


































Education, Language and Sociology Research 

ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

21 
 

Original Paper 

On Metaphor Translation in English News Headlines from a 

Cognitive Linguistics Approach 

Shuai Yiqiong1* 

1 Chongqing College of Mobile Communication, Chongqing, China 

* Shuai Yiqiong, Chongqing College of Mobile Communication, 1st Jiari Avenue, Hechuan District, 

Chongqing City, 401520, China 

 

Received: March 12, 2023       Accepted: March 30, 2023      Online Published: April 12, 2023 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v4n2p21         URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v4n2p21 

 

Abstract 

As an essential part of news, English news headlines are especially important. This paper makes an 

analysis of metaphor translation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. Combining cognitive 

metaphor theory, the author deals with cognitive features that characterized by the people’s life 

experience and cognitive perception. Then, the translatability of metaphor is discussed in English news 

headlines in order to demonstrate that metaphorical translation is complicated for the cultural 

differences. Sometimes a faithful translation may be at the cost of losing metaphorical meaning.  Then, 

effective metaphor translation methods are offered. They are literal translation, free translation and the 

change of vehicles, all of which involves the interpretation of similarity and/or difference of two 

languages. By using these methods appropriately, translators will be saved out of awkward translation 

adversity. With all the work above done, it will be easier for English news translators to translate more 

appropriately and for people to have a better understanding of the English used in this field. Accurate 

translation will definitely promote the spread of news and strengthen its timeliness.  

Keywords 

cognitive linguistics, English news headlines, metaphor, translation  

 

1. Introduction 

Cognitive linguistics, based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize 

it, is an approach to language study (Brooks, 1979). Translation, essentially, is the faithful representation, 

in one language, of what is written or said in another language. However, as proved by practice, 

translation cannot be viewed as a merely linguistic undertaking, but should be regarded as an aspect of a 

larger domain, namely, that of communication. In the case of complex texts, translation involves not only 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

22 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

“linguistic proficiency” but also “encyclopedic knowledge”—it always involves a process full of 

contradictions. Being an important aspect of “inter-cultural communication”, translation has an important 

role to play in our epoch. 

According to the theories of modern linguistics, language domain can be divided into three parts: field 

of discourse, mode of discourse and tenor of discourse (Halliday, 1994).  

Different translation methods are used in different language contexts. News is an indispensable part of 

social life which represents contemporary society, provides people with the latest information and enables 

them to leap over the narrow personal boundary to embrace the broad social life. The new information 

age witnesses the dramatic explosion of news. Thus, it is undeniable that nowadays newspapers, as an 

important means to acquire information and convey attitudes and opinions, hold an increasingly 

important position in people’s daily life. English news headline translation has become an important part 

in the field of translation. 

Being able to translate English appropriately and professionally is essential for conducting further 

research into this field. Because English news is a kind of special English, its translation methods are 

certainly different from general scientific and technological articles. This paper examines metaphor 

translation in English news headlines through a cognitive linguistics perspective thus provides some 

appropriate methods for its translation. 

  

2. Cognitive Features and Translatability of Metaphor in English New Headlines 

English new headlines are composed of phonetics, grammar and vocabulary (Hawkes, 1990). With the 

extension of its range of application and the increasing normalization of news fields, its characteristics 

are becoming more and more conspicuous. Metaphors are settling the foundation for English news 

translation as an independent discipline. 

2.1 Metaphor in English News Headlines 

As a kind of rhetoric, metaphor is widely used in English news headlines. Metaphor is a kind of figurative 

language. It uses words to indicate something different from their literal meaning, that is: one thing is 

described in terms of another so as to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. The comparison in a 

metaphor is usually implicit, but quite understandable (Richards, 1996). For over 2,000 years, metaphor 

has been studied within the discipline known as rhetoric (Thornley,1999). This discipline was first 

established in ancient Greece, and was focused on practical instruction in how to persuade others of a 

particular point of view by the use of rhetorical devices. Metaphor was one of these devices, which were 

called tropes by rhetoricians. Due to its central importance, metaphor came to be known as the master 

trope. Within this approach, metaphor was characterized by the schematic form: A is B, as in Achilles is 

a lion. As a consequence, metaphor has been identified since the time of Aristotle with implicit 

comparison. In other words, while metaphor is based on the comparison of two categories, the 

comparison is not explicitly marked. This contrasts with simile, where the comparison is overtly signalled 

by the use of such words as “as” or “like”: Achilles is as brave as a lion; Achilles is brave, like a lion.  



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

23 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

2.2 Cognitive Features of Metaphor 

Cognitive Metaphor Theory has been highly influential both within cognitive linguistics and within the 

cognitive and social sciences, particularly in neighboring disciplines like cognitive psychology and 

anthropology. Metaphors map structure from a source domain to a target domain (Fang, 1998). 

We know that the basis of metaphor is concept. People often organize many abstract concepts using 

specific or familiar images by means of metaphor. Many important concepts derive from our knowledge 

of the surroundings. Metaphor is usually used in two circumstances: Due to the limitations of thought 

and the lack of existed words or expressions, people have to talk about one thing by employing another; 

In order to convey meaning more effectively and get better communicative effects, people prefer to 

talking about one thing by another. 

2.3 Translatability of Metaphor  

Cognitive linguistics stress that experience and cognition can play an important role for the generation 

of language. It regards language as a product of objective fact, social culture, physiological basis and 

cognitive ability. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, metaphor generation has its own 

physiological basis and operation mechanisms, namely the structure mapping from one conceptual 

domain to another. Based on this theory, it is not difficult to find that all language phenomena are 

reasonable and can be analyzed and translated from psychological and cognitive perspectives (Hou, 

1988). 

Mankind has common physiological features and same psychological basis, and accordingly there are 

lots of similarities among the experiences got by different races in their interaction with the same 

objective world. This leads to the same expressions of metaphor which are equal in the cognitive 

perspective. However, because human experience also generate from interactions among people, social 

culture was another important influential factor for language. In all, expressions of metaphor in different 

races have equal characteristics and are translatable. Since they are influenced by different social factors, 

there are still room for improving their translation. 

 

3. Methods of Metaphor Translation in English News Headlines 

As is known to all, the ultimate goal of translation is intercultural exchange. It is necessary for translator 

to make every reader to understand while translating. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to generalize 

some principles suitable for its translation. In the practice of translation, we may find that now and then 

some words in their usual senses are very difficult to deal with because of the disparity between the 

English and the Chinese language. In this case, we have to resort to some special means of translation. 

Literal translation, free translation and amplification are three useful approaches in dealing with such 

awkward situations. 

 

 

 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

24 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

3.1 Literal Translation  

The essence of translation is the corresponding conversion of meaning between two languages. The 

meaning here include concept meaning, context meaning, style meaning, image meaning, form meaning 

and culture meaning (Liu, 1999). 

Literal translation and free translation are two basic skills of translation. Literal translation refers to 

translate a sentence originally, keep the original message form, including construction of sentence, 

meaning of the original words, metaphor of the original and so on. Translation would be fluent and easy 

to comprehend by target language readers. Literal translation is applied when the figurative meaning or 

pragmatic element of the source language is accessible to the target language. For example, we should 

employ literal translation for the following news headlines:  

(1) “Middle East: A Cradle of Terror”. The Chinese translation of this news headline is: “zhong dong: 

kong bu zhu yi de yao lan” (中东：恐怖主义的摇篮). “yao lan”, in Chinese, means the same as “cradle”, 

the birthplace of something important. So literal translation here is sufficient to express the meaning of 

source language and keeps the metaphor at the same time. 

(2) “Russian Reform: Old Wine in New Bottle”. It is translated into Chinese like this: “e luo si de gai ge: 

xin ping zhuang chen jiu” (俄罗斯的改革：新瓶装陈酒). “xin ping”, in Chinese, means the same as 

“New Bottle”, and “chen jiu” means “Old Wine”. In Chinese culture, the metaphorical meaning of “xin 

ping zhuang chen jiu” is to describe something that has been rebranded or repackaged as something new, 

but is essentially the same as before. The same metaphor is used in both source language and target 

language. Thus, literal translation makes the translated edition much better understood, and embodies the 

basic principles of “faithfulness and taste”. 

(3) “Life is a journey” .The Chinese translation is “ren sheng jiu xiang yi duan lv cheng” (人生就像一

段旅程). “ren sheng” in Chinese means “life” and “lv cheng” means “journey”. In China, the life is also 

compared to a journey. So literal translation here is adequate for target readers to understand. 

In fact, we can conclude from those three examples that literal translation will help make our translation 

much easier to accomplish the following three purposes: 

(1) being faithful to the original in ideological content; 

(2) reflecting the scene and flavor of the foreign country concerned; 

(3) absorbing the new ways of expression.  

3.2 Free Translation 

The more successful the metaphor is, the more novelty and cognitive function the similarity contains. 

“The human beings’ way of thinking in a large degree is metaphorical, that is to say, people always use 

a familiar cognitive domain to make analogies so that they can understand a new domain better. Lakoff 

and Johnson pointed out the essence of metaphor is to understand or experience one thing by another. 

Metaphor ultimately is a kind of cognitive phenomenon, of which the theoretical method is to mapping 

one psychological and thinking space concept into another one. 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

25 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

Free translation focuses on the implication of metaphors instead of the correspondence in form. If we 

cannot achieve the functional equivalence by literal translations, liberal translation is within 

consideration. Free translation needs not pay attention to the form of the original, including construction 

of the original sentences, meaning of the original works, metaphor of the original and so on. But free 

translation does not mean to delete or add content to the original and translators must consider the original 

carefully, know its stress, translate it naturally, and express the meaning of the original. 

Free translation is a skill which translators must know the culture of both source language and target 

language, and must have extensive knowledge. It is a method of sacrificing the form of the source 

language for the sake of elegance and intelligibility in the target language. And it is adopted only when 

and where it is really impossible for translators to do literal translation. Here are some examples with 

news headline: 

(1) “Brexit Talks Hit a Brick Wall as EU Stands Firm on Irish Border”. The metaphor of “a brick wall” 

suggests that the Brexit talks have come to a complete stop due to the EU’s firm stance on the Irish border. 

However , “a brick wall”, “Zhuan qiang” (砖墙) in Chinese, does not contain the same metaphorical 

meaning as that in English. Therefore, the literal translation is inappropriate. Instead, free translation is 

applied here by translating “a brick wall” into “ge qian” (搁浅) which means a ship runs aground. 

(2) “The Trump Presidency Goes Up in Smoke”. The metaphor of “go up in smoke” means that the 

Trump presidency has ended disastrously. Nevertheless, the literal translation of it “zai yan wu zhong 

shang sheng” (在烟雾中上升) does not make any sense. Therefore, “yan xiao yun san” (烟消云散), 

which means “vanish like smoke and clouds” is a better translation because this Chinese phrase can also 

be used metaphorically to describe the end of something, such as the end of a relationship or the collapse 

of a business or political career. 

(3) “Carry coal to Newcastle.” The phrase originates from the English city of Newcastle, which was 

historically a major center of coal mining and export. Therefore, the idea of carrying coal to Newcastle 

would be redundant, as there was already an abundance of coal there. But the literal translation “ba mei 

dai dao niu ka si er” (把煤碳带到纽卡斯尔) can not be understood by Chinese readers because they are 

short of the background information about the Newcastle. So the proper translation will be “duo ci yi ju” 

(多此一举). This Chinese phrase does not contain a metaphor but it criticizes actions that are superfluous 

or pointless.  

Thus, it is natural for us to draw the conclusion that free translation should be used flexibly in order to 

translate English news headlines correctly. 

3.3 The Parallel Conversion of the Vehicle 

It is well-known that different nations may have various viewpoints towards all kinds of objects existing 

in our world, due to which there are some conflicts of the vehicles in a metaphor. That is to say, although 

the vehicles are different, the meanings they stand for are similar. In this case, we cannot translate the 

source language into target language immediately, but convert the vehicles to the familiar images the 

target language readers can understand, in the way of paralleling. For example: 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

26 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

(1) “diamond cut diamond”. The metaphor in this phrase is that of two equally skilled opponents 

competing against each other. The phrase implies that the competition is intense and evenly matched, 

like two diamonds cutting into each other. However, the English vehicle “diamond” cannot be translated 

into Chinese word “zuan shi” (钻石) because this word does not have the same metaphorical meaning as 

that in English. Instead, it is better to be translated into “qi” (棋) which means “chess” in English and it 

is often used in Chinese phrase “qi feng dui shou” (棋逢对手) to describe a situation where two highly 

intelligent or skilled individuals or groups are pitted against each other in a battle of wits or competition.  

(2) “He made the money fly”. The Chinese word for “fly” is “fei” (飞), however, When Chinese people 

describe someone who spends money recklessly and without much thought, they will use the phrase “hua 

qian ru liu shui” (花钱如流水) which means “to spend money like water”. The person is spending money 

very quickly and easily as if money were flowing like water. In this translation “shui” (水), “water” , 

takes place of some flying object in source language. 

(3) “Yuan Large Step”. In this headline, “yuan” is symbolism of “China”, for it is the name of Chinese 

currency. While translating, translators need to covert “Yuan” into “zhong guo” (中国) which means 

“China”. 

In a word, the metaphorical translation is not a simple word to word translation from source language to 

the target language, but a process from one mental space to another mental space under the background 

of different nations, cultures, religions and so on. The metaphorical translation is a complicated cognitive 

process. 

 

4. Conclusion 

Since metaphor plays an essential role in different fields, the translation of metaphorical language is of 

great significance. Though many translators have done much work on the study of it, some problems are 

still there that need to be solved in achieving functional equivalence for various readers of languages. 

It has become common that there are many metaphor sentences in the news headlines of English, which 

can be more attractive by readers. This thesis is about metaphor translation in English news headlines. It 

begins with a general introduction of English news headlines translation. And then the characteristics of 

metaphor are followed. Finally, methods of metaphor translation in English news headlines are given. 

As for the translators, on the one hand, they must be skilled in analyzing the connotative meaning and 

rhetorical feature of the metaphor, enriching themselves with a deep understanding of the two cultures, 

on the other hand, he should be expert in using the corresponded strategy as proper as possible in certain 

occasions, in order to preserve the original taste of the source language. 

 

 

 

 

 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr              Education, Language and Sociology Research              Vol. 4, No. 2, 2023 

27 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

References 

Brooks, C. (1979). Modern Rhetoric. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 

Fang, M. (1998). English Scientific and Technological Writing: Paradigms and Applications. Shanghai: 

Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. 

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. 

Hawkes, T. (1990). Structurism and Semiotics. New York: Bantam Books. 

Hou, W. (1988). English Language Styles. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Teaching Press. 

Liu, M. (1999). Contemporary Translation Theory. Beijing: China Translation and Publishing 

Corporation. 

Richards, J. C. (1996). Teaching English for Science and Technology. Singapore: Singapore University 

Press. 

Thornley, G. C. (1999). Easier Scientific English Practice. London: London Longman Group Ltd. 

 


