On Influencing Factors in Metaphor Variation for Five Elements Translation in TCM: A Binomial Logistic Regression Analysis

Metaphor variation for English translations of Five Elements will impair the effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) international communication. Few studies focus on contributing factors in metaphor variants for Five Elements translations. We model the binary designations for the Five-Element metaphor variants to analyze the internal and external language factors affecting the choice of ontological and structural metaphor, with the data from a corpus of six translations of the Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor. Statistical results unveil that the clause type, the syntax of Causer, language varieties, and the interaction of the clause type and language varieties significantly influence the metaphor variants. The complex interplay of the clause type and language varieties can explain people’s cognitive differences in conceptualizing five elements. The study sheds light on the research of the Five Elements translation from the view of Construction Grammar and shows the benefit of machine learning technology for quantitatively describing and explaining the metaphor variation. It may hopefully uncover translators’ cognitive mechanisms and pave a new way for TCM translation studies.