Metaphorical conceptualizations of vertical and horizontal space in English press articles and their Greek translations

The paper examines variation in the way the conceptualization of the vertical and the horizontal dimension is registered in original English and translated Greek press reports. It highlights intercultural variation which gives rise to different collocations across English source and Greek target press items. This intercultural variation may be one of the reasons why Greek learners’ EFL production is hard to reach near-native command of the counterpart English collocation system.

A number of preferred image schemata emerge, which show that the English source text seems to favour vertical spatial relations, as opposed to the Greek target version, which seems to favour horizontal spatial relations. The Greek version of the data tends to blur the vertical, occasionally in favour of the horizontal.

The findings raise awareness of spatial reasoning modifications in translation and shed light on intercultural awareness in interlingual mediation situations, such as EFL, ESP or translation settings. Parallel data (source and target versions of texts) can highlight aspects of shifts in translation situations, with far-reaching consequences in different areas of application.