Numbers skyrocket in English but increase in Spanish: metaphoric conceptualization and manner expression in translations

Abstract This study investigated the differences in the expression of numerical motion metaphors in English and Spanish. We evaluated 1472 English-to-Spanish translations in which a manner of motion verb (e.g., skyrocket, plummet ) was used to metaphorically express numerical change (e.g., unemployment is skyrocketing ). For each of the translations, we annotated (1) the type of metaphor used in Spanish, (2) whether the manner of motion and path information was present in Spanish, and (3) whether the path and manner information in Spanish were conflated in a single word or indicated via adjuncts. There were three main findings. First, Spanish translations shifted from the motion domain to a quantity domain in almost half of the translations (e.g., skyrocket translated as aumentar , Eng. increase ). Second, Spanish translations omitted manner of motion in half of the cases (e.g., prices surging translated as alza de los precios , Eng. rise in prices ). Third, the path of motion was always present in the Spanish translations. This translation analysis provides evidence that the typological differences reported for the encoding of literal motion are also observed in the expression of numerical, metaphorical motion and that the choice of metaphorical mappings depends on language typology.