Estonian and Swedish color idioms – shared and unshared

Abstract

Previous research on color idioms has shown that they are often culture-specific, and translating them requires shifting between cognitive frames of reference. However, little research has been carried out on the translation process of such idioms. We investigated how Swedish color idioms were translated into Estonian by professional translators and novices, tracking the components of the translation process, such as time spent on the tasks, resources used, and the importance of context provided. Finally, we detected eight translation strategies used for idiom translation. The strategies used depended on the idiom’s transparency between the source and target language. The conventionality of the idiom seemed to have little impact on the difficulty experienced. Professionals and novices used different approaches to translation which once again confirms the importance of acquired skills and experience. Color idioms can turn out to be false friends. Focusing first and foremost on the idiomaticity of the target language helps. Professionals searched for the target language idiom and used various monolingual resources in the target language while novices searched mainly for source-language idioms and used no monolingual target language web dictionaries.