A comparative study on metaphor translation in Camel Xiangzi by human translation and machine translation

• Main Author: Gou, Si
• Other Authors: Hong Huaqing
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Humanities::Language
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/78869
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In literary works, metaphor is a writing technique that makes the original text more vivid and pictorial. Metaphor translation is always a challenge, as translators have to consider and interpret the meaning behind metaphors. Camel Xiangzi, one of Lao She’s novels of high artistic value, is a representative work in terms of metaphorical descriptions. With the advancement of technology, online machine translations become increasingly important to facilitate the translation works from human translators. Aiming to conduct a comparative analysis based on Peter Newmark’s seven procedures for translating metaphor, this thesis seeks to examine and compare the qualitative differences of metaphor translation in Lao She’s Camel Xiangzi between a human translator and three online machine translations. In the process of the comparative study, Eugene A. Nida’ s functional equivalence theory is used to evaluate the translation result of each mode of translation. The implications of translation strategies used, the strengths and shortcomings of each version as well as the implications and limitations of this thesis are identified. The results from such a comparative study are beneficial to future studies on metaphor research as well as the improvement of online machine translations.