Translating Metaphtonymy: Exploring Trainee Translators' Translation Approaches and Underlying Factors

Abstract

Metaphtonymy is identified as a special rhetoric figure that specifies the interaction between metaphor and metonymy and which is pervasive in literary works. How and why do trainee translators translate metaphtonymy? Using task analysis, semi-structured discourse-based interviews, and a questionnaire survey among 30 master of translation and interpreting (MTI) trainee translators, this study investigates their translation approaches adopted when translating the metaphtonymies in Chinese extracted prose and explores the effects of their choices. It is found that they mainly employed three approaches: omission, modification, and retainment, with omission being the most, and retainment the least frequent. The main factors attributing to each approach range from the prominence degrees and cross-cultural adaptation abilities of the metaphtonymies, rhetorical awareness of translators, and transference competence to their translation knowledge sub-competence. This study suggests that trainee translators should be instructed to systematically construct rhetoric knowledge, and the teaching design should emphasize the competence of trainees of identifying rhetorical devices and their competence of shifting rhetoric between languages.