Translatable or Not?

1. Translatable or Not? The issue of translatability

2. Robert Frost: Poetry is what gets lost in translation

3. Translatable or Not?

4. Untranslatable? solicitor al fresco croissant gemütlich terraced house to drizzle Zeitgeist Credit crunch It is not fair

5. Word for word or sense for sense? Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from the Greek – except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery – I render, not word for word, but sense for sense. (St Jerome , Letter to Pammachius, 359

6. Words or ideas? A moderate skill in different languages will easily satisfy one of the truth of this, it being so obvious to observe great store of words in one language which have no any that answer them in another. Which plainly shows that those of one country, by their custom and manner of life, have found occasions to make severalcomplex ideas, and give names to them, which others never collected into specific ideas. (J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690)

7. One could compile a Dictionary of Untranslatables that would include all the words that are (or were proudly claimed to be) culturally untranslatable into another language. Perhaps every cross-cultural study should begin with a glossary of untranslatables and cultural differences, to prevent the transformation of a culture into a mere exotic movie backdrop or kitch object. Until recently many words used in Western public and private spheres lacked Russian equivalents: among them are the words for ‘privacy’, ‘self’’, ‘mentality’ and ‘identity’. The distinction between ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ is also incomprehensible in Russian, since they both translate as ‘politika’. (S. Boym, Common Places, 1994

8. Different realities? • No two languages are sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached. • (B. Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality. Ed. J.B. Caroll, Cambridge Mass, MIT Press • See also: S. Pinker, TheLanguage Instinct, New York 1994 and R. Needham, Belief, Language and Experience, Oxford, 1972

9. Universals or not? • What neither side seems to prepared to consider is the possibility that languages, and the ways of thinking reflected in them, exhibit both profound differences and profound similarities; that the study of diversity can lead to the discovery of universals; that SOME hypotheses about universals are indispensable for the study of the diversity; and that hypotheses about conceptual universals have to be checked and revised in response to empirical findings emerging from systematic cross-linguistic investigations. (A. Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures…

10. The Universe of categories • Prototypes • Prototype ‘extensions’ • Segmentation of the same world. (See Aitchison and Wierzbicka) How do we divide the day?

11. Good morning Good afternoon Good evening ? Guten Morgen ? Guten Abend, Buona sera, Dobry wieczór Guten Tag, Buon Giorno, Dzień dobry How do we divide our days?

12. Family (See Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures… • X’s family (English)X’s rodzina (Polish) • Some people, not many people Some people, not many people • These people are like one thing These people are like one thing • Because everyone of these people Because everyone of these people • is a mother, father, wife is a mother, father, wife • husband or child of another husband or child of another • one of them one of them • X is a part of this thing X is a part of this thing • X’s children are part of this thing • X’s mother and father are part of this thing • X’s children are part of this thing Other people are part of this thing

13. Causes for untranslatability Linguistic > Extralinguistic > Mixed Examples • Culture specific concepts • The source language concepts with no equivalent in target culture • Different linguistic distinction (gender markers, articles, etc.) • Difference in spatial arrangements • Use of loan words and borrowings • Lack of the shared cultural space

14. Strategies and solutionsVinay, J.P. and J. Darbelnet, Comparative Stylistics. See in Venuti • Borrowing ( perestroika, tapas) • Calques (fruits of the season, w czym mogę pomóc?) • Literal translation • Transposition (rauchen verbotten > no smoking) • Modulation (Vou l’avez échappé belle > You’ve had a narrow escape) • Equivalence • Adaptation • Areas affected by the above: the lexicon, syntax, the message

15. “Gilette. La Perfection au Masculin” • “Gilette. The Best a Man Can Get”

16. Thank you • Reading for the next week