Translation Studies

1. Translation Studies 15. Lexical TOs: narrowing and broadening of meaning Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006 Sources: Klaudy, 2003; Klaudy & Károly, 2005

2. 1. Narrowing of meaning (differentiation and specifiation)

3. Lexical narrowing • i.e., particularisation (Vinay and Darbelnet 1995), concretisation (Klaudy 1996b) • = the SL unit of a more general meaning is replaced by a TL unit of a more specific meaning • specification (or concretisation) is generally discussed together with differentiation since the narrowing of SL meaning is achieved by distinguishing the various meanings of the SL word (differentiation) and then by selecting one of them (specification or concretisation). • can be explained partly by the differences in the mental mapping of the world and by the linguistic consequences of this phenomenon

4. Lexical narrowing cont. • language communities segment times of the day, various parts of the body, colours, kinship relations and spatial structures differently  “interlingual asymmetry” (Gak in Zlateva 1993, Russo 1997) • if there is a higher number of words in these semantic fields in the TL than in the SL, the translator must first identify the meanings of the TL words and than select one, which will than be narrower than the meaning of the SL word more specific • is generally an optional transfer operation  presupposes some kind of decision-making on the part of translators  can be regarded as a manifestation of the translator’s creativity.

5. Subtypes: • 1.1. Specification of parts of the body • 1.2. Specification of reporting verbs • 1.3. Specification of inchoative verbs • 1.4. Specification of semantically depleted verbs

6. (1) Specification of parts of the body Predominant direction: from Hungarian  into IE • reason: the different segmentation of the human body by different language communities • specification takes place when there is a more detailed lexical representation of the face, mouth, hand and leg in the TL than in the SL • English makes a distinction between face and cheek, hand and arm, foot and leg, mouth and lips • Hungarian does make similar distinctions  in translating Hungarian arc into IE languages, translators often have to decide whether they are dealing with the whole or with a part (face or cheek)

7. Hungarian  English:arc (generic term in H) face/cheeks (specific terms in E) • Hungarian ST: Megvizezte és megdörzsölte piros, tizenötéves leány arcát ... (Csáth 5) • English TT: She wet her ruddy, fifteen-year-old's face, rubbed it, ... (Kessler 115) • Commentary: Hungarian arc English face

8. Hungarian ST: A hentes volt. Ragyás arcú, szép bajuszú, izmos parasztember. (Csáth 6) • English TT: The butcher. A brawny peasant: grand mustaches pockmarked cheeks. (Kessler 116) • Commentary: Hungarian arc English cheeks

9. Hungarian  English: száj (generic term in H) mouth/lips (specific terms in E) • Hungarian ST: A lány most már tele szájjal kacagott, mintha csiklandozták volna. (Csáth 85) • English TT: Now she laughed with her mouth wide open as though she were being tickled. (Kessler 169) • Commentary: Hungarian száj English mouth

10. Hungarian ST: De mégis ellágyult, és megcsókolta a lányt a száján. (Csáth 3) • English TT: Still, he was touched, and kissed her lips. (Kessler 203) • Commentary: Hungarian száj English lips

11. Hungarian  English:láb (generic term in H) foot/leg (specific terms in E) • Hungarian ST: Julcsa pedig összeszappanozza a lábunkat. (Csáth 88) • English TT: Juli soaps our feet. (Kessler 60) • Commentary: Hungarian láb English foot

12. Hungarian ST: ... viszi a csontvázat, melynek kezei, lábai valami különös táncot járnak ... (Csáth 14) • English TT: ... lugging the skeleton  whose arms and legs danced grotesquely ... (Kessler 186) • Commentary: Hungarian láb English legs

13. (2) Specification of reporting verbs Predominant direction: from IEHungarian • Verbs accompanying reported speech in literary works are generally semantically depleted verbs in the four Indo-European languages (to say), while in Hungarian they tend to be semantically rich. • The authors of literary works written in IE languages generally use the central verb of the semantic field of saying, while Hungarian translators rather tend to choose more peripherial verbs from the same semantic field.

14. English: to say Hungarian: hálálkodik (‘to express one's gratitude’) • Hungarian ST: Oh, thank you, madam,' said Edna. (Christie 10) • English TT: – Jaj, köszönöm, nagysága! – hálálkodott Edna. (Borbás 11)

15. English: to say Hungarian: tiltakozik (‘to protest’) • Hungarian ST: 'Well, you mustn't abuse my legs' said the old man (James 9) • English TT: –Te csak ne csepüld az én lábamat – tiltakozott az öregember (Balabán 31)

16. The specification of reporting verbs may take several forms in IEHungarian translation. • 2.1. Use reporting verbs, but more specific and less frequent ones, using a variety of Hungarian verbs of saying instead of the correspondents of central verb say.

17. Use of more specific verbs, cont. English  Hungarian: English ST: Armstrong said, 'Four of us and we don't know which.' Blore said, 'I know.' Vera said, 'I haven't the least doubt.' Philip Lombard said, 'I think I've got a pretty good idea now.' (Christie 144) Hungarian TT: – Négyen vagyunk, és nem tudjuk ki a... – kezdte Armstrong. Blore közbeszólt – Én tudom. Vera is megszólalt – Én is tökéletesen biztos vagyok benne. Philip Lombard is megnyilatkozott – Úgy érzem, én is biztos vagyok benne. (Szíjgyártó 145)

18. 2.2. Referring to the permanent/occasional characteristics of the speech of speakers E.g., tone, rate, emphasis:hebeg (‘to stammer’), dadog (‘to stutter’), hadar (‘to gabble’), makog (‘to falter’), suttog (‘to whisper’)  translators are guided by the whole communicative situation

19. Ref. to the characteristics of the speaker’s speech, cont. English  Hungarian: English ST: 'Tiburon', the waiter said. (Hemingway 72) Hungarian TT: –Tiburon – hadarta a pincér. (Ottlik 83)

20. 2.3. Reflecting the speaker's state of mind and emotions: E.g., hüledezik (‘to be dumbfounded’), csodálkozik (‘to be astonished’), meglepődik (‘to be surprised’)  translators are guided by the whole communicative situation

21. Reflecting the speaker's state of mind and emotions cont. English ST: ‘Well, I'll be damned, was I really going ninety?’, said Eddie. ‘I didn't realise it on this smooth road.’ (Kerouac 22) Hungarian TT: – Igazán kilencvennel mentem? – hüledezett Eddie, – észre sem vettem ezen a síma úton. (Bartos 24) Commentary: English to say  Hungarian hüledezik (‘to be dumbfounded’)

22. 2.4. Indicating bodily movements that commonly accompany the act of speaking: E.g., bólint (‘to nod’), legyint (‘to wave a hand to signal indifference’), felkapja a fejét (‘to toss up one’s head’)

23. Bodily movements cont. English ST: 'Them Indians', said Mrs Gardner. (Hemingway 32) Hungarian TT: – Indiánok – legyintett Mrs Gardner. (Lengyel 31) English ST: 'Well, really', said Miss Marple. (Christie 20) Hungarian TT: – Valóban! – bólintott Miss Marple. (Borbás 21)

24. 2.5. Reflecting the act of speaking only by virtue of the situation: Such verbs express a change in place or bodily position: leül (‘to sit down’), feláll (‘to stand up’), belép a szobába (‘to enter the room’).

25. Ref. to situation cont. English  Hungarian: • English ST: 'No!', she said, still holding out her beautiful slim arms from her dropping breasts. (Lawrence 247) • Hungarian TT: – Ne így! – tárta szét szép, karcsú karját keble előtt az asszony. (Falvay 306) • English ST: 'Ay!', said the man, stretching his body almost painfully. (Lawrence 249) • Hungarian TT: – Ajahaj – nyújtózott szinte fájdalmasan a férfi. (Falvay 308)

26. (3) Specification of inchoative verbs Predominant direction: IE Hungarian • inchoative verbs = verbs expressing the beginning of an action (begin/start) • repeating the central verb of the semantic field of verbs of beginning (kezd) would seem monotonous for a Hungarian readership, therefore professional translators use more specific verbs, which are on the periphery of the semantic field of verbs of beginning: nekilát, belefog, hozzálát (‘set/fall/turn to’, ‘get/settle down to’), fakadt (‘burst out’, ‘broke out’).

27. Spec. of inchoactive verbs cont. English  Hungarian: English ST: He began immediately to close his cafe. (Greene 510) Hungarian TT: Habozás nélkül záráshoz látott. (Sükösd 26) English ST: He began to tremble violently. (Greene 518) Hungarian ST: Szörnyű reszketés fogta el. (Sükösd 33)

28. (4) Specification of semantically depleted verbs Predominant direction: IE  Hungarian • The most characteristic feature of the Hungarian verb is its complexity (not only morphologically) • lexical richness: due to the rich variety of verbal prefixes and suffixes  prefixes and suffixes (frequentative, reflexive, factitive or causative, etc.) can be added to verbs  new words and new meanings can be created

29. Specification of semantically depleted verbs cont. English: to be Hungarian: lapul, fortyog English ST: Inside was a letter from Eliot. (Vonnegut 13) Hungarian TT: Belsejében Eliot levele lapult. (Szilágyi 14) English ST: The kettle was on a spirit ring close to a big brown teapot. (Greene 39) Hungarian TT: A főző spirituszállványon fortyogott, mellette nagy barna teáskanna. (Ungvári 51)

30. Summary comments on lexical specification • nouns: differentiation and specification of meaning can be accounted for by the different segmentation of reality by the different Ls (parts of the body, kinship terms, times of the day, etc.)  more detailed vocabulary in one L than in another • verbs: the rich morphological potential offered by the Hungarian L provide ample opportunity for specification, but this is only an option: IE verbs of general meaning always have, or may have, a corresponding Hungarian verb with a similarly general meaning • original Hungarian texts include verbs incorporating a great number of grammatical and lexical information  using more specific Hungarian verbs in translation is a way to avoid translationese (i.e. keep the colourfulness of Hungarian).

31. 2. Broadening of meaning (generalisation)

32. Lexical broadening = generalisation (Vinay and Darbelnet 1995, Klaudy 1996b) of meaning = the SL unit of a more specific meaning is replaced by a TL unit of a more general meaning • generalisation of meaning in translation can be accounted for differences in the conceptual mapping of the world (body parts, colours, kinship terms) reflected by the different lexical systems of Ls • in the case of generalisation, the form of the interlingual asymmetry is manifested as “many to one” relationship: two or more SL words have one dictionary equivalent in the TL. • generalisation may be needed also because of differences in the word-formation systems of Ls. The rich inventory of verbal prefixes and suffixes in Hungarian makes it possible to form verbs with a high degree of a semantic compression  are translated by several words

33. Subtypes: • 2.1. Generalisation of parts of the body • 2.2. Generalisation of times of the day • 2.3. Generalisation of realia • 2.4. Generalisation of reporting verbs • 2.5. Generalisation of semantically rich verbs

34. 2.1. Generalisation of parts of the bodyPredominant direction: IE  Hungarian English  Hungarian: cheek/face (specific terms in E) arc (generic term in H) English ST: She gently embraced her husband, who kissed her on the cheek. (Doctorow 18) Hungarian TT: Gyöngéden megölelte férjét, az pedig arcon csókolta. (Göncz 17) English ST: He kissed her face and tasted the salt of her tears. (Doctorow 21) Hungarian TT: Az megcsókolta őt, s a könnye sós izét ott érezte arcán. (Göncz 20)

35. 2.2. Generalisation of times of the dayPredominant direction: Hungarian  IE • Hungarian ST: Valamelyik téli délelőttön az anatómiai intézet igazgatójának első asszisztense egy embert jelentett be ... (Csáth 10) • English TT: One winter morning the head assistant of the Institute of Anatomy announced someone ... (Kessler 183)

36. 2.3. Generalisation of realiaPredominant direction: in the case of culture specific transfer operations there is no predominant direction • the term is used in two meanings: thing or the name that we assign to that particular thing • e.g., a gondola = “realia” light flat-bottomed boat with cabin amidships and high point at each end, worked by one oar at stern, used on Venetian canals) + the Italian word, gondola which stands for the boat

37. I. Geographic realia 1. Geographical formations (e.g., savannah=wide treeless plain, great tract of meadowlike land esp. in tropical America) 2. Man-made geographical entities (e.g., polder=piece of low-lying land reclaimed from see in Netherlands) 3. Indigenous animals and plants (e.g., eucalyptus=Australian and Indonesian evergreen tree, coyote=North American prairie wolf

38. II. Ethnographical realia 1. Realia from everyday life • a) Dishes, beverages (e.g., tortilla ) • b) Dressing (e.g., dolman) • c) Habitat, furniture, houseware (e.g., wigwam=tent or cabin of North American Indian tribes of region of Great Lakes and eastward, formed of bark, matting or hides streched over frame of converging poles) • d) Means of transport (e.g., rickshaw=light, two-wheeled, rental carriage, pulled by one or two men),

39. Ethnographical realia cont. 2. Realia of work • a) Occupations (e.g., gaucho 'mounted herdsman of S. Amer. pampas'), • b) Tools (e.g., lasso), • c) Work place (e.g., ranch)

40. Ethnographical realia cont. 3. Art and culture • a) Music and dance (e.g., tarantella 'Rapid, whirling dance of S. Italian peasants'), • b) Musical instruments (e.g., banjo), • c) Theatre (e.g., columbine 'loud-mouthed, vivacious and tricky servant girl. One of the characters in the Commedia dell' Arte') • d) Holidays and games (e.g., Chanukah 'Jewish religious feast in memory of the victory of the Maccabees and of the liberation of Jerusalem'), • e) Customs, rituals and their participants (e.g., tamada 'Master of ceremonies at a friendly gathering in Georgia').

41. Ethnographical realia cont. 4. Ethnic realia • a) Ethnonyms (e.g., Basques'), • b) Nicknames (e.g., Yankee, Gringo 'among Spanish-Americans a foreigner, esp. an Englishman or an American of US), • c) Name related to residence (e.g., nutmegger 'resident of Connecticut'; down Easter 'resident of Maine').

42. Ethnographical realia cont. 5. Measurement units and coinage • a) Measurement units (e.g., pud 'Russian unit of weight = 16.38 grams') • b) Coinage (e.g., dime 'ten cent coin in the United States'), • c) Popular nicknames (e.g., buck 'dollar in US slang').

43. III. Social and political realia 1. Administration and organisation • a) Administrative units (e.g., canton 'Independent unit forming a part of the Swiss Federation"), • b) Settlements (e.g., pueblo 'Spanish American town or village esp. communal village or settlement of Indians in Arizona, New Mexico and adjacent parts of Mexico and Texas' OID 682), • c) Part of a city (e.g., kremlin 'fortified enclosure or citadel within Russian town or city' OID 467).

44. Social and political realia cont. 2. Political bodies • a) Governing bodies (e.g., Reichstag 'supreme legislature of the former German Empire and of the Republic'), • b) Rulers (e.g., Shah 'title of the sovereign ruler of Iran').

45. Social and political realia cont. 3. Political life • a) Political activity and its participants (e.g., tory 'member or supporter of the English Conservative Party'), • b) Social organisations and their participants (e.g., carbonari (pl) 'members of the secret Italian organisation, fighting for the unification of Italy at the beginning of the 19th century'), • c) Social movements and their participants (e.g., hippy 'person rejecting conventional standards and organised society in favour of unconstrained living'), • d) Rank, titles and addresses (e.g., earl 'nobleman ranking in British peerage between marquis and viscount'), • e) Institutions of learning (e.g., college 'various educational institutions from high-school to the university in England and the United States'), • f) Classes, social strata, castes (e.g., pariah 'member of the lowest and most oppressed caste in India'), • g) Political symbols (e.g., Union Jack 'popular name of the British imperial flag').

46. Social and political realia cont. 4. Military realia • a) Military units (e.g., cohort 'a small unit of the Roman army, one tenth of a legion'), • b) Arms (e.g. yataghan 'short sword of Muslim countries with slight reverse curve'), • c) Uniform (e.g., dolman 'hussar's uniform jacket worn like cape with sleeves hanging loose'), • d) Military ranks and assignments (e.g., cuirassier 'armed horse soldier').

47. Generalisation of realia • in certain cases a detailed description or precise definition of realia may be incomprehensible for the TL audience • or would convey information that is irrelevant in the given communicative situation • if the particular realia has no function in the text  translators tend to replace specific terms by generic ones (e.g., the ordinary Hungarian table wine szemelt rizling (‘riesling of selected grapes’) becomes wine or white wine in English)

48. Generalisation of realia cont. HungarianEnglish: • English ST: Frank watched her shred cabbage on the meat slicer for coleslaw. (Malamud 55) • Hungarian TT: Frank figyelte, hogy metéli a salátának való káposztát a felvágottmetélőn. (Balassa 62) • Commentary: coleslaw is a typical American cabbage salad, consisting of cabbage, onions, celery, carrots, radish and other vegetables mixed with mayonnaise. As coleslaw is unknown for Hungarian people, and in this case the exact type of salad is not important from the point of view of the plot, it was translated into Hungarian by the generic term saláta (‘salad’).

49. English Hungarian: • English ST: ... he had preferred himself a glass of stout and some oysters ... (Greene 472) • Hungarian TT: ... jómaga szívesebben fogyasztott volna egy pohár sört és néhány osztrigát ... Szobotka 293) • Commentary: stout, a 'heavy dark type of beer prepared with well roasted barley or malt and sometimes caramelised sugar’ (OID 836), unknown in Hungary, became sör (‘beer’) in the Hungarian translation.

50. 2.4. Generalisation of reporting verbs • translations into Hungarian are generally characterised by the specification of IE verbs with general meanings • the opposite can be observed in the H-IE direction: Hungarian verbs become more abstract and more general when translated into IE languages. The rich inventory of reporting verbs in Hungarian, for instance, is not reflected at all in H-IE translations. Instead of the wide variety of Hungarian reporting verbs translators use the same semantically depleted reporting verbs (to say) in IE translations.