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Translationculturecognition PDF
Translationculturecognition PDF
Most people can recognise a translation grosso modo - particularly if they find
enough corresponding features between the target and the source language texts.
But asked to define translation, they hesitate, and many dictionaries, which offer
synonyms for the verb (render, rephrase, reword, transmit, re-express, transmute,
transmogrify, interpret, convert, transform, transpose, express, transfer, run) and
add ‘from one language into another’ do not state what is being translated; other
authorities make use of expressions such as ‘equivalent’, ‘equivalent message’,
‘equivalent textual material’, ‘similar’, ‘like’, ‘parallel’, ‘equal’, ‘identical’,
‘comparable’, ‘synonymous’, ‘analogous’ (Newmark 1988: 5 )
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instead of abiding by the Lord’s sacred Logos, the Tower’s builders espoused verticality
in discourse by initiating an ascendant interrogation, symbolised by the unfinished,
unfinishable Tower itself, which aroused God’s wrath in the form of His descendant
punitive response. The original all-pervasivenes of meaningfulness was consequently
dismantled and humans needed to resort to the institution of translation in order to
maintain meaningfulness in their lives.
3) As a consequence of Christ’s Resurrection and the new bridge of love established
between humankind and divinity via redemption, the Pentecost revealed the descent of
the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, presently endowed with the gift of ‘speaking in
tongues’ in order to spread the Holy Writ all over the world.
Semioticians, literary scholars, and specialists in translation studies realize that […]
traditional text strategies do not necessarily reduce written texts to their language
component. The semiotics of space and gesture plays a key role in translated
communication as soon as the representation of a real or possible world is involved
(Lambert 1997: 63)
As Hewson and Martin (19??: 23) point out, translation, both as a product and as a
process, needs to be anchored in a System of Representation which mediates the
transposition and rearticulation of a text from a source language (SL) into a target
language (TL) in terms of the socially construed reality shaped by the target
community’s perception of reality. Since the act of translation undeniably involves more
than language, it is intrinsically culture-bound. Any translation is an activity which
involves “a kind of verbal, but never strictly verbal communication,” while being “norm-
bound and culture-bound” (Lambert 1997: 60). To be a successful translation, any re-
presentation or transposition needs to measure up to specific culture-related requirements.
Translation implies the conversion between several axiological (value-related)
and referential (related to object identification in the real world) systems. Translation is
meant to simultaneously bridge gaps between cultures and emphasise existing
differences. While acknowledging the tension between cultures, translation is intended to
function as an operator of coherence and a facilitator of clarification.
Intertextual competence smoothes the mediation between two cultural products
whose construction and reception may vary according to potentially incongruent social
and cultural parameters used by the respective language users:
No two languages exhibit identical systems of organizing symbols into meaningful
expression. The basic principles of translation in a receptor language can be the
equivalent of the model in the <source language>“ (Nida 1964: 27)
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Along the same line of thought, Newmark underlines that historic instances of wide scale
translations occur when two essential conditions are abided by:
1) the acquiring culture is assimilative and receptive to new ideas
2) there is continuous contact between the two languages.
History provides a plethora of such instances. The first traces of translation date
back as far as 3,000 BC, during the Egyptian Old Kingdom, in the area of the First
Cataract, Elephantine, where inscriptions in two languages were encountered. Starting
with the year 300 BC, the Romans took over a multitude of elements from the Greek
culture, which entailed massive transposition of Greek cultural concepts into the Roman
culture. To begin with the 12th century AD, Western Europe came into contact with the
Islamic culture in Moorish Spain and after the collapse of the Moorish supremacy, the
Toledo School of translators familiarised European scholars with Arabic versions of
Greek scientists and philosophers (Gentzler 1993). Later on, Luther’s translation of the
Bible (1522) largely contributed to the foundations of modern German, while the British
version of King James’s Bible (1611) had a seminal influence on the evolution of the
English language and literature.
Any efficient and accomplished translator needs to achieve well-formedness and
accuracy, adequacy of register and style, compliance with socio-cultural norms of
expression during the complex transfer of cultural aspects between languages and
cultures, in an endeavour to “reproduc[e] the total dynamic character of the
communication” (Nida 1964: 120). As a consequence, any translation theory relying on
cross-cultural variety and flexibility needs to elucidate the controversial notion of
‘equivalence’, which is to be discussed in the following section.
Nida (1964: 165) makes a further distinction by stating that every aspect of translation
could either be formally or dynamically equivalent. One could thus speak of
formal/lexical equivalence on the one hand, and of cognitive /dynamic equivalence on the
other. In the case of formal equivalence the focus is on the message itself regarding both
form and content. The basic premise is that the message in the receptor or target language
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(TL) should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language.
This approach is often applied to the translation of poetry.
At first sight, the main purpose of translation is to faithfully convey the meaning
of the original text. Translation, nevertheless, surpasses the confinements of adequacy in
deciphering the original text:
It would be wrong to think, however, that the response of the receptors in the
second language is merely in terms of comprehension of the information, for
communication is not merely informative. It must also be expressive and
imperative if it is to serve the principal purposes of communication” (Nida 1964:
24).
one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the
source-language message, but with the dynamic relationship, that the relationship
between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which
existed between the original receptors and the message (Nida 1964: 159).
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information whatsoever, then obviously not only translating but all communication is
impossible.” (Nida 1960: 13)
Following Nida, designating equivalence in translation theory has varied from one
theorist to another. Each language has a preference for specific lexical and functional
devices, preferably utilised to convey meanings and associated impressions that are rather
implied than literally stated in the text. Such devices are not necessarily alike in the SL
and TL. The duty of the translator in this case is multifold; first s/he needs to read and
comprehend what the source text says literally, then clarify what is implied by certain
utterances in specific contexts - such as rhetorical questions, understatements, instances
of irony, semantic repetition and parallelism, figurative language, emphasis as a carrier of
emotional overtones - in order to engage in the combined transmission of the literal as
well as the implied meanings. To this purpose, the translator commits him-herself to the
risky tasks of rewording, adding, omitting, providing footnotes, even rephrasing certain
textual chunks in order to convey the intended sense of the original.
Newmark (1988: 10) borrows the term ‘dynamic equivalence’ from Nida and
describes it as “the principle of similar or equivalent response or effect, or of functional
equivalence”. In Newmark’s view, equivalent aspects include the content as well as the
form, while supplying a more concise definition of a dynamically equivalent translation:
“ the criterion by which the effectiveness and therefore, the value of the translation…is to
be assessed” (Newmark 1988: 48). In a nutshell, a translation that attempts to be
dynamically equivalent is based on the principle of bringing about an equivalent effect on
the target receptor. Newmark’s view is endorsed by scholars such as Snell-Nornby (1988)
and Gentzler (1993) who argue that a translation should convey the meaning of the
original while being faithful to the “dynamics” of the original message. Their approach
differs from Nida’s in that it looks at the textual dynamics in terms of ‘naturalness’ of
language use and expected ease of comprehension on the part of the TL reader rather than
in terms of similitude in TL reader’s response, mostly regarded as an attitudinal issue. A
translation which transfers the meaning and the dynamics of the original text is to be
regarded as a faithful translation. Such a translation should pursue two objectives:
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2. THEORIES OF MEANING
The basic claim of ‘thing’ theories of meaning is that meaningfulness exclusively lies
in the relations between symbols and extra-linguistic objects of various kinds. Such
theories roughly fall into two categories: ‘direct’ and ‘mediated’ theories of meaning.
This set of theories claim that any word corresponds to an external object and there is
nothing mediating between the word and the thing referred to. Otherwise formulated, the
meaning of a name is its bearer. The denotation of any expression thus becomes the thing
named, i.e. the thing which the expression designates or stands for. For such theories to
function, each meaningful expression needs being assigned a specific referent or extra-
linguistic object.
Being focused on the denotative value of words and their combinations, ‘thing’
theories assess sentences in terms of their denoting truth values. The truth value of a
sentence is indicated by its correspondence with extra-linguistic facts and its providing
correct descriptions of states of affairs in the world. Such sentential truths are of an
empirical nature and researchers need to benefit from access to world facts in order to
verify whether a statement is true or not. Such verifications are meant to reveal the so-
called truth conditions satisfying the assessment of a sentence as true or false.
Furthermore, such truth conditions need to be confronted with the facts meant to enable
researchers to establish the truth or falsehood of a specific sentence.
Springing out of logical positivism, such ‘verificationist theories’ professed by the
Vienna Circle philosophers (such as Carnap, Schlick, Russell) revolve around the claim
that “A significant assertion is one which may be tested for truth or falsity by means of
experience”. Consequently, if experience is the source of meaning, sentences whose
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Such theories go beyond the univocal correspondence between a sign and the
referent denoted by that sign and highlight the correspondence between signs, objects and
mental representations, revolving around Frege’s distinction between sense and
reference. According to Frege, the sense of a term is the concept/definition a speaker
grasps and mentally activates when understanding what the term means. By contrast, the
reference of a term indicates the object or set of objects denoted by the term in question.
Thus, the sense of the term ‘cat’ is the idea of ‘cattiness’ as mentally represented by a
comprehender of that term. The reference of the term ‘cat’ encompasses the total amount
of domestic felines satisfying the description of the term.
Terms may differ in sense despite their referring to the same object. For instance,
‘Marilyn Monroe’ and ‘Norma Jean Baker’ DO NOT have the same sense although they
refer to the same person, the famous American movie star in the fifties. A sentence like
“It is common knowledge that Marylyn Monroe acted in <Some Like it Hot>“ is a
perfectly intelligible sentence, while “It is common knowledge that Norma Jean Baker
acted in <Some Like it Hot>“ fails to be comprehensible unless it is placed in a
biographical context. One goes to a music store to buy a CD by Eminem, but when the
hip-hop star was subpoenaed in court he was addressed not by his stage name, but by his
ID name, Marshall Mathers. Consequently, Eminem and Marshall Mathers refer to the
same person, but display different senses, one designating his stage persona, the other his
legal persona. Hence, senses are regarded as the multifarious ways people envisage
objects, the way in which objects are presented. In Frege’s words, senses provide ‘the
manner and context of presentation’ of the object.
Further examples may comprise the following expressions:
Shakespeare/Old Will The Swan of Avon/the author of ‘Romeo and Juliet’
Michael Jackson/The King of Pop/the pedophiliac megastar
Brad Pitt/the sexiest man on the planet/Jennifer Aniston’s ex/ Angelina’s lovey-dovey
which convincingly point out that such expressions may designate the same referent yet
express a different sense. Consequently, if the sense of a term is specified by means of a
description, then the reference of a term is whatever satisfies the description granting
sense to the term. Sense, then, mediates between. a sign and what the sign refers to.
There are also senses which do not denote a specific existing entity or, otherwise
put, lack a real world referent, such as: unicorn, leprechaun, hobbit, the, but, the largest
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number in the world, the person who will invent the cure against AIDS, the likely winner
of the next Oscar award.
To sum up, mediated reference theories view words in relation to sense rather than
reference, starting from the premise that sense always determines reference.
This family of theories argue in favour of linguistic meaning emerging from the
pairing of expressions with ‘something in the mind’: the meaning of a symbol is what one
mentally grasps in understanding it. ‘Idea’ theories are underlain by the unquestionable
assumption that meaning initially derives from ‘inside the mind’, rather than from entities
‘in the world’.
There are three main versions of ‘IDEA’ theories of meaning:
a) the mental image version, which maintains that meanings derive from ‘pictures in the
head’
b) the intention-based theory, according to which meanings derive from speakers’
intentions (Grice), i.e. from commonsensical intentional or propositional attitude states
(believing, hoping, desiring).
c) the LOT version, which defines meaning as derivable and expressible in terms of a
“language of thought”
In the lines to come, I shall briefly present the main tenets of the three above-mentioned
versions.
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licking milk out of a saucer. It is impossible to mentally represent a cat leaving aside its
colour, in other words, to visualise ‘the’ cat, one that is not particularly black, white or
striped. Some mental images might not be the result of habitual interaction with the
referent in question, but the consequence of some accidental association. For instance, a
child’s perception of a raging bull is fright-inducing, unlike a matador’s or a farmer’s
visualisation of the same animal. Unlike meaning, images may not always correspond to
classes of things. Thus, it is hard to suggest some generally shared mental representations
of words designating classes such as ‘vegetables’, or ‘weapons’, taking into account that
such representations are always culture-specific: thus, in those communities where
potatoes are staple foods, people are more likely to instantiate an image of potatoes as
representative for the class ‘vegetables’ rather than an image of an ‘asparagus’ or a
‘beetroot’. In pre-industrial communities, knives or bows and arrows are more likely to
activate the mental image of salient exemplars in the category ‘weapons’ than in western
societies, where guns and even nuclear or biochemical weapons tend to be highly
representative of this class (Stainton 1996, Saaed 1996)
The main argument brought forth by opponents of mentalistic theories is that
ideas cannot resemble real life entities: one may only naturally wonder how an idea could
be similar to a cat.
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meanings arise from pairing utterances with intentions. For instance, it has long become a
matter of social and linguistic convention that an utterance of the kind ‘I’m terribly sorry
for what I said yesterday’ is intended as an apology, while an utterance such as ‘ Thank
you for your invaluable help’ in intended and is understood to count as an expression of
gratitude on the part of the speaker (Stainton 1996, Saaed 1996)
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I say ‘ I bet you 5 $ he doesn’t get elected’, a bet is nor performed unless my addressee
makes some response like OK or ‘You’re on’.
Other SAs – such as questions or greetings – may not automatically trigger
explicit responses yet they however set up the expectation for some potential interactive
response. Failure to respond to a question or a greeting (silence) is likely to generate
certain types of compensatory behaviour: The speaker may repeat the question or even
inquire why the interlocutor is snubbing them by their refusal to talk (Thomas 1995).
Within the framework of linguistic anthropology, an utterance can only become
“intelligible when it is placed within its context of situation, or, otherwise put, “ the
situation in which words are uttered can never be passed over as irrelevant to the
linguistic expression” (Malinowski 1922 in Nehrlich and Clarke 1996). Enlarging this
premise, researchers are likely to embark upon the investigation of language in the
context of culture. To understand language involves understanding the culture as well as
the social practices of the community of speakers in question. Meaning emerges, is
clearly conveyed and disambiguated only in specific contexts of situation, which need to
be defined as the site where social, cultural and psychological elements of communal life
become inextricably interwoven.
Along Malinowski’s line of argument, Firth redefined context of situation as the
relevant verbal and non-verbal actions of the participants, the relevant objects and the
effect of the verbal action. all of which needs to be judged as embedded in a variety of
wider social frameworks. Consequently, meaning relations need to be rearticulated as
multidimensional and functional sets of relations between words or word combinations
and the contexts of their occurrence. Word meaning is not contained in the word, it is not
the ‘essence’ of the word, but lies in the use of a word in a situation. Words are not
receptacles of thought, but the other way round: it is thought that depends on language
and ultimately on the actions performed/mable by means of language.
With translation especially, situating words or phrases or texts within specific
contexts is of primary importance. When transferring meaning from a source language
into a target language, the local context of an utterance and implicitly of a speech act
needs to be correctly identified in order to avoid mistranslation. Utterances may imply
one reading in one specific contextual location and a totally different one in a distinct
configuration of spacio-temporal elements, For instance, a very simple utterance such as
“ Are you going to buy this car?” may trigger, among a variety of other responses,
something like “Are you nuts?”. Such a reply could means opposite things in different
contexts: If the car is a bargain and meets with the buyer’s expectations, it will obviously
means “Isn’t it obvious I will?”. If the car is a write-out and the required price is
outrageously high, it will mean exactly the opposite: i.e. “Isn’t it obvious I won’t?”
If it is April 1, and one asks “Who are you trying to kid?” this may count as an honest
question, decodable as “Who is the target of your mystification?” On any other context,
“Who are you trying to kid?’ could be perceived as an expression of disbelief. (You’re not
kidding anyone but yourself)
A recurrent mistake done by translators is failure to identify the context meant to
elucidate whether the meaning of an utterance is literal or figurative. In a context where
participants complain of the harsh winter and biting frost, an utterance such as “You’ve
got cold feet” could simply be a constative remark or maybe an expression of
thoughtfulness and sympathy. In the context of a wedding which is about to take place,
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telling the groom ‘you’ve got cold feet’ will indicate the groom’ experiencing pre-marital
nervousness, even fright.
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3.1.1. Prototypes
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African countries bananas are widespread and likely to be regarded the ‘fruitiest’ fruit
around.
Degrees of membership or typicality ratings depend on the degree of resemblance
of certain members with the prototypical members, as well as on the number of shared
prototypical attributes. If ‘good’ examples share many attributes with other members of
the same category and are maximally different from members of other categories, ‘bad’
or ‘marginal’ examples share only few attributes with members of the same category, yet
may possess several attributes belonging to members of other categories. Thus, Alsatians
or Dalmatians tend to be more representative for the category ‘dogs’ in countries where
dogs are basically regarded as strong, loyal watchdogs rather than playful. With pet
lovers, who keep dogs in their apartments rather than outdoors, ‘lap dogs’ such as
Pekinese or even ‘Chihuahuas’ may be labelled as typical. On the contrary, hunters will
be unlikely to regard lap dogs as doggy, preferring greyhounds or retrievers.
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bear they shot on a certain hunting expedition, the ferocious lion they confronted during a
safari).
Such exemplifications point out that the selection of certain prototypical attributes
or exemplars instead of others depends on the perceiver’s existing categorisation system
as well as on the context of categorisation. Context can alter the significance of attributes
regarded as relevant for a certain category or highlight attributes that are not commonly
associated with representative exemplars of a specific category (Ungerer and Schmid
1996, Hinton 2000). For instance, the same person may be labelled as a ‘too young
person’ when it comes to drinking spirits or having a driving licence while at the same
time they are considered to be ‘too old’ to start ballet classes or gymnastics. A stone may
be an object of scientific investigation for a geologist, a potential weapon for a person
who is being attacked and has no gun or knife on them, a means to break an entrance for
a burglar.
Apart from undergoing individual differentiation, categorisation is also flexible
with respect to the goal the categoriser pursues as well as the context in which
categorisation occurs. Thus, taxonomic categories, which arise from (directly or
culturally acquired) experience, are to be contrasted with goal-directed categories
(Barsalou 1982), which arise from functional necessities, such as: ‘ways to run away
from the Mafia’ or ‘things you pack in rainy weather’. The most typical members of
taxonomic categories are those with the most representative properties. The most typical
members of goal-directed categories are those which best satisfy the functional purpose
described by the category. For a lame person a stick is a device meant to enable them to
walk better, for a shepherd it is a tool meant to goad the flock, for an abusive parent an
instrument to punish an allegedly disobedient child.
As a concluding remark, the meaning of words is more often than not
contextually-defined, thus espousing blurred boundaries and abounding in vagueness
rather than in accuracy. As Aitchinson puts it: “Words are stitched together in one’s mind
like pieces on a patchwork quilt. The shape and size of the patches would differ from
language to language, but within each language any particular patch could be defined
with reference to those around it.” (1996: 29). In places patches overlap considerably, in
places there are bare spots left. The most obvious instance of overlapping is synonymy,
where the meanings of words such as chase and pursue, freedom and liberty or buy and
purchase get almost completely juxtaposed. On the other hand, most languages display
inexplicable gaps: if ‘corpse’ is the dead counterpart of a human or animal body, there is
no word designating ‘dead plant’. Overlapping frequently occurs with groups of words
that dictionaries are far from placing under the same entry. For instance, hog, sow, piglet
share the common features ‘ pigs’, sow, hen, princess are all ‘female’, while piglet, chick,
princeling indicates that all referents are ‘youngsters’.
Overlaps, lexical gaps and restrictions in relation to word combinations have been
explored from two fundamental viewpoints:
A) the ‘atomic globule’ viewpoint, revolving around the fundamental claim that words
are decomposable into smaller constituents, called ‘semantic components’ or
‘semantic primitives’, which need to be regarded as ‘meaning atoms’. Such atoms lie
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in a ‘semantic pool’ out of which each word in a specific language extracts the
semantic primitives that make up its definable meaning.
B) the ‘cobweb’ viewpoint, a theory that argues in favour of words being meaningful,
comprehensible and recognizable because of the links word users build between
them.
The most articulate version of the ‘atomic globulae’ viewpoint is the so-called
COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS (henceforth CA) (Kempson 1977), a clear and
economical method meant to provide systematic word description. CA assumes that
words do not have unitary meanings, but they are clusters of semantic components, which
can be decomposed into a number of constitutive elements. Humans treat words like
jigsaw puzzles, assembling and disassembling them into semantic primitives. Semantic
primitives are universal constructs in terms of which lexical items such as bachelor,
widower, divorcee can be constructed. Consequently, supporters of CA maintain that there
should be a stock of semantic primitives in each person’s mental lexicon, ready to be
accessed and appropriately employed. Below there is an exemplification of the semantic
field ‘human beings’, in terms of the presence and absence of specific semantic
primitives such as ‘+-adult’, ‘+-male’, etc.
e.g.
ROOT human adult male
MEANING:
humans
man + + +
woman + + -
boy + - +
girl + - -
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cake + + - + +/-
cookie + +/- - +/- +
biscuit +/- +/- - +- +
cracker - - - - +
roll +/- + + + +
bun +/- + + + +
bread - + + + -
As a circular method, which makes use of ‘semantic universals’, CA aligns itself with
Chomskyan generative grammars in that it claims that semantic components belong to a
language-neutral stock of features, from which each language may choose a sub-set of
features, combine and arrange them so as to yield contrasting vocabularies. As a result,
semantic components required in the description of languages can be divided into two
types:
a) those which are universal, required in the description of all human languages
b) those which are language-specific, used only for the description of certain particular
language(s).
In this respect, CA received the most scathing criticism from linguistic anthropologists,
who maintain that most languages are strikingly dissimilar, because so are the cultures
they reflect and consolidate via linguistic practices. Therefore, languages cannot not be
using an identical stock of semantic primitives. irrespective of such justified attacks, CA
proves certain advantages for the analyst:
1) it provides an economical and convenient explanation for why certain words overlap
in meaning.
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e.g. mother, mare, aunt, waitress all share the semantic feature ‘+ female’
hop, skip, run, jump all share the semantic feature ‘ + move
2) it is congruent with other scientific approaches endeavouring to explain the way the
world appears to work (chemical substances are usually decomposed into more basic
elements)
3) it simplifies explanations supplied in order to elucidate word meaning. Without
resorting to CA descriptions, words are defined in terms of other words in an endless
chain. Definitions typically apply in chains and only stop when reaching a primitive
basis , in the case of CA semantic primitives)
Yet, CA completely ignores language being anchored in social and psychological
reality and adjusting to the changes the latter undergo and unavoidably extend on to the
domain of language. In addition, psychological surveys have pointed out that there is no
evidence that humans actually split words into atomic globulae in their mind. People
analyse words, but simple identification of mere features does not involve decomposing
the word down to a finite set of features.
A word is not defined in isolation but via the other words whose selection is acceptable in
a given language: “You know a word by the company it keeps” (Firth in Palmer 1976:
94). Company or collocation is part of a word’s meaning, since co-occurrence creates
‘mutual expectancy of words’
Most automatic associations within such cobwebs are generated by habit of use :
e.g. bread and butter, moon and stars, envelope and stamps
Frequent principles of association include:
1) Clusters of words related to the same topic are stored together, particularly items
belonging to the same semantic field. Thus, needle is generally NOT associated to
poker or dagger (pointed objects) but to the semantic field of sewing : thread, pins,
eye, sew.
2) Converses, i.e. words that designate referents whose existence is mutually implied:
e.g. husband /wife: parent/child; employer/employee; abuser/victim; doctor/patient;
plaintiff/defendant
3) Opposites, such as: big/small; present/absent;
dark/bright;handmade/machinemade;thick/thin; moist/dry; sea/land.
Frequent types of links comprise:
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Tversky (1990) argues that there are two fundamental ways of organising knowledge
which are universal across cultures:
1) division into kinds : taxonomy/hyponymy
2) division into parts : partonymy/meronymy
3.2.1. Hyponymy
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effort: human comprehenders are ‘cognitive misers’ and seek for cognitive economy,
since they strive to achieve the most informative result against the least cognitive cost
(Tversky 1990) and contains the largest number of ‘typical’ instances (most prototypical
exemplars). Moreover, it is hard to delineate ‘a common shape ‘ for the superordinate
categories (e.g. fruit, vehicle), which, with young children are memorised much later than
basic level categories. In addition, superordinate categories borrow traits from the basic
levels, thus achieving parasitic categorisation.
Sometimes, suitable superordinates do not always come to mind readily
(Aitchinson 1996). Thus, hail, rain, snow: fall under the category precipitation only in
weather forecasts. How do we group cough, sneeze :? As noises indicating respiratory
discomfort? Or under what denomination could we group bathtub, basin :? As bathroom
fixtures or rather sanitary fitments?
English speakers frequently tend to use two coordinates to describe a set of items
despite the existence of a technically-sounding hyperonym. Thus most speakers tend to
say “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” instead of “ Do you have any siblings?”. At
dinner one is more likely to ask “Where are the knives and forks?” than “ Where is the
cutlery?”
Assigning a superordinate depends on the contextual needs: thus, shoes, slippers,
gumboots may be grouped as footwear when organising one’s closet, while gumboots,
raincoat, mackintosh may constitute rainwear if the weather requires waterproof outfit.
Psychologists sustain that humans encounter serious comprehension hindrances
when endeavouring to refer to subordinate level without having acquired expert
knowledge. Only an ornithologist would say “I saw a snowy owl /barn owl/screech owl”.
Most people would say, “I saw an owl”. Strollers along green pastures will mention
having picked a flower or ‘wild flower’ rather than a ‘daisy’, ‘buttercup’ or’bluebell’ or ‘
dandelion’ or having spotted fish in the river rather than ‘ pike’ or ‘ trout’ or ‘carp’.
Between items included within the same class, there is a relationship of co-
hyponymy. All co-hyponyms are incompatible, or mutually exclusive. Thus, Monday
cannot be Tuesday or a rose cannot be a tulip: a dog is not a cat and, obviously, a plant is
not a metal. Languages are intricate enough to display instances when incompatibility
works with certain groups and fails to work with others, more specifically in cases co-
hyponyms (partially) overlap. For instance, sincerity and honesty are both virtues but they
are neither synonyms nor incompatibles since they overlap; greed and selfishness are
both vices but not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, hate and anger are both
emotions but they can co-exist with the same experiencer.
3.2.3. Partonomy
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b. functionally significant parts, i.e. whose function is relevant to human purposes (the
seat of the chair, the blade of the saw, the leg of the trousers, the keys of the piano).
Obviously, perceptual salience may be indicative of good/bad functionality, as in the case
of a warped table or a crooked fork.
3.3.1. Oppositeness
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residence); clergy/ laity (as an only choice in terms of a +-secular lifestyle), gas/
electricity (as the only choice in terms of fuel) or tea/coffee (as the only choice in terms
of hot beverages to be served by an air-hostess during a flight)
Conceptually speaking, complementarity is the simplest and purest variety of
oppositeness, since a pair of complementaries exhaustively divides a specific conceptual
domain into two mutually exclusive compartments, so that whatever does not fall into one
of the compartments must necessarily fall into the other. Complementarity excludes the
presence of any ‘no man’s land’, since it envisages no possibility for a third term lying
between the two complementaries. Conclusive examples are. true/false;
dead/alive;open/shut;hit/miss (a target); pass/fail (an exam).With complementary terms, a
test that easily applies is the following: “Asserting one term implicitly implies denying
the other”. Consequently, John is not dead entails and is entailed by John is alive.
Specification such as “under normal circumstances” is needed when comprehenders face
dilemmas of the kind: Are vampires or ghosts dead or alive? Are hermaphrodites or
transsexuals male or female? How do we explain the acceptance of such expressions as
‘He was more dead than alive”.
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c) When intensified (by means of adverbs such as very, extremely, highly, utterly, quite),
members move along a scale representing degrees of the respective property
d) The two members do not bisect a domain ; there is a range of in-between values
It’s long stands in a relation of contrariety (not contradiction) with It’s short since saying
something like It’s neither long nor short is not paradoxical. Along the scale ranging from
extreme length to extreme brevity, there is an area of in-betweenness called ‘ a pivotal
region’. Certain notions (e.g. heat) display a range of lexical terms located on various
points along this pivotal region, such as hot tepid lukewarm cold in terms of
temperature or scrawny skinny thin slender slim of average weight plump sturdy stout fat
overweight humongous in terms of bodily weight.
Conceptualising scales varies widely according to the entities they apply to. For
instance, long/short river entails differences measured in miles or kilometres, while
long/short eyelashes need high accuracy measurements if literally measured. Isn’t that
tall? is understood differently when describing a person than when describing a tree or a
building
3.3.3. Synonymy
Synonyms are lexical items whose senses are identical in respect of ‘central’
semantic traits, but differ, if at all, in terms of ‘minor’ or ‘peripheral’ traits. Synonyms
must not only manifest a high degree of semantic overlap, they must also have a low
degree of implicit contrastiveness. Denying one member is a pair of synonyms
(honest:truthful) implicitly denies the other. Synonymy is often signalled by ‘or’/’that is
to say’ as in He was fired, that is to say, dismissed.
When synonyms are used contrastively, the fact is signalled by ‘more exactly’ or ‘or
rather’as in: He was murdered, or rather executed.
Two lexical items are absolute synonyms or ‘cognitive synonyms’ on condition all
their contextual relations are identical, Such is the case of mutually interchangeable pairs
such as. begin/commence;munch/chew;hate/loathe;scandalous/outrageous whose
contextual distribution is identical. Yet, this is not the case with hide/conceal whose
contextual distribution may differ as in the example below:
Where is he hiding?
*Where is he concealing?
Unlike cognitive synonyms, plesionyms designate pairs/groups of only partially
overlapping synonyms, since the assertion of one member of the pair/group does not
simultaneously trigger denying the other
e.g. It wasn’t foggy last Friday – just misty.
You did not trash us at badminton – but I admit that you beat us.
He is by no means fearless, but he is brave
The loch where we were fishing is not a lake – it’s open to the sea.
She isn’t ravishing, but in her way she is pretty
Although two lexical items may display the same semantic traits and may occur within
the same distributional context, they may differ with respect to their expressive traits.
e.g. daddy/father
mummy/mother
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decease pass away die perish expire pop off cop it snuff it kick croak
the
bucket
urinate pass point spend wee- pee piss
water Percy a wee
at the penny
porcela
in
mentally deranged insane crazy nuts nutty fruity barmy bonker cucko having having
disturbed s o a bats in
screw the
loose attic
Even if an idiom like spill the beans is a hackneyed metaphor, comprehenders need
to resort to metaphorical conceptualization: the mind is a container in which there are
secrets, which look like beans, and when one is not careful, the beans may get spilt, i.e.
the secrets are revealed. But for this metaphorical inference, we would find it difficult to
comprehend and use the idiom.
Idiomatic speech is amply used owing to its suggestiveness, colourfulness and the
creative associations it brings to mind. Undeniably, the idiom is likely to activate an
image to which the synonymous word does not even come close. An idiom is perhaps not
as striking as an expectation-challenging metaphor in a poem, but it is definitely striking
and appealing enough for everyday speech not to labelled as dead or frozen. An example
given by Gibbs is the students’ slang idioms for vomit: blow chunks, lose one’s lunch, kiss
the porcelain god, which may sound more intriguing nowadays than the traditional
throw up or toss one’s cookies. In compliance with the context and especially the register,
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there are several idioms for the same literal paraphrase. Thus, to die can be verbalised as
follows:
• give up the ghost (dated)
• breathe your last (formal)
• go the way of all flesh (humorous)
• meet your maker (humorous)
• kick the bucket (informal)
• bite the dust (informal, humorous)
• push up the daisies (informal, humorous)
Such idioms cannot be interchanged without an alteration to their meaning
any more than different synonyms can.
I must announce with deep regret that His Majesty has breathed his last. –
*His Majesty has kicked the bucket. (in a formal announcement about the monarch’s
death on the radio)
‘What happened to your pal Joe?’
‘He kicked the bucket in a bank job.’
*’He breathed his last in a bank job.’ (in a conversation between two robbers about their
friend Joe who was shot by the FBI. such a sentence might be acceptable if ironical, but it
fails to render the suddenness of the shooting and it belongs to a different register)
Broadly speaking, idioms have been analysed in the light of two major
approaches: the compositional and the non-compositional approach (Titone & Connine
1999: 1655-74).
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respective idiom. Suspending the literal processing may depend both on the
compositionality of the idiom and on the context, if the context contradicts the literal
meaning. Nevertheless, literal comprehension may still persist in an appropriate context:
e.g. The two kids used to fight like cat and dog, literally scratching and biting each other.
Since the non-compositional approach proves too restrictive to satisfactorily
explain the syntactic, lexical and semantic behaviour of idioms, the compositional
approach has been judged to provide a more flexible insight.
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speakers map the mental image of some container tipping over and overflowing its
contents onto the image of somebody accidentally revealing a secret. In the process,
speakers are likely to make use of the underlying conceptual metaphors THE MIND IS A
CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES. In the section to come I will
enlarge upon f figurative language as indispensable to our conceptualisation of the world,
while insisting on the role played by metaphor in everyday language and thought.
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The lovers are travellers on a journey together, with their common life goals
seen as destinations to be reached. The relationship is their vehicle, and it allows
them to pursue those common goals together. The relationship is seen as fulfilling
its purpose as long as it allows them to make progress towards their common goals.
The journey isn’t easy. There are impediments, and there are places (crossroads)
where a decision has to be made about which direction to go and whether to keep
travelling together. (Lakoff 2001)
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He overpowered her.
She is besieged by suitors.
He has to fend them off.
He enlisted the aid of her friends.
He made an ally of her mother.
Theirs is a misalliance if I’ve ever seen one.
Metaphorical structuring involved is partial, not total. If it were total, one concept
would actually be the other, not merely understood in terms of it. Strictly speaking, love
is not a journey, it can only be understood in terms of a journey by metaphorical
mapping. Neither is love a sick person in need of medical assistance in the metaphorical
mapping LOVE IS A PATIENT , equally prolific in everyday language. We can speak of
a sick relationship, a strong, healthy marriage. A marriage can be dead, or it can no
longer be revived. Yet, no correspondences occur at the level of hospitalisation redtape,
health insurance or simply admission to hospital:
Their marriage is on the mend.
We’re getting back on our feet.
Their relationship is in really good shape.
They’ve got a listless marriage.
Their marriage is on its last legs.
It’s a tired affair. (Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 49)
According to the cognitive view, metaphors divide into three main classes, which are
to be defined and illustrated in the lines to come.
1) Structural metaphors structure one entity or concept in terms of another, without
any constraint as to the concrete of abstract nature of either.
We unawarely conceptualise time as a valuable commodity, available in limited amounts
and which we risk wasting by misuse
e.g. TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY
You’re wasting your time.
There’s little time left – let’s hurry.
Come on, we’re running out of time.
Sorry to take away some of your precious time...
This project is not worth considering for a second.
Lucky him – he’s got so much time on his hands!
2) Orientational metaphors organize a whole system of concepts with respect to one
another, focusing on spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-
shallow, central-peripheral, near-far. Such spatial orientations arise from the way our
bodies which function within our physical environment. The following metaphorical
mappings frequently underlie the way we conceptualise moods, quantities, virtues,
emotions or reason.
HAPPY IS UP vs SAD IS DOWN
I’m feeling up. My spirits rose. He’s really low these days. I fell into a depression.
CONSCIOUS IS UP vs UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN
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Get up. He rises early in the morning. He dropped off to sleep. He’s under hypnosis.
HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP vs SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN
He’s at the peak of health. Lazarus rose from the dead. He’s in top shape. He fell ill.
He came down with the flu. His health is declining. He dropped dead.
MORE IS UP vs LESS IS DOWN
My income rose last year. The number of errors he made is incredibly low. He is
underage. If you’re too hot, turn the heat down.
GOOD IS UP vs BAD IS DOWN
Things are looking up. Things are at an all-time low. He does high-quality work.
VIRTUE IS UP vs DEPRAVITY IS DOWN
She has high standards. She is upright. She is an upstanding citizen. That was a low
trick. I wouldn’t stoop to that. That would be beneath me.
RATIONAL IS UP vs EMOTIONAL IS DOWN
The discussion fell to the emotional level, but I raised it back up to the rational
plane. He couldn’t rise above his emotions ( Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 14-19).
3) Ontological metaphors enable us to view events, activities, emotions, ideas as entities
and substances. Humans tend to understand the world by imposing boundaries on
physical phenomena and dealing with entities as if they were delimited by a surface.
Thus, many entities that can be conceptualized as containers: land areas, human beings,
rocks or substances, the visual field, events or activities:
There’s a lot of land in Kansas. (=land area)
He’s out of sight now. The ship is coming into view. (=the visual field).
Halfway into the race, I ran out of energy. (=event/race as container object)
He’s immersed in washing the windows right now. (activity as substance and
therefore as container)
I put a lot of energy into washing the windows. (action as container).
A typical example of ontological metaphor is THE MIND IS A MACHINE, which
underlies everyday expressions such as:
“My mind just isn’t operating today!”,
“I’m a little rusty today
“We’ve been working on this problem all day and now we’re running out of steam”
(L&J, 1980:27)
Besides entity and substance metaphors, ontological metaphors also comprise
container metaphors. People are physical beings, bounded and delineated from the rest
of the world by the surface of our skins, and our bodies are viewed as containers
endowed with an inside and an outside.
When hearing the outrageous news, he blew his top.
She was steaming with repressed anger.
Let him simmer if he is so mad.
John had an outburst of rage/laughter/despair.
You need to vent out your feelings for a while.
They stifled their indignation.
A special type of ontological metaphors is represented by those metaphors where the
physical object is further specified as being a person. Personification allows us to make
sense of phenomena in the world in human terms by ascribing human qualities to entities
that are not human, such as theories, diseases, inflation, etc.This allows for the
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As this world shrinks together like an aging orange and all peoples in all cultures
move closer together (however reluctantly and suspiciously) it may be that the
crucial sentence for our remaining years on earth may be very simply:
TRANSLATE OR DIE. The lives of every creature on the earth may one day
depend on the instant and accurate translation of one word. (Engle and Engle, 1985)
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As ‘cognitive misers’ (Fiske and Taylor 1984: 12), humans need to be equipped
with mental shortcuts, best achieved by activating schemata, which are simplified and
systematic representations of knowledge. Schemata are similar to computer files: humans
create them in order to deposit items of knowledge inside them. Such items may range
from simple objects (shoes, buildings, stationery) to events (going on a date, having a
barbecue, delivering a child), natural phenomena (earthquakes, rainbows, tornadoes) and
eventually to complex intercultural processes and notions (globalisation, terrorism, the
hothouse effect, gender or race discrimination). Schemata enable comprehenders to
retrieve generic concepts from memory and accommodate incoming input into existing
conceptual structures. They undergo constant enriching and reorganising, just like
computer files may be modified by inserting new material or rearranging existing data.
Cognitive psychologists such as Rumelhart regard schemata as higher-order
cognitive structures defined as “fundamental elements upon which all information
processing depends” (Rumelhart 1980: 33). Schemata constitute the ‘building blocks of
cognition’. During the process of comprehension humans activate higher-order mental
structures which involve variables, variable constraints and default variables related to
the situation/object/event/person to be conceptualised (Rumelhart 1980: 35-39).
Rumelhart likens variables in a schema to characters in a play. Different values can
realise the same variable; the same way different actors can play the same character. The
variable constraints specify the ‘typical values of the variables and their
interrelationships’ (Rumelhart 1980: 35). Variable constraints enable comprehenders to
operate a shortcut search for elements that realise the variables in a schema they
instantiate. As for variables that are not explicitly specified in an input, constraints enable
comprehenders to supply missing values or default values meant to fill in the gaps in the
activated schema. (Rumelhart 1980: 36). Such ‘default values’ can be inferable on the
basis of shared expectations, i.e. expectations that are common among a group of
individuals. Rumelhart states that default variables are suppliable because schemata are
not rigid, but flexible structures, whose suppleness springs from the human propensity to
tolerate vagueness, and imprecision.
The total set of schematic cognitive structures instantiated by a comprehender
while processing a certain input yields the comprehender’s model of the encountered
situation/object/event/person (Rumelhart 1980: 37). I will illustrate the previously
mentioned terms with a BEACH schema. Normally, a BEACH schema involves, among
others, variables such as ‘people temporarily located on the beach’ and ‘ongoing beach
activities’. Depending on the context, the ‘people’ variable can take values such as
‘holiday makers’ (i.e. people getting a tan, swimming, loitering in the sands) or
‘fishermen’ (i.e. people preparing their fishing instruments on the beach before going out
to sea to catch fish). Likewise, the ‘activities’ variable could take different values
according to the context. A ‘holiday’ context would make comprehenders realise this
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variable by such values as: swimming, sunbathing, playing ball, building sandcastles. A
‘fishing’ context would imply different values meant to realise the ‘activities’ variable:
checking a fishing net, hurling it on to a boat during a pre-fishing stage and separating the
fish from the residuals during a post-fishing stage. Regarding the variable constraints of a
BEACH schema in a ‘holiday’ context, the values realising the ‘holiday makers’ variable
would be ‘human beings’ (and not animals or plants). The same constraint applies to the
‘fishing’ context.
Default variables in the BEACH schema (e.g. sand, waves, shells, etc) are easy to
supply whenever there is some familiarisation with the concept ’beach’. An Eskimo or a
bushman could not supply such default variables because they are not normally
associated with beaches. However, cross-cultural variations are likely to occur. Thus, a
Romanian activating a BEACH schema would not consider ebb and flow as a default
variable, as there are no tidal phenomena in the Black Sea bordering the south-eastern
Romanian coast. Most probably, a British person may include ebb and flow among the
default variables of their BEACH schema.
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representations. Once credible evidence has been gathered against the utility of a certain
schema for comprehension purposes, the reader ‘suspends‘ that schema and allocates
their mental resources towards a ‘more promising schema’ (Rumelhart 1980: 42).
Since there is no need to spend very long looking at expected objects, this frees up
resources for processing more novel and unexpected aspects of any given scene
(Eysenck and Keane 1990: 279).
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literariness (Cook 1994: 182). Cook’s view is partially criticised by Semino, who
proposes that texts – be they literary or non-literary - should be located along a
continuum whose two ends are schema-reinforcement and schema-refreshment:
If a text reinforces the reader’s schemata, the world it projects will be perceived as
conventional, familiar, realistic and so on. If a text disrupts and refreshes the
reader’s schemata, the world it projects will be perceived as deviant,
unconventional, alternative, and so on (Semino 1997: 155).
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by categorisation and social categories are inherently value-laden because they instantly
fit an object/event into a schema that bears emotional connotations (fear of dentists,
disgust inspired by demagogical politicians).
I have discussed the above tenets of schema theory in order to highlight the ceaseless
interaction and unavoidable complementarity between individual cognitive structures and
culturally shared representations, concurring with the claims set forth by scholars such as
Shore (1996), Quinn and Strauss (1997), Augoustinos and Walker (1998). A schema-
based approach to the process of text comprehension and, inevitably text translation and
re-creation in a target language, may shed further light on the intertwining of intra- and
extra-personal knowledge and, implicitly the mutuality between individual cognition and
socially available cultural models.
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Sperber and Hirschfeld’s definition of culture ties in with the espousal of social
and cultural practices, including language practices. Hence the imperious need for
translators to be both bilingual and bicultural if not multicultural. Back in 1983, Ted
Hughes highlighted the necessity of translation triggered off by the multifarious
emergence of alternative representations of reality and axiological systems:
The boom in the popular sales of translated modern poetry was without precedent.
Though it reflected only one aspect of the wave of mingled energies that galvanized
those years with such extremes, it was fed by almost all of them ... Buddhism, the
mass craze of Hippie ideology, the revolt of the young, the Pop music of the Beatles
and their generation. That historical moment might well be seen, as ... an unfolding
from inwards, a millennial change in the Industrial West’s view of reality. (Hughes,
1983)
When dealing with the issue of multiculturalism, the relationship between cultural
transposition and interpretation requires further insight. Both translation and
interpretation deal with the rendering of a given text into another language. If translation
refers to written texts, interpretation designates “live and immediate transmission”
( Metzger ??:18) of –usually spoken - discourse. Yet, beyond the realm of language per
se, all texts can be seen to be “evidence of a communicative transaction taking place
within a social framework” (Hatim and Mason 1990: 22). It is the social framework that
urges analysts to dismantle the ‘myth of neutrality’ (Metzger 1999: 51).
A translator’s influence on and possibly reshaping of a text clashes with their
endeavour to maintain neutrality. Hence, the emergence of the age-long dilemma in
translation studies: literal versus free translation. Proper communication only occurs if
and when the receptor gets the messages which the emitter intends to convey. The
distortion of the message in the mind of the receptor is more likely to happen if the
receptor belongs to an audience that is wholly different from the readership the original
writer envisaged.
In compliance with Hatim and Mason’s discursive view on translation (1990), a
translator facilitates an act of communication between SL speakers/writers and TL
hearers/readers while concomitantly seeking to reconstruct perceived meaning for TL
receiver(s) as a separate act of communication. As shown in the previous sections, the
choice and the combinations of words, the grammatical structure, the contextual meaning
as well as the communicative purpose of the source text are important guidelines,
empowering the translation to decide on their grammatical, lexical and communicative
choices in the TL text. Yet, far from being mere linguistic conversion or transformation
between languages translation involves accommodation in terms of a plethora of domains
such as culture, politics or aesthetics.
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If linguistic or cultural reasons prevent the translator from transferring the source text
into the target text, accommodation tends to be preferred to literal translation, since it
implies minute adjustments brought to original meaning as well as the original style
and/or register. In outlining his dynamic theory of equivalence regarding translation, Nida
insists that, if content is prioritary, translation should incorporate accommodation or
adjustment to a considerable degree resulting in ‘free’ translation. A prototypical free
translation would be, in Nida’s view, that of the Bible, where the comprehension and
perception of the translated text requires loyalty to the original text, proffered by a stable
source, God, inspired with a stable intention. As far as the translation of the Bible is
concerned, Nida equates translation with revelation, emphasising that the original
message takes on archetypal status;
He must understand not only the obvious content of the message, but also the
subtleties of meaning, the significant emotive values of words and the stylistic
features which determine the ‘flavor and feel’ of the message ... In other words, in
addition to a knowledge of the two or more Ls involved in the translational process,
the translator must have a thorough acquaintance with the subject matter concerned.
(Nida, 1964).
By contrast, Nida specifies, ‘faithful’ translations privilege form and tend to espouse
literalness to a remarkable degree. Along the same line of argument, starting from a
statement made by Nabokov: “ To my ideal of literalism I sacrificed everything
(elegance, euphony, clarity, good taste, modern usage, and even grammar) that the dainty
mimic prizes higher than the truth”, Newmark finds it necessary to clarify upon the
distinction between semantic and communicative translation. Semantic or overt
translations that require the primacy of literalness - the case of the so-called ‘sacred’,
authoritative texts – while communicative or covert translations lie closer to interpretation
or accommodation, this being largely the case ‘run-of-the-mill’ texts. The chart below is a
simplified display some of the basic distinctions between the two types of translations, as
highlighted by Newman:
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