Interpreting Issues of Metaphors in Official Speech

Abstract

The article focuses on issues which occur when interpreting metaphors in official speech. Metaphor as a figure of speech and a tool that help to understand a way of thinking is inevitable in official speeches to make them more vivid. However, using metaphors in native language and interpreting them is a different case. In this way, interpreters who are presented with metaphors during relatively short official speeches face quite a lot of difficulties. Even though official speeches have a special subject, intentional topic and consistency, they can be filled by various metaphors as well. Therefore, interpreters should be prepared that the speaker might denominate his/her ideas by various metaphorical expressions. This raises the following questions: Do interpreters during simultaneous interpreting session of official speech manage to interpret all metaphorical expressions that they hear? What specific professional knowledge is required for interpreters who mainly work with official register? The analysis of simultaneous interpreting session of one-minute official speeches provided by the European Parliament members made it possible to conclude that even though interpreters face quite a lot of difficulties, they manage to convey most of the metaphors form original language to target language.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.32.0.19723