Metaphors and Translation, A Cognitive Study of Si Mohand Ou Mhand’s Selected Poetry

Abstract

This study aims to analyse and evaluate the double translation, from Kabyle into French and from French into English, of twelve metaphors extracted from four poems of Si Mohand’s Ou Mhand. Mouloud Feroun translated the poems from Kabyle into French, and then Pierre Joris translated them into English. Thematic Organization Points (TOPs), which is a term advanced by Schank (1982), is used to explain each metaphor and the way it is translated. Cook’s schema refreshment (1994) is then used to evaluate the translation itself. The study is cognitive, analytical, descriptive, and qualitative. The study’s significance lies in its corpus, as studies regarding Si Mohand’s Poetry rarely dealt with three versions at a time. Furthermore, it is exhibited in the way the analysis is conducted, as it puts forward a new way of understanding metaphors separately in each version. It also suggests a way to evaluate the translation. The study aims to investigate to what extent equivalence is achieved within the translated metaphors. Results show that 67% of the metaphors translated from Kabyle into French are schema-reinforcing, 16.5% are schema-preserving, and 16.5% are schema-disrupting. Moreover, 8% of the metaphors translated from French into English are schema-reinforcing, 92% are schema-preserving, while there is no schema-disrupting metaphor. Furthermore, the schemata exhibited within the Kabyle version and the English version are as follows: 75% are schema reinforcing, 17% are schema preserving and 8% are schema disrupting. Based on that, the study concludes that the metaphors’ translation process was quite successful as there are only two schemata, which are schema disrupting in the Kabyle/French translation process, none is signalled in the French/English one, whereas only one schema disrupting was deduced in the Kabyle/English translation process.