engleski

The literal/figurative distinction in a cross-linguistic perspective

My general concern in this paper is: How can metaphorical expressions in one language be expressed in another? I will look at two well-studied metaphors, TIME IS MONEY and LOVE IS A JOURNEY, in English and Hungarian to see what regularities we can find in the expression of metaphorical meaning. I have asked 20 of my Hungarian students (all fluent in English) to translate into Hungarian the English metaphorical expressions belonging to these two conceptual metaphors, as can be found in Lakoff and Johnson (1980). Some of the translations did indeed appear to be literal, thus supporting the commonsense belief. However, I will argue, on the basis of the two case studies at least, that the translation equivalents that appear to be literal in Hungarian result from metaphoric and metonymic thinking. It seems to me that it also makes sense to propose the more general hypothesis that no abstract meaning in any language can be expressed literally-only figuratively.

metaphorical meaning; conceptual metaphor; metaphoric and metonymic thinking; figurative; literal

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