Professional paper

https://doi.org/10.63714/issn.3029-4339.2025.25.1.77

Between Words and Images: The Translation of Metaphorical Compounds in the Context of the Coronavirus into Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian

Zerina Brkić ; University of Tuzla

Abstract

Metaphorical compounds represent a linguistically and cognitively highly complex phenomenon that, particularly in German, unfolds remarkable expressive power. Through the creative combination of two or more lexemes, not only is there a semantic compression, but often also a conceptual reordering that linguistically manifests metaphorical thinking. In translating such structures into Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian, a multitude of systemic, semantic, and cultural challenges arise, which have been only marginally addressed in existing translation research. Although the South Slavic target languages generally possess comparable morphological and metaphorical resources, their idiomatic preferences, metaphorical conventions, and stylistic norms differ significantly from German in some cases. These differences raise central questions for the translatability of metaphorically constructed compounds: Can metaphorical concepts be transferred equivalently without losing their semantic deep structure or metaphorical impact? To what extent are creative or adaptive interventions necessary to achieve a functional correspondence in the target text? And how does the metaphorical motivation of the source unit relate to the semantic transparency of the target language?

Keywords

Substantive compounds; metaphors; translation processes

Hrčak ID:

344231

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/344231

Publication date:

30.11.2025.

Article data in other languages: german

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