Metaphor across Languages: A Comparative Study of English Translations of Ece Ayhan’s ‘‘Phaeton’’

Authors : Eda Yıldız

Pages : 355-373

Doi:10.30767/diledeara.1680473

View : 54 | Download : 41

Publication Date : 2025-10-21

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Turkish poetry experienced significant changes in the 1950s and 1960s with the Second New (İkinci Yeni), which brought about alterations in poetic structure and created a unique sensibility in modern Turkish poetry through its innovative use of language, inquisitive perspective on existence, and critical stance toward Modernism. Ece Ayhan, one of the leading poets of the Second New, is renowned for his innovative and often challenging use of metaphor. The present study explores the challenges of translating metaphor across linguistic and cultural boundaries through a comparative analysis of English translations of Ece Ayhan’s poem ‘‘Phaeton’’ (Fayton). George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) redefined the study of metaphor from a cognitive perspective, proposing that metaphor should not be regarded solely as a rhetorical or stylistic device, but rather as a fundamental mechanism of conceptualization. By examining two target texts created by the poet-translators George Messo and Murat Nemet-Nejat, the metaphors in the source text and their equivalents in the target texts are examined through a multi-layered analytical framework combining Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), and Newmark’s (1981) practical taxonomy of translation strategies. This study offers a multidimensional analysis of metaphor transfer by integrating Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) with Newmark’s procedural approach, highlighting the challenges of translating culturally embedded and poetically dense metaphors in Ayhan’s work, and contributing to broader discussions on literary translation, and the cross-cultural movement of avant-garde poetry.
Keywords : Fayton, Ece Ayhan, İkinci Yeni Şiiri, Kavramsal Metafor Kuramı, Newmark, Şiir Çevirisi

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