Cover not available

Article In: Humans, Machines, and Embedded Translation
Edited by Sandra L. Halverson and Jean Nitzke
[Translation, Cognition & Behavior 8:2] 2025

An empirical investigation into readers’ reception of figurative language in translated poetry

ORCiD logo with link | University of Aberdeen
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This article offers an empirical investigation into readers’ reception of figurative language in translated poetry, using a selection of translations from the nineteenth-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi as a case study. The objective of the study was twofold: (a) to assess contemporary readers’ expectancy norms in relation to the translation approaches employed in rendering figurative language; (b) to investigate how impressions of translations are shaped by factors such as readers’ professional background and linguistic competence. Verbal data were collected from three different categories of participants (students, academics, and translators) through questionnaires and qualitatively analysed. The findings revealed that (a) readers’ level of expertise significantly influences how they engage with the text, shaping their reading approach, (b) responses to figurative language in translated poetry are more likely to be shaped by readers’ personal cognitive frameworks than by the specific translation solution adopted, and (c) publishing formats impact reception due to the influence of personal cognitive associations when translations are received as stand-alone texts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data: Collection and analysis
    • 3.3Materials
  • 4.Results and discussion: Figurative language in translated poetry
    • 4.1Metaphor
    • 4.2Synecdoche
  • 5.Limitations
  • 6.Conclusion and future research directions
  • Artificial intelligence statement
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (52)
References
Author. Details omitted for blind reviewing.
Blasucci, Luigi. 2011. I titoli dei “Canti” e altri studi leopardiani. Venezia: Marsilio Editori.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boase-Beier, J. 2003. “Mind style translated”, Style, 37(3): 253–265. [URL]
2014. Stylistic Approaches to Translation. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. “Stylistics and Translation”. In The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics, edited by Kirsten Malmkjær, 194–207. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braun, Virginia and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using thematic analysis in psychology”, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2): 77–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caesar, Michael and Franco D’Intino. 2013. Zibaldone (English edition). Translated from the Italian by Kathleen Baldwin, Richard Dixon, David Gibbons, Ann Goldstein, Gerard Slowkey, Martin Thom and Pamela Williams. New York: Ferrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cerimonia, Daniela. 2015. Leopardi and Shelley: discovery, translation and reception. Leeds: Legenda.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chesnokova, Anna, Sonia Zyngier, Vander Viana, Juliana Jandre, Anna Rumbesht and Fernanda Ribeiro. 2017. “Cross-Cultural Reader Response to Original and Translated Poetry: An Empirical Study in Four Languages, Comparative Literature Studies, 54 (4): 824–849. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew. 1998. “Causes, Translations, Effects”, Target, 10 (2): 201–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Bridge concepts in translation sociology”. In Constructing a sociology of translation, edited by Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, 171–183. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Creagh, Patrick. 2013. “Three poems by Giacomo Leopardi”. California Italian Studies, 4 (1). Accessed July 2025, 311. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culler, Jonathan. 1994. “Structuralism in literature”. In Contexts for criticism, edited by Donald Keesey, 280–289. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’Edigio, Angela. 2015. “How readers perceive translated literary works: an analysis of reader reception”. Lingue e Linguaggi, 141: 69–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley. 1980. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grennan, Eamon. 1997. Leopardi: Selected Poems. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heath-Stubbs, John. 1946. Poems from Giacomo Leopardi. London: John Lehmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iser, Wolfang. 1974. The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose, Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. “Indeterminacy and the Reader’s Response”. In Twentieth-century literary theory, edited K. M. Newton, 195–199. London: Palgrave.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jauss, Hans Robert. 1982. Toward an aesthetics of reception. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kenesei, Andrea. 2010. Poetry Translation through Reception and Cognition: The Proof of Translation is in the Reading. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khoshsaligheh, Massod, Kafi Mohsen and Saed Ameri. 2020. “Fiction translation expectancy norms in Iran: a quantitative study of reception”. Translation & Interpreting 12 (1): 74–89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kotze, Haidee, Berit Janssen, Corina Koolen, Luka van der Plas and Gys Waltvan Egdom. 2021. “Norms, affect and evaluation in the reception of literary translations in multilingual online reading communities : Deriving cognitive-evaluative templates from big data”, Translation, Cognition & Behavior 4 (2): 147–186. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kruger, Haidee and Jan-Louis Kruger. 2017. “Cognition and Reception”. In The Handbook of Translation and Cognition, edited by John Schwieter and Aline Ferreira, 109–131. Hoboken: Wiley Blcakwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leopardi, Giacomo. Canti, 12th edn., edited by Ugo Dotti. Milano: Feltrinelli.
Lotfipour-Saedi, Kazem. 1992. “Analysing Literary Discourse: Implications for Literary Translation”. Meta 37 (2): 193–203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Stylistics”. In The Linguistics Encyclopedia, edited by Kirsten Malmkjær, 5101, 520. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miall, David S. and Don Kuiken. 1998. “The form of reading: Empirical studies of literariness”, Poetics, 251, 327–341. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newmark, Peter. 1988. A textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall International.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. Approaches to translation. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Othman, Ahlam Ahmed Mohamed. 2023. “Cohesion and Coherence for Poetry Interpretation and Translation”, AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies 7 (2): 176–196. Accessed July 24, 2025. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nichols, J. G. 1994. Giacomo Leopardi. The Canti. With a selection of his prose. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perella, Nicholas. 2000. “Translating Leopardi”. Italica, 77 (3): 357–385. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shklovsky, Viktor. 1965. “Art as Technique”. In Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays, edited by Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reiss, 3–24. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Snell-Hornby, M. 1995. Translation Studies: An integrated Approach, revised edition. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stewart, Susan. 2017. “Translating Leopardi’s “L’Infinito”: an Infinite Task”. In Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries, edited by Marta Collins and Kevin Prufer, 42–47. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stockwell, Peter. 2002. Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swann, Joan and Daniel Allington. 2009. “Reading groups and the language of literary texts: a case study in social reading”, Language and Literature, 18 (3): 247–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trevelyan, R. C. 1941. Translations from Leopardi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tusiani, Joseph, Pietro Magno and Franco Foschi. 1998. Leopardi’s Canti. Fasano: Schena Editore.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van den Broeck, Raimond. 1981. “The Limits of Translatability Exemplified by Metaphor”, Poetics Today, 21: 73–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 2011. “Introduction. Poetry and Translation”. Translation Studies, 4 (2): 127–132. Accessed July 24, 2025. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Veronese, Cosetta. 2008. The Reception of Giacomo Leopardi in the Nineteenth Century: Italy’s greatest poet after Dante? Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vottonen, Erja. 2025. “Reception of Finnish Translations of contemporary Russian fiction: unveiling cultural perceptions through book reviews”, Perspectives 33 (3): 432–449. Accessed July 24, 2025. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, Callum. 2021. “Investigating How We Read Translations: A Call to Action for Experimental Studies of Translation Reception”. In Developments in Cognitive Translations and Interpreting Studies, ed. by Kairong Xiao and Sandra L. Halverson, special issue of Cognitive Linguistic Studies 8 (2): 482–512. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Feng Robin and Philippe Humblé. 2019. “Readers’ Perceptions of Anthony Yu’s Self-Retranslation of The Journey of the West”, Perspectives, 28 (5): 756–776. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Pamela. 1997. An Introduction to Leopardi’s Canti. Leicester: Troubador Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Hongmei and Qi Suling. 2017. “Translators’ Subjectivity in Literary Translation: From the Perspective of Reader-Reception Theory”. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Society Science (ICoSS 2017). Advances in Social Sciences, Education and Humanities Research, Atlantis Press 1171: 116–119. Accesssed July 24, 2025.
Zasyekin, Serhiy. 2010. Translation as psycholinguistic phenomenon. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 391, 225–234. Accessed July 24, 2025. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhou, Wangyue. 2013. “Literary Translation from Perspective of Reception Theory: The Case Study of Three Versions of Na Han”. Studies in Literature and Language 7 (2): 19–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue