Translation of colour terms: An empirical approach toward word-translation from english into Estonian

Abstract

Translation of colour terms hovers somewhere between cognitive linguistics and translation studies and has therefore remained relatively understudied as a topic, despite the popularity of cross-linguistic colour term studies in the languages of the world. Although colour terms form a relatively small and restricted semantic domain, translating a colour term into another language can cause a massive headache to anyone who has ever tried to seek an appropriate equivalent for it in another language. The article describes how a group of translators and non-translators translated single, mainly simplex secondary colour terms from English into Estonian. Four main translation strategies can be discerned: literal translation, abstraction change or hyponymy, information change or omission and descriptive translation techniques. In addition, the study shows that translation experience and translation education is an advantage even if one translates small units of texts.