Conceptual metaphors in the call of the wild by jack london and its vietnamese translation by hoàng hà vũ

ABSTRACT This thesis investigates Conceptual Metaphors in the story ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London and their Vietnamese version by Hoàng Hà Vũ to find out the frequencies of three

LÊ THỊ SÂM

ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM TRONG TÁC PHẨM

“THE CALL OF THE WILD” CỦA JACK LONDON

VÀ BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA HOÀNG HÀ VŨ

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8 22 02 01

Người hướng dẫn: PGS.TS NGUYỄN TẤT THẮNG

This paper has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any university

Binh Dinh, 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Upon completing the thesis, I am gratefully indebted to my supervisor Nguyễn Tất Thắng for his valuable suggestions, advices and corrections during my writing The M.A thesis is one of the most challenging and significant academic challenges to me This thesis would not be done without support from the teacher

I also wish to express my sincere thanks to my lecturers at Quy Nhon University for their insightful comments and suggestions

I also take this opportunity to all of my friends for their support and encouragement during the thesis preparation

I must acknowledge my debt to the authors whose work I use for my reference

Finally, I would like to show my deep gratitude to my family members for their great support, encouragement, love and unshakeable trust, without which my thesis would not have been accomplished

ABSTRACT

This thesis investigates Conceptual Metaphors in the story ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London and their Vietnamese version by Hoàng Hà Vũ to find out the frequencies of three different types and the common mapping patterns used in the story

Quantitative and qualitative methods were the two mains used to analyze the story to get the results and findings of this study based on Lakoff and Johnson's theory of Cognitive Metaphors The findings show various frequencies of three different types of metaphors All three kinds appear to help the reader understand the life of wild animals, specifically Buck However, the analysis reveals that each type of conceptual metaphor accounts for a different proportion The ontological metaphor continues the most significant ratio in comparison with Structural and Orientational metaphors

In the meantime, the Orientational metaphor is used with a minor frequency And thanks to these theory metaphors, we can find out 39 conceptual metaphors with 231 expressions Besides, the preferred source domains used

to map ―Dogs, Nature, Time, Anger, Love‖ or ―Life, Death‖ with familiar and straightforward images like ―Human, Animal, Water, Food, Light‖ After that, based on the adapted analytical framework on the translation procedures of conceptual metaphors, the loss by Dickins, Hervey & Higgins (2002) and the gain by Basnett (2002), we found out the loss and gain of the conceptual metaphors in ―The Call of the Wild‖ by Jack London when they were translated into Vietnamese by Hoang Ha Vu The study found various translation procedures, including keeping the same conceptual metaphor, using another conceptual metaphor, deleting the conceptual metaphor and converting the conceptual metaphors Finally, the results helped us suggest

some implications for teaching and learning English

Keywords: conceptual metaphors, translation conceptual metaphor,

translation procedures

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

CONVENTIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

LIST OF FIGURES x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Theoretical framework 6

2.2 Definition 7

2.2.1 Traditional metaphors 9

2.2.2 Cognitive Linguistics 11

2.2.3 Conceptual metaphors 12

2.2.4 Classification of Conceptual Metaphor 16

2.3 Previous studies 21

2.4 An overview of the story The Call of The Wild 31

2.4.1 Biography of Jack London 31

2.4.2 A brief review of ―The Call of The Wild‖ 32

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 35

3.1 Research design 35

3.2 Data collection 36

3 3 Data analysis 37

3.4 Research procedures 38

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 39

4.1 Quantitative Analysis of Metaphors in ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London 39

4.2 Qualitative Analysis of Metaphors in ―The Call of The Wild‖ 41

4.2.1 Ontological metaphors 41

4.2.2 Structural metaphors 53

4.2.3 Orientational metaphors 57

4.3 Loss and gain in conceptual metaphors in ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London and ―Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã‖ by Hoàng Vũ Hà 58

4.3.1 The same metaphor in ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London and in Hoàng Hà Vũ‘s Vetnamese version 58

4.3.2 Using a different metaphor 61

4.3.3 Converting the conceptual metaphor 62

4.3.4 The loss of metaphor in ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London and in Hoàng Hà Vũ‘s Vetnamese version 63

4.3.5 Summary 66

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 68

5.1 Recapitulation 68

5.2 Implications for language teaching and learning 69

5.3 Limitations 70

5.4 Suggestions for further research 71 REFERENCES 72 APPENDIX

CONVENTIONS

 (1) – (101): Data numbered from 1 to 101

 [ E-1] – [E-101]: Data samples coded from E-1 to E-101

For example:

(13) His madness knew no caution [E3]

 This is the thirteenth example extracted from the English data which coded E-3

LIST OF TABLES

Table

number

4.1 Types of conceptual metaphors and their occurrence

frequency used in ―The Call of The Wild.‖ 39

4.2 Subtypes of ontological metaphor and their occurrence

frequency used in ―The Call of The Wild.‖ 40

4.3 The frequency of structural metaphors in ―The Call of

4.4 The same metaphor in ―The Call of The Wild‖ and its

4.5 Using a different metaphor in ―The Call of The Wild‖

4.6 Converting the conceptual metaphor in ―The Call of The

4.7 The loss of metaphor metaphors in ―The Call of The

Wild‖ and in Hoàng Hà Vũ‘s Vietnamese version 64

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Language is a significant way of interacting with people around us People use it to exchange knowledge, beliefs, opinions, wishes, threats, commands, thanks, promises, declarations, feelings, and so on In an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, English is essential to every field of modern life Everyone needs to learn the language to get in touch on an international level because it is the dominant language in science, business, tourism, entertainment, medicine, etc One of the exciting features of language study is the use of metaphors

Metaphoric language has the dual function of reminding us of pervasive patterns of experience while alerting us to new conceptual and aesthetic

possibilities For example, when the poet Ammons writes that A poem is a walk, he employs metaphor to tell us what a poem is (i.e., a poem is a

leisurely, perhaps unpredictable, purposeful journey of the mind and imagination) Many readers familiar with poems may have never thought of poetry this way, and their future experiences in reading poems may be transformed as a result of understanding and appreciating Ammons' words Other readers, however, may immediately recognize how they have already experienced poems as kinds of walks and enjoyed Ammons' words precisely because they tap into a rich set of deeply ingrained beliefs In both cases, metaphor highlights thematic relations that define the world and our

experiences of it

Nowadays, we all use metaphors in our writings, whether we can realize it

or not According to the traditional point of view, metaphorical language is very decorative, fantastic and secondary, which helps us understand more

about the works while literal language is primary However, cognitive linguists have proven that metaphor is pervasive in daily life, not in language but also thought and actions Metaphors, in the modern view, are a means of understanding a domain of the experience

In life, we have so many ways to convey messages to everyone, one of them is writing stories In the stories, the author uses many rhetorical measures to emphasize the messages and Jack author He‘s famous for his most typical story: The Call of The Wild

Jack London with the story "The Call of the Wild” was published serially

by The Saturday Evening Post in 1903 It is often considered his masterpiece and is the most widely read of all of his publications

With the accomplishment, Jack London used metaphors throughout his writing to compare or underscore elements within his characters, settings, or

occurrences Therefore, I decided to study the: Conceptual metaphor in the

story “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London and its Vietnamese translations by Hoàng Hà Vũ

This study attempts to investigate what kinds of conceptual metaphors are used

in ―The Call of the Wild‖ by Jack London and its Vietnamese translation I hope that this research would help Vietnamese learners of English and translators manage better when translating metaphors from Vietnamese into English, recognize and understand metaphors in a new way They will see that conceptual metaphor are something more familiar with us in our life

1.2 Aims and objectives

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The study aims to examine the conceptual metaphors of the short novel

―The Call of the Wild‖ by Jack London and their Vietnamese translation by Hoàng Hà Vũ and examine the loss and gain in the Vietnamese translation

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

To achieve the aims stated above, the study focused on the following objectives Firstly, this study identified and classified the conceptual metaphorical expressions used in the story ―The Call of The Wild‖ by Jack London and its Vietnamese translation, and then a quantitative analysis of the metaphors would be made Secondly, the study examined the loss and gain in the Vietnamese translation of the conceptual metaphors in this literature work

2 What are the loss and gain of conceptual metaphors in the Vietnamese translation of ―The Call of The Wild‖?

1.4 Scope of the study

In this study, I analysed the three types of conceptual metaphors: ontological, orientational, and structural Then I also tried to find out the similarities and the differences of the conceptual metaphors of this literary work in two languages

Due to the limitation of time and ability, the thesis just investigated the definition of metaphor with brief examples, the cognitive metaphors in the story ―The Call of The Wild‖ and their Vietnamese translated version by Hoàng Hà Vũ Besides, only metaphorical expressions from story ―The Call

of The Wild‖ were analyzed thoroughly

1.5 Significance of the study

This study is a significant contribution both theoretically and practically For theoretical value, it shows the usefulness of cognitive theories of metaphor, in which metaphor is not only a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish – a matter of extraordinary but also an extremely important tool to conceive the world through human thinking and acting This tool will help us understand abstract and complex domains by using concrete and simple domains

Practically, this study will contribute to the understanding about Vietnamese idioms and translating them from English into Vietnamese In addition, this thesis also takes a remarkable role in teaching and learning

I hope that this research will help Vietnamese learners of English and translators manage better when translating metaphors from Vietnamese into English

1.6 Organization of the study

There are five main chapters in this study

Chapter one, Introduction It presents the study's rationale and states what

it aims at and what specific tasks it solves This chapter also includes the scope of the study, the significance of the research and the organization of the thesis

Chapter two, Literature review This chapter will review previous studies

relating to the research Moreover, it will also provide basic knowledge of metaphors and conceptual metaphors that the subject involves

Chapter three, Methodology It represents the research methods and

procedures From the aims and objectives discussed in chapter 1, research design, data collection, data analysis and research procedures for carrying out the study are fully stated here

Chapter four, Findings and discussion It presents the findings obtained,

analyzes and discusses the results based on those findings

Chapter five, Conclusions and Implications The main content in this

chapter is the specific conclusions on each of the research questions Also, it summarizes the significant finding and suggests some strategies for helping learners use metaphors more precisely in writing In addition, implications for teaching and suggestion for further research have been supplied This subsection brings practical value to the thesis from which readers can get

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, I will mention a brief review of previous studies related

to the topic Then I will concentrate on the theoretical background that forms the frame of the study, including cognitive linguistics, the theory of conceptual metaphors and its three types Finally, an overview of the tale

―The Call of The Wild‖ will also be mentioned

2.1 Theoretical framework

For a long time, metaphor has played such vital roles in our lives and attracted the attention of many foreign and Vietnamese linguistic researchers with many different linguistic perspectives such as semantics, pragmatics, and translation

Lakoff is a person who has had many studies about metaphor In ―The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor‖, he helps people initially understand metaphor in detail

The word metaphor was defined as a novel or poetic linguistic

expression where one or more words for a concept are used outside of its usual conventional meaning to express a similar concept But such issues are not matters for definitions; they are empirical questions The general theory of metaphor is given by characterizing such as cross-domain mappings And in the process, everyday abstract concepts like time, states, change, causation, and purpose also turn out to be metaphorical

In the traditional view, Snell- Hornby (1988) confirms that whether a metaphor is ―translatable‖ must depend on the structure and function of the metaphor within the text concerned without being decided by a set of abstract rules

According to Marugina (2014), the conceptual metaphor ―A Man is an

Animal/Beast‖ can supply many functions in the discourse of the literature

He confirms that some established mappings of the ―Animal/Beast‖ metaphor may be evaluated relative to people's behaviour, social position, and the mirror image of the dualistic world shared by animals and men

Another investigation into the conceptual in ―Fifty shades darker‖ by Erika Leonard James and Vietnamese equivalents (Nguyen, 2016) refers to the significant role of conceptual metaphors in literature works There are also discoveries of the substantial loss and gain in meaning and structures in the novel when the conceptual metaphors are translated into Vietnamese This thesis analyses three types of conceptual metaphors in general but does not delve into each aspect, which hasn‘t highlighted the mapping patterns in metaphorical expressions

To the best of my recollection, up to now, there have not been any studies conducted on cognitive metaphors in the story ―The Call of the Wild‖

by Jack London to illustrate how wonderful metaphor is used in literature in general and in the story ―The Call of the Wild‖ in particular, which contributes a new ground and view on the way of enjoying many works

2.2 Definition

The theoretical basis of this work is the metaphorical doctrine obtained

by two authors, Lakoff and Johnson, in the vital work of cognitive linguistics,

"Metaphors We Live By" (1980)

The basic principle that guided the cognitive metaphor theory of Lakoff and Johnson can be summarized in the following sentence: ―The nature of cognitive metaphor is in the conceptualization and understanding of this type

of phenomena in terms of other phenomena.‖

One aspect of cognitive linguistics is a cognitive metaphor or conceptual metaphor Kittay asserts that the theory of metaphor functions to ―provide a

perspective from which to gain an understanding of that which is metaphorically portrayed‖ (1987:13:14) From her literary perspective on metaphor, she further explains, ―metaphor provides the linguistic realization for the cognitive activity by which a language speaker makes use of one linguistically articulated domain to gain an understanding of another experiential or conceptual domain, and similarly, by which a hearer grasps such an understanding‖ (Kittay, 1987:14); and ―metaphor is understood not only for its affective and rhetorical efficacy but also for its cognitive contribution‖ (ibid)

Lakoff and Johnson (1980:5) draw close attention to the relationship between language and thought and convincingly argued that metaphor is not simply a matter of linguistic expression but concepts, of thinking of one thing

in terms of another They view metaphor as a systematic conceptualization of specific domains of experience in terms of other domains of expertise (Lakoff

& Johnson 1980:139) They also come from a cognitive perspective of metaphor, explaining how metaphor changes our views Lakoff & Johnson rely upon the cognitive components in their theory, focusing on human thought processes Their theory of metaphorical systematicity purports that

―metaphorical entailments can characterize a coherent system of metaphorical concepts and a corresponding coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts‖ (Lakoff & Johnson 1980:9) Their writings deal with socially engrained metaphors that have become so commonplace in our society that we do not recognize these metaphors as such

Kaplan does not limit his understanding of metaphor to just the literary world but still views metaphor from the same cognitive theoretical perspective as those before him To Kaplan, metaphor is ―a combination of two ideas (presented in the forms of words or nonverbal images) in relation

to one another such that one idea is used to organize or conceptualize the other‖ (Kaplan, 1992:198) Kaplan also believes that the cognitive perspective is important for two reasons First, it has helped facilitate the development of a unified theory of metaphors Secondly, it does not rely on the traditional, language-based explanations of the metaphorical process (Kaplan, 1992) Kaplan identifies two conditions that must be met for the image or phrase to be considered symbolic ―There must be at least some features of the two ideas that are shared between them, and the attempt to map one idea on to the other must violate linguistic norms or beliefs about the world to the extent that a measure of tension is created by the combination‖ (Kaplan, 1992:98) Kaplan‘s ―Conceptual Analysis of Form and Content in Visual Metaphors‖ establishes three ways of classifying metaphors: by metaphor form, type of tension, and by metaphorical content (Kaplan, 1992:206)

In short, the focus of metaphor is not on language at all but in the way

we conceptualize one cognitive domain in terms of another, dispelling the traditional view that metaphor is the realm of poetic or figurative language Then metaphor seems to be with us all the time, whether one is aware of it or not And as far as the nature of metaphor is concerned, something abstract is understood in terms of something more specific: conceptual metaphors are grounded like our everyday interaction with the world, so they have an experiential basis

and concepts by researchers, linguists, and scholars Max Black (1962) insists that a metaphor is not an isolated word With the view that metaphors are not decorative substitutes or implicit comparisons, Black proves an interaction theory, stressing the conceptual role of metaphor In this traditional approach, metaphor is a stylistic device, primarily used in poems and songs

Richards gives a terminology that is still used nowadays when talking about metaphors It compares two things accomplished by a ―carrying over of

a word from its normal use to a new user‖ According to him, a metaphor has two terms called ―topic‖ and ―vehicle‖ ―Vehicle‖ is the term used metaphorically These two terms have a relationship called ―ground‖ All these definitions have in common that they speak of two words related to each other because of their similarities (Richards, 1936, cited in Gibbs, 1994:211) Let‘s see an example like the following

(1) The lamp throws its light on the page

(Bilsky, 1952:130)

In example (1), by looking at the combination of ―throw‖ with ―lamp‖,

we get two ideas for one: a person throwing an object and a lamp radiating light When ―throw‖ is connected with ―lamp‖, we speak of the lamp as though it were a person

Ungerer and Schmid (1996) regard metaphor as the ―exclusive domain

of literary scholars and the odd linguist who was interested in rhetoric or stylistics‖ (Ungerer and Schmid, 1996:114) This traditional view of metaphor, in which it‘s regarded as a linguistic phenomenon that falls mainly

in the realm of ―poetic‖ or ―figurative‖ language, does nothing else but to relegate this significant phenomenon to the level of an ―ornamental device used in rhetorical style‖ (Ungerer and Schmid, 1996:114)

In addition, traditionally, metaphor has been understood as ―deviant

language by Generative Linguistics where meanings of words are bundles of necessary and sufficient features, and there are clear-cut boundaries between semantic categories‖ (Ignasi, 1999:2).

It can be summarized that metaphor is the transference of meaning from one object to another, based on the similarity between two objects It can

be described as a comparison that shows how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in another meaningful way Some examples below will illustrate metaphors in the Pre- Cognitive Periods

(2) My father was boiling mad

As we can see from (2), boiling mad is used to imply that he was too angry When one is enraged, his/her temper is similar to ―boiling liquid‖

(3) The skies of his future began to darken

Darkness is a threat; therefore, this implies that the coming times will

be hard for him

(4) That football player is putting the team on his back this evening!

Football commentators use this phrase all the time when an entire team appears to be depending on its running back The image of a single man running hard with a whole football team on his back expresses hard work and dedication

2.2.2 Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics is a school of modern linguistics that rose in the late 1970s and the early 1980s George Lakoff and Ronald Langacker are considered their founders According to Wikipedia, in 1975, Lakoff coined the term ―cognitive grammar‖ by publishing "Cognitive Grammar: Some Preliminary Speculations" The term "cognitive linguistics" was also named

by him in 1987 in his book "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things", one of his most famous writings In 1990, people published the magazine Cognitive

Linguistics and founded the International Cognitive Linguistic Association All of these activities contribute to marking the birth and the development of cognitive linguistic Taylor (1997) confirms that language research is cognitive research Language is considered a phenomenon of cognition or a cognitive activity and is observed and studied from the scientific study of human understanding by cognitive linguistics

Lý Toàn Thắng (2005:13) defines cognitive linguistics as ―a new school of modern linguistics which studies language based on experience and human‘s perception of the objective world as well as the way people perceive and conceptualize things and situations of that objective world.‖ He notes that for nearly 20 years, despite some controversies, cognitive linguistics has gradually identified the object and scope of its research, the ideas and main concepts, principles and essential methods However, frankly, it‘s still

‗young‘ and is considered a ‗school‘ more than a subdivision of linguistics (Thắng, 2005:12) According to Trần Văn Cơ (2007:101), cognitive linguistics establishes the relationship between the research object and the natural language used in everyday communication

According to Ungerer and Schmid (2001), three main approaches represent cognitive linguistics: the experiential view, the prominence view and the attentional view of the language, whereas the experiential perspective insists on the important experience of humans that plays an essential role in the Conceptual Metaphor Theory from the cognitive point of view

2.2.3 Conceptual metaphors

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor is described as a cognitive device whereby one concept is partially mapped onto another It refers to understanding and experiencing one type of abstract entity in term of another type of concrete entity (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003) They set the premise that

the metaphor is not just the figurative form of poetry; it is essentially an essential mechanism for perceiving the world with human thinking Regarding this, Lakoff and Johnson write as follows:

―Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish - a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action Our ordinary conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in terms of which we both think and act‖

The three terms that take part in a conceptual metaphor are the source domain (SD), the target domain (TD), and mapping The source domain (SD)

is the conceptual domain from that we tend to draw metaphorical expressions

to grasp another conceptual domain In contrast, we use the target domain

(TD) to call how the conceptual domain is known The mapping is the key joint to connect the source domain with the target domain In Lakoff and Johnson‘s view, the realization of metaphor is a dynamic process through the mapping process of two domains And the mapping is not arbitrary at all It is

a kind of unilateral mapping from the source domain to the target domain but not from the source domain to the source domain The mapping principle is based on the similarities between the two domains, which is usually from people‘s life experience To summarize, Lakoff and Johnson‘s view on metaphor is to understand and experience one thing in terms of another thing through the mapping mechanism based on the experiential similarities

For instance, we can understand love in terms of journeys in Love is a journey, about life in terms of war in Life is war, about time in terms of money

in Time is money, about anger in terms of fire in Anger is fire, etc

From the examples mentioned above, we can draw other subs metaphorical expressions, such as the modifications on the conceptual metaphor ―ANGER IS FIRE‖

(5) That kindled my ire

Those were inflammatory remarks

Smoke was coming out of his ears

She was burning with anger

He was spitting fire

The incident set the people ablaze with anger

(Kövecses 2018:126)

The two domains involved in a conceptual metaphor are called the target domain and the source domain The source domain is used to understand the target domain Normally the target domain is more abstract (as ANGER), and the source domain is more concrete (as FIRE) (Kövecses, 2002:4)

In cognitive linguistics, the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another concept is the source domain The conceptual domain that is understood in this way is the target domain Thus the source domain of the fire is commonly used to explain the target domain of anger

In other words, the source domain is used to understand the target domain According to Kövecses (2002), a systematic set of correspondences, called mappings, is the constituent elements of the source and target domain

He also said that knowing a conceptual metaphor is the set of mappings applied from the source domain to the target domain

―Target domain - is source domain‖ or ―Target domain - as - source domain Take the conceptual metaphor Life is the journey as an example There is a

set of mappings between the source and the target domain (Kovecses 2002:6)

(6) He‘s without direction in life

I‘m where I want to be in life

I‘m at a crossroads in my life

She‘ll go places in life

He‘s never let anyone get in his way

She‘s gone through a lot in life

Source: JOURNEY Target: LIFE

the travelers → the people

the starting point → birth

distance covered → events experienced

the obstacles encountered → the difficulties met

different roads → different choices

the destinations and stops → the goals and achievements the end of the journey → death

From example (6), we can see that the travellers, companions, guides, the starting point, etc., are mapped on to the people, friends, people who give

us suggestions, birth, etc The constituent elements of the conceptual domain journey are in systematic correspondence with constituent parts of the conceptual domain life The application of the journey domain to the love domain provides the concept of life with this particular structure or set of elements (Kövecses 2002:7) In other words, there is a systematic set of correspondences between the source domain and the target domain in conceptual metaphors, which allow us to understand different metaphors

2.2.4 Classification of Conceptual Metaphor

In Metaphor, We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson classify conceptual metaphors into three categories: structural, ontological, and orientational metaphors

2.2.4.1 Structural Metaphor

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) define structural metaphor in which it is

defined as ―a case where one concept is metaphorically structured in term of another‖ It means that structural metaphor allows us to understand the target

domain via source domain structured or conceptual mappings Moreover, it is considered a metaphorical system in which abstract concepts are interpreted in concrete concepts Structural metaphor is the case where one structured domain is metaphorically restructured and redefined in terms of another

In this kind of metaphor, Kövecses explains that ―the source domain provides a relatively rich knowledge structure for the target concept In other words, the cognitive function of these metaphors is to enable speakers to understand target A by means of the structure of source B‖ (2002:33) The structural metaphor refers to a conceptual metaphor that is constructed from one conceptual structure to another In other words, a structural metaphor is a conventional metaphor in which one concept is understood and expressed in terms of another structured, sharply defined concept According to Kövecses, the structural metaphor ―includes an extremely well-defined target domain that will help structure the abstract source domain Ontological metaphors, on the other hand, do not have such a well-defined target domain‖ (Kövecses, 2002:33)

Structural metaphors also play an essential role in creating new metaphors and metaphorical concepts by supplying the wealthiest source of embellishment It allows us to do much rather than just orient concepts, refer

to them, qualify them, etc., and employ delineated concepts to structure another (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980)

To illustrate this theory, let‘s learn the ―time is money‖ metaphor Here, time is structured according to money, a valuable commodity, a limited resource that we use to accomplish our goals, so we conceive of time that way

An example used to illustrate this type is the conceptual metaphor ―TIME

IS MONEY,‖ which is expressed through a series of the following expressions in English:

(7) -You‘re wasting my time

- I don‘t have the time to give you

- How do you spend your time these days?

- You‘re running out of time

(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) Through the above examples, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) explained that

an abstract conceptual domain, ―time,‖ is understood through a specific conceptual domain of ―money‖ Therefore, the concepts used in the sample expressions above come conceptual domain of ―money‖ There are the essential characteristics of the structural conceptual metaphor Besides, in this abstract metaphor group, highlighting and hiding in the conceptual domain is

waste, or squandered Thus, most structure metaphors provide this kind of structuring and understanding for the abstract target concept (Kövecses 2002:34)

2.2.4.2 Ontological Metaphor

Among the three types of conceptual metaphors, ontological metaphor

is regarded as one of the least noticeable ones In this type, something concrete is projected onto something abstract Ontological metaphors are so natural and so persuasive in our thought that they are usually taken as self–evident, direct descriptions of mental phenomena (Lakoff & Johnson 1980:16) It bears the function of referring, quantifying, identifying and

setting goals (Lakoff & Johnson 1980:23) ―Beauty is an object: easy eyes, eye candy; Happy is a fluid in a container: He burst into happiness” (Tran, 2014:15) are some instances of this kind

According to Tran Van Co (2007), the semanticization of experience by terms allows us to extract a part of the experience and interpret them Once

we can conceptualize the experience into a specific object or material, we can classify, group, quantify, etc

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), experience in an interactive process with the specific object or substance is the foundation for a wide variety of conceptual metaphors in which events, activities, feelings, ideas etc are considered as the essence

Ontological metaphors can also be understood as entity and substance metaphors (Lackoff &Johnson 2003:26) Ontological metaphors are based on our experience with the physical world around us When things we want to refer

to are not very concrete and do not have an exact physical shape, we understand them as entities or substances This means that we can ―refer to them, categorize them, group them, and qualify them‖ (Lakoff & Johnson 2003:26)

Take the ―inflation is an entity‖ metaphor from Metaphors We Live By

(Lakoff & Johnson 2003:27) as an example Inflation is understood as an entity, and it enables us to refer to and qualify it in the following sentences (Lakoff & Johnson 2003:27)

(8) Inflation is lowering our standard of living

If there‘s much more inflation, we‘ll never survive We need to

combat inflation

Inflation is hacking us into a corner

In example (8), viewing inflation as an entity allows us to refer to it, quantify it, identify a particular aspect of it, see it as a cause, act with respect

to it, and perhaps even believe that we understand it Ontological metaphors like this are necessary for even attempting to deal rationally with our experiences

In the above cases, inflation is understood as something that can affect our lives and be combated It is clear that with the experience of rising prices, the concept of inflation is identified with the concept of the entity The use of ontological metaphors enables people to talk about and understand inflation as

a physical entity

In a word, ontological metaphors help us recognize the structure delineated more sharply where we may not or hardly find them We can also use ontological metaphors to understand events, actions, states and activities conceptualized into groups; events and actions as objects, activities as substance and states as containers on the view of ontological metaphors

2.2.4.3 Orientational Metaphor

An orientational metaphor is a kind of metaphor that refers to relationships of space Lakoff and Johnson (1980) define this kind as one that doesn‘t build one concept in terms of another but instead constructs a whole

system of concepts concerning one another Most of them have to do with a spatial orientation such as central – peripheral, in-out, up-down, on-off, deep

- shallow, front - back

An Orientational metaphor is a metaphor that organizes a whole system

of concepts in terms of physical orientation Kovecses (2002:35) points out that ―Orientational metaphors provide even less conceptual structure for the target concepts coherent in our conceptual system The name ―orientational metaphor‖ derives from the fact that most metaphor that serves this function has to do with basic human spatial orientation.‖

An orientational metaphor (a figure that "organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another") is one of the three overlapping categories of conceptual metaphors identified by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in Metaphors We Live By (1980)

These spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and function as they do in our physical environment So it is natural that we use basic orientation concepts derived from these essential experiences to understand more abstract concepts such as emotions, health conditions, quantity and social status, etc Example:

(9) Warm is up, cool is down

The swimming pool has the ability to cool down the atmosphere during warm days

(Huynh, 2014) Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary They have a basis in our physical and cultural experience Though the polar oppositions up-down, in-out, etc., are physical, the orientational metaphors based on them vary from culture to culture

An example often cited to illustrate the orientational conceptual

metaphor group is ―HAPPY IS UP, SAD IS DOWN‖ (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) showed in these examples:

(10) I‘m feeling up

That boosted my spirits

My spirits rose

You‗re in high spirits

Thinking about her always gives me a lift

I‘m feeling down

He‘s really low these days

My spirits sank

The conceptual metaphor ―happy is up, sad is down‖ is derived from the human body posture while they are happy or sad Normally, when people are depressed or sad, they often bow down, and when they are happy, they raise their heads and straight-up their backs In the case ―happy is up, sad is down‖, the concept of happiness is identified with an upward orientation that tends to go together with the positive evaluation The concept of sadness is characterized as a downward direction with a negative one Kövecses points out: ―Upward orientation tends to go together with positive evaluation, while downward orientation with a negative one" (Kövecses 2010)

2.3 Theory of Translation

2.3.1 Definition of Translation

Some authors have given the following different definitions of translation In 1995 in the book A linguistic Theory of Translation, Catford shows that translation is not a dangerous technique in itself provided its nature

is understood, and its use is carefully controlled and the translation is in itself

a valuable skill to be imparted to students Furthermore, translation is an operation performed in languages and also a process of substituting a text in

one language for a text in another More specifically, translation is the replacement of textual material in one language (source language) by equivalent textual material in another language (target language)

Nguyễn Hồng Cổn (2004) states that the activity of translation is still a language activity and language plays core and basic roles However, he says that together with the attention to the linguistic problem, translators also need

to pay attention to the problems relating to the source language and target language such as social environment, culture, religion

Furthermore, Vũ Văn Đại (2001) claims that there is a un equivalence in the culture of translators and original texts so, in order to become good translators, it‘s very necessary to enrich the cultural and national knowledge

of target language

Peter Newmark (1981) indicates that translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text

As implied in the definitions above, translation is basically a change of form (which is usually referred to as the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, etc., which are spoken or written) In other words, in translation, the form of the source language (the language of the text that is to

be translated) is replaced by the form of the target language (the language of the translated text)

Therefore, the purpose of translation is to transfer the meaning of the source language (SL) into the target language (TL) This is done by going from the form of the first language to the form of a second language by way

of semantic structure It is meaning which is being transferred and must remain unchanged

2.3.2 Loss and gain in translation

According to Peter Newmark (1988:21), there are two translating approaches: The first is that you can begin translating sentence by sentence to say about the first paragraph or chapter, to get the feel and the feeling tone of the text, and then you deliberately sit back, review the position, and read the rest of the SL text; the second is you read the whole text two or three times, and find the intention, register, tone, mark the difficult words and passages and start translating only when you have taken your bearings He suggests eight translation methods clearly and specifically by putting them in the following form of a flattened V diagram

Source language emphasis Target language emphasis

Word-for-word translation Adaptation

Literal translation Free translation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

Table 2.3: Peter Newmark’s translation methods (1988:45)

In the first method ―Word-for-word translation‖, he states that this is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with the TL immediately below the SL words The SL word-order is preserved and the words translated singly

by their most common out of context Cultural words are translated literally The most use of word-for-word translation is either to know the mechanics of the source language or to construe a difficult text as a pre-translation process

For the second one ―Literal translation‖ he mentions the SL grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated singly, out of context As a pre-translation process, this indicates the problems to be solved

With faithful translation, he says that a faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures It ‗transfers‘ cultural words and preserves the degree of grammatical and lexical ‗abnormality‘ (deviation from

SL norms) in the translation It attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text-realization of the SL writer

Semantic translation is said to differ from 'faithful translation' only when it must take more account of the aesthetic value (that is, the beautiful and natural sound) of the SL text, compromising on 'meaning' where appropriate in order that no assonance, word-play or repetition jars within the finished version

The fifth method Newmark suggests is an adaptation which is the

‗freest‘ form of translation It is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry: the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture converted

to the TL culture and the text rewritten by an established dramatist or poet has produced many poor adaptations, but other adaptations have ‗rescued‘ period plays

Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner or the content without the form of the original Usually, it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called ‗intralingual translation‘, often prolix and pretentious, and not a translation at all

Idiomatic translation reproduces the ‗message‘ of the original but tends

to distort nuances of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original

Finally, Communicative translation attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership

After giving the eight methods of translating, Newmark concludes that only semantic and communicative translation is able to fulfill the two main aims of translation are accuracy and economy He also explains that a semantic translation is written at the author's linguistic level and used for

―expressive‖ while a communicative at the readership's and for 'informative' and 'vocative' texts

When translators translate an original text into a target text, they often face loss and gain due to many reasons such as context, connotations, and culture of the source

According to Dickins, Hervey, & Higgins (2002), loss is the lack or disappearance of certain features in the target language text which are present

in the source language text Translation loss refers to, ―The incomplete replication of the source language text in target language text‖ The translator can contribute loss to the failure when he renders an element of meaning such

as expressiveness where the impact, spirit of the text is loss If the translator is not competent in the target language, some words or phrases might be omitted and loss happens

Gain may be a concept that focuses on the enrichment or clarification

of the source language text Bassnett (2002) states that gain is the enrichment

or clarification of the source language text in the translating process

Gain is also possible when there was a new communication act made to build

a new thing out of a previously existing thing Relative expression of abilities and creativity enables someone to form something new In translation, gain depends on the relative expressional abilities of the translators

In conclusion, when translating, translators need to consider any loss or gain because they can be in the semantic or syntax level of a text

2.4 Previous studies

Cognitive linguistics begins to develop in the 1980s It is a linguistic field that used interdisciplinary knowledge to study language based on experience and human perception of the world and how people perceive and conceptualize the things of that world The 1980s witnessed the emergence of cognitive linguistics, which can be recognized as the study of the relationship between language and mind There are two sub-branches of cognitive linguistics: cognitive semantics and cognitive approaches to grammar Many linguists have taken much interest in this theory of linguistics, especially in metaphors Their work have made great contributions to the overall image of cognitive linguistics and provided us with the background theories to study the way languages are processed in the mind of human beings

In ―An Analysis of Conceptual Metaphor in Western Commercial Advertisements‖ (2009), Zhang examines linguistic data from Western Commercial Advertisements to determine to what extent the conceptual metaphors are used in these advertisements And he points out that conceptual metaphor theory, combined with relevance theory being complementary to conceptual metaphor theory, can interpret the specific persuasive roles of conceptual metaphors in commercial advertising However, this thesis is only confined to verbal advertisements and pictorial advertisements in which conceptual metaphors play a very important role, but there are other forms of advertisements, such as radio advertisements, television advertisements and internet advertisements

Coëgnarts and Kravanja (2012), through the article ―From Thought to Modality: A Theoretical Framework for Analysing Structural Conceptual Metaphors and Image Metaphors in Film‖, point out the theoretical framework for analysing image metaphors structural-conceptual metaphors in

film The authors distinguish six features or tools which can be helpful to identify metaphor in film: type (structural-conceptual vs image), quality (abstract vs concrete), modality (monomodal vs multimodality), direction (symmetry vs asymmetry), spatiality (homospatiality vs non-homospatiality) and reality (filmic vs ante-filmic) In addition, this article demonstrates image metaphors can help activate other structural-conceptual metaphors

There have also been some Vietnamese researchers who contribute to the study of metaphor Phan Viet Dung (2014) investigates the structural metaphors in Graham Greene‘s novel ― The Quiet American‖ and their Vietnamese translation equivalents He finds out that structural metaphors play an essential role in literary works Furthermore, English and Vietnamese almost share similarities in semantic and lexical features The limit in this study is that he pays little attention to metaphor verbs

Cognitive metaphors in English and Vietnamese idioms (Tran, 2014) is

a comparative study that focuses on conceptual metaphors in English & Vietnamese idioms concerning four human aspects as target domains ( feelings, personalities, appearance & activities) These are conceptualized as nonhuman entities such as objects or things, the characters of animals and plants and phenomena, upward and downward orientations She concludes that conceptual metaphors play an integral part in creating as well as understanding idiomatic meanings Conducting conceptual mappings of idioms denoting only four human aspects may not be powerfully persuasive

of her conclusion

In Vietnam, interested in cognitive linguistics and metaphors, several Vietnamese scholars have contributed their viewpoints to metaphor There have also been some Vietnamese researchers who contribute to the study of metaphor

―An investigation into conceptual metaphors in Fifty Shades Darker by Erika

Leonard James and Vietnamese equivalent‖ by Nguyễn Thị Kim Thoa (2016) refers to the significant role of conceptual metaphors in literature works There are also discoveries of the significant loss and gain in meaning and structures in the novel when the conceptual metaphors are translated into Vietnamese But this thesis does not focus on one aspect to analyze deeply and clearly For example, it will be good to examine and contrast the conceptual metaphor of love, joy, fear, and more in Fifty Shades Darker

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Huyền (2009) with ―Ẩn dụ tri nhận- Mô hình ẩn dụ cấu trúc trên cứ liệu ca từ Trịnh Công Sơn‖ learnt the relationship between language and human thinking through a kind of unit of cognitive linguistics These are structural metaphors The thesis demonstrates the correctness of the conceptual metaphor Metaphor is a rhetorical form of poetry and an essential mechanism for understanding the world through human thinking

In his article, Marugina (2014) shows the generating power of the conceptual metaphor ―A Man is an Animal/Beast‖ in the literary discourse The corpus of examples for the analysis excerpted from Bulgakov‘s literary works illustrates the modelling potential of the conceptual metaphors He concludes that some of the established mappings of the ―Animal/Beast‖ metaphor may be evaluated relative to people's behaviour and social position and the mirror image of the dualistic world shared by animals and men The results confirm that the conceptual metaphor ―A Man is an Animal/Beast‖ can fulfil several functions in the literary discourse Firstly, the conceptual metaphor ―A Man is an Animal/Beast‖ represents an integrated phenomenon

of the literary discourse Secondly, this metaphor has the qualities of the

―folding and unfolding‖ mechanism because it can easily refer the reader and the interpreter to other key textual metaphors and metaphorical expressions it forms and highlights The results obtained show the nature of any conceptual