An Integrated Activity-Based Approach for Teaching Metaphor to Translation Students

Abstract

This paper reviews the teaching of English metaphor to Arab translation students at UAEU. Using a translation test for data collection, this paper identifies Newmark’s (1988) proposed procedures for translating English metaphors. The data collected is analyzed quantitatively to see which procedures are used by students and to suggest activities for teaching metaphor use and translation. The findings show that students encounter some difficulties in translating metaphor due to disuse of translation procedures as they mostly opted for deleting the metaphor or converting the metaphor into non-metaphor. Therefore, this paper concludes with proposing an activity-based approach for teaching metaphor to translation students. This approach enables students to identify and use metaphors in English and, then, translate them into Arabic using appropriate procedures.