Abstract1： Domesticating translation and foreignizing translation are two 
different translation strategies. The former refers to the translation 
strategy in which a transparent, fluent style is adopted in order to minimize 
the strangeness of the foreign text for target language readers, while 
the latter designates the type of translation in which a target text deliberately 
breaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreigness of the 
original. But what is the translation practice like in China? Do translators 
tend to use foreignizing methods or domesticating ones? What are the factors 
that affect their decision making? This paper tries to find answers to 
the questions by looking into the translation of English metaphors into 
Chinese. 

Key words: domesticating translation; foreignizing translation; metaphor; 
target  

language reader 

1. Introduction 

"Domesticating translation" and "foreignizing translation" are the terms 
coined by L. Venuti (1995) to describe the two different translation strategies. 
The former refers to the translation strategy in which a transparent, fluent 
style is adopted in order to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text 
for target language readers, while the latter designates the type of translation 
in which a target text "deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining 
something of the foreigness of the original" (Shuttleworth &Cowie, 1997:59). 

The roots of the terms can be traced back to the German philosopher Schleiermacher’s 
argument that there are only two different methods of translation, " either 
the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves 
the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, 
and moves the author towards him" (Venuti, 1995: 19-20). 

The terms "foreignization" and "domestication" may be new to the Chinese, 
but the concepts they carry have been at least for a century at the heart 
of most translation controversies. Lu Xun (鲁迅) once said that "before 
translating, the translator has to make a decision : either to adapt the 
original text or to retain as much as possible the foreign flavour of the 
original text" (Xu, in Luo, 1984: 315).  

But what is the translation practice like in China? Recently I have read 
two articles which show completely conflicting views on this question. 
In his article entitled "Chinese and Western Thinking On Translation", 
A. Lefevere makes a generalization based on his comparison of Chinese and 
Western thinking on translation,  

When Chinese translates texts produced by Others outside its boundaries, 
it translates these texts in order to replace them, pure and simple. The 
translations 

take the place of the original. They function as the original in the culture 
to the extent  

that the original disappear behind the translations. (Bassnett & Lefevere, 
1998:14) 

However, Fung and Kiu have drawn quite different conclusions from their 
investigation of metaphor translation between English and Chinese, 

Our comparison of the two sets of data showed that in the case of the English 
metaphor  

the image often than not retained, whereas with the Chinese metaphors, 
substitution is  

frequently used. [...] One reason perhaps is that the Chinese audience 
are more familiar with  

and receptive to Western culture than the average English readers is to 
Chinese culture. (Fung, 1995) 

The above conflicting views aroused my interest in finding out whether 
the Chinese tend to domesticate or to foreignize when they translate a 
foreign text. In what follows I shall not compare translation by Western 
and Chinese translators, but rather look into the translation of English 
metaphors into Chinese. 

2. What is Metaphor? 

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary (second addition) defines metaphor 
as "a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something 
to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance." 
While according to BBC English Dictionary, "metaphor is a way of describing 
something by saying that it is something else which has the qualities that 
you are trying to describe."  

Peter Newmark defines metaphor as "any figurative expression: the transferred 
sense of a physical word; the personification of an abstraction; the application 
of a word or collocation to what it does not literally denote, i.e., to 
describe one thing in terms of another. [...] Metaphors may be ’single’ 
-- viz. one-word -- or ’extended’ (a collocation, an idiom, a sentence, 
a proverb, an allegory, a complete imaginative text" (1988b:104).  

Snell-Hornby rejects Newmark’s concept of the "one-word metaphor" in favour 
of Weinrich’s definition that "metaphor is text" (1988:56). She believes 
that a metaphor is a complex of (at least) three dimensions (object, image 
and sense), reflecting the tension between resemblance and  

disparity" (1988: 56-57).  

This paper will follow the idea that "metaphor is text" which includes 
an idiom, a sentence, a proverb and an allegory. 

3. What has been said about the translation of metaphor? 

"In contrast to the voluminous literature on metaphor in the field of literary 
criticism and rhetoric, the translation of metaphor has been largely neglected 
by translation theorists" (Fung, 1995). In his article "Can metaphor be 
translatable?", which is regarded as an initial discussion of the subject, 
Dagut says, 

"What determines the translatability of a source language metaphor is not 
its ’boldness’ or ’originality’, but rather the extent to which the cultural 
experience and semantic  

associations on which it draws are shared by speakers of the particular 
target language"  

(1976). 

Snell-Hornby takes metaphor translation in the light of the integrated 
approach. She says that 

The sense of the metaphor is frequently culture-specific, [...] Whether 
a metaphor is  

’translatable’ (i.e. whether a literal translation could recreate identical 
dimensions), how  

difficult it is to translate, how it can be translated and whether it should 
be translated at all  

cannot be decided by a set of abstract rules, but must depend on the structure 
and function of  

the particular metaphor within the text concerned ". (1988: 56-9) 

van den Broeck conceives the treatment of metaphors as a functional relevancy 
to the communicative situation (1981). Mary Fung also considers translating 
metaphor as a communicative event which is both interlingual and intercultural 
(1995).  

Different from the semantic, cultural and functional perspectives mentioned 
above, Newmark holds a more pragmatic approach. Drawing on his practical 
experience, he proposes several procedures for translating metaphor: (1) 
Reproducing the same image in the target language; (2)  

Replacing the SL image with another established TL image; (3) Replacing 
the metaphor by simile; (4) Retaining the metaphor and adding the sense; 
(5) Converting the metaphor to sense; (6) Omitting the metaphor if it is 
redundant. 

Discussions of the subject, especially those written in Chinese, are also 
pragmatic rather than theoretical. In E-C Translation Coursebook (1980 
) which is the most widely used translation textbook in China, Zhang Peiji 
(张培基) and his co-compilers summarized three popular methods for translating 
metaphors: (1) Literal translation (similar to Newmark’s first procedure); 
(2) Replacing the SL image with a standard TL image (similar to Newmark’s 
second procedure); (3) Converting the metaphor to sense (Same as Newmark’s 
fifth procedure).  

Based on the methods suggested by Zhang and his colleagues, Guo Zhuzhang 
(郭著章) proposes five in A Practical Coursebook in Translation Between 
English and Chinese (1996, revised edition): (1) Literal translation plus 
explanation; (2) Literal translation plus meaning; (3) Adapting the metaphor; 
(4) Using Chinese couplets to render the English metaphor; (5) Replacing 
the SL image with a TL image

 

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