Improving Metaphor Literacy in Translator Training: A Case Study of a Specialised Metaphor Translation Workshop

With a focus on translator training, many strategies have been proposed for the effective translation of metaphors in practice, yet these strategies have predominantly drawn on descriptive analyses of translation products. In comparison, experiments on the design and delivery of training sessions which incorporate contemporary metaphor theories are difficult to find. Against this backdrop, this paper reports on the findings from a one-day specialised metaphor translation workshop aiming to improve the metaphor translation literacy of trainee and professional translators in the UK. The workshop was provided for twenty participants working in the English–French or English–Chinese language pairs. All participants were asked to complete a pre-workshop task of translating a metaphor-rich source text from English into French or Chinese as preparation. The workshop itself comprised two parts. First, a morning session focusing on three topics: text analysis in translation, conceptual metaphor theory, and metaphor identification procedures. Second, an afternoon session involving one individual revision and one group revision. The systematic comparison of the pre-workshop, individually revised, and group translations shows that the workshop helped with the understanding of metaphors, leading to an overall improvement in translation quality. Additionally, insights shared by the participants through a questionnaire and a focus group revealed the necessity of and demand for incorporating metaphor theories into translation pedagogy.