This study examines the translation of metaphors in Hans Grundberg’s political and diplomatic speeches on Yemen, exploring the strategies employed in translating these metaphors into Arabic based on Peter Newmark’s model. It also analyzes the cognitive, linguistic, syntactic, cultural, and ideological challenges inherent in translating metaphors into Arabic. The study adopts a qualitative descriptive approach, drawing on George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory and Peter Newmark’s model of metaphor translation. It views metaphor as a cognitive and rhetorical tool that contributes to shaping perceptions of conflict, peace, and diplomacy, rather than simply as a stylistic device
The main findings reveal that structural and existential metaphors are the most prevalent in Grundberg’s speeches. Thematically, metaphors related to conflict and security are the most frequent, reflecting the primary focus of these speeches on issues of conflict, instability, and peacebuilding efforts in Yemen. These metaphors also embody the concepts of conflict and peace through familiar conceptual domains such as journeys, cycles, health, and material things. The findings further indicate that Newmark’s most frequently employed strategy is to reproduce the same metaphorical image in the target language, which contributed to the preservation of most metaphors in the Arabic translation, with only minor changes in meaning or rhetorical effect. However, some metaphors revealed cognitive, linguistic, cultural, and ideological difficulties that impacted the conveyance of their metaphorical meaning and rhetorical effect.
