Theme: Grammar problems of translation

Theme:Grammar problems of translation
The grammatical structure of language is an important part of its overall system, no less important, in fact, than its lexicon or vocabulary. The elements of the grammatical structure, such as affixes forms of inflection and derivation, syntactic patterns, word order, function words, etc., serve to carry meanings which are usually referred to as "grammatical'' or "structural" meanings, as distinct from lexical meanings. The rendering of these meanings in the process of translation is an important problem relating to the general problem of translation equivalence which must be considered at length. Grammatical forms of different languages only very seldom coincide fully as to the scope of their meaning and function. As a rule there is only partial equivalence, that is, the grammatical meanings expressed by grammatical forms, though seemingly identical, of two different languages coincide only in part of their meaning and differ in other parts of the same meanings.Speaking about grammatical peculiarities in translation we should mention also different grammatical differences of SL and TL (English and Ukrainian). There are a lot of peculiarities of the English language which can make the problems in translation. They are:

1. Analytical character of English and synthetical character of the Ukrainian language (no inflections in English):

This is a round table. 

I am sitting at the round table.

2. Wide usage of auxiliary verbs.

3. A great number of structural parts of speech which corresponds to inflections in Ukrainian.

4. Strict, rigid and inflexible word order. Each part of the sentence has its definite place and changing the word order speaker changes meaning of the whole sentence.

5. Wide usage of impersonal constructions with participle and gerund which is not typical in our language.

It is possible to solve all these problems only due to master translation, using grammatical transformations.

Alterations in the structural form of language units performed with the aim of achieving faithfulness in translation are referred to as translator’s transformations.

They are carried out either because of the incompatibility of the target language means of expression, which makes the transplantation of some source language units to it impossible, or in order to retain the style of the source language passages and thus maintain the expressiveness of the source language sense units.

The most regular are the following two types of transformations:

1. “inner” transformations;

2. “outer” transformations.

Example of inner transformation: the noun icon apart from its direct Ukrainian meaning may have in some context also the meanings. Similarly with the noun idea which may mean apart from its genuine international sense .

Outer transformations may sometimes change the structural form of the sense unit under translation.Translation as a term and notion is of polysemantic nature, its common and most general meaning being mostly associated with the action or process of rendering/expressing the meaning/content of a source language word, word-group, sentence or passage (larger text) in the target language or with the result of the process/action of rendering. In other words with the work performed by the translator. The importance of translating in the modern society has long been recognized. Practically not a single contact at the international level or even between any two foreign persons speaking different languages can be established or maintained without the help of translators.The task of a translator is to render the message of the original in the most full way, so that to be able to attain structural similarity of the source and target texts. If the syntactic similarity is missing we observe a transformation (any change of the source text at the syntactic level during translation). In fulfilling this task he/she faces a number of problems such as: ambiguity, problems that arise from structural and lexical differences between languages, multiword units like idioms and collocations and, of course, a large number of grammatical problems.At the grammatical level, a translator is expected to have a thorough knowledge of the grammatical rules of the target language. In fact, a translator does not have to know the grammar of the language for just the sake of it, he should be well versed in comparative grammar of the two languages involved in translation and the similarities and dissimilarities in them. The translator should be able to distinguish between the obligatory and the optional forms in target language.Grammatical differences between two languages can be of various types, depending on the languages, their relationship and the distance - both physical as well as cognitive. Cognate languages may not differ much grammatically although it also depends on the physical distance between the linguistic regions. Languages belonging to different language families but sharing geographical regions may share some features due to the process of convergence.

The major differences between two languages are related to different gender, number, derivational systems, honorifics, tenses etc. One of the major grammatical differences between languages is their gender systems. Languages have different gender systems - grammatical and natural, etc. Some languages have two-way gender system - masculine and feminine, and others have three genders - masculine, feminine and neuter. Hindi and some other Indo-Aryan languages have to two-way pattern with a grammatical gender and so has German. A number of in Hindi have natural sex distinctions but for others it is arbitrary, and therefore, quite confusing, for a non-Hindi speaker and a translator. Dravidian languages have different gender systems, compared with Hindi and its sister languages. These differences across languages need not necessarily be because they belong to different families, although this is a determining factor. This is possible in cognate languages as well, because each language group has its peculiar ways of perceiving and classifying the same notional reality. German and English although related languages, also have their own differences. The seasons in English are neuter, but in German they are perceived as masculine. In Hindi, however, they are both feminine and masculine depending on the vocabulary, register and the style. In Hindi “ritu” is feminine, but 'mausam' meaning both season and weather is masculine. This is due to the fact that these two words have come to Hindi from different sources. Hindi adjective is inflected to denote gender, number and case. The English adjective is invariable whatever its function in the sentence. Hindi and some other Indian languages have number gender concordance. It is absent in English.

         Forms of address and honorifics also differ from language to language. while English does not distinguish between familiar and polite “you”. Indian languages have atleast two to three distinctions, and these are all grammatical. The same is the case with honorifics.

         Languages differ in terms of tense and aspect as well. Most languages are accustomed to three basic tenses - present, past and future with some tenses of relative time - past perfect, future perfect, etc. Some languages are peculiar with a series of temporal gradations of either past or future or both. In terms of their range they vary from few minutes to a year and a more, such as past time of “a few minutes ago” or of “earlier in the day”, etc. These temporal aspects have bearing on the grammar and the sentences structure as a whole.

         The nature of the grammatical differences between a pair of languages varies from language to language. A comparative and contrastive analysis of the grammars of two languages, is essential before a translators ventures to take up the job of translating. These grammatical differences pose problems to the translator as it not only involves analysis of the differences but also finding accurate or proper and approximate correspondences in the target language, for effective transfer of the message.
Translators usually have to deal with six different translation problems in their work, whether they’re translating a leaflet or a KIID

Translators usually have to deal with six different problematic areas in their work, whether they are translating technical documents or a sworn statement. These include: lexical-semantic problems; grammar; syntax; rhetoric; and pragmatic and cultural problems. Not to mention administrative issues, computer-related problems and stress…

1. LEXICAL-SEMANTIC PROBLEMS

Lexical-semantic problems can be resolved by consulting dictionaries, glossaries, terminology banks and experts. These problems include terminology alternatives, neologisms, semantic gaps, contextual synonyms and antonyms (these affect polysemic units: synonyms and antonyms are only aimed at an acceptance which depends on the context to determine which meaning is correct), semantic contiguity (a consistency procedure which works by identifying semantic features common  to two or more terms) and lexical.The study of the language is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic realm. It becomes a tangle begetting multiple language discrepancies. That is why linguistics compares languages and explores their histories, in order to find and to account for its development and origins to give the answers to this or that language point.

Due to the semantic features of language the meanings of words, their ability to combine with other words, their usage, the “place” they hold in the lexical system of a language do not concur for the most part. All the same “ideas” expressed by words coincide in most cases, though the means of expression differ.

The principal types of lexical correspondences between two languages are as follows: 1) Complete correspondences; 2) Partial correspondences; 3) The absence of correspondences.

Let’s deal with them more exactly.

1) Complete lexical correspondences.

Complete correspondence of lexical units of two languages can rarely be found. As a rule they belong to the following lexical groups:

- proper names and geographical denominations:

- the months and days of the week, numerals.

- scientific and technical terms (with the exception of terminological polysemy).

2) Partial lexical correspondences.

While translating the lexical units partial correspondences mostly occur. That happens when a word in the language of the original conforms to several equivalents in the language it is translated into. The reasons of these facts are the following.

1. Most words in a language are polysemantic. That’s why the selection of a word in the process of translating is determined by the context.

2. The specification of synonymous order. However, it is necessary to allow for the nature of the semantic signs which an order of synonyms is based on. Therefore, it is advisable to account for the concurring meanings of members of synonymic orders, the difference in lexical and stylistic meanings, and the ability of individual components of orders of synonyms to combine.

3. Each word affects the meaning of an object it designates. Not infrequently languages “select” different properties and signs to describe the same denotations. The way, each language creates its own “picture of the world”, is known as” various principles of dividing reality into parts”. Despite the difference of signs, both languages reflect one and the same phenomenon adequately and to the same extent, which must be taken into account when translating words of this kind, as equivalence is not identical to having the same meaning.

4. The differences of semantic content of the equivalent words in two languages. These words can be divided into there sub-group:

a) Words with a differentiated (undifferentiated) meaning: e.g. In English: to swim (of a human being), to sail (of a ship), to float (of an inanimate object);

b) Words with a “broad” sense: verbs of state (to be), perception and brainwork (to see, to understand), verbs of action and speech (to go, to say).

c)”Adverbial verbs” with a composite structure which have a semantic content, expressing action and nature at the same time: e.g. the train whistled out of the station.

5. Most difficulties are encountered when translating the so called pseudo-international words. The regular correspondence of such words in spelling and sometimes in articulation coupled with the structure of word-building in both languages may lead to a false identification.

6. Each language has its own typical rules of combinability. A language has generally established traditional combinations which do not concur with corresponding ones in another language.Adjectives offer considerable difficulties in the process of translation. It does not always coincide with their combinability in the Ukrainian or Russian languages on account of differences in their semantic structure.Frequently one and the same adjective in English combines with a number of nouns, while in Ukrainian and Russian different adjectives are used in combinations of this kind. For this reason it is not easy to translate English adjectives which are more capable of combining than their Ukrainian and Russian equivalents.A specific feature of the combinability of English nouns is that some of them can function as the subject of a sentence though they do not belong to a lexico-semantic category.The habitual use of a word, which is bound up with the history of the formation and development of its lexical system. This gave shape to clichés peculiar to each language, which are used for describing particular situations.

2. GRAMMATICAL PROBLEMS

Grammatical problems include, for example, questions of temporality, aspectuality (the appearance indicates how the process is represented or the state expressed by the verb from the point of view of its development, as opposed to time itself), pronouns, and whether or not to make the subject pronoun explicit.

3. SYNTACTICAL PROBLEMS

Syntactical problems may originate in syntactic parallels, the direction of the passive voice, the focus (the point of view from which a story is told), or even rhetorical figures of speech, such as a hyperbaton (the inversion of the natural order of speech) or an anaphora (repetition of a word or segment at the beginning of a line or a phrase). According to supervision of J. Hokins, the English language is typically “syntactic” language. It is possible to say that the English language syntax is independent. Problems arise first of all while translating language with the greater degree of a mismatch between syntax and semantics. Differently, it is natural to expect, that the offer will be translated into Russian according to the syntactic rules working in these languages. On the other hand, it is quite possible, that while translating the German languages offer in English its initial syntactic organization will be kept. Thus, in this kind of real working situation the translator is compelled to base substantially on intuition.

The difficulties connected with a syntactic originality of language expression certainly are not settled by similar cases. For its demonstration it is necessary to mention time in the frameworks of generative grammar in the opposition of languages pro-drop and non-pro-drop. Languages pro-drop possess the following characteristics:

1. 
   under certain conditions the pronouns which are not bearing a logic accent, can be omitted;
   
2. 
   there is an advanced system of conjugation of a verb;
   
3. 
   the subject and the predicate in a simple sentence can freely be interchanged the position;
   
4. 
   the position of interrogative words in the offer can vary;
   

According to this typology English is a non-pro-drop language, and, for example, Latin is a pro-drop language. In that quality Russian allows, and in some cases even demands, omission of a personal pronoun in the position of the subject. So, as a farewell retorts in Russian a phrase I shall be, looks incomparably better in the evening than I shall be in the evening.

There are words in the source of target languages which are more or less similar in form. Such words are of great interest to the translator since he is naturally inclined to take this formal similarity for the semantic proximity and to regard the words that look alike as permanent equivalents.
contrast – контраст

dumping – демпинг

manager – менеджер

inflation – инфляция

philosophy – философия

television – телевидение
The formal similarity is usually the results of two words having the common origin, mainly derived from either Greek or Latin origin. Since such words can be found in a number of languages, they are referred like “international”.

As a matter of fact, very few international words have the same meaning in different languages. Let us compare English “parliament, theorem, diameter” and their Russian counterparts «парламент, теорема, диаметр». In most cases, however, the semantic of such words in English and in Russian do not coincide and they should rather be named “pseudo international”. Their formal similarity suggesting that they are interchangeable, deceptive and may lead to translation errors. For that reason they are often referred to us like “Translator’s false friends”.

The pseudo international words can be classified in two main groups.

The first, there are words which are similar in forms but completely different in meaning. Here there is a risk of making a very great mistake whenever the translator fails to consult his dictionary.

Lots of mistakes have been made translating English words such as “a magazine – журнал, a monitor – староста, a circulation – тираж” and so on. Don’t forget you should buy a magazine today – Не забудь, сегодня ты должен купить журнал.

I am a monitor of my group since last year – Я староста моей группы с прошлого года.

Newspaper circulation is 20000 – Тираж газеты 20000.
The respective Russian words as “декада, комлекция, лунатик” are pseudo international and cannot be used in translation as such ones.

The second, there are many pseudo international words which are not fully interchangeable, though there are some common elements in their semantics. They may become false friends if a translator substitute one of them for the other with no regards to the difference in their meaning or the way English word is used in the particular context.

4. RHETORICAL PROBLEMS

Rhetorical problems are related to the identification and recreation of figures of thought (comparison, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, oxymoron, paradox, etc.) and diction. Translation as a rhetorical device is a form of parody, where a sarcastic paraphrase of a source quotation is given to mock its author; to enhance the irony, it is furthermore stated that the version being given is merely a translation into the speaker's language, implying that the original speaker was unduly obscure or ranting. Given the nature of Usenet forums, parodic translation is prevalent in flame wars, where remarks such as "Translation: 'I do not have a clue and am throwing mud'" are used to imply — on very little ground — that another poster is not making any appreciable contribution to the subject.

Unlike other forms of parody, translation has a relatively recent history; early usages of the device can be seen in the work of the Viennese literary critic and journalist Karl Kraus, who claimed to translate from other journalists' — famously former friend Harden — and from Moskauderwelch — a derisive term for the highly elaborate Marxist jargon of the time, a pun on Moskau, Moscow, and Kauderwelch, gibberish. Kraus' influence is notable in Karl Popper; while translation of scientific theories into verificationist terms had been a standard procedure in logical positivism for some time, Popper's criticism of several philosophers and scientists that failed to comply with his notion of the scientific method took a mocking quality reminiscent of the former.

5. PRAGMATIC PROBLEMS: AN EXAMPLE OF A MARKETING TRANSLATION

Pragmatic problems arise with the difference in the formal and informal modes of address using “you”, as well as idiomatic phrases, sayings, irony, humor and sarcasm. These difficulties can also include other challenges; for example, in the translation of a marketing text from English into French, specifically with the translation of the personal pronoun “you”. The translator must decide whether the formal or the informal “you” is more appropriate, a decision which is not always clear. Any text is communicative. It contains a message transmitted from the Source to the Receptor, some data (information), and that should be extracted from the message and understood by the Receptor. Perceiving the information received, the Receptor is involved in some personality relations with the text, called pragmatic relations. These relations may have a various character. Mostly they may have an intellectual character, when the text serves a Source of certain facts and events for the Receptor, which do not influence him, presenting little interest for him. At the same time the information received may also have a deeper influence on the R. It may touch upon his feelings, evoke a certain emotional reaction, cause some actions on his part. The ability of the text to produce such communicative effect, evoke the R’s pragmatic attitudes towards the message sent, in other words, to realize the pragmatic influence on the information R, is called “ the pragmatic aspect” or “the pragmatic potential (pragmatics) of the text.The pragmatic potential of the text is the result of the S’s choice of the contents of the message and the way of its verbal expression. In accord with his communicative intention the S chooses for information transmission such language units that have the necessary denotative and connotative meaning, and he organizes them in an utterance, so that the necessary semantic ties are established. In the end he creates a text which acquires a certain pragmatic potential, and can produce a certain communicative effect upon its R. The pragmatic potential of the text becomes objective in the sense that it is conditioned by the contents and the form of the message andit already exists independently of the text creator. It may happen, that the pragmatics of the text does not fully coincide with the S’s communicative intention (“he said not what he meant or how he meant to say it”). Pragmatics of the text is an objective matter which is accessible for perception and analysis, in the degree in which it depends on the information to be rendered and the way of its rendering.

6. 
   CULTURAL ISSUES: AN EXAMPLE OF A FINANCIAL TRANSLATION
   

The culture as a perspective is defined in the dictionary language teaching and applied linguistics (Richardson and all. 1995: 94) as: "[culture] the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behavior, and social habits etc…, of the members of a particular society". For many people culture is considered as a gateway to a given society heart, to have a close insight about its identity. In spite of its crucial role in conveying cultures through history; demonstrating and introducing cultures of different people, old nations, ancient civilizations, and even prehistoric events, thoughts, and achievements. A few writers, translation theorists, and linguists have fully discussed the problems of translating cultures in the various departments of thought; fewer members have dealt with translating what is culturally specific either from Arabic into English or vice versa. This may be due to several reasons. On one hand, it is always difficult to make generalizations. On the other hand, interest in translation has been subservient to other ends….

The problem is that, some languages are loaded with cultural terms and expressions called (cultural specific). The cultural specific expressions are somehow difficult to translate, even professional translators find it difficult to deal with them. That is because the cultural context is too vague, it represents the world view of a society, its beliefs, emotions and values. Thus it comprises some important factors which help in building up the information necessary to interpret the message; enable for the translator to translate easily and effectively. That's why, any term; one word or an expression is said to be cultural specific when it denotes concrete objects or abstract aspects that may be related to religious beliefs, social habits, customs and traditions or social situations, moral values, a type of cloth or a life style, kind of food, economical principle, political ideology…that are specific to the culture in question. Henceforth, when translating cultures linguistic element should be related to the cultural context they belong to. For E. Nida "the person who is engaged in translating from one language into another ought to be constantly aware of the contrast in the entire range of culture represented by the two languages". Meaning that, language is considered as a part of culture and the society's identity. For instance, according the Maya Indians who lives in the tropical countries, there is no place without vegetation unless it has been cleared for Maize-field. However, a cleared field is not the appropriate equivalent of the desert of Palestine. The word desert then represents a feature of the SC which is not found in the TC. For that reason, E. Nida argued that "words are fundamentally symbols for features of the cultures". So, any lexical item can’t be understood apart from the culture of which is a symbol that belongs to.

Though some cultural concepts seem to be universal, however; they are not interpreted in the same way; each language has its own interpretation according to its peoples’ way of thinking, living style, and even their geographic position. Since as said before by Ivir that languages are equipped and lexicalized differently. The interpretations may be completely different as they may just slightly different, subtle overlaps. The differences between cultures and life perceptions from a society into another may cause a lot of problems to translators. They create a lot of gaps which lead to plenty of overlaps between language pairs. Hence the translation task is going to be too complicated.

Telya et al.argued that, for example, the Russians understand "conscience" as the presence of God in one's soul; whereas the English view it as knowledge of good and evil. One can notice that the Russians perception of such a term "conscience" is roughly the same as the Arab Muslims perception; both languages consider it as religious concept. For Arab Muslims; good and evil are all related to religion. God is only the one truth; to do well is to obey god, to do evil is to disobey god. For them; the conscience is feeling the presence of God all the times and everywhere. So, the translator who ignores such cultural specifities would not be able to recognize the different ways of perception which do exist between people, languages, and cultures. So in such diversion like in the example above, the translator would misunderstand, mistranslate the concept of conscience wrongly because he may take for granted that it means the same thing in all languages, for all people of different regions.

Cultures cause a lot of problems that is why translators are required to be competent not just at the linguistic level, rather at the cultural level. Let’s consider how Russians translate the expression "House of Commons".

The Russians used to translate as "chairman" which

Obviously is appropriate equivalent; it does not reflect the role of the speaker not its expression has no equivalent in the Russian, Arabic, Chinese languages.

The-House-of-Commons” as an independent person who maintains authority and order in parliament.

The cultural translation problems are the results of the differences between languages as a set of lexemes, and meanings, as between cultures as ways of expressing oneself identity, living style. Especially when translators come across a word in the SL/C that may express a concept which is totally unknown in the TL/C; be it an abstract concept or concrete.

In 1992, Mona Baker stated that S.L word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target culture. It can be abstract or concrete. It may be a religious belief, a social custom or even a type of food. In her book, In Other Words, she argued about the common non-equivalents to which a translator come across while translating from SL into TL, while both languages have their distinguished specific culture. She put them in the following order:

a) Culture specific concepts
b) The SL concept which is not lexicalized in TL
c) The SL word which is semantically complex
d) The source and target languages make different distinction in meaning
e) The TL lacks a super ordinate
f) The TL lacks a specific term (hyponym)
g) Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective
h) Differences in expressive meaning
i) Differences in form
j) Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms
k) The use of loan words in the source text

Mona Baker also believed that it is necessary for translator to have knowledge about semantics and lexical sets. Because in this case: She would appreciate the “value” of the word in a given system knowledge and the difference of structures in SL and TL. This allows him to assess the value of a given item in a lexical set.

S/he can develop strategies for dealing with non-equivalence semantic field. These techniques are arranged hierarchically from general (superordinate) to specific (hyponym)

Some strategies introduced by Newmark for dealing with cultural gap:

1) Naturalization:
A strategy when a SL word is transferred into TL text in its original form.

2) Couplet or triplet and quadruplet:

Is another technique the translator adopts at the time of transferring, naturalizing or calques to avoid any misunderstanding: according to him it is a number of strategies combine together to handle one problem.

3) Neutralization: 

Neutralization is a kind of paraphrase at the level of word. If it is at higher level it would be a paraphrase. When the SL item is generalized (neutralized) it is paraphrased with some culture free words.
4) Descriptive and functional equivalent:
In explanation of source language cultural item there is two elements: one is descriptive and another one would be functional. Descriptive equivalent talks about size, color and composition. The functional equivalent talks about the purpose of the SL cultural-specific word.

5) Explanation as footnote:

The translator may wish to give extra information to the TL reader. He would explain this extra information in a footnote. It may come at the bottom of the page, at the end of chapter or at the end of the book.

6) Cultural equivalent:

The SL cultural word is translated by TL cultural word

7) Compensation:

A technique which is used when confronting a loss of meaning, sound effect, pragmatic effect or metaphor in one part of a text. The word or concept is compensated in other part of the text.

In 1992, Lawrence Venuti mentioned the effective powers controlling translation. He believed that in addition to governments and other politically motivated institutions which may decide to censor or promote certain works, there are groups and social institutions which would include various players in the publication as a whole. These are the publishers and editors who choose the works and commission the translations, pay the translators and often dictate the translation method. They also include the literary agents, marketing and sales teams and reviewers. Each of these players has a particular position and role within the dominant cultural and political agenda of their time and place. Power play is an important theme for cultural commentators and translation scholars. In both theory and practice of translation, power resides in the deployment of language as an ideological weapon for excluding or including a reader, a value system, a set of beliefs, or even an entire culture.

In 1988 Newmark defined culture as "the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression", thus acknowledging that each language group has its own culturally specific features. He also introduced ‘Cultural word’ which the readership is unlikely to understand and the translation strategies for this kind of concept depend on the particular text-type, requirements of the readership and client and importance of the cultural word in the text.

Peter Newmark also categorized the cultural words as follows:

1) Ecology: flora, fauna, hills, winds, plains
2) Material Culture: food, clothes, houses and towns, transport
3) Social Culture: work and leisure
4) Organizations Customs, Activities, Procedures,

Concepts:

• Political and administrative
• Religious
• artistic

5) Gestures and Habits

He introduced contextual factors for translation process which include:

1-Purpose of text 

2- Motivation and cultural, technical and linguistic level of readership
3- Importance of referent in SL text
4- Setting (does recognized translation exist?)
5- Recency of word/referent
6- Future or refrent.

He further clearly stated that operationally he does not regard language as a component or feature of culture in direct opposition to the view taken by Vermeer who stated that "language is part of a culture". According to Newmark, Vermeer's stance would imply the impossibility to translate whereas for the latter, translating the source language (SL) into a suitable form of TL is part of the translator's role in transcultural communication.

Language and culture may thus be seen as being closely related and both aspects must be considered for translation. When considering the translation of cultural words and notions, Newmark proposed two opposing methods: transference and componential analysis. According to him transference gives "local colour," keeping cultural names and concepts. Although placing the emphasis on culture, meaningful to initiated readers, he claimed this method may cause problems for the general readership and limit the comprehension of certain aspects. The importance of the translation process in communication led Newmark to propose componential analysis which he described as being "the most accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the message".