The Necessity and Possibility of Transmission of Cultural Information in Metaphor and Simile

Deeply rooted in their own culture, metaphor and simile demonstrate their own cultural flavor. Therefore the sense of metaphor and simile is frequently culture-specific. In view of deep cultural information of metaphor and simile, it is of great necessity for translators to convey the alien cultural information. Meanwhile, Eugene A. Nida has pointed out that at least ninety percent of fundamental structures of all languages are quite similar, and language universals far outweigh divergences. As a result, cultural exchange through translation is possible, though painstaking under certain circumstances. Many successful translations of metaphor and simile have also confirmed the possibility of transmitting their cultural information.