Lecture 2.

Translation Solutions

1. The concept of natural equivalence

2. Translation solutions (overview)

3. Translation solutions (after Anthony Pym)

1. The concept of natural equivalence

In the last lecture we already discussed different types of equivalence. We will not go into
too much detail here, but we will just introduce the term “natural equivalence” and its
implications. The concept of equivalence underlies all these cases: they all presuppose that a
translation will have the same value as (some aspect of) its corresponding start text. A useful
way to defend translation was to record and analyze the equivalents that can actually be found
in the world. One of the most entertaining texts in translation theory is the introduction to Vinay
and Darbelnet’s Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais , first published in 1958. The
two French linguists are driving from New York to Montreal, noting down the street signs
along the way:

We soon reach the Canadian border, where the language of our forefathers is music to our
ears. The Canadian highway is built on the same principles as the American one, except that its
signs are bilingual. After SLOW, written on the road in enormous letters, comes LENTEMENT,
which takes up the entire width of the highway. What an unwieldy adverb! A pity French never
made an adverb just using the adjective LENT… But come to think of it, is LENTEMENT really
the equivalent of SLOW? We begin to have doubts, as one always does when moving from one
language to another, when our SLIPPERY WHEN WET reappears around a bend, followed by
the French GLISSANT SI HUMIDE. Whoa!, as the Lone Ranger would say, let’s pause a while
on this SOFT SHOULDER, thankfully caressed by no translation, and meditate on this SI, this
“if,” more slippery itself than an acre of ice. No monolingual speaker of French would ever
have come straight out with the phrase, nor would they have sprayed paint over the road for the
sake of a long adverb ending in -MENT. Here we reach a key point, a sort of turning lock
between two languages. But of course— parbleu! —instead of LENTEMENT [adverb, as in
English] it should have been RALENTIR [infinitive, as in France]!

(1958/1972: 19; translation by Anthony Pym)

In this context we can talk about what kind of equivalence we seek. Obviously, the French
word lentement has a practically identical meaning to the English slow. Even though it takes
more space, there is obviously enough room on the highway. What the linguists are worried
about is that the sign slow would not be rendered as lentement in France. For them the
equivalent translation should be the verb ralentir, as this is what would be written on the road,
if Canada was a part of France. This second kind of equivalence is thus deemed “natural.” It is
what different languages and cultures seem to produce from within their own systems. This
natural equivalence is also ideally reciprocal.
 2. Translation solutions (overview)

Vinay and Darbelnet also worked out the translation procedures, needed to achieve natural
equivalence, which we will call translation solutions. Other scholars also modified their types
of translation methods or solutions, a general overview of which is provided in the table below.
Table 1. Comparison of translation solution types, adapted from Muñoz Martín (1998) (cited from Pym, 2014)

M. Schreiber (1998) proposes three main types of translation solutions:

1. Text translation (whatever there is in the text, we just translate it).

 2. Translating for the context (we have to go beyond what is just in the text, we can adjust
it, we can make it sound better, we can delete or create, because our function here is to sell our
product, we can make more changes at this level, or at this method).

3. Adaptation/editing (in this method you actually change the content).

Translators may work on all three levels, and even though the very concept of translation
does not yet include the third method, that's what translators actually do, that's what they are
paid for. This approach enables us to break the binarism, we are now extending the options of
translation solutions, and we have a wider frame for decision making.

Text translation as it is can be done reasonably well by machine translation, in fact it is

being done increasingly well by machine, but not the others, as there needs to be a human
component at the higher levels of decision making.

3. Translation solutions (after Anthony Pym)

Inspired by this approach, professor Anthony Pym proposes his own typology, which could
be applied to more languages. He proposes three solutions in translation problems: 1) copying,
2) expression change, 3) content change.

3.1. Copying. In terms of copying, you can copy (a) the sound of the foreign word (eg,
football, Fußball, le football). You can also copy (b) the morphology (e.g., when football was
first brought to Spain from England by the British sailors, it was rendered as balompié, and it
still exists in Spanish along football; another example would be skyscraper). You can also copy
(c) the script, which is relevant when translating into languages having a different alphabet (e.g.
from Latin into Cyrillic or Arabic). Copying is something that is often frowned upon by
translators, but this is also something that is often done in practice by non-translators, by
ordinary people. For instance, sports commentators in all languages would often copy words
from other languages just to show the atmosphere of the event or the local colour, even when
there could exist suitable words in their own language (look at such words that are often
encountered in Ukrainian boxing or football commentaries: хук, джеб, апперкот, катеначчо,
копа дель рей, офсайд, голкіпер, хафбек, корнер, рефері, лайнсмен; moreover, this tendency
is becoming quite popular in all types of media discourse, e.g., a very recent word used by the
Ukrainian media in the context of American presidential election – кокуси, the word праймеріз
has already been used for some years, but the former one is very new). You can also copy (d)
prosodics, like when you translate a rhyme, you're copying a rhyme scheme; (e) fixed phrases;
(f) text structures (e.g., sonnets, limericks, abstracts in academic articles).

3.2. Expression change. The next level involves changing things. We can think about two
types of changes here. The first one is changing the perspective. You can look at an object
from different perspectives and see different features. E.g. "he went back on his word" – "він не
дотримався слова". The semantic change (a): in French you would say "l’ hôtel est complet",
while in English it's "no vacancies". Consider other examples of translation from English to
Ukrainian: "push", "pull" – "до себе", "від себе", "wet paint" – "пофарбовано", "out of order"
– "не працює". This sort of change is very common in translating measurement units. For
example, if you want to say that a car is moving at the speed of 50 miles per hour, in Ukrainian
it should be rendered as "80 кілометрів на годину", or if you talk about the height of people in
the US, you change the measurement units of feet and inches into centimetres. So, often if
you're stuck on a problem, try to look at it from the other way around. A useful method here
would be, if you can't do it in the positive, (b) negate the negative. So, when you're missing the
word in the target language, the solution will come through negating the negation. Also you can
change (c) the voice. Perspective is one thing though, you can also come closer to the object or
further away, and that changes the granularity of it, it changes the density, how much
information is packed in that bit of language. Here we can talk about “zooming” an object, or
changing the density, and there are several subtypes here: (a) generalization/specification is
applied when you use a more general/specific term, e.g. you might translate some country name
just "internationally", or Europe as the EU. (b) Explication/implication: if you take the
Ukrainian "районна рада, обласна рада", which don't exist in English, you can translate them
as the Ukrainian unit of local government (in this respect, think about how the English word
"county" in the context of self-government should be translated into Ukrainian, also think of
how you would translate the proper name “George”). Another classic example here is "Eton",
which just by copying risks being non-informative to the speakers of other languages, if the
receiving culture does not know what Eton is. So here you might extend the translation to "the
exclusive private school Eton", and what we do here, we're reducing the density, we're looking
at the object from a closer viewpoint. A good solution could also be including (c) multiple
translations. For instance, you can copy "oblast", and then in brackets explain what it is. This
type of solutions may also involve (d) resegmentation, as when some languages tend to have
long sentences, you might split them into smaller ones in the target language. Also, sometimes
syntactically it is very difficult to retain all the information in one sentence because of
subordinate clauses, which cannot be used in the same position in the target language, so in
these cases you may be reducing the syntactic density. In other cases it may be necessary to join
sentences in order to have one longer sentence. Another approach you might be considering
here is (e) (non)repetition. Sometimes target texts will have two practically identical synonyms,
which do not need to be both translated into the source language (e.g. “He arrived safe and
sound”). (f) Compensation of the context means that when you get the value, and you cannot
solve it there, so you solve it on a different level or somewhere else in the text. For instance,
when translating a phrase like давай перейдемо на 'ти', in English a new level of expression
has to be found to render this idea ("Just call me John"). You can also look for a new place of
expression, as when translators use notes, a glossary, a preface or images. This is only
applicable for written translations, as in oral translations in such cases you are just stuck. An
example of a compensation I recently had to apply was the translation of the guidebook on
internally displaced persons in Ukraine. The Ukrainian title of the book was “Чи бачили ви
Буратіно?”. The phrase came from one of the interviews between the internally displaced
persons from the war-torn East of Ukraine and their host communities. And this question came
from a 10-year old boy amongst other questions about their experience in the East and their
attitude towards residents in other parts of Ukraine and other stereotypes about them. In this
context changing Buratino into a more familiar character for the English speaking communities
(Pinocchio) would not be a good solution, as the question referred not to the literary character,
but to the artillery rocket launching system “Buratino”, so changing the name would not only
be inappropriate or uninformative, it would merely distort the original. As a solution I
suggested to the customer to just include a footnote in the English language edition of the
guidebook with some general information about the literary Buratino (e.g. the first two
sentences from the English version of Wikipedia), because the missile launching system was
described in the guidebook itself. In the discussion of this type of compensation professor
Anthony Pym gives an example from his experience of interpreting, when the technical aspects
of the discussion were getting so complicated, that in order to avoid a mistake he would just be
saying “as you can see in the screen”, and he calls this approach also a type of compensation.
(g) Cultural correspondence is especially relevant in the translation of proverbs, sayings, set
expressions. Usually there are special dictionaries for such language, but oftentimes you may
not rely exclusively on the dictionary, but you have to adapt and adjust the existing text
depending on the context (e.g. "Like a bull in a china shop"). Some of these sayings may have a
rather standard variant in the target language. But sometimes they are quite unique for one
culture, and even the notions they determine are alien in others. Consider, for instance, a very
popular saying "You can take the boy out of the village, but you can't take the village out of
him". Can you come up with some solutions in this case? Do you think your solutions would be
applicable in all contexts? When you translate orally, you do not always have time to be
looking for these cultural correspondences, but you must make sure the communication keeps
going on. Usually, there are two possible solutions here: either you just state the message of the
proverb, or you may add the words "as is said in a famous Ukrainian proverb …" and you just
retell the meaning.

3.3. Changing content. Content change is debatably the task of the translator, but it is
usually the translator who has to bring up such things with the customer/editor/publisher.
Usually it is not advisable for the translator to independently change content. If there is no
possibility for the translator to get in contact with the customer directly, he/she should leave a
comment and include his/her recommendations for how the content could be changed. Content
change can have several dimensions. In the first one we talk about such notions as (a)
correction, censorship, updating. Sometimes translations can, or even have to correct the
content. You should not always expect your source text to be perfectly written, as a well-written
start text is a "literary luxury" in today's world. In some cultures you have censorship. Updating
involves the adaptation of the content to the current situation or the target culture. (b) Omission
of content. Translators occasionally can and do omit some parts of the source text. (c)
Additional content can be included in the text, or more commonly in the footnotes, prefaces and
in afterwords.

The typology of translation solutions after professor Anthony Pym can be seen in table 2.

Copying Copying words Copying sounds

Copying morphology
Copying script…
 Copying structure Copying prosodic features
Copying fixed phrases
Copying text structure…
Expression change Perspective change Changing sentence focus
Changing semantic focus
Changing voice…
Density change Generalization/Specification
Explication/Implication
Multiple translation
Resegmentation…
Compensation New level of expression
New place of expression
Cultural Correspondence Corresponding idiom
Corresponding culture
Content change Text tailoring Correction/censorship/updating
Omission of content
Addition of content
As a summary to his table of solution types, professor Anthony Pym stresses that no
solution type is obligatory, all solution types can be applied to all problems, they can be
combined, some solutions require more effort/time than others (which naturally makes them
less appropriate for oral translations), some solutions incur a higher risk of failure than others,
your choice of the solution should be to a great extent determined by your personal preferences
and by how risk-averse you are.

Thus, according to this table, there are three approaches translators can take to each specific
problem, there are seven major categories, and there are an infinite number of possible
translation solutions. This approach is useful, because it enables us to increase our arsenal of
solutions. Even though the translation process by its nature is binary (it involves two languages
– the source language and the target language), the solutions are not binary, there are many
possible ways you can handle problems in practice. It is not just “translating the word vs
translating the spirit”, there are more options that you can consider as useful tools in your
practical work. Moreover, we never need to forget about the person of the translator. Even
though the target or the source language (or a specific text) may require a wider use of some of
these solutions, we as translators will soon discover that there are some things we are better at,
and others which we do not feel comfortable with. So, you need to be aware of your strong
points, and make use of them to a bigger extent, while at the same time work on your weaker
features. No solution from the ones mentioned in the table has any supremacy over the other
ones. There is no correct choice of the tool you use as long as the communication is efficient.
You do not need to be learning, for examples, all the proverbs in your target language in order
to make sure you properly compensate for some saying while translating, as it may never be
useful, on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is not required by the task. Even if you miss
some proverb, it is usually enough to just render the message. These methods help you in
practical situations, when you might feel stuck with a problem that does not offer an immediate
solution.
 In different reference books you will find different approaches and different names for
translation methods or solutions. Usually they all refer to the same processes with only minor
deviations or terminological differences. In practice it is sometimes impossible to clearly define
which solution the translator has applied, as many of them intertwine even in seemingly simple
samples of texts. The choice of the solution is sometimes intuitive rather than conscious, if the
target component sounds not right to you, try applying a different method to translating it.

References

Baker, Mona. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. – London: Routledge, 2011

(second edition). – 352 pages.

Hatim Basil, Mason Ian. Discourse and the translator. – New York, London: Longman,
1991 (sixth impression). – 258 p.

Hatim, Basil and Munday, Jeremy. Translation: An advanced resource book. – . New York:
Routledge, 2004. – 394 pages.

Leppihalme Ritva. Culture bumps: an empirical approach to the translation of allusions. –

Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 1997 – 242 p.

Palumbo, Giuseppe. Key Terms in Translation Studies. – London, New York: Continuum,
2009. – 222 pages.

Pym, Anthony. Exploring Translation Theories. – New York: Routledge, 2014, second
edition. – 194 pages.

Snell-Hornby, Mary. The Turns of Translation Studies: New paradigms or shifting

viewpoints? – Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006. – 222
pages.

Venuti, Lawrence. The Translation Studies Reader. – London, New York: Routledge 2000.
– 540 pages.