Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, it aims to investigate to what extent colour
idioms in economic language can generate discourse. As metaphorical constructions, economic
colour idioms can help conceptualize experience by means of the conceptual metaphor. They
also help frame economic reality linguistically, thus developing discourse-generating power.
Second, it seeks to indicate the degree to which the translation of these idioms can
accommodate the linguistic forms of the reality illustrated by the economic discourse in the target
language. The numerous calques used in the translation of economic colour idioms indicate that
new cultural forms disseminated by English language worldwide have been linguistically
assimilated and accommodated in other languages, contributing to the process of acculturation
and the development of cross-cultural discourse.
