST are replaced in the TT by expressions that
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make entailments explicit; (3) a metaphor is more elaborate in the TT; (4) ST and TT employ
different metaphorical expressions which can be combined under a more abstract conceptual
metaphor; (5) the expression in the TT reflects a different aspect of the conceptual metaphor
as in the example ( to go on a hunger strike - ‫) يضرب عن الطعام‬.

Methodology and Data Collection:

The corpus is collected from mono- and bi-lingual dictionaries [Longman Collocation Dictionary
and Thesaurus, The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English, A Dictionary of Transemes in
Contemporary Arab Media, A Dictionary of Modern Political Idioms]. These patterns, both in
English and Arabic are used to analyze the data:
1. Noun +Noun [ a health, energy, fuel, debt, midlife, etc. crisis]
2. Verb + Noun [ deal with, defuse, overcome, resolve, face, deal with, forestall a crisis]
3. Adjective + Noun [a financial, a political, a health, acute, humanitarian, international, etc. crisis]

3.1Discussion and Conclusion:

Drawing on the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the target domain politics has
been mapped out into a number of source targets in the press corpus. These are selected because
as the most dominant source metaphors in the Anglo-American English (Semino:2008,p.92). They
include PATH/ JOURNEY, CONTAINERS, SPORTS, WAR AND PEOPLE.

3.1.1 Politics is war/ conflict, struggle

English Metaphors Arabic Metaphors
A period of political upheaval ‫فترة من التوتر السياسي‬
A heavyweight country ‫دولة ذات ثقل سياسي‬
A political row ‫شقاق سياسي‬
All warring sides of political spectrum ‫كل االتجاهات السياسية المتناحرة‬
Political reforms ‫اصالحات سياسية‬
Political standoff stalement ‫وضع سياسي متأزم‬
A settling of political scores ‫تسوية حسابات سياسية‬

All the metaphorical expressions follow the (Adj.+N.) collocation pattern. Like other target
domains of our experience, politics is rife with metaphors. It is mapped into a set of war/ conflict
source domains (political row, political crisis, etc.) to make it effective and easy to grasp. For
example, during the election campaigns, politicians use a variety of metaphors to persuade the
audience to vote for them. They use a lot of rhetoric and metaphors as a persuasive weapon to win
the hearts and minds of their voters and make their message easy and accessible for their audience.
Hence, they go in 'row' with their rivals especially during presidential debates. Their discourse
come up loaded with figurative language. It can noticed that there are correspondent equivalents
between English and Arabic metaphors.

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3.1.2 Politics is personification

English Metaphors Arabic Metaphors
Political suicide ‫انتحار سياسي‬
Bloated bureaucracy ‫جهاز اداري متضخم‬
A state of political détente ‫حالة من االسترخاء السياسي‬
Economic stimulus package ‫خطة النعاش االقتصاد‬
To scurry for a safe haven ‫يلهث وراء مالذ امن‬
Security awareness ‫وعي امني‬
The second type of metaphor analyzed is based on the generic metaphor POLITICS is PEOPLE.
This metaphor allows us to conceptualize political activities as humans. The same collocation co-
occurrences can be detected in English metaphorical expressions and their Arabic counterparts.

3.1.3 Politics is Sport

English Metaphors Arabic Metaphors
Arms race ‫سباق التسلح‬
With all the razzmatazz of a funfair ‫في جو من االثارة‬
To thwart UN efforts ‫يعرقل جهود االمم المتحدة‬
To face a formidable foe ‫يواجه خصما عنيدا‬
Hectic bids for the empowerment of ‫محاوالت مضنية لتعزيز دور المرأة ومنحها سلطات‬
women ‫أوسع‬
In a race against the clock ‫في سباق مع الزمن‬
A soft target ‫هدف سهل‬

The third type of metaphor is that based on SPORTS image-schemas. These metaphorical
expressions have the same collocations patterns. Sports can be conceived of as a series of activities
carried out to achieve certain objectives. They can be used as a rich source domain to understand
politics. People feel enthusiastic during sports competitions. Therefore, politicians draw heavily
on this source domain and borrow metaphors to persuade the voters to vote for them. When they
talk about their election program, politicians or their parties can play a role to bring peace and
prosperity to the nation, they can in bringing achievements for the people. They compete to win
the election, etc.

3.1.4 Politics is Health and Ills:

English Metaphors Arabic Metaphors
To heal divisions among rebel groups ‫يخفف من حدة الشقاق بين الجماهير المتناحرة‬
To curb the spread of ‫يحد من انتشار‬
To recover from decades of battle ‫يبرأ من جراح خلفتها عقود من الحرب‬
wounds
Post-war trauma ‫جراح واالم ما بعد الحرب‬
To chafe under curfew ‫يعاني االمرين من حظر التجول‬
To strike a deep core of discontent… ... ‫يؤلب المواجع‬
To impeach the testimony ... ‫يجرح شهادة‬
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The fourth metaphor is Human Body. The collocation pattern (V.+N.) occurs in all of the
metaphorical expressions. It is easier to transfer the image schema of an 'ailing political situation'
through the description of its convolutions and its intricacies as those of a troubled mankind.
Therefore, the health and ills source domains can help us understand when politics is in
appropriate/ inappropriate conditions just like the human body. People can ' suffer' a defeat or the
' post – war trauma'. Here the political situation under which people live can become unhealthy
as the human body. They suffer from unjust treatment or lack of services.

4.3 Politics is Buildings and Constructions:

English Metaphors Arabic Metaphors
To reach a deadlock; to reach an impasse ‫يصل الى طريق مسدود‬
To formalize a split in ranks ‫يحث انشقاقا في الصفوف‬
To lay the foundation stone ‫يضع حجر االساس‬
Groundless allegations ‫مزاعم ال اساس لها‬
To engage in constructive dialogue ‫يشترك في حوار بناء‬
To lay the groundwork for …to set the ... ‫يمهد الطريق ل‬
stage for …
To cement ties ‫يقوي أواصر العالقات‬

When we think of buildings and construction, we often have the image schema of bricks and other
construction material and teamwork. People set up houses, build bridges that connect isolated
places, lay roads that bring them closer. These elements of the source domains can be
metaphorically used in politics. Politicians promise their voters that they will cement and build
stronger bilateral relations with other countries and hold constructive dialogues when they review
their election program. They draw on these source domains to persuade voters to vote for them.

Conclusion:
Following the Theory of Conceptual Metaphor (CMT), this paper has presented a comparative
study of metaphors in a sample of Arabic and English expressions. The focus was on the
expressions used in political discourse. Politics domain has been understood in a number of source
domains. Moreover, drawing on collocation patterns, these expressions were selected according to
the regularities they form with other nouns, verbs and adjectives. Instead of adopting a
conventional method to understand metaphors, this paper opts for a conceptual approach to analyze
the underlying metaphors.. As a conclusion, we would like to point out that a comparative study
of metaphor conceptualization for translation purposes in the field of political discourse cannot be
carried out without taking into account local, cultural, socio-political factors that affect the politics
of the source or target language at a due point. Therefore, when it comes to translating a metaphor
from one language into another, translators should take these factors into consideration.

About the Author:

Mansour K. Aldanani is Head of the Centre of Continuing Education and a lecturer in the
Department of Physics at the Faculty of Science, University of Sumer, Thi-Qar, Iraq. He is a holder
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Translating Metaphorical Expressions in Political Discourse Aldanani

of an MA in Translation and Interpreting Studies from the University of Salford, UK and B.A in
English language and Literature from the University of Basra, Iraq. His research interests focus on
translation pedagogy, pragmatics, teaching methodology, and Translation and Conflict.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7717-5955

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