The Translation of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Speeches: A Conceptual Metaphor Approach

This study examines metaphor conceptualization and translation in political speeches. Data for this study is derived from the Arabic speeches of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine. These speeches are retrieved from the United Nations digital library. The study aims at identifying conceptual metaphors in the two languages, in order to achieve this aim, the study adopts Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory as its main theoretical framework (2008). Additionally, the study will examine the transferability of conceptual metaphors between Arabic and English. We examine whether metaphorical expressions are retained, modified, or deleted in the target text. The study shows that political texts are characterized by dense metaphorical expressions. Also, many social problems and political matters are mapped into different domains. In regard to the translation of metaphors, it has been found that there is no single strategy to deal with these metaphors; instead, the translation is heavily affected by the translators’ expertise.