Ideological Conceptual Metaphors in Arabic-English Translation of Political Discourse

Abstract

This study explores a translation topic that is neglected in the literature on handling metaphor in translation, namely how translators deal with ideological metaphors. Based on the framework of the conceptual theory of metaphor, the study shows how official governmental translators of National Day speeches of Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman systematically avoided any expression in the target text of the ideological conceptual metaphor OMANIS ARE SONS OF OMAN. Translators follow translation techniques that filter out the ideological load of this metaphor. Findings of the study show that translators are not only transmitters of information from a source language to a target language, but are ideology experts, i.e. they are aware of the ideologies functioning in the source text and are deeply involved in creating a positive image about the source culture in the target culture..