Translating Metaphors at Table: Figurative Language and Food in Emilia-Romagna Tourism Discourse

Food terminology plays a crucial role as a micro-specialised language used in tourism discourse to promote local cuisine and represent local dishes as appealing to tourists. The language of food traditionally makes extensive use of metaphorical and figurative expressions (e.g., see Demaecker, 2017), which are powerful tools for persuasion (see Ferrari, 2018). When translating these metaphors into other languages, the challenge lies in maintaining their persuasive impact. Considering the extensive use of figurative expressions in food-related communication, the study investigates Italian tourist materials on Emilia-Romagna’s food and their English translations. It specifically focuses on how metaphors originally found in the Italian texts are translated and mediated into English to better persuade different target audiences. Adopting a corpus-assisted perspective, the article analyses the different translation strategies used by Italian institutions in the tourist materials. Results show that metaphors are primarily rendered with direct translation of metaphorical concepts and terms. The study also highlights the omission of certain metaphors in the translated text, as well as their adaptation to better fit the target language both conceptually and linguistically. Metaphors are occasionally paraphrased or explained in the target language, and in a few cases, they are not translated and left in the source language.