Issues in Translation

2. Issues in Translation from the perspectiveof Cognitive Grammar David TuggySIL-Mexico

3. Classic Issues in Translation • There are certain issues in translation that come up over and over again. • When that happens in a discipline, you know that these are matters that come close to the nub of what you are trying to do.

4. Classic Issues in Translation • These presentations are an attempt to look at some of those recurrent translation issues in a new way. • It is not a new way in that it denies the problems, or even in that it necessarily shows us powerful new ways to deal with them. • My own experience (and I hope it will be yours as well) is that this way of viewing the issues will clarify them and help us understand them better.

5. Classic Issues in Translation • Scott Delancey said the the main problem with Cognitive Grammar is the name: it should have been “Common-sense Grammar” • Most of what my Grandma told me was true; CG has helped me see how. • So in one sense it is not revolutionary. • But it is a good corrective against other theories that have denied some of its common-sense tenets.

6. Classic Issues in Translationfrom the perspective of CG • The presentation assumes familiarity with the basic premises and mechanisms of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991, 2007, Taylor 2002 etc.) • (The presentations most of you have so patiently sat through —whose powerpoints are posted at www.sil.org/~tuggyd —cover what I will assume that you know about the theory.)

7. Issue #1 When it comes to translation,What is Form? What is Meaning?

8. What gets changed? What gets moved? What stays the same? • In looking at many terms for translation in a number of the world’s languages, we saw repeatedly such ideas as moving, flipping, turning around, and changing. • In each of these one can talk about a partial change: some things are preserved, and some change. • In thinking about translation, it is important to consider what changes, and what stays the same.

9. The Form/Meaning opposition • Many who have talked about translation have said things like the following: • “The translation process involves (1) at least two languages and (2) a message. These two essential components of a translation may be called, respectively, (1) form and (2) meaning. … All translators are agreed that their task is to communicate the meaning of the original.” • (Beekman & Callow 1974:19-20)

10. The Form/Meaning opposition • I.e. The meaning is what should stay the same. • The form may, and probably should, change. • Beekman & Callow clearly believe that: • “By translating into the natural form of the receptor language, whether this parallels the form of the original or not, the meaning of the original is best communicated.” • In other words, ignore (source language) form and translate meaning.

11. The Form/Meaning opposition • But what is form? and what is meaning? • Is a Greek tense or case marking a form? • Are word order, or number markings, forms? • Is active vs. passive, or noun vs. verb a form? • Is the “literal” meaning of a figure of speech its form? • Is the story told in a parable its form?

12. The Form/Meaning opposition • Examples (from Spanish version of Katie Barnwell’s How to Translate the Bible (!?!)) • Produce therefore fruits worthy of repentance. • So then, give fruits which show your repentance. • Produce, then, fruit appropriate to a sincere repentance. • Show, then, the fruits of a sincere conversion. • Show that you have repented. • Behave in such a way that it will be clear that you have turned to the Lord. • Only the last two meet with Barnwell’s approval.

13. The Form/Meaning opposition • Produce therefore fruits worthy of repentance. • So then, give fruits which show your repentance. • Produce, then, fruit appropriate to a sincere repentance. • Show, then, the fruits of a sincere conversion. • Show that you have repented. • Behave in such a way that it will be clear that you have turned to the Lord. • The first four are faulted for: • saying “fruit(s)” when “that is a Greek idiom” • using an abstract nominalization “repentance/conversion” • following the Greek word order (as also the last two) • Also, all four tried to translate οὖν(“therefore, so, then”)

14. (Parenthesis) • (I recognize that it is some sense unfair for me to criticise a training document as if it were a position paper. Barnwell, Beekman and Callow were/are all aware of the kinds of things I am bringing up. It is often important to wake beginning translators up to the idea of translating non-literally, and Barnwell’s apparent disapproval of the more literal translations may be more tactical than final. need not be her final judgment on them.)

15. The Form/Meaning opposition • Translation = change form / keep meaning • But: • It has sometimes seemed that one is encouraged or even obliged to change form simply to avoid the charge of not having changed it. • E.g. “every word that comes from God’s mouth” is bad, because literal. • You must say “every word that God speaks”. • Never mind that words do come out of people’s mouths in many languages, not just Greek. • Never mind that “fruit” can be understood naturally as “results” in many languages.

16. The Form/Meaning opposition • It sometimes has seemed that form = “whatever I want to be free to change in translation” • Is it really tenable that the literal meaning of a metaphor is not meaning? • Or the interrogative “form” of a rhetorical question? • Or the lack of specification of the agent in a passive? • Do connectives like οὖν mean nothing?

17. The Form/Meaning opposition • More generally: Why is there such a persistent tug back to more “literal” translation? Is it sheer ignorance, obscurantism, nostalgia, etc., • Or might those who like literal translations be on to something important?

18. What light does CG shed on this? Signifiant = Form • Cognitive Grammar (CG) has helped me in trying to think through this issue. • The first thing I pick up from CG is that the phonological (or other signifiant) pole of a symbol matches the requisite notion of “form” pretty well. • The phonological shape tends to vary significantly from one language to another in particular cases.

19. Phonological pole = Form • For instance, there are nouns meaning something like HOUSE or DWELLING in any number of languages, but the phonological shapes of those nouns vary in quite unpredictable ways. • haws English • ˈkasa Spanish • tʌhk Mixe • ˈoʲkos Koiné Greek • etc.

20. Phonological pole = Form • If I want to talk about a HOUSE to Mixe speakers, I had better not say oʲkos, or mezõ. • Any theory of translation I ever heard of would approve of changing the “form” in these cases (i.e. the phonological pole of the relevant symbol) in order to preserve the meaning. • If you do not change these “forms”, you cannot have any sort of a translation at all, not even a word-by-word literal translation.

21. Not just words have phonological poles • CG insists, however, that words are not the only kind of symbol • Other symbols also, by definition, have phonological poles. • This includes affixes and other morphemes, of course. • (Their possessing phonological poles is not as controversial as their being meaningful, actually.) • CG says they have both form and meaning.

22. Not just words have phonological poles • Lexical phrases, also, obviously have phonological poles. • (This includes idioms like the one Barnwell deprecated.) • But so do half-schematic, half-lexical constructions like slap X upside the face, or VP with NP • And so do fully-schematic constructions like V+Obj=Subj or NP+VP=S.

23. Complex forms correspond to complex meanings • Start with a complex word like entrapment, for instance. What is its meaning? • To the extent that speakers recognize the morphemes in it, their meanings are part of its meanings. • Is the stem trap recognized within entrapment? Then TRAP is part of the meaning ENTRAPMENT. • The same goes for en- and –ment. • But the combination of EN-, TRAP and –MENT is not the whole of the meaning of ENTRAPMENT.

24. Complex forms correspond to complex meanings • CG insists that the whole need not be (and usually will not be) the same thing as the sum of the parts. • Usually it is more. • This is obvious (definitional?) in the case of “idioms”, but is true in less obvious ways in many other cases. • Entrapment in current English means more than you could get from its pieces and their mode of combination.

25. Complex forms correspond to complex meanings • Probably the most salient meaning of entrapment in American English is “To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act.” • That doesn’t mean it ceases to be an example of en-stem, stem-ment, or other constructional patterns.

26. Complex forms correspond to complex meanings • The meaning of the whole must be considered, and in some sense it takes precedence over the meanings of the parts. • Yet it does not do away with the meanings of the parts and their combination. • 2+3 and 5 do not mean the same thing as each other, or as 4+1 or 8-3. • Dreadnought and battleship do not mean the same thing, even if they designate the same class of objects.

27. Complex forms correspond to complex meanings • All this is true of words and even more so of higher-level structures like phrases and clauses: • The meanings of the parts must be considered • but so must the meaning of the whole, • And in some sense it takes precedence over the meanings of the parts. • The meaning of the structure encompasses all of these aspects.

28. Implications for translation • Briefly, lets look at some implications of this for translation. • Can I decide that • ihtek means ‘inside’ in Nawatl • ahsi means ‘trap, catch’ • and –lis-tli means ‘-ment’; • then construct ihtekahšilistli and assume it will do as a translation of entrapment? • Of course not. The chances that the overall meanings will coincide are not high.

29. Implications for translation • In fact the word ihtekahšilistli would leave Nawatl speakers scratching their heads. • On the other hand, if I were to use something like tēyoltilānalistli ‘enticing, tempting to do evil’ will that be a perfect translation? • Of course not. • tē- ‘someone’ + yol ‘heart’ + tilāna ‘pull, tug’ gives different imagery here. • The notion of tempting, though going well beyond HEART-TUGGING SOMEONE, and in the right direction, is not the same thing as ENTRAPMENT.

30. Implications for translation • But I can’t think of a better one-word translation for it. • What if I go for a phrase? • Well, how big a phrase? • More importantly, what else would I put in? • Also, one abstract nominalization is maybe OK, but putting two of them into a phrase borders on the weird in Nawatl, • So probably use clauses rather than nominalizations. • But then you have to specify who does what to whom.

31. Implications for translation • Maybe: okikahkayahkeh n okiyoltilānkeh ma kichiwa tlen amo ihtok. • I.e. ‘They deceived him (in) that they heart-tugged him may he do what is not proper.’ • Does that get all and only the meaning of entrapment? • No. But it might be a good translation in some context anyway.

32. Implications for translation • Bottom line(s): (a) The meaning of a complex structure includes both the meanings of its components and the meaning of the composite. (b) Rarely if ever will you be able to preserve both completely intact in a translation. (c) This is true even for a single word. It is at least as true for larger structures.

33. “Word Order” is a phonological fact: thus a matter of “form”. • Returning to something said above: structures above the word level also have phonological poles. • We mentioned specifically lexical phrases, half-lexical constructions, and fully-schematic constructions. • For a highly schematic construction like NPA + VPB, the phonological pole won’t specify much beyond “…A precedes …B”

34. “Word Order” is a phonological fact: thus a matter of “form”. • It is only when its linkage to the semantic structure is brought into view that you know that …A designates a (grounded) Thing (NP) and …B a (grounded) Process (VP). • But then that is true of lexical items as well. • It is only when linkage to the semantic structure is in view that you know whether [aʲl] is ‘I’ll’, ‘aisle’, or ‘isle’ or even part of ‘trial’ or ‘smile’. • But, yes, “word order” or “order of syntactic constituents” is part of the phonological pole, thus a matter of “form”.

35. “Word Order” is a phonological fact: thus a matter of “form”. • “Word order” or “order of syntactic constituents” is part of the phonological pole, thus a matter of “form”. • But a word order, too, is connected to a meaning. • (Not every ordering in every language means much, but orderings can carry quite a bit of meaning)

36. There are few options with ordering • An interesting fact: when you are down to differences of ordering, you do not have all that many options. • A and B juxtaposed to each other, or separated from each other, are two main options. • (The question of what separates them will come into play, of course) • A before B, or B before A, are two other main options.

37. Not all forms need to change • If two languages’ lexical items with the same meanings happen to have the same phonological form, you don’t change it. • It is just not very likely to happen. • Similarly, if two languages happen to mark the same information by the same word order, you shouldn’t change it. • And because of the limited options, the chances rise that this will happen.

38. The “Form/Meaning” relationship • The “symbolic link” between a form (phonological pole of a symbol) and its meaning (the semantic pole of the symbol) is of an interesting nature. • All mental relationships are (besides whatever else they may be) associations. • Associations are built on the principle that “(groups of) neurons that fire together wire together” • Symbolic linkages are unusual in that they often seem to be nothing but bare associations. • This is the kernel of de Saussure’s famous “l’arbitraire du signe” principle.

39. The “Form/Meaning” relationship • It is when, and to the extent that, a phonological form is only arbitrarily linked to a meaning, that the form can be unreflectively abandoned or changed. • However, as even Saussureans would admit, it is better to say that symbolic links need not be motivated and often are, at least apparently, unmotivated, than to say they are always, totally, arbitrary.

40. Symbolic linkages need not be totally arbitrary • Most importantly, they often have a component of similarity besides the sheer associatedness. • This is of course what is called iconicity. • The similarity motivates the association. We activated the structures together in large part because they were similar.

41. Iconicity • Onomatopoeia is the classic case of iconicity: • It is not arbitrary that a cow goes Moo in English. • Of course, neither is it entirely predictable. • It is not totally surprising that ekxowa and kachoo in Nawatl and English sound so much alike, since they both refer to a sneeze. • Names of letters of the alphabet tend to be similar across languages. Should we be surprised? • But iconicity goes far beyond onomatopoeia.

42. Pervasive kinds of iconicity • “Structures that belong together semantically tend to occur together phonologically” —Behagel’s Law • Phonological sequences tend to mirror semantic sequences. • Phonological repetition tends to mirror semantic repetition (and/or intensity, multiplicity, distributivity, etc. etc.) • Reduplications almost always have some clearly iconic meanings.

43. Pervasive kinds of iconicity • “Structures that belong together semantically tend to occur together phonologically” —Behagel’s Law • Phonological sequences tend to mirror semantic sequences. • Phonological repetition tends to mirror semantic repetition (and/or intensity, multiplicity, distributivity, etc. etc.) • Reduplications almost always have some clearly iconic meanings.

44. Pervasive kinds of iconicity • A complex phonological structure tends to represent a complex semantic structure in which the semantic poles of the phonological parts are components. • E.g. it is far from arbitrary, given that rattle means what it does and -er means what it does, that rattler means what it does. • On the other hand, it is far from predictable, either.

45. Iconicity a kind of naturalness • An iconic linkage is a natural linkage. • That does not mean it is inevitable, or that a different one might not be even more natural. • Bottom line: any iconic structure is more likely to be the same (or very similar) in two different languages.

46. Iconicity a kind of naturalness • If it is not the same, and you must translate something iconic by something non-iconic, you are losing something valuable. • If it is the same, you do not need to change it. • Thus some forms (iconic ones) are less likely to need changing in translation. • But it they must be changed, it is a bit more consequential than if you change a more arbitrary phonological pole.

47. What about other kinds of forms? • What about tense, gender, or declension markings? • Are they “forms” from the perspective of CG? • No, they are symbolic structures. • They have a form (their phonological pole) • but a meaning (semantic pole) as well. • They are components, of the sort we mentioned before.

48. What about other kinds of forms? • Sometimes their semantic contribution is • slight • redundant • I.e. it overlaps partially or even fully with contributions from other components • variable • hard to specify • difficult (to the point of being impossible) to translate • But that does not mean it is negligible. • It is real meaning.

49. What about other kinds of forms? • This is generally the case with “grammatical” elements. They are meaningful. • Connectors like οὖν fit in here. • Their phonological shape can certainly be changed in translation • but their meaning is real, and should be taken into account.

50. What about other kinds of forms? • What about metaphors, metonymies, etc. • For CG they are complex meanings. • Their meanings consist in *both* the “literal” and the “figurative” meanings, and each in relation to the other. • Whether or not it is possible to reproduce both at once in another language, both are real meanings in the source language.