We all interpret things differently. That's what I took away from this reading. There are many examples supporting this argument, but there is one way in particular that comes to mind for me--METAPHORS. this is the most comprehensive and easiest-to-follow example that I know of.
For instance, my English 310 professor used the following example by Larson:
...if you literally translate "John is a rock" into another language, you could be saying that he doesn't move, that he can't talk, that he's always there, or that he's very strong. If you say "John is like a sheep", you could mean that he has long hair, that he is a drunkard, that he doesn't answer back, that he follows without thinking, or that he's a young fellow waiting for girls to follow him(!).
The interpretation, therefore, will depend on the language spoken by the listener, and the interpretations given above are the ones that Larson is familiar with for those two metaphors.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment