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NON-EQUIVALENT LACUNA IN ENGLISH WHILE TRANSLATING
© Tumanbayev R.K., Dairbekova A.M.
Zhetysu State University named after I. Zhansugurov, Taldykorgan
The article deals with ways and strategies of lacuna translation, shows and compares different theories of problems of non-equivalence, gives differences of lacuna translation in English and Russian.
Key words: lacuna, translation strategy, English and Russian borrowings, non-equivalent problems in translation, ways of lacuna translation.
Linguistics is a discipline which studies language both in its own right and as a tool for genaating meanings. It should therefore have a great deal to offer to the budding discipline of translation studies; it can certainly offer translators valuable insights into the nature and function of language [1, р. 15].
Translation is a very young discipline in academic terms. It is only just starting to feature as a subject of study in its own right, not yet in all but in an increasing number of universities and colleges around the world. Like any young discipline, it needs to draw on the findings and theories of other related disciplines in order to develop and formalize its own methods; but which disciplines it can naturally and fruitfully be related to is still a matter of some controversy. Almost every aspect of life in general and of the interaction between speech communities in particular can be considered relevant to translation [1, р. 21].
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While translating from different languages into English the interpreters are faced to a range of difficulties that occur because of the diversity of syntactical and lexical structures of languages [1, p. 22]. These problems are mainly represented by selecting equivalents. In this article I am going to discuss non-equivalent lacuna in English and put forward suggestions to tackle the issue. Based on the following scholars’ work I have made an analysis related to synonymies.
The problem of non-equivalence has been drawing the attention of many researchers.
Jakobson claims that "there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code units" [2, p. 145]. Jakobson also explains the differences among structures, terminology, grammar and lexical forms of languages which are the main reasons of non-equivalence. Jacobson states that "equivalence in difference is the cardinal problem of language and the pivotal concern of linguistics" [2, p. 145]. Concerning to his theory the general principle of cross-language difference and the concept ‘semantic field’ has been established.
Catford found that there are two factors which affected the equivalence, namely linguistic and cultural factors, leading to two kinds of equivalents, namely linguistic and cultural equivalents.
This finding of Caford is very significant because it consists of both important approaches toward equivalence, namely, linguistic and cultural approaches. On the contrary, there were some arguments against Catford theory. Snell-Hornby claims that textual equivalence introduced by Catford is “circular” and his examples are “isolated and even absurdly simplistic" [1, p. 19-20]. Furthermore, the author criticizes equivalence in translation is an illusion because there are many aspects, including textual, cultural and situational ones, get involved in the equivalent degree of the translation. House also agrees that not only functional but situation factor need to be taken into consideration during the process of translation [2, p. 146].
Equivalent effect, as judged by Newmark, is “the desirable result, rather than the aim of any translation”. Accordingly, the equivalent effect is a result which all translators long to achieve. Further, Newmark argues that the text can reach a 'broad equivalent effect' in case if it is 'universal' that means cross culture share common ideas [3, p. 134].
Among many approaches introduced above Mona Baker was the most outstanding theorist dramatically focusing on equivalence at word level, as has been claimed by her, word is the basic unit to be considered in meaning of translation text. Her analysis on word level is particularly clear, easy to comprehend.
It is undeniable that Mona Baker’s theory on non-equivalence at word level is universally supported by a great number of famous linguistic scholars and researchers. Firstly, Haliday strongly stresses the importance of seeking for equivalence at word level by the famous saying “meanings are realized through words, and without a theory of wordings, there is no way of making explicit one’s inter-
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pretation of the meaning of the text” [4, p. 17]. Additionally, in the book “To Mean or Not to Mean”, the theorist Monia Bayar also appreciates the significance of word level equivalence by affirming that equivalence “designates an area of correspondence ranging around the word”. She even involves the roles of lower units such as the phoneme or the morpheme [2, р. 163].
Roger. T Bell is another notable researcher to mention equivalence at word level. She also figures out that there is no word equivalence among languages since even in the same language there is no absolute synonym between words [4, р. 19]. Newmark agrees “it is impossible to expect perfect translation equivalence between SL word and its TL correspondent”. He emphasizes that between two words that are deemed to be correspondents, one always covers more ground in meaning than the other, leading to the problem of non equivalence at word level [3, р. 100].
It is noteworthy that Vanessa Leonardi introduces Baker’s theory as “an extremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence”. As appraised in Leonardi’s paper, Baker has provided “a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be defined”. The author particularly compliments levels of Baker’s approach as “putting together the linguistic and the communicative approach” and agrees that in a bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first element to be taken into consideration by the translator [4, p. 27].
Non-equivalence at word-level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for a word that occurs in the source text. The type and level of difficulty posed can vary tremendously depending on the nature of non-equivalence. Different kinds of non-equivalence require different strategies, some very straightforward, others more involved and difficult to handle. Since, in addition to the nature of non-equivalence, the context and purpose of translation will often rule out some strategies and favour others [1, p. 32]. I will keep discussion of types of non equivalence separate from the discussion of strategies used by professional translators.
No equivalent words between 2 languages, especially culture-specific concepts. The source language word expresses a concept totally unknown in target language.
It is obviously difficult for one to translate a word in English into Russian and vice versus once it does not exist in the target language. It is a Herculean task for a translator when he has to transfer a concept that people of TL has never heard about it. Cultural concept is not the only one but the most common case in which a translator is likely to introduce an exotic concept to people of TL [4, p. 26]. Speaking about exotic words we should mark that sometimes the meaning of the word can be dominated over the form of the word, namely such kind of words can have nominative, communicative or characterising functions in the text.
Not surprisingly, no matter how excellent a translator can be in terms of both linguistic and cultural backgrounds, there are always concepts that cannot be
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translated from one language to another. This phenomenon has been defined as “cultural untranslatability” by a great number of international researchers and scholars. It is noteworthy that “cultural untranslatability” is likely to happen due to so many differences between Western and Oriental culture, in general, and English and Russian culture, in particular. In addition, geographical features, history, and development level of two nations contains many distinctive points generating certain concepts that cannot be translated in a way that Russian people can easily comprehend. Culture is something which cannot be conveyed through words. All of these lead to the loss of meaning in translation process [3, р. 26].
When comparing English and Russian, it is quite easy to figure out many cultural terms that are absent in the other one. Some non-equivalent cultural categories which are considered hurdles by many inexpert, for instance, “Russian banya ” contains hidden features which have traditional environment. “Russian banya” is a way of leisure, while English people do not fully understand the co-notational meaning. In fact, there are many other categories in cultural field that can confuse a translator when seeking for an absolute equivalence.
Non-equivalence at word level between English and Russian is undoubtedly inevitable.
There are numerous examples of cases to prove that non-equivalence is a fact which a translator absolutely will encounter in reality. It may be that the concept or idea is new to Russian people, as in the case of “privacy”, which is, in fact, a relatively new concept in general, and a very difficult concept to understand and explain in many languages. It may also be that the concept is known or understood but there is no specific word in English used to express it [5, р. 22].
Most cultures had been suffered invasions of other prosperous cultures, thus, languages had been influenced too and accepted “borrowed word”. These latter circumstances are certainly more favourable for stimulating the borrowing process, for during invasions and occupations the natural psychological reaction of the oppressed nation is to reject and condemn the language of the oppressor. In this respect the linguistic heritage of the Norman Conquest seems exceptional, especially if we compare the influence of the Mongol-Tartar Yoke on the Russian language. The Mongol-Tartar Yoke also represented a long period of cruel oppression, yet the imprint left by it on the Russian vocabulary is comparatively insignificant [3, р. 81].
The difference in the consequences of these evidently similar historical events is usually explained by the divergence in the level of civilisation of the two conflicting nations. Russian civilisation and also the level of its language development at the time of the Mongol-Tartar invasion were superior to those of the invaders. That is why the Russian language successfully resisted [3, р. 83].
On the other hand, the Norman culture of the 11th c. was certainly superior to that of the Saxons. The result was that an immense number of French words forced their way into English vocabulary. Yet, linguistically speaking, this seem-
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ing defeat turned into a victory. Instead of being smashed and broken by the powerful intrusion of the foreign element, the English language managed to preserve its essential structure and vastly enriched its expressive resources with the new borrowings [3, p. 86].
Sometimes it is done to fill a gap in vocabulary. When the Saxons borrowed Latin words for “butter”, “plum”, “beet”, they did it because their own vocabularies lacked words for these new objects. For the same reason the words “potato ” and “tomato ” were borrowed by English from Spanish when these vegetables were first brought to England by the Spaniards [3, p. 86].
The term loan-word is equivalent to borrowing. By translation-loans we indicate borrowings of a special kind. They are not taken into the vocabulary of another language more or less in the same phonemic shape in which they have been functioning in their own language, but undergo the process of translation. It is quite obvious that it is only compound words (namely words of two or more stems) which can be subjected to such an operation, each stem being translated separately: masterpiece (from Germ. Meisterstuck), wonder child (from Germ. Wunderkind), first dancer (from Ital. prima-ballerina), collective farm (from R. колхоз), five-year plan (from R. пятилетка) [5, p. 25].
The Russian “колхоз” was borrowed twice, by way of translation-loan (collective farm) and by way of direct borrowing (kolkhoz) [5, р. 25].
Another difficulty is that, in addition to their concrete meaning, some words have special connotations that are not conveyed by the English word for the same thing and so forth. There has been a strong need to figure out proper strategies to cope with these problems, striving for the correspondence in cross-linguistic translation.
After dealing with the difficulties implied in the lack of equivalence at word level, Baker proposes nine strategies to solve non-equivalence at word level. When applying to English-Russian circumstance, a strategy is omitted; hence, totally there are eight strategies to be introduced in the following section [5, р. 26-42].
The strategy of translation by a more specific term (hyponym).There is a warning that this strategy might lead to over interpretation of the source language meaning, which in the majority of cases seems to be more dangerous than over generalization. However, in some cases, it may be appropriate or necessary to use a more specific word to translate an English word into Russian. This usually involves choosing among several different words, as there may be many Russian words that correspond to the general category or meaning expressed by English word [5, р. 27].
For example, Russian has no read equivalent for “facilities”, meaning “any equipment, building, services, etc. that are provided for a particular activity or purpose.” It does, however, have several specific words and expressions which can be thought of as types of facilities, for example “средства передвижения ” (“means of transport”), “наем” (“loan”), “необходимые помещения” (“essential accommodation”) and “необходимое оборудование” (“essential equipment”) [5, 28].
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Translation by generalisation is one of the most commonly applied strategies in dealing with various kinds of problems in translation. The translator usually uses a more general word (superordinate) or a more commonly known to replace the more specific one. Yet the possibility of relative ease of rendering a problematic specific concept with a more general one may result in excessive generalization and eventually in oversimplification (loss in meaning) in the translated text. Above all, using a superordinate is one of the popular strategies for dealing with many types of non-equivalence. It works equally well in most, if not all, languages, since the hierarchical structure of semantic fields is not language-specific. Under certain circumstances, it may be appropriate to use a more general word to translate an English word with no specific Russian equivalent. For instance, such as come /go, take / bring, arrive / depart translating to Russian “отправляться ’ ’ [5, р. 29].
Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word is particular useful when a translator encounters an expressive word. If carelessly, he might fail to convey the true meaning or even cause misunderstanding. There are cases even the translator picks up a word which seems to equivalent but perceived differently in the target language. Therefore, using a less expressive correspondence in the target language to avoid the risk and to sound natural is a good recommendation. So that, English concept difficult to translate: Speaker (of the House of Commons) it has no equivalent in Russian. It is often translated into Russian as “Chairman”, which does not reflect the role of the speaker of the House of Commons as an independent person who maintains authority and order in Parliament [5, р. 32].
Translation by substitution involves replacing a culture-specific item or expression with one of the different meanings but similar impact in the translated text. Most translators dislike this strategy and prefer direct translation claiming that it is a way to respect for the original text [5, р. 34].
The strategy of translation by cultural substitution involves replacing a culture-specific item or expression in the source text with a target language item which describes a similar concept in target culture and thus is likely to have a similar impact on the target readers. The obvious advantage of using this strategy is that it gives the readers a concept which they can identify and which is easy to understand, familiar and appealing to them. The translator then avoids the necessity of providing footnotes or lengthy explanations of the item. With certain texts, e.g. those where historical background is very important, this strategy should not be employed as it may lead to overgeneralizations or simple misunderstandings. However, translators are motivated to make some additional appropriate changes in the texts they are translating in order to achieve the cultural appropriateness. Even though it is not a compulsory duty of the translator, the outcome of these efforts is truly admirable [5, р. 36].
Another strategy which is particularly useful in dealing with culture-specific items is the strategy of using a loan word. This also helps in the case of very mo-
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dern, newly introduced concepts. The loan word can, and very often even should, be followed with an explanation. The reader does not have problems with understanding it and his attention is not distracted by other lengthy explanations. However, this strategy is very useful when the translator deal with concepts or ideas that are new to Russian audience, culture-specific items, and proper names of diseases or medicines that are widely known in English names [5, p. 37].
Translation by paraphrasing is another of the possible ways in coping with problematic items in translation. When using it the translator has two possible solutions at his disposal. The main advantage of translation by paraphrase (no matter whether with the use of related or unrelated words) is that it is possible to achieve a high level of precision in specifying the meaning of a word or concept that poses difficulties in translation. The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it usually involves replacing one item with an explanation consisting of several items. Thus a striking disproportion in length of the source text and target text may occur, which is hardly ever a desirable effect. However, this strategy is applicable for the term that is known but not lexicalized in the target language and the case of loan word in the source language. Paraphrasing is also helpful in addressing the problem of semantically complex words [5, p. 38].
Baker (1992) refers to deletion as "omission of a lexical item due to grammatical or semantic patterns of the receptor language". She states further that this strategy may sound rather drastic, but in fact it does no harm to omit translating a word or expression in some contexts. If the meaning conveyed by a particular item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to justify distracting the reader with lengthy explanations, translators can and often do simply omit translating the word or expression in question. Nida also shares there are cases where omission is required to avoid redundancy and awkwardness and this strategy is particularly applied if the source language tends be a redundant language [5, p. 40].
Translating by illustration is a useful option if the word which lacks an equivalent in the target language refers to a physical entity which can be illustrated, particularly if there are restrictions on space or if the text has to remain short, concise, and to the point [5, p. 42].
Using these strategies a translator should pay attention to the functions of words in the text or the context, by means of which we can see the meaning of lacuna.
In conclusion we should remind that while translating there could be lacuna that shows peculiarities, colour and specific features of the language, especially in fictions or imaginative literature. Lacuna can be intercultural and cross-language objects of borrowings that are need careful analysis before translation. Lacuna cannot be translated, it should be transferred. It depends on a translator what to transfer: the form of the word or the meaning. So in our work we showed different theories of translation and interpretation of lacuna and tried to give some strategies for analysis of these words.
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References:
1. Catford J.C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.
2. Munday J. (2001). Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London & New York: Routledge.
3. Newmark P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd.
4. Ghadi A.S. (n.d.). Translation Equivalence and Different Theories. Retrieved May 27, 2010, from http://e-articles.info/e/a/title/Translation-Equivalence-and-Different-Theories-/.
5. Mona Baker. In other words. London: Routledge, 1992.
