Through-translation (p84)
The literal translation of common collocations, names of organizations, the components of compounds and perhaps phrases, is known as loan translation. I prefer the more transparent term ‘through-translation’.
The most obvious examples of through-translations are the names of international organizations which often consist of ‘universal’ words which may be transparent for English and Romance lanuage, and semantically motivated for Germanic and Slavonic.
Shifts or transpositions
(P85)A ‘shift’ (Catford’s term) or ‘transposition’ (Vinay and Darbelnet) is a translation procedure involving a change in the grammar from SL to TL. One type is the change from singular to plural. A second type of shift is required when an SL grammatical structure does not exist in the TL. (P86)The third type of shift is the one where literal translationis grammatically possible but may not accord with natural usage in the TL.
(P87)The fourth type of transposition is the replacement of a virtual lexical gap by a grammatical structure.
Certain transpositions appear to go beyond linguistic differences and can be regarded as general options available for stylistic consideration. Thus a complex sentence can normally be converted to a co-ordinate sentence, or to two simple sentences.
(P88)The last point I want to mention about transpositions is that they illustrate a frequent tension between grammar and stress…My only comment is that too often the word order is changed unnecessarily, and it is sometimes more appropriate to translate with a lexical synonym, retain the word order and forgo the transposition in order to preserve the stress.
Transposition is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and most translators make transpositions intuitively. However, it is likely that comparative linguistics research, and analysis of text corpuses and their translations, will uncover a further number of serviceable transpositions for us.
Modulation
(p88)Vinay and Darbelnet coined the term ‘modulation’ to define ‘a variation through a change of viewpoint, of perspective and very often of category of thought.’
As I see it, the general concept, since it is a super-ordinate term covering almost everything beyond literal translation, is not useful as it stands. However, the ‘negated contrary’, which I prefer to call ‘positive for double negative’ (or ‘double negative for positive’) is a concrete translation procedure which can be applied in principle to any action (verb) quality (adjective or adverb).
In the few cases where there is a lexical gap in an opposition, this modulation is virtually mandatory. In all other sentences the procedure is potentially available, but you should only use it when the translation is not natural unless you do so.
(p89)Vinay and Darbelnet’s second modulation procedure, ‘part for the whole’, is rather misleadingly described; it consists of what I call familiar alternatives.
The other modulation procedures are: (a) abstract for concrete; (b) cause for effect; (c) one part for another; (d) reversal of terms; (e) active for passive; (f) space for time; (g) intervals and limits; (h)
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change of symbols.
Of these procedures, ‘active for passive’ is a common transposition, mandatory when no passive exists, advisable where, say, a reflexive is normally preferred to a passive, as in the Romance languages. Reversal of terms (Nida’s ‘conversive’ terms) is also a distinct procedure, usually optional for making language sound natural.
You will note that though I think Vinay’s and Darbelnet’s categorization of modulation unconvincing, their abundant translation examples are always stimulating.
Translation label (p90)
This is a provisional translation, usually of a new institutional term, which should be made in inverted commas, which can later be discreetly withdrawn. It could be done through literal translation.
Compensation (p90)
This is said to occur when loss of meaning, sound-effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part, or in a contiguous sentence.
Componential analysis (p90)
This is the splitting up of a lexical unit into its sense components, often one-to-two, -three or –four translations.
Paraphrase (p90)
This is an amplification or explanation of the meaning of a segment of the text. It is used in an ‘anonymous’ text when it is poorly written, or has important implications and omissions.
Couplets (p91)
Couplets, triplets, quadruplets combine two, three or four of the above-mentioned procedures respectively for dealing with a single problem. They are particularly common for cultural words, if transference is combined with a functional or a cultural equivalent. You can describe them as two or more bites at one cherry.
Notes, additions, glosses
(p91)The additional information a translator may have to add to his version is normally cultural (accounting for difference between SL and TL culture), technical (relating to the topic) or linguistic (explaining wayward use of words), and is dependent on the requirement of his, as opposed to the original, readership. In expressive texts, such information can normally only be given outside the version, although brief ‘concessions’ for minor cultural details can be made to the reader… In vocative texts, TL information tends to replace rather than supplement SL information.
(p92)Additional information in the translation may take various forms: (1) Within the text.
(2) Notes at bottom of page. (3) Notes at end of chapter.
(4) Notes or glossary at end of book.
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Normally, any information you find in a reference book should not be used to replace any statement or stretch of the text (unless the text does not correspond to the facts) but only to supplement the text, where you think the readers are likely to find it inadequate, incomplete, or obscure.
Chapter 9 Translation and Culture
Definitions
(p94)I define culture as the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses particular language as its means of expression. More specifically, I distinguish ‘cultural’ from ‘universal’ and ‘personal’ language. ‘Die’, ‘live’, ‘star’, ‘swim’ and even almost virtually ubiquitous artifacts like ‘mirror’ and ‘table’ are universals—usually there is no translation problem there. ‘Moonsoon’, ‘steppe’, ‘dacha’, ‘tagliatelle’ are cultural words—there will be a translation problem unless there is cultural overlap between the source and the target language (and its relationship). Universal words such as ‘breakfast’, ‘embrace’, ‘pile’ often cover the the universal function, but not the cultural description of the referent. And if I express myself in a personal way…I use personal, not immediately social, language, what is often called idiolect, and there is normally a translation problem.
(p95)Most ‘cultural’ words are easy to detect, since they are associated with a particular language and cannot be literally translated, but many cultural customs are described in ordinary language, where literal translation would distort the meaning and a translation may include an appropriate descriptive—functional equivalent. Cultural objects may be referred to by a relatively culture-free generic term or classifier plus the various additions in different cultures, and you have to account for these additions which may appear in the course of the SL text.
Cultural categories (p95) (1) Ecology
(2) Material culture (artefacts)
(3) Social culture—work and leisure
(4) Organizations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts (5) Gestures and habits
General considerations (p96)
First, your ultimate consideration should be recognition of the cultural achievements referred to in the SL text, and respect for all foreign countries and their cultures… At the other end, there is componential analysis, the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message. .. Lastly, the translator of a cultural word, which is always less context-bound than ordinary language, has to bear in mind both the motivation and the cultural specialist and linguistic level of the readership.
Ecology (p97)
Nida has pointed out that certain ecological features—the seasons, rain, hills of various sizes—where they are irregular or unknown may not be understood denotatively or figuratively, in
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translation. However, here, television will soon be a worldwide clarifying force.
Material culture
(P97) Food is for many the most sensitive and important expression of national culture; food terms are subject to the widest variety of translation procedures. Various settings: menus—straight, multilingual, glossed; cookbooks, food guides; tourist brochures; journalism increasingly contain foreign food terms.
Clothes as cultural terms may be sufficiently explained for TL general readers if the generic noun or classifier is added.
Again, many language communities have a typical house which for general purposes remains untranslated.
(p98)Transport is dominated by American and the car, a female pet in English, a ‘bus’, a ‘motor’, a ‘crate’, a sacred symbol in many countries of sacred private property.
Notoriously the species of flora and fauna are local and cultural, and are not translated unless they appear in the SL and TL environment.
Social culture (p98)
In considering social culture one has to distinguish between denotative and connotative problems of translation.
Social organization—political and administrative
(p99) The political and social life of a country is reflected in its institutional terms. Where the title of a head of state or the name of a parliament are ‘transparent’, that is, made up of ‘international’ easily translated morphemes, they are through-translated. Where the name of a parliament is not ‘readily’ translatable; some has a recognized official translation for administrative documents and glossed for a general readership. A government inner circle is usually designated as a ‘cabinet’ or a ‘council of ministers’ and may informally be referred to by the name of the capital city. Some ministries and other political institutions and parties may also be referred to by their familiar alternative terms.
Names of ministries are usually literally translated, provided they are appropriately descriptive. (p100) One assumes that any series of local government institutions and posts should be transferred when the terms are unique and consistency is required.
In general, the more serious and expert the readership, particularly of textbooks, reports and academic papers, the greater the requirement for transference—not only of cultural and institutional terms, but of titles, addresses and words used in a special sense.
(p101) Historical terms: In the case of historical institutional terms, the first principle is not to translate them, whether the translation makes sense or not, unless they have generally accepted translations. In academic texts and educated writing, they are usually transferred, with, where appropriate, a functional or descriptive term with as much descriptive detail as is required. In popular texts, the transferred word can be replaced by the functional or descriptive term.
International terms: International institutional terms usually have recognized translations which are in fact through-translations, and are now generally known by their acronyms.
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(p102) religious terms: in religious language, the proselytizing activities of Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church and the Baptists, are reflected in manifold translation. The language of the other world religions tends to be transferred when it becomes of TL interest, the commonest words being naturalized.
Artistic terms: The translation of artistic terms referring to movements, processed and organizations generally depends on the putative knowledge of the readership…Names of buildings, museums, theatres, opera houses, are likely to be transferred as well as translated, since they form part of street plans and addresses. Many terms in art and music remain Italian, but French in ballet.
Gestures and habits (p102)
For ‘Gestures and habits’ there is a distinction between description and function which can be made where necessary in ambiguous cases: thus, if people smile a little when someone dies, do a slow hand-clap to express warm appreciation, spit as a blessing, nod to dissent or shake their head to assent, kiss their finger tips to greet or to praise, give a thumbs-up to signal OK, all of which occur in some cultures and not in others.
Chapter 10 The Translation of Metaphors Definitions
(p104)By metaphor, I mean any figurative expression: the transferred sense of a physical word; the personification of an abstraction; the application of a word or collocation to what it does not literally denote, i.e. , to describe on thing in terms of another. All polysemous words and most English phrasal verbs are potentially metaphorical. Metaphors may be ‘single’—viz. one-word—or ‘extended’ (a collocation, an idiom, a sentence, a proverb, an allegory, a complete imaginative text.)
The purpose of metaphor is basically twofold: its referential purpose is to describe a mental process or state, a concept, a person, an object, a quality or an action more comprehensively and concisely than is possible in literal or physical language; its pragmatic purpose, which is simultaneous, is to appeal to the senses, to interest, to clarify ‘graphically’, to please, to delight, to surprise. The first purpose is cognitive, the second aesthetic. In a good metaphor, the two purposes fuse like (and are parallel with) content and form; the referential purpose is likely to dominate in a textbook, the aesthetic often reinforced by sound-effect in an advertisement, popular journalism, an art-for-art’s sake work or a pop song…Metaphor, both purposes, always involves illusion; like a lie where you are pretending to be someone you are not, a metaphor is a kind of deception, often used to conceal an intention.
Note also that metaphor incidentally demonstrates a resemblance, a common semantic area between two or more or less similar things—the image and the object. This I see first as a process not, as is often stated, as a function.
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