Translating Metaphor in the Speeches of Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II “A Cognitive, Functionalist, and Critical Discourse Analysis”
Majde Mahmoud Albataineh, Faculty of Education, University of Jordan, Orcid No: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5281-2369, Email: m.albataineh988@gmail.com, Corresponding Author: Majde Mahmoud Albataineh, Phone No: 00962791312610
Abstract
This study examines metaphorical continuity and change in published Arabic and English materials associated with ten official speech occasions involving Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II between 2014 and 2020. It investigates how metaphorical imagery, propositional meaning, and textual communicative functions correspond across versions. The significance of this comparison lies in distinguishing continuity of political argument from preservation of the metaphorical vehicles through which that argument is expressed.
The study adopts a qualitative comparative design integrating Conceptual Metaphor Theory, functionalist translation principles, Newmark’s metaphor procedures, and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis. A contextual procedure informed by the Metaphor Identification Procedure identifies metaphor candidates and specifies conceptual mappings. Twenty-five selected bilingual relations are classified as image preservation, modification within a shared domain, domain replacement, reduction of the focal image, or local metaphorical addition. Functional comparison examines propositions and speech acts, while critical interpretation considers representations of national belonging, youth agency, ethical responsibility, cooperation, and threat.
The selected evidence reveals recurring home, construction, journey, navigation, light/darkness, fire, disease, and bodily-need imagery. Propositional and functional continuity can coexist with changes in metaphorical imagery: innovation’s origins, for example, are represented through a cradle in Arabic and an entrepreneurial workspace in English. Such differences warrant contextual interpretation rather than automatic conclusions about ideological reversal.
The study contributes a traceable analytical sequence connecting documentary eligibility, metaphor identification, transformation coding, functional comparison, and discourse interpretation. Translation findings remain restricted to eligible aligned excerpts; two occasions documented through reports provide contextual evidence. Where production language is undocumented, analysis describes correspondence between published versions. Findings concern selected textual relations and establish neither exhaustive corpus frequencies nor measured audience effects.