THE ROLE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN HUMAN TRANSLATION
THE ROLE OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN HUMAN TRANSLATION

Summary/Abstract: The present paper is focused on the impact that figurative language in the form of idioms may have on translation, especially when the SL text is stylistically marked by a high frequency of idiomatic phrases. Literary texts such as those created by M. Twain, Ch.Dickens or, more recently, by Roald Dahl comprise many such idiomatic phrases which, by definition, are to be interpreted figuratively. With the translational process the conceptual equivalence is not always perfectly transferable and the result may be either a sort of translation by omission of certain semantic and/or cultural features existing in the SL phrase or a totally different rewording phrase, maybe still figurative, but with a different root, i.e. based on a different metaphorical schema and a different conceptual representation.I propose a translational analysis regarding the figurativeness of idioms that seem to be anchored chronologically, a reason why the most recent literary text, R. Dahl’s and the ultimate Romanian version of this book seems to be opening new perspectives on the figurative representation and interpretation of idiomatic language: the more recent a literary text is, the more powerful the significance of metaphorical language encrypted into idiom scan be. Therefore, the TL metaphorical equivalence (Romanian, in our case) may become more graphic or stylistically, more colourful. However, the translator must comply with the initial metaphor representation, the figurative sense of the source language. In case this equivalence is not observed, fidelity – the primordial norm of translation theory – is violated and the metaphor itself could be compromised, both cognitively and figuratively

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