La traducción de la metáfora en un corpus de informes de responsabilidad social empresarial: creación lingüística y convencionalidad conceptual

This paper proposes a corpus-based methodology to study the potential introduction
of new conceptual metaphors through metaphor translation in specialized texts. The
method used is based on a two-step procedure. First, it compares the level of
lexicalization and creativity of metaphorical expressions in translated and
untranslated texts: this shows that, when compared with native texts, translations use
a greater number of metaphorical expressions, with a limited lexical variety
associated with the high number of repetitions (see the simplification hypothesis,
Laviosa, 1998). Moreover, translations display a higher creativity index, due to the
use of unidiomatic expressions (atypical collocations, Mauranen, 2007) often
created by the literal translation of metaphors with shining-through effects (Teich,
2003). The second step is an analysis of conceptual domains underlying creative
metaphorical expressions (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980): results show that linguistic
creativity observed in translations relies on conventional and consolidated
metaphorical concepts. The final discussion illustrates the limits imposed by the
reduced size of the corpus used, while reflecting on the capacity of translations to
introduce lexical innovations that, however, do not contradict accepted and shared
conventional metaphorical paradigms.