Translation –IV
Level :IV
Taught by T.Ayman Al-shmory
Firstly ,this workshop will deal with various concepts of translation which is essential concern with ''Meaning '' according to Roger T.Bell's book entitled "Translation and Translating :Theory and |Practice'' in both parts 2and3. Manifestly, the main purpose of such concern is to illustrates that without nderstanding what the text to be the L2 users ,the translator would be hopelessly lost. From this point , we will take in our accounts so many concepts which we already discussed with our teacher during this semester as follows:
What is meant by meaning?
Meaning is the proposition, content , massage, or the notion of a text
,taking into our account Semantics ,Socio-linguistics ,Pragmatics, and
Discourse Analysis. Of course the meaning is the main core for translators
during the process of translation as translation is the process of rendering
the meaning the meaning of a text from one language is usually called the
source Language (SL) into another Language that is usually called the Target
Language (TL).Accordingly our teacher who declares that Meaning for Meaning is the message of the
Proposition of the text which is related
to the three levels of meaning ;Illocutionary ,Illocutionary and perlocutionary
.
Specifically and to begin with, we shall turn our attention to speech
act since we need to show the
relationships between speech acts which are realized through the utterance
,attempting to go beyond the literal meaning of words and structures by
classifying utterances, according to their implicit rather than explicit
functions ,speaker may use a declarative /assertive to make a request or an
interrogative to express reproof. In addition to it is the action which is intended in the
utterance of a sentence. Speech acts may be direct (e.g. Get out!) or indirect
(e.g. it's hot in here = Open a window).(DaL) How often do we say exactly what
we really mean? This is one of the things that most often fools computers
performing machine translation . Searle asserted that speech encompasses at
least three kinds of acts: (1) locutionary acts, in which things are said with
a certain sense or reference (as in “the moon is a sphere”); (2) illocutionary
acts, in which such acts as promising or commanding are performed by means of
speaking; and (3) perlocutionary acts, in which the speaker, by speaking, does
something to someone else (for example, angers, consoles, or persuades
someone). The speaker's intentions are conveyed by the illocutionary force that
is given to the signs—that is, by the actions implicit in what is said. To be
successfully meant, however, the signs must also be appropriate, sincere,
consistent with the speaker's general beliefs and conduct, and recognizable as
meaningful by the hearer.
Moreover many focuses we have already concentrated :
A)-syntactic meaning which means
formal relations among signs Sentence-Elements.
(syntactic aspect) For example, “kiss” belongs to an expression class with
other items such as “hit” and “see,” as well as to the conventional part of
speech “verb,” in which it is part of a subclass of operators requiring two
arguments (an actor and a receiver). In “Mary kissed John,” the syntactic role
of “kiss” is to relate two nominal arguments (“Mary” and “John”), whereas its
semantic role is to identify a type of action. Unfortunately for descriptive
semantics, however, it is not always possible to find a one-to-one correlation
of syntactic classes with semantic roles. For instance, “John” has the same
semantic role—to identify a person—in the following two sentences: “John is
easy to please” and “John is eager to please.” The syntactic role of “John” in
the two sentences, however, is different: In the first, “John” is the receiver
of an action; in the second, “John” is the actor.
For example,
a)-Window is opened(adj).
b)-Window is open (n)
Through both examples, it is clear that during translating them into
Arabic , almost the same فُتحت النافذة او النافذة مفتوحةwould be translated into:
we starts giving information and then new
information new to achieve the clarity.
But intoالمولود الجديد not Another example, New-born baby .This phrase
would be translated
حديث الولادة
For
gaining clarity and understanding
translation must be free and oriented –target as shown above.
Therefore, translators tend to study meaning aspects in relation to
many subjects and areas such as Semantics ,Pragmatics ,Socio-linguistics and
Discourse Analysis. Previous scholars of translation have exerted great efforts
to enlighten the way ,suggesting techniques and approaches for no-expert
translators so that they will be able to transform the SL text meaning into TL
meaning in a very precise and exact way.
In Semantics, for example, the meaning
is discussed in terms of connotation and denotation ''direct and indirect'' and
,Sense and reference .''
A)-DENOTATION VERSUS CONNOTATION
An aspect of MEANING of a word or phrase
associated with the subjective emotive overtones it
evokes. Also called ‘affective’ or
‘emotive’ meaning, connotative associations are difficult to capture in
dictionary DEFINITIONS, which therefore tend to concentrate on the more
objective referential aspects DENOTATION). There are two aspects to the meaning
of a word. We also say that there is a "core" meaning to every word,
as well as some additional meaning. The "core" meaning is the meaning
of a word in its literal sense. We call this the denotative meaning. The
additional meaning is what we add according to our feelings about the term.
This is the connotative meaning such as He
is Fox انه ثعلب denotive meaning انه ماكر connotative
meaning .
Another good example is the disease
called cancer. The denotation of "cancer" is the mere disease that
can be described by growing tumors, malfunctioning organs, etc. The connotation
of cancer is all the emotional additions, as "cruel",
"frightening", "hard to heal", etc. While the denotation of
a lexeme is subject to language change in the broad sense, the connotation may
change according to the taste en vogue. A few decades ago, "fur coat"
had a connotation of value and high social status. Nowadays, "fur
coat" evinces a connotation of "animal murder",
"cruelty", "ignorance", and so on. In short, the wearer of
such a coat might find that people judge her (or him) differently. It may be
pointed out that though the denotation of a word usually remains more or less
the same, The connotation of a word changes with the passage of time . In many
cases of it changes from one cultural to another and in some cases it changes
from individual to another.
Denotation
An aspect of MEANING that relates a word
or phrase to the objective REFERENT it expresses. Also called referential’ or
‘cognitive’ meaning, this is the usual topic of the explanation of words (DEFINITION),
while the more subjective or emotive aspects (CONNOTATION) are difficult to agree upon and capture
in the dictionary. Therefore ,the meaning of denotation needs to be understood
in the relation to the meaning of connotation.
The approaches for approaching the
explanation and description of Word-meaning. ''Sense and Reference''.
A)-Referential Theory is the way
of approaching the explanation of Word-meaning which would express the
relationship between word and the entity in some terms such as 'word X refers
to entity Y'.
R' efers to the idea
which is outside Language
S'refers to something inside the
language. As illustrated the example
below :
-Shadi is a good student .He studies
hard.
It'se understood that ''Shadi'' which is
the subject is a word man but has relationship to him. The pronoun ''He 'refers
to what is before inside the language which is ''Shadi '
ودخل
ادهم الى غرفة قدري ولكمة على انفه
(SL)
He might be given a name to ensure
clarity and to avoid misunderstanding.
Adhm came in the room to
punish Qadri on the noise.
sense
One of several
MEANINGS that can be established for a word or phrase and covered by a EFINITION
in a reference work. Because of the multiple meanings of words, particularly
core items in the basic vocabulary, compilers of dictionaries have for
centuries tried to rationalise, discriminate and display these senses for the
benefit of users, but there has not always been consistency even within one
dictionary. The problem of SENSE DISCRIMINATION
which is difficult enough in monolingual general dictionaries (how many
meanings are there in band?) is compounded in bilingual dictionaries by that of
uneven translation equivalents (each of the separate senses of band may be
expressed by a different word in the other language). The number and nature of
variable senses of a word
may be due to POLYSEMY (related by
extension from an ‘original’ meaning or BASIC SENSE: band
‘ribbon’ > ‘belt’ > ‘range’ >
‘track’) or HOMONYMY (accidental similarity: band 1 ‘ribbon’ (etc.) versus band
2 ‘group of musicians’), but these sometimes shade into one another. Distinct
senses are used to subdivide dictionary entries into sections (SUBLEMMA), but
the ordering of these sub-senses (by etymology? by semantic ‘logic’? by
frequency?) is not always clear.
B)-componential
Analysis
An approach in SEMANTICS in which
meanings are discussed in terms of sets of components. By extending the
technique of analyzing phonemes in terms of ‘distinctive features’ (such as
voice, labi-ality or constriction) to the level of meaning, linguists have
attempted to decompose LEXEMES into ‘contrastive 'semantic features or
components .In a view of this approach
,the meaning of a word can be discussed and understood as a togetherness
of a certain component of meaning .just as an atom can be
analyzed in terms of its constitutes
electron ,proton and neutrons, the meaning of a word can be also be analyzed
in terms of certain semantic components .In the view of this approach , set of
words likes the following can be used as illustrations of how the meaning of a
word can be factorized into several components :
, e.g. 'man=+human +male+ adult'' man into - FEMALE and +ADULT, woman into
+FEMALE and +ADULT, boy into -FEMALE and -ADULT, and girl into +FEMALE and
-ADULT.
|
actress
Aacdadشؤفق
|
A)-
Human female adult
|
Lion
|
Animal male
strong wild/furious
|
Headwalls
|
Part of wall made of bricks about surface of
Earth Function as
productive barriers
/fence
This method has been claimed to be useful in definition writing.
However, it is debat-able whether componential analysis can be applied to more
than a few tightly structured SEMANTIC FIELDS such as kinship terms.
An approach in SEMANTICS in which
meanings are discussed in terms of hyponym, synonymy, and antonym . One can say that Meaning Postulates is the study of the relations between words
Because it is the idea of understanding the meaning which relate meaning to meaning through the convention of set
theory .
1. Synonymy:
Synonymy
refers to the case in which two or more words have more or less the same
meaning as another word in the same language. A translator may resolve to
follow this technique in cases in which he/she feels that another word having
more or less the same meaning could be more appropriate than the one that is
used already after translation. For instance, a translator, having finished
translating a text, feels that a word is used while another word with the same
meaning might be better in such contexts, so he decides to change it and use
the other one for the sake of clarity or some other appropriate purposes. The
example below clarifies this point:
SL: بدأ فصل الخريف.
TL: Autumn began.
In the example
above, the translator translated the Arabic word (الخريف) into “autumn”. In some cases, however, the
translator may change this word and use the word “fall” instead; i.e. for
American readership the translator may
choose the word “fall” to satisfy their needs and ensure clarity in
translation.
2. Hyponymy:
Hyponymy
refers to the case in which two or more words are classified as elements of
category included within the meaning of a specific word. A translator may
resolve to follow this technique in cases in which he/she feels that the
meaning could be better understood if the general term is used instead of the
specific term provided that the meaning is retrieved. For instance, a
translator, having finished translating a text, feels that a word is used while
a more generic word with a wider meaning might be better in such contexts, so
he decides to change it and use the other one for the sake of clarity or some
other appropriate purposes. The example below clarifies this point:
SL: I am in the
restaurant eating Sushi.
TL: أنا في المطعم أتناول السوشي
In the example
above, the translator translated the English, of Chinese origins, word “Sushi”
into (السوشي). In some cases,
however, the translator may change this word and use the word (الطعام) or even mention the meal itself like (غدائي) instead; i.e. for Arabic readership who are
known for sure to be ignorant of this kind of food the translator may choose a
word with a more generic meaning that includes the meaning of concerned word to
satisfy the readership needs and ensure clarity in translation. It should be
noted here that the word that is intended to undergo this technique should not
a thematic word in the subject matter of the original text.
B)-Antonym
The SENSE RELATION
obtaining between words or phrases of opposite meaning. Antonymy can be ‘complementary’, with one member of a pair
implying the negation of the other: alive = not dead; ‘conversive’ or
‘reciprocal’, with the meaning of one member of a pair presupposing that of the
other: buy/sell; or ‘graded’(‘gradable’), with two concepts being compared:
clean versus dirty, bigger/better than…. The term can also be used to refer to
the phenomenon of one word having two opposite senses, e.g. sanction ‘permit’
or ‘penalise’.
-I think you were born
in Hogs Norton '' Locutionary meaning ''which means what the cultural meaning
''connotative meaning '' of the text is. -You are an impolite person ''illocutionary
meaning'' which means what is the mind of text's speaker.
-Behave well '' perlocutionary meaning'' which means what the text wants
the other to do .
The
thesaurus
It a way
which provides us with a model for storing groups of words and phrases )in a number of ways : where they are
(a) Synonym or (b) (b) antonym or (c) related in other ways.therfore it the
idea of understanding the meaning.
for more information
Thesaurus
1 A type
of REFERENCE WORK which presents the vocabulary of a language, language variety
or subject discipline by systematically tracing
synonym networks between words within
semantic domains. The title thesaurus
signify-ing a ‘lexical storehouse’ has been in use for a long time for large
(sometimes polyglot) dictionaries.
Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society,
including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used.
It also studies how lects differ between groups separated by certain social
variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, economic status, gender, level of
education, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to
categorize individuals in social class or socio-economic classes. There are
many varieties of it .
People who can't understand each other speak different language ,but who
can understand each other and who show consistent differences in their speech
,speech different dialects of the same
language.
Dialect
: the special way a group
of people speak a language . It is cuased by geaographical division or social
status. For example,
-
Arabic language is spoken in different ways
by people from different countries such as Egyptians talk differently from
Yemenis.
-
Accent is the way of
pronouncing words when there is a standard pronunciation-à speakers who deviate from that are often
said to speak with an accent.
Accent is
pronouncing the word same word differently .we have an American Accent ,Arabic
Accent and Indian Accent .
register
A variety of language associated with a
particular situational context, such as an occupation or social activity. Such
DIAPHASIC INFORMATION is indicated in dictionaries by formality or style LABELS.
For instance ,
How do you do
How are you doing
There is funy story here when a boy
comes to the master greeting him how are you doing Sir The master slaps
him refusing such greeting .
the
translation will be ولكن كيف حالك يا سيدي ,رافضاً أن يُخاطب كصديقاُ له لا تقل
كيف الحال يا سيدي
ولكن
كيف حالك _
EUPHEMISM A word
or phrase associated with the USAGE of
polite society, often contrasted with
SLANG genteelism .In other words ,the use of a word , phrase or expression which is more natural
,higher or indirect to instead of other a direct harsh ,unpleasant or offensive term.
This brief dialogue illustrates this point
A: how is he?
B:a mail of a door
During the translation , (b) would be
translated into : وجدته ساكنا which means he is dead .
Jargon A word or phrase associated with a
subject field which is clear to the experts using it, but not to outsiders. Jargon shares with other
special-language varieties like SLANG an in-group orientation which outsiders
often criticise. Jargon dictionaries attempt to explain specialised usage for
the benefit of the non-initiated, sometimes in pseudo-humorous and/ or critical
fashion, while technical or TERMINOLOGICAL DICTIONARIES have less of a
bridge-building _ HARD WORD, LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES, TECHNICAL LANGUAGE.
Taboo word
A word, phrase or name the use of which
is considered unacceptable for social reasons, e.g.
sacred or sexual expressions. The
translators should omit those words ,appreciating the cultural aspects.
In sociolinguistics translators' purpose is to know all the social and
cultural external factors of the SL that affect meaning in order to reflect
them in the TL. That is mainly because social and cultural shaping to great extent the meaning of this
text .A good example of that is a social and cultural factors that stand behind
Shakespeare's expression of ''a summer day '' in romantic poem .in Britain
''summer day'' is a lovely day that is considered as a good opportunity for
lovers to enjoy the beauty of nature and to meet outside the House. An Arabic translator should be
aware of this information in Arabic
because ignoring such information will
make the locutionary dictionary meaning translation of this expression
brings a huge misunderstanding. This simply because of what is meant summer day
in Arabic .It is a horrible hot day makes staying home is the best alternative . In other words, professional
translators take into their considerations illocutionary and perlocutionary
meaning in addition to the elocutionary dictionary meaning in order to avoid a
failure in conveying the text message; for example, the phrase ''summer day''
will be translated into ''spring day'' that corresponds to the Arabic cultural
backgrounds and their concept ,which is actually ''the intended meaning'' of
the writer.
In pragmatics , ,translators' aim is to understand how the meaning is
used in social-interaction for the purpose of transferring the meaning
successfully from the SL into TL. In certain society and place ,people interact with each other using different
level of formality to shoe respect , morality and vice versa ; such words and
phrases are just used to mean the opposite ;for instance, if a student ''came
late '' to his class, the teacher will ask him about the reason beyond ''being
early''. Another example is when somebody calls his friend ''the wisest man''
just to mean ''the most stupid man''. Therefore, translators must be acquainted
with such varieties used by certain people and certain place in order to avoid
misunderstanding.
What is discourse analysis ?
discourse analysis A branch of
LINGUISTICS concerned with language not as words or sentences, but as (spoken as
well as written) text in context. Discourse analysis focuses on conversational
and other face-to-face interaction (and is thus close to SOCIOLINGUISTICS),
while TEXT LINGUISTICS is more associated with the study of written and printed
text and the factors that contribute to its structural cohesion. Both approaches
profit from the evidence provided by CORPUS LINGUISTICS, and both have
potential application to lexicography, e.g. in the analysis of the complexity
and transparency of dictionary entries.
In discourse analysis
,translators' intention is to classify the meaning of the text through the
context , use , purpose ,and thought in addition to shared knowledge .Firstly,
they look for the meaning of word in
relation to its context in the sentence . In other words ,the meaning of the
word is a part of context .
Secondly , such words like '' water''
can function as a noun like;I like water' or verb as 'I water the plant'; these
can never be translated unless you look for its use or function in the context to avoid such failure when
rendering the meaning . Also, Such words ,phrases or sentences cannot be
translated except if we know the purposes of uttering them; for example , the
sentence ''he has a gun '' can be translated into two ways according to the
speaker's purpose that is known through the situation and the society in which
it is said . So, if it is translated into Yemeni society ,Yemenis will not
understand either the purpose of this sentence is to show possession or to show danger. But if is
translated in European socirty ,Europeans will understand it as warning of
danger ,stating that ''he is killer or criminal '' ,or it could be translated
into'' he is terrorist''. Thus ,translators must pay attention to the purpose
of such text and all other else to avoid ambiguity and even misunderstanding
.Finally , Nida has added another point in addition to the above points
suggested by Oxford University to be taken in our consideration when
translating ,which is ''thought''. Thought means the image that such phrase
brings to the mind of the audiences. It suggests us that we must take in our
account the affect of such words on the audiences . It is, in other words,
interrelated to ''the purpose'' idea suggested by Oxford University ,but the
purpose idea deals with SL text whereas Nida's idea ''thought'' deals with TL
text. One can say that thought is a TL oriented concept while ''purpose'' is a
tl oriented concept.
It is also worthy to mention a very
important term ''shared knowledge'' which has been deeply discussed in Discurse
analysis . Share knowledge refers to an idea or concept that is known by
certain people in a certain place; for example, if a student from level four
calls his classmate a Estragon ,one of the main character in Samuel
Beckett'splay'' Waiting forGodot'', to describe his classmate's weakness in the
presence of a student from third level, who has not come across this course ,
the third level student will not understand what the fourth level student means
whereas the classmate will understand the message easily even though both of
them are in the same place. Therefore, translators must be acquainted with such
ideas spreading among societies in order to avoid misunderstanding.
In semantics ,translators'
purpose is to study the meaning in terms of denotation, connotation ,direct
,indirect and sense and reference . The denotation meaning is the basic meaning
of the words; for example, the word 'lion'' means wild animal that lives in
forest .However, the connotation meaning refers to the ideas and qualities that
are more than the basic meaning of word ;for instance , the word ''lion''
connotes braveness and courage .So, if somebody is described as a lion ,it
means he is brave but not that kind of animal. Therefore ,translators must have
background about the indications of words beyond their basic meaning to avoid
misunderstanding .
To sum up , translators tend to study
all meaning aspects through so many subjects such as pragmatics ,semantics,
social-linguistics and Discourse analysis in order to avoid misunderstanding
when translating any written and spoken text.
Sentence
is an ideal string of words formal in
accordance with the grammatical rules of a language .As a unit of grammar ,it
is higher than the clause ,just as the clause is higher than phrase and the phrase
is higher than the word. For example ,
I gave Ali a astonishing book yesterday.أعطيت على كتاب رائع
Utterance
An utterance is any stretch of language
spoken by a person at a certain time and places and on a certain occasions
.Like a sentence ,it is by definition a meaningful stretch of language .it is
also need not be in the form of a complete sentence having a clearly
identifiable subject and clearly identifiable verb. It may well be in the form
of only a word or a clause operating as a full of sentence. let us consider the
following three pieces of conversation:
(a ) Q:will you be here tomorrow ?
A: Yes.
(b) what time is he arriving here
tomorrow ?
A:At seven o'clock in the morning.
(c) When did he arrive here yesterday ?
A:After I had finished all my work.
The first answer is in the form of a
word , the second one is in the form of a phrase and third one is in the form
of a clause .Irrespective of its grammatical status ,each one of the three
stretches of language will be an utterance when spoken .Therefore as an
utterance is essentially the spoken form of a language ,it can be characterized
in terms of the accent and the voice quality of the speaker.
Proposition
Proposition is the semantic content of a
simple declarative sentence . Just as the sentence is essentially a grammatical
concept, the proposition is essentially a semantic concept . Thus it is a
semantic notion . The following are some examples of a proposition.
-
Ayman is a teacher.
-
You are late .
-
He resembles his father.
-
The book is on the table.
context
1 The part of a text where a particular
WORD, PHRASE or TERM occurs (also called ‘verbal
context’ or ‘co-text’)._ CONCORDANCE.2
The setting or circumstances with which a
WORD, PHRASE or TERM is associated (also
called ‘situational context’, ‘context of use’ or
‘environment’).
According to Austin's view ,utterances are basically of two types:
Constative utterances and performative utterances. This distinction between
explicit and implicit performatives leads to the difference between Locutionary
and illocutionary acts. An utterance can be described as a locutionary act with
a loctutionary meaning or as an illocutionary force. For example, if a mother
says to a child watching the television ,
'' IT's 10 o'clock ''
This utterance can be understood at two different levels of meaning .It
can also be understood as a simple reference to time ;and translated into
انها
تشير الى الساعة العاشرة
And it can be understood as a suggestion that the child should now stop
watching the television and go to bed: and then
translated into :
حان وقت
الخلود الى النوم
The simple reference to time constitutes the locutionary meaning of
this utterance but this utterance has also got the illocutionary force of a
suggestion .utterances issued with the purpose of apologizing ,congratulating,
comparing ,condoling ,describing ,naming ,narrating ,warning, praising
,greeting, thanking ,accusing ,and complaining are some of the examples of what
Austin means by illocutionary acts.
Best regards
!!!
S. Ahmed
Al-dali
