Metaphors in Audiovisual Translation

As metaphors are fascinating linguistic and cultural phenomena, and as they have a great potential to cause translation problems, it is no wonder that a great deal has been written about them, both in metaphor studies and in translation studies. They are severely under-researched from the perspective of audiovisual translation, however. This is surprising, considering the added layers of complexity caused by the multimodality of audiovisual texts, and the special conditions and constraints of dubbing and subtitling. This monograph seeks to remedy this, as it investigates how metaphors are handled in three different genres of televisual light entertainment. If a metaphor is verbalized in the dialogue while being visualized on screen, and if that metaphor is not normally used in the target language, the task of the audiovisual translator becomes very challenging indeed. The research shows that audiovisual translators go to great lengths of creativity and complexity to do metaphors justice and maintain harmony with sound and image.