FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION
We agree with the Swedish economist Gunner Myrdal when he notes, “Language, as
we known, is full of illogicalities.” Yet in spite of all the problems associated with
language, we need it so we can speak with other cultures. And as we have noted
throughout this book, as international contact and interaction continue to increase, the
necessity for effective international communication assumes added urgency. In fact, it
is not uncommon for members of some cultures to speak two or even three languages.
In contrast, North Americas have been slower to recognize the importance of
acquiring proficiency in more than one language. As Stewart and Bennett indicate,
“Most Americans speak only one language, they are usually dependent on finding
English speakers or translators.” Arrangements such as the North America Free Trade
Agreement, involving Canada, the United States, and Mexico, as well as continued
immigration to the United States, have been great stimulators for North Americans to
expand their language proficiency.
Schools and hospitals print materials in various languages. Employers offer
bilingual manuals, and businesses advertise in non-English languages. According to
Hernandez, small translation companies have turned into thriving businesses with
contracts running in the millions of dollars, and some professional translators make up
to 40 cents a word. Schulte concisely portrays the role of the interpreter as we move
into a global twenty-first century:
The person who will have to play a major role in regulating the pendulum between global and local
communication is the translation…..Translators build bridges not only between languages but also between the
differences of two cultures. We have established that each language is a way of seeing and reflecting the delicate
nuances of cultural perceptions, and it is the translator who not only reconstructs the equivalencies of words across
linguistic boundaries but also reflects and transplants the emotional vibrations of another culture.
Effective translation, as you know if you have attempted to learn another
language, is demanding and complex. People tend to assume that text in one language
can be accurately translated into another as long as you employ a good bilingual
dictionary. Unfortunately, languages are not this simple, and direct transactions, in
many cases, are difficult if not impossible. A language may be difficult to translate if
the structure of the receptor language is different than the source language, for
example, translating German, an Indo-European language, into Hungarian, a
Finno-Ugrian language. Also, the difficulty in translation multiples when the cultures
are extremely different from each other. As Nida states, “A translation may involve
not only differences of linguistic affiliation but also highly diverse cultures, e.g.,
English into Zulu, or Greek into Javanese.”
The slightest cultural difference may affect the way in which a text is understood
or interpreted .The feeling of joy is experienced differently in various cultures. In
most European languages, the heart is where joy is experienced. But, in the Chadic
languages of Africa, joy is related to the liver. In Hebrew, the kidneys are said to
experience joy, while in the Mayan language the abdomen is the site of joy.
Even when message provide adequate interpretations of original text, there is
usually no full equivalence through translation. Word-for-word correspondences do
not exist, and what may appear to be synonymous messages may not be equivalent.
This lack of correspondence may be seen in the translation of biblical references. The
Bible idealizes sheep. But, in some cultures, sheep are viewed negatively or do not
even exist. Shuttleworth and Cowie relate how the translation of the biblical phrase
“Lamb of God” is translated into an Eskimo language using the term “Seal of God.”
The fact that lambs are unknown in polar regions has led to the substitution of a
culturally meaningful item that shares some of the important features of the source
language expression. In the following section, we will first briefly explore linguistic
equivalence in terms of securing adequate translation.
Problems of Translation and Equivalence
When the American historian Henry Brooks Adams wrote, “Words are slippery,” he
must have been referring to the fact that language translation is difficult and subject to
countless misinterpretations. There is a case of missionary who was preaching in the
West African Bantu language and who, instead of saying, “The children of Israel
crossed the Red Sea and followed Moses”, mistakenly said, “The children of Israel
crossed the red mosquitoes and swallowed Moses.” The examples in this section
illustrate the difficulties of foreign-language translation and the serious consequences
of the inept translation of words with multiple meanings. These difficulties are
referred to as linguistic equivalence, including vocabulary, idiomatic,
grammatical-syntactical, experiential-cultural, and conceptual equivalence.
Vocabulary or Lexical Equivalence
One of the goals of translation is to convey the meaning and style of the original
language, but dictionary translations rarely reflect common language usage in a
culture. As Reeves describes, though proficiency in both the source and target
languages is important, translators need to translate not only to a target language but
to a target culture as well. Translators also need to deal with nuances and with words
that have no equivalents in other languages. In English, there is a distinction between
the words taboo and sin. Among the Senoufo people of Africa, there is only one term
for both of these concepts: kapini taboo. But, the taboos included in the Senoufo term
are such things as a man seeing his wife sewing or a man whistling in a field unless he
is resting. The Senoufo emotional attitude toward breaking these taboos is akin to the
Christian attitude of sin, but the behaviors are quite different. Among the Senoufo,
things considered sinful by Christians such as adultery, lying, or stealing are called
silegebafeebi or “without-shame-people.” Additionally, Reeves points out that there
are many terms that appear to be universal, but actually are not. Among these are such
things as freedom, equality, democracy, independence, free enterprise, equal
opportunity, and justice. He argues that in many cases there is no lexical equivalent to
the connotative range implied by these terms.
Idiomatic and Slang Equivalence
Seidel and McMordie define idioms as “a number of words which, when taken
together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they
stand alone”. Most idiomatic phrases come from everyday life and are unique to a
particular culture. Think for a moment about the single-word translation and the
culture-bound definition of some of the following expressions:“He made a clean
sweep of his life ,” “She hit the nail on the head,” “They had to eat humble pie,”
“They went window shopping.” “ It rained cats and dogs,” or “Out of the frying pan
and into the fire.” As we noted , idiomatic expressions are culture-bound; they do not
translate well. Basset-Mcguire provides some examples: The English phrase “The
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” for instance, has been translated into Russian as
“The Vodka is good but the meat is rotten .” Also, the English slogan “Things come
alive with Pepsi” has been translated into German as “Pepsi can pull you back from
your grave.” Or, consider this example of an Italian idiom translated into English:
Giovanni sta memando il cane per I’aia. Translated literally, this is “John is leading
his dog around the threshing floor.” A better translation, with greater correspondence
of meaning, is “John is beating around the bush”. Coming up with the second
translation thus requires that you be familiar with American idioms. As another
example, imagine attempting to translate the sport-influenced statement “I don’t want
to be a Monday-morning quarterback, but. …”into the language of a culture that does
not have or understand the sport of American football .You can see the same problem
associated with baseball idioms if someone, engaging in an international negotiation
session says “Just give us a ballpark figure so we can get off of first base .”
Grammatical-Syntactical Equivalence
Difficulties may also arise when there are no equivalent parts of speech. We discussed
many of these earlier in the chapter, but a few more examples will amplify our point.
The Urdu language, for instance, has no gerunds, so it is difficult to find an equivalent
for one. In the Filipino language, there is no equivalent of the verb to be. No relative
pronouns in Korean are comparable to the English who, which, that, or what. “In
Japanese, there is no parallel for the distinctions made in English between modifiers
of nouns that are “countable” (such as marble, days, or flavors), and modifiers of
nouns that are “uncountable”(such as sugar ,advice, or money ). As a result, says
Ogawa, Japanese translations may render statements like “much shoes” or “many
patience”. In addition, the gender of nouns is difficult in translation because the
gender may vary by culture or language. Die Sonne in German is feminine, but le
soleil in French is masculine. Both words refer to the same object—the sun –but have
different gender attachments .And, in English, nouns have no gender designation.
Experiential-Cultural Equivalence
In dealing with translations, you must grapple not only with structural differences
between languages but also with culture differences, which requires precision and the
ability to convey the speaker’s or author’s approach or attitude. As Tymoczko reminds
you, “All meaning is relative to the speaker and the situation in which the words are
spoken or written.” Also, translators need to consider shared experiences. Peace and
war have various meanings for peoples of the world, depending on their conditions,
time, and place. The meanings that cultures have for words are based on shared
experiences, and the ability of a word to convey or elicit meaning depends on the
culturally informed perceptions of both source and receiver.
When we lack cultural equivalents, we lack the words in our vocabulary to
represent those experiences. For instance, when the vocabulary of a tribe in a
mountainous jungle region has words for rivers and streams but not oceans, how do
you translate the notion of an ocean? Or what does a translator do when she or he is
faced with the task of translating the biblical verse “Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow” into the language of a tribe that has never experienced
snow?
Translations frequently produce misunderstanding or incomprehension because of
cultural orientations. For instance, the Quechua language of Peru uses past and future
orientations that are the opposite of those used in the English languages. Quechua
visualizes the past as being in front of or ahead of a person because it can be seen.
Americans instead speak of the past being behind them and the future being ahead. If
this difference in cultural orientation were not known or were ignored, translations
about time, the past, and the future could be incomprehensible. People could be told
to look behind them for what they normally expect to find ahead of them.
Conceptual Equivalence
Some concepts are cultural-specific (emic) and others culture-general (etic). Triandis
believes it is impossible to translate perfectly an emic concept. So different, for
instance, are Spanish culture experiences from the English that many words cannot be
translated directly. Strong affection is expressed in English with the verb to love. In
Spanish, there are two verbs, te amo and te quiero. Te amo refers to nurturing love, as
between a parent and a child or between two adults. Te quiero translates literally as “I
want you”, which connotes ownership, a concept not present in the English expression
“I love you”. Commonly used to express love between two adults, te quiero falls
somewhere between the English statements “I love you” and “I like you”.
The Spanish language as spoken in Mexico has at least five terms indicating
agreement in varying degrees .These include me comprometo (I promise or commit
myself ), yo le aseguro (I assure you ),si, como no, lo hago (yes,sure,I will do it ), tal
vez lo hago (maybe I will do it ), and tal vez lo haga (maybe I might do it ). The
problem, of course, is to understand the difference between me comprometo and tal
vez lo haga in their cultural sense so that one can render a correct translation.
Misunderstandings and confusions may arise if we simple translate each of these
phrases of agreement as “okay”. Triandis believes that about the only way in which an
emic concept can be translated is to attempt to relate it to an etic one and to tie it to
the context in which the concept might be used.
What you have seen in this last section of the chapter are some of the difficulties
you can encounter when interacting with someone who speaks a language different
than you own. What is important to keep in mind is not only that the meanings for
specific words need to be considered but that you must also keep in mind the role
culture plays in giving meaning to words and phrases. As Reeves points out, you need
to also consider such things as (1) the history of the culture, (2) the social and political
institutions, (3) the message genre and accompanying vocabulary, and (4) the
intentions of the sender.