Translation Equivalence Factors (A descriptive Analytic Study) PDF

Preview

Summary

Translation Equivalence Factors (A descriptive Analytic Study) By El hadi Moh. Ohida; (PHD student) Faculty of Major Language Studies: FPBU Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia: USIM. ([email protected]) Kirembwe, R.A.H. Faculty of Major Language Studies: FPBU Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia: USIM. (ki...

Description

Translation Equivalence Factors (A descriptive Analytic Study) By El hadi Moh. Ohida; (PHD student) Faculty of Major Language Studies: FPBU Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia: USIM. ([email protected]) Kirembwe, R.A.H. Faculty of Major Language Studies: FPBU Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia: USIM. ([email protected])

Abstract This is a descriptive analytic study addresses the need for an organized approach for training translators. It focuses the need to provide clear translation model that reflects details involved in interpretation of a text from one language into another. It displays the relationship between linguistics and translation; it elaborates how an understanding of these key areas affects translator’s decision. The chapter inspects various areas of language ranging from signal word, expression to grammar and cultural contexts. It provides instances from various translation literature. Keywords: Translation, Equivalence, Factors, descriptive, Analytic Study Introduction The organization of this chapter is based on straightforward rule: It starts at the simplest possible level to the more complex. The analysis starts with equivalence of a single word discusses some issues relating to translating a single word as a first element to be taken into consideration by the translator. This is followed by the section of equivalence expression; this section is widened a little by looking at translating combination of words and phrases including collocations, idioms and fixed expressions. Next is the equivalence of Grammar in translation procedures, this section deals with diversity of grammatical categories across languages that may create some problems in terms of finding a direct correspondence in the TT. The equivalence of a text which deals with the role of word order in structuring messages at a text with further be tackled; It discusses cohesion: grammatical and lexical relationships which provide links between various parts of a text. Finally, the chapter will analyze the pragmatic equivalence by looking at how texts are used in communicative situations that involve variables such as writers, readers and cultural context. Questions of Translation Equivalence Equivalence is e a key concept in translation. It centers on the processes interacting between the source text and the translated text. It is more than just one isolated feature but a whole host of inter-related aspects. This work reviews questions of equivalence in translation from English into Arabic and vice versa. 1. Equivalence of a single word The equivalence of a single word means that a target language has no a direct equivalent for a word which occurs in the source text. This analysis deals with; (a) Cultural specific concepts; (b) The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language: (c) The sourcelanguage word is semantically complex; (d) The source and target languages make different 1

distinctions in meaning; (e) The target language lacks superordinate; (f) The target language lacks a specific term (hyponym); (h) Difference in Expressive meaning; (i) Difference in form; (j) Difference in frequency and purpose of using specific forms English and (k) The use of loan words in the source text. (a) Cultural specific concepts: The expression may refer to a religion, belief, a social custom or a type of food... etc. For example words as (Dashdasha ‫ دشداشة‬kind of clothes and zaghareed ‫)زغاريد‬, are a culture-specific concepts which are related to the Arab culture. (There might no equivalent words for them in English). (b) The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language: The source language word may express a concept which is known in the target culture but not lexicalized. Examples: - The word (arson) has no ready equivalent in Arabic although it means ( ‫جريمة حرق الممتلكات‬ ‫)العامة عمدا‬. Consider also the following expression: - I want to google this word. - Email me. (c) The source-language word is semantically complex: A single word which consists of a single morpheme can sometimes express a more complex set of meanings than whole sentence. For example, the English word hitchhiking is the method of transport/lifestyle in which a person or group of people stand by a major motorway and wait for a free ride. This word cannot be expressed in Arabic only by )‫ (ركوب السيارات‬which does not give the full meaning. (d) The source and target languages make different distinctions in meaning: What one language regards as an important distinction in meaning another language may not perceive as relevant for example, the concept of (pilgrimage) in English is different from the concept of (pilgrimage) in Arabic. The pilgrimage rites in Christianity are different in Islam. Christianity pilgrimage is to go to shrine / grave of religious person, sitting there and read bible. (e) The target language lacks superordinate: The target language may have specific words (hyponyms) but not a general word (superordinate) (f) The target language lacks a specific term (hyponym): Languages tend to have superordinate but lack specific ones (hyponyms). Under house, English has variety of hyponyms which have no equivalents in many languages, for example, bungalow, cottage, croft, chalet, lodge, hut, mansion, manor, villa and hall. (h) Difference in Expressive meaning: There may be a target-language word which has the same propositional meaning as the source-language word, but it may have a different expressive meaning. (i) Difference in form: Certain suffixes and prefixes which convey types of meaning in English often have no direct equivalence in other languages. For example, English has many couplets such as employer/ employee, trainer/ trainee, and payer/ payee. It makes use of suffixes such as – ish (e.g. boyish, hellish, greenish) and – able (e.g. conceivable, drinkable). But Arabic has no ready method for producing such forms. They are often replaced by an appropriate paraphrase. It is important for a translator to understand the contribution that affixes makes to the meaning of a word. (j) Difference in frequency and purpose of using specific forms English for instance, uses the continuous –ing form for binding clauses much more frequently than other languages that have equivalent for it. 2

(k) The use of loan words in the source text; The use of loan words in the source text causes a special problem in translation. English for example, uses some loan words for their prestige value that can be added to the text. Arabic may have no equivalent loan word. 2. Equivalence of an expression The analysis of Equivalence of an expression in translation dealt with here is composed of Collocation, Idioms and fixed expressions. 1. Collocation Collocation can be looked as an arbitrary restriction of words or a tendency of certain words to co-occur regularly in a given language. Example: When butter or eggs go bad they are described in English as rancid or addled respectively. Both words mean stale /rotten, but addled butter and rancid eggs are unacceptable collocation also tea with milk or fish and chips are collocated words with fixed order. A translator has to pay attention of the restriction of words and their order.

2. Idioms and fixed expressions: Idioms such as it's raining cats and dogs, or storm in a tea cup allow no variation in form. A speaker or a writer cannot change the order of the words; delete a word; replace a word with another or change an idiom's grammatical structure. Fixed expressions such as having said that, as matter of fact, Ladies and gentlemen, as well as proverbs such as practice what you preach and waste not want not allow little or no variation in form. There are two cases in which an idiom can be easily misinterpreted if one is not already familiar with. (a) Some idioms are 'misleading' they seem transparent because they offer a reasonable literal interpretation. For example, take someone for ride (deceive or cheat someone in some way). A translator who is not familiar with the idiom in question may easily accept the literal interpretation. (b) An idiom in the source language may have a very close counterpart in the target language which looks similar on the surface but has a totally or partially different meaning. A translator must also consider the collocation environment which surrounds any expression which meaning is not readily accessible. 3. Equivalence of Grammar Kinds of difficulty that translators often encounter because of difference in the grammatical structures of source and target languages: the analysis of this factor includes Variety of grammatical categories: (a) Number Not all languages have grammatical category of number, and those that do, do not necessarily view accountability in the same way. For example, English recognizes a distinction between one and more than one (singular and plural). This distinction has to be expressed morphologically by adding a suffix to a noun or by changing its form, for example, student/ students, fox/ foxes, man/men, child/children. But Arabic distinguishes between one, two or more than two. Arabic has a dual form in addition to singular and plural forms. For Example,

‫ ثالثة أوالد‬/‫ ولدان‬/‫ولد‬

3

In English dual is a lexical rather than a grammatical category; it can only be indicated by the use of a numeral. For example, a boy, two boys, three boys. A translator working from a language which has number distinction into a language with no category of number has to omit the relevant information of number or to encode this information lexically, where it is felt to be important. (b) Gender Gender is a grammatical distinction according to which a noun or pronoun is classified as either masculine or feminine in some languages. The distinction also applies to nouns which refer to animate beings as well as those which refer to inanimate objects. For example, Arabic distinguishes between masculine and feminine gender in nouns such as ‫ ابنه‬/‫( ابن‬son/ daughter) and ‫ قطة‬/‫(قط‬male cat/ female cat). In addition, nouns such as ‫مجلة‬ (magazine) and ‫( كتاب‬book) are also classified as feminine or masculine respectively, in Arabic. English does not have a grammatical category of gender as such; English nouns are not regularly inflected to distinguish between feminine and masculine. The gender distinction exists in some semantic areas and in the person system. Different nouns are sometimes used to refer to female and male members of the same species: cow/ bull, mare/ stallion, ewe/ ram. A small number of nouns which refer to professions have masculine and feminine forms, with the suffix –ess indicating feminine gender. Examples include actor/ actress, manger/ manageress, host/ hostess, steward/ stewardess. English also has a category of person which distinguishes in the third- person singular between masculine, feminine and inanimate (him / her / it). This distinction does not apply to the third person plural (they). Some languages such as Arabic, gender distinctions apply to the second- as well as thirdperson pronouns. Arabic also has different forms for (you) depending on whether the person or persons addressed is/are male or female ( ‫ أنت‬/‫)أنت‬. In most languages that have a gender category the masculine term is usually the 'dominant' or unmarked term. In Arabic, for example, )‫ (هن‬is used only when all the persons or things referred to are feminine; if one or more persons or things in group are masculine the form used is (‫(هم‬, even if the feminine referents outnumber the masculine ones. If the sex of the referent is not known, the masculine rather than the feminine form is used. This means that the use of feminine forms provides more specific information rather than the use of masculine forms. In Arabic, gender distinctions are reflected not only in nouns or pronouns, but also in the agreement between these and their accompanying verbs and adjectives. Arabic verb has different forms depending on whether its subject is, for example, second- person singular feminine ( ‫ )أنت تدرسين‬or third person plural masculine (‫)أنتم تدرسون‬. Gender distinctions are generally more relevant in translation when the referent of a noun or pronoun is human. Gender distinctions in inanimate such as car or ship and in animals such as dog or cat sometimes manipulated in English to convey expressive meaning, particularly in literature but they do not often cause difficulties in non-literary translation making the necessary adjustment, for example, by adding the gender dimension in the target text. English car: Arabic ‫ سيارة‬is usually straight forward and automatic because the distinctions themselves are largely arbitrary. But the pronominal function of gender reflects genuine, nonarbitrary distinction between male and female. English (they) and Arabic (‫ هن‬/‫)هم‬, we all readily recognize the distinction and expect it to reflect a genuine aspect of experience. The pronominal function of gender can pose in translation. A gender distinction can be avoided by 4

using passive voice if a translator does not want to specify the subject of the verb especially in imperative forms. (c) Person The category of person relates to the notion of participant roles. The most common distinction is that between first person (English I/ we: Arabic ‫ نحن‬/‫)أنا‬, second person (English you: Arabic ‫ أنتن‬/‫ أنتم‬/‫ أنتما‬/‫ أنت‬/‫)أنت‬, and third person (English: he/ she/ it/ they: Arabic ‫ هن‬/‫ هم‬/‫ هما‬/‫ هي‬/‫)هو‬. The above mentioned examples illustrate the more problematic situation of having to make distinctions in the target language which are not explicitly stated in the source text. (d) Tenses and aspects Tenses and aspects are grammatical categories in a large number of languages. The form of the verb in languages which have these categories usually indicates two main types of information: time relations and aspectual differences. Time relations have to do with locating an event in time (past, present and future). Aspectual difference has to do with the temporal distribution of an event, for example, its completion or non-completion, continuation, or momentariness. Tenses and aspects do not necessary perform the same function in all languages. “A distinction may be drawn between the basic and the non-basic uses of a tense. The basic meaning of the present tense in both English and Arabic is present time. The past tense, in these languages points basically to past time. Within these two basic meanings a number of non basic meanings may be recognized.” (Yowell Aziz, 1998: 13) In English for Example, one may recognize three basic meanings of present 1. State Present The present tense does not refer to any specific time, but to timeless truths facts and general statements. Examples: English: The Sun is bigger than The Earth. Arabic: ‫الشمس اكبر من األرض‬ English: A giraffe has a long nick. Arabic: ‫الزرافة لها رقبة طويلة‬ English: Sugar dissolves in water. Arabic: ‫يذوب السكر في الماء‬ The first two Arabic statements have no verbs. They are therefore tense less; they acquire their time from the context. 2. Habitual Present The present tense indicates a repeated situation. Example: I get up at six o'clock. We start school at half past eight.

3. Instantaneous present Verbs express short situations beginning and ending at the moment of speaking. Examples: John passes the ball to Sam. Sam shoots. I pour two cups of milk in a dish, I add an egg and a cup of flour then I stir. In Arabic, The present tense is used for all the mentioned three situations but in different ways. Consider the following examples: English: That engineer works in a factory. Arabic: ‫ذلك المهندس يشتغل في مصنع‬ English: That engineer is working in a factory. Arabic: ‫ذلك المهندس يشتغل في مصنع‬ In English the verb indicates the meaning of the present tense. But in Arabic the meaning can be indicated by means of adverbial elements such as )...،‫ صباحا‬،‫ ) كل يوم‬in the first example or ( ‫ )اآلن‬in the second example. There are other tense categories which can pose difficulties in translation including the use of the past and future tenses. Translators should compare the expressions of such categories and the meanings associated with various structures in the source and target languages. 5

(e) Voice The use of the passive voice is extremely common in many varieties of written English. It is used to avoid specifying the agent and to give impression of objectivity, but it can pose various problems in translation depending on the availability of similar structure, or structures with similar functions, in the target language. Because of its widespread use in technical and scientific English, it has had a strong influence on similar register in other languages through translation. Voice is grammatical category which defines the relationship between a verb and its subject. In active clause, the subject is the agent responsible for performing the action. In passive clause, the subject is the affected entity, and the agent may or may not be specified, depending on the structures available in each language. Active: The Egyptians built the pyramids about 4,600 years ago. Passive: The pyramids were built about 4,600 years ago. The pyramids were built about 4,600 years ago by the Egyptians. Languages which have category of voice do not always use the passive with the same frequency. Arabic for instance, uses the passive much less frequently than English. Scientific and technical writing in English relays heavily on passive structure. A translator may render a passive structure by an active structure, or conversely, an active structure by passive structure. This translation can affect the amount of information given in the clause; the linear arrangement of semantic elements such as agent and the focus of the massage. A translator has to bear in mind the frequency of use of active, passive and similar structures in the source and target languages. The idea is not to replace an active form with an active one and a passive form with a passive one; it is always the function of category rather than the form it takes that is of paramount importance in translation. 4. Equivalence of a text: A sentence is not independent it is a part of a situation and a text. It is important to link a sentence to its environment to allow information to flow through the text in the preferred manner. A translator should also be aware of information dynamics. The linear arrangement of linguistic elements (word order) plays a role in organizing massages at text level. This section deals with word order as a textual strategy (rather than grammatical features) and points to a number of ways in which its role in controlling information flow. (a)Thematic Structure: theme and rhyme A clause consists of two parts. The first part is called the theme. The theme is what the clause is about. It has two functions: 1. The theme points back to previous stretches of discourse. This helps in maintaining a coherent txt. 2. The theme connects forward and contributes to develop later stretches. The rhyme is what the speaker sys about the theme. It is the aim of discourse. It represents the very information that the speaker wants to convey to the hearer. It fulfills the communicative purpose of the utterance. The following short extract selected for analysis is from Lucile Desblache's Editorial Book, Aspects of specialized translation, 2001: 152. Arabic and English are two morphologically different languages. Each has got its own morphological system with special word-formation devices. In forming words, English relies heavily on affixation, while Arabic relies on the manipulation of morphological patterns. Suggested analysis based on the Hallidyan approach to information flow: 6

T1 Arabic and English are two morphologically different languages R1 t2: Each r2: has got its own morphological system with special word-formation devices T1 In forming words t2: English R1 r2: relies heavily on affixation t3: (while) Arabic r3: relies on the manipulation of morphological patterns.Each clause will have its own themerheme structure which may be subordinate to a large them-rheme structure. Some elements include special linking devices for example (and, while) are not part of the basic theme structure of the text b...