Translating the metaphor in poetry: A cognitive approach to Le Bateau Ivre and its translation in Turkish

Abstract

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) gave a cognitive point of view to metaphor study explaining that

metaphor is not a mere ornament, rather a tool for conceptualization. According to this view, metaphors are conceptualized in man’s mind with regard to source domain and target domain in different types of context. In this paper, the metaphors in a French poem “Le Bateau Ivre†by Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) and their translations in Turkish by Sabahattin Eyuboğlu (1908-1973) are investigated within the theoretical framework of Mandelblit’s (1995) Cognitive Translation Hypothesis in which the translations of the metaphors are investigated from a cognitive perspective. This study is an attempt to investigate the conceptual mapping between the metaphors in Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL) and explain how the conceptual shift occurs between the domains. The conclusion aimed at by the researcher is to turn focus to metaphor as conceptualized cognitive figure in translation and to unearth the unexplored dimensions of analysis, comprehension, interpretation and translation of metaphor in both languages.