Newmark (1988, p.88) proposes seven strategies for translating metaphors. He arranged the procedures in order of preferences. It means he suggested the translator to choose the first procedure to translate metaphors and choose the next one only if the message cannot be translated with the previous procedure.

1. Reproducing the same image in the TL

This provided that it is comparable in frequency and use in the appropriate register. This is the best way to translate stock metaphors, most frequently, idioms. This procedure is common for one – word metaphors. 

For example: 

English: Ray of hope 

Vietnamese: Tia hi vọng

2. Replacing the image in the SL with a standard TL image

It is used when there is no image that corresponds exactly to the one in the SL and which does not clash with the TL culture but which, like most stocks metaphors, proverbs are presumably coined by one person and diffused through speech, writing and later media. 

Example 1:

English: As slow as a snail

Vietnamese: Chậm như rùa

Example 2:

English: Quietly as a lamb

Vietnamese: Lặng lẽ như một con chiên

3. Translating metaphor by simile, retaining the image

This is the obvious way of modifying the shock of a metaphor, particularly if the TL text is not emotive in character. This procedure can be used to modify any type of word, as well as original complex metaphors.

For example:

English: It is a moral teething 

Vietnamese: Nó như một cơn đau mọc răng tinh thần

4. Translating metaphor by simile plus sense

While this is always a compromise procedure, it has the advantage of combining communicative and semantic translation in addressing itself both to the layman and the expert if there is a risk that the simple transfer of the metaphor will not be understood by most readers. Paradoxically, only the informed reader has a chance of experiencing equivalent – effect through a semantic translation.

For example:

English: She is a cunning fox

Vietnamese: Ả  ta như một con cáo ranh ma đầy mưu mô xão quyệt

-> The sense is “đầy mưu mô xão quyệt”

5. Converting of metaphor to its sense

This is a strategy where the image of the SL is reduced to its sense and rewritten to suit the TL.  Depending on the type of text, this procedure is common, and is to be preferred to any replacement of an SL by a TL image which is too wide of the sense or the register. In poetry translation, compensation in a nearby part of the text may be attempted but to state that in poetry, any metaphor must always be replaced by another is an invitation to inaccuracy and can only be valid for original metaphors.

For example:

English: He stared hard at the object of discourse as one might do at a strange repulsive animal, a centipede from the Indies.

Vietnamese: Ông ta chằm chằm nhìn riết vào đối tượng câu nói của mình như nhìn một con quái vật gớm ghiếc, một con gì trăm chân từ Ấn Độ.

6. Deleting

If the metaphor is redundant or serves no practical purpose, there is a case for its deletion, together with its sense component. A decision of this nature can be made only after the translator has weighed up what he thinks more important and what less important in the text analysis scheme. A deletion of metaphor can be justified empirically only on the ground that the metaphor’s function is being fulfilled elsewhere in the text.

For example:

English: Some investors sell quicky to escape being under water on their debt

Vietnamese: Một số nhà đầu tư nhanh chóng bán tài sản để thoát khỏi các khoản nợ của mình -> the metaphor “under water” was deleted.

7. Combining the same metaphor with sense

Occasionally, the translator who transfers an image may wish to ensure that it will be understood by adding a gloss. For example, “The tongue is the fire” and suggest that the translator may add “A fire ruins things; what we say also ruins things”. This suggests a lack of confidence in the metaphor’s power and clarity, but it is instructive, and may be useful if the metaphor is repeated, when the fire image can be retained without further explanation.

For example:

English: He is a dog in the manger

Vietnamese: Anh ta là con chó độc chiếm máng ăn

-> The sense is “độc chiếm”

 

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