A Corpus-Based Study of Translation of Metaphor in The Economist's Coverage Related to China

As China’s comprehensive economy continues to grow, the attention of the world also has been drawn to various incidents in our country. Therefore, foreign media are also increasingly targeting China and reporting on China more and more. The Economist from January 28th, 2012 issue has opened up a special column to report on China, and to provide more layout for China. As an important figure of speech, the wide use of metaphor makes the news report vivid and accessible. However, the application of metaphor also embodies the author’s personal attitude and emotions. The consequence of this poses the challenges for news translation. The translation of the metaphor cannot only understand the literal meaning of the words or phrases, but also should extend their connotations. In this paper, several reports related to China in The Economists have been selected as case study, and analyzes the translation of the metaphor. By combining with software such as Antconc, study the usage of certain words explores the processing method in translating metaphor by case analysis based on corpus. Through the study of its coverage can understand how foreign media present the contemporary China image in The Economist