Reframing metaphor in translation: A cultural-linguistic analysis of Bumi Manusia and Garten der Menschheit with pedagogical insights
Downloads
This article examines the conceptual metaphors employed in the Indonesian novel Bumi Manusia and its German translation, Garten der Menschheit, with a focus on how metaphorical expressions embody cultural cognition and how translation strategies reshape these metaphors across languages. Sixty-four conceptual metaphor was analysed in terms of their cognitive structure, type, cultural grounding, and translation technique. Drawing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and a comparative cultural-linguistic perspective, the study identifies dominant metaphorical domains including emotion, human character, nature and landscape, modernity, social hierarchy, physical movement, and embodiment. The analysis demonstrates how metaphors are adapted to align with the linguistic and cultural context of German-speaking readers, ensuring that the translated text preserves the depth and nuance of the original. The findings provide a qualitative mapping of metaphorical conceptualizations in both languages and offer insights into the cognitive and cultural processes involved in metaphor translation. In addition, the study outlines pedagogical implications for literary studies, intercultural competence, and metaphor awareness in multilingual classrooms.
Downloads
Abdullah, M. A. R., & Tian, D. (2024). Chinese-English translation strategies for metaphors based on domestication and foreignization.
Afifi, N. (2021). Exploring the use of grammatical metaphor in Indonesian EFL learners’ academic writing. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(3), 719–731.
Bao, P. (2025). Metaphorical migration and ideological reconstruction in ecocritical translation: A critical discourse analysis of anthropocene narratives. International Journal of Language, Linguistics, Literature, and Culture, 4(2), 75–94.
Beridze, K., & Nagervadze, T. (2025). The Knight in the Panther’s Skin: Comparing corpora of image metaphors in the source text and its translations, spanning different cultural or temporal contexts. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.33542/jti2025-s-10
Cao, Y., & Yao, Z. (2018). The development of metaphoric competence of English majors in China based on the multiliteracies pedagogy. In Proceedings of the 2018 3rd International Conference on Education, Sports, Arts and Management Engineering (ICESAME 2018) (pp. 103–109).
Cerchiaro, F. (2025). Metaphors at work: The symbolic infrastructures of sociological theory. The Sociological Review, 00380261251396399.
Chunying, L. (2020). Translation of metaphor from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. Education, Society and Human Studies, 1, 12.
Coscieme, L., da Silva Hyldmo, H., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Palomo, I., Mwampamba, T. H., Selomane, O., Sitas, N., Jaureguiberry, P., Takahashi, Y., & Lim, M. (2020). Multiple conceptualizations of nature are key to inclusivity and legitimacy in global environmental governance. Environmental Science & Policy, 104, 36–42.
Gao, F. (2025). The underlying ideology of (not) getting the message in metaphors across conference interpreting: A cognitive-critical-discourse approach. Across Languages and Cultures, 26(1), 55–70.
Gebbia, C. A. (2023). Translator learners’ strategies in local and textual metaphors. Frontiers in Communication, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1177658
Haddad Haddad, A., & Montero Martínez, S. (2019). ‘Radiative forcing’ metaphor: An English-Arabic terminological and cultural case study. International Journal of Arabic-English Studies, 19(1), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes2000.19.1.8
Hang, N. T. B. (2024). Teaching conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese idioms to foreign learners through a cognitive linguistic approach. Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology, 8(6), 7008–7021.
Hastürkoğlu, G. (2018). Incorporation of conceptual metaphor theory in translation pedagogy: A case study on translating simile-based idioms. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 38(4), 467–483.
He, Q., Huang, G., Cui, Q., Li, L., & Liu, L. (2021). Fast and accurate neural machine translation with translation memory. In Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 11th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (Vol. 1, pp. 3170–3180).
Hu, X. (2024). The conceptual metaphor and its application value to foreign language teaching. Open Access Library Journal, 11(6), 1–8.
Ihsani, S., & Capah, Y. S. (2023). Analisis nilai estetis pada novel Bumi Manusia karya Pramoedya Ananta Noer. ENGGANG: Jurnal Pendidikan, Bahasa, Sastra, Seni, dan Budaya, 3(2), 357–371.
Iskandar, D., Islahuddin, I., Harun, M., Yusuf, Y., Subhayni, S., & Nurrahmah, N. (2025). Metaphors in Indonesian and Acehnese proverbs of similar meanings: Semantic and cultural analyses. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(3), 512–523. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v14i3.63350
Johnson, M. E. (1987). Attribute-value logic and the theory of grammar. Stanford University.
Junyanti, E. (2024). Analisis komparatif representasi aspek psikologis dan sosial dalam novel Ronggeng Dukuh Paruk dan Bumi Manusia: Implikasi pada pembelajaran sastra di sekolah menengah atas. Pragmatik: Jurnal Rumpun Ilmu Bahasa dan Pendidikan, 2(2), 134–148.
Kamyanets, A. (2021). Evaluation in translation: A case study of Ukrainian opinion articles. In Journalistic Translation Research Goes Global (pp. 69–81). Routledge.
Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2015). Where metaphors come from: Reconsidering context in metaphor. Oxford University Press.
Kuiken, D., & Douglas, S. (2018). Living metaphor as the site of bidirectional literary engagement. Scientific Study of Literature, 8(1), 47–76.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). The metaphorical structure of the human conceptual system. Cognitive Science, 4(2), 195–208.
Lapasau, M. (2018). Metaphor of colors in Indonesian and its equivalence in German. Hortatori: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia, 2(1), 24–29.
Lapasau, M., Setiawati, S., & Mayasari, I. (2020). Conceptual metaphors in modern Indonesian literature and their implication in language learning. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Folklore, Language, Education and Exhibition (ICOFLEX 2019) (pp. 235–240).
Lee, N. R. C. (2022). La adquisición de la metáfora conceptual en chino desde la perspectiva de la lingüística cognitiva. Sinología Hispánica, 14, 107–125.
Lewandowski, W., & Bisiada, M. (2025). Did he lead monologues or did he talk to himself? How typological distance between source and target language influences the preservation of metaphorical mappings in translation. Linguistics Vanguard, 11(1), 585–598. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2024-0126
Li, L. (2020). Shifts of agency in translation: A case study of the Chinese translation of Wild Swans. Meta, 65(1), 168–192.
Martín-Gascón, B. (2024). The effects of cognitive-based instruction and assessment on figurative constructions comprehension and production: A case study. Porta Linguarum: Revista Interuniversitaria de Didáctica de las Lenguas Extranjeras, 41, 97–117.
Masood, F., & Haseeb, M. (2025). Cultural loss and translational strategies: A comparative study of Urdu-English idiomatic translation in literary texts.
Nurbayan, Y. (2019). Metaphors in the Quran and its translation accuracy in Indonesian. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8(3), 710–715.
Obeidat, A. M., & Mahadi, T. S. T. (2019). The translation of Arabic religious cultural collocations in literary texts into English: An application of domestication and foreignization translation strategies. International Journal, 2(6), 155–165.
Porto, M. D. (2024). Fighting metaphors: Social resistance to mainstream metaphors. In Metaphor in Socio-Political Contexts: Current Crises (Vol. 54, p. 177).
Rahardian, E., & Rahardian, E. (2018). Menilik cara pandang masyarakat Jawa tentang emosi melalui metafora. Kandai, 14(1), 1–14.
Schäffner, C., & Chilton, P. (2020). Translation, metaphor and cognition. In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Cognition (pp. 326–343). Routledge.
Shanti Manipuspika, Y. (2018). Correlation between anxiety and willingness to communicate in the Indonesian EFL context. Arab World English Journal, 9.
Susini, M., Sudipa, I. N., Suparwa, I. N., & Puspani, I. A. M. (2019). Material clause re-contextualization in Indonesian-English translation. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 9(10), 1270–1277.
Utami, R. (2025). Are emotions universal or culturally shaped? Digital Press Social Sciences and Humanities, 12, 00008. https://doi.org/10.29037/digitalpress.412474
Valiulienė, E. (2024). Metaphoricity of perception adjectives: A translation perspective. Kalbų Studijos, 45, 74–88.
Wang, L. (2025). Translation of cultural metaphors from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. International Journal of Education and Humanities, 18(1).
Ziadi, A. (2025). The aesthetic judgements of metaphors in understanding literary texts. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12(1), 1–11.
Copyright (c) 2026 Merry Lapasau, Ryan Hidayat, Erna Megawati, Puji Anto, Vina Nur Indah Sari, Herlina Herlina
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
