Metamorphoses of the conceptualization of SPORT in audio-visual translation

Abstract Due to the interrelation with culture, politics, economy and other major spheres of social life, SPORT discourse occupies quite a significant part of a modern society, therefore, the analysis of SPORT metaphors is important and necessary. The research of conceptual metaphor within the framework of translation studies is a relatively new and unexplored field in Lithuanian linguistics. Since SPORT metaphors are especially popular in political communication, the cases where sport in public discourse is considered as a visualization of policies and related areas are frequently investigated. The aim of the research was to reveal translation strategies used for the translation of SPORT metaphors from English to Lithuanian in audiovisual discourse related to SPORT. The research revealed that four translation strategies, namely: word for word translation, substitution, paraphrase, complete omission and retention were employed by the translators. The results of the research also demonstrated, that the most frequent source domain for the sport metaphors was WAR, which was the most frequently preserved using word for word translation strategy. In the case of other translation strategies, either the source domain was substituted in the translated text, or, in the majority of cases, the metaphorization was escaped. The target domain SPORT was represented similarly in both the source and the target languages, either implicitly by a larger context, or explicitly by lexical units containing a semantic element “related to SPORT”. The research revealed that while choosing the translation strategy for the translation of conceptual metaphors, three key factors should be taken into consideration, such as cultural, cognitive and sociological factors. Conceptual metaphors are an inseparable part of SPORT and they reveal in what terms SPORT can be defined in a particular culture. In order to understand how conceptual metaphors are perceived and what ideas are conveyed it is necessary to analyse the way they are transferred from the source culture to the target one.