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On Some Phenomena of Untranslatability in
English-Chinese Translation
----From a Linguistic Point of View
Thesis statement Apart from the cultural factors, some linguistic elements also account for many phenomena of untranstability in English-Chinese translation, because sometimes the linguistic form of the source language plays an essential role in conveying the original content. In some cases the form itself is the very content being conveyed; in others the form is closely related to what is conveyed in the original. Usually translators give up the pragmatic meaning or ignore the referential meaning of the original according to specific situations so that the problem can be partly solved.
Custom Essays on On Some Phenomena of Untranslatability in English-Chinese Translation----From a Linguistic Point of View
In English-Chinese translation, as in other kinds of translation, it is quite usual for translators to come across some tricky words or sentences which seem to be almost impossible to translate. Considering the distinct differences between the English language and the Chinese language, these kinds of ¡°untranslatable¡± phenomena are understandable. Apart from the cultural factors involved which serve as an essential part of the reason for untranslatability, some linguistic elements also account for these somewhat unsolvable difficulties in translation. Actually, if many untranslatable cases are carefully analyzed, it can be found that in these cases, the relationship between the form of the source language and the content contained by the original is often quite special. This kind of specialty can be classified into two types a) the form of the source language itself is just the content being conveyed; b) the form of the source language is closely related to what is expressed in the original.
a) The form itself is the content being conveyed.
Sometimes, some aspects of the form of the English language like the phonemic, lexical, grammatical or syntactic features present themselves as the content being expressed in a sentence or paragraph. In other words, what is conveyed in the original is a certain characteristic of the language itself rather than any object or idea. Without the form of the original language, this sort of content can not exist any more. Certainly it cannot be reproduced in the form of another language such as Chinese. See a couple of examples
Ex.1. A Why are you never hungry when you play on a beach?
B Because of the sand which is there.
In this example, the pronunciation of ¡°sand which is¡± in the original which is similar to that of ¡°sandwiches¡± can be identified only when it is put into actual utterance. Here the phonemic representation of the original sentence is the very thing that matters, yet it cannot be transformed into Chinese, thus the whole sentence becomes untranslatable.
Ex.. A What makes a road broad?
B The letter ¡°B¡±.
The above is a riddle. The author takes advantage of the characteristic of the combination of the letters in two words i.e., ¡°road¡± and ¡°broad¡±, and makes the dialogue a kind of humor. As not only are the meaning of the words involved here, but their form plays an essential role, it is hard to deal with this sort of phenomenon in translation, too.
Ex.. A What words may be pronounced quicker and shorter by adding syllables to them?
B Quick and short.
This example concerns a grammatical element in English, namely, the comparative form of adjectives. Since this kind of inflectional suffix which is a distinct feature of the English language is absent in Chinese, the humourous effect created in the original will inevitably be lost if the two sentences are literally translated.
Ex.4. Teacher A preposition is a bad word to end a sentence with.
Pupi Please, teacher, you've just ended a sentence with ¡°with¡±.
Teacher Ah, but what did I end the sentence with ¡°with¡± for? Do you know?
Pupi No teacher, and I don't know what you ended that one with ¡°with with for¡± for.
In the above short dialogue between a teacher and a student, the humor is achieved by the employment of the question about the place of prepositions in English. It satirizes the pedantry of the teacher and reflects the sharp wit and mischievousness of the student. It also indicates that to end a sentence with prepositions is inevitable and irreproachable. Yet because a unique syntactic feature of English serve as the most important part of content in this dialogue, the dialogue cannot be translated into Chinese.
b) The form of the English language is closely related to what is expressed.
This sort of phenomenon concerning untranslatability firstly refers to the case in which the form of the source language is used to attain certain rhetorical effects. Such being the case, if some ways of expression which have similar effects can be found in the Chinese language, the original is translatable, otherwise it can just be partly translated, which means that probably the original content can be kept, but the rhetorical effects will be lost.
The great difficulty in translating English poems into Chinese is primarily due to a special form of the source language, namely, the rhyming system which includes alliteration, end rhyme, internal rhyme, etc. The following is a typical example
Ex.5. Wake the vaulted shadow shatters,
Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
Straws the sky-pavilioned land.
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In the except, the original poem not only has an end rhyme like abab, but also contains alliteration in each line (s, t) as well as assonance in the first two lines (shadow-shatters, trampled-spanned). Although the version which recreates a different kind of end rhyme sounds quite good, the alliteration and the assonance mentioned above are lost.
Besides rhyme, homophone is also very hard to deal with in translation, because two words with the same pronunciation yet different meanings are involved. This is itself a kind of coincidence in the source language, and it is almost impossible to find the same kind of corresponding coincidence in the target language. The example below is an excellent proof.
Ex.6. Seven days without water make one weak (week).
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What's more, people's playing with words, often taking advantage of homograph, is usually untranslatable, too. Here is a joke which can serve as an interesting example.
Ex.7. ¡°Call me a taxi,¡± said the fat man.
¡°Okay,¡± said the doorman. ¡°You're a taxi, but you look more like a truck to me.¡±
The fat man asks the doorman to call a taxi for him, but the sentence ¡°call me a taxi¡± also means to name the man ¡°a taxi¡±. The doorman uses this kind of homograph to make a joke at the fat man. If it is literally translated, the joke is no longer a joke.
The untranslatable cases in which there is close relationship between the form of the source language and the content of the original also include the condition under which the form of the language has a pragmatic meaning which is essential to the conveyance of the content of the original. Three examples respectively concerning the use of Old English, slang, and loan words in the original are listed below to shed a light on the readers.
Ex.8. ¡°Why bless thee, child?¡± said the old man, patting her on the head, ¡°how couldst thou miss thy way? What if I had lost thee, Nell!¡±
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Here the old man is talking to his beloved granddaughter. His using of several words from Old English reflects his deep love for her and how he cherishes her. Yet such words as ¡°thee¡±, ¡°couldst¡±, ¡°thou¡± and ¡°thy¡± cannot be translated into corresponding Old Chinese, so the original effect is lost in the translation.
Ex.. And other times----well, I needed a fix¡
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The word ¡°fix¡± is a slang word used exclusively by people who are on drugs. It is adopted by the writer to depict this specific character, indicating that ¡°I¡± am a dope. The translation cannot convey the function of this slang word at all.
Ex.10. Ogilvie Pretty neat set-up you folks got.¡±
The Dutchess's I imagine you did not come here to discuss decor.¡± (Arthur Hailey Hotel)
In this except, the Dutchess intentionally employs the word ¡°decor¡± which is borrowed from French to show up her high status as a noblewoman. This usage can be easily understood by readers in English-speaking countries, yet if it is translated into Chinese, its pragmatic function will be completely lost, and if its original form is kept in the translation, the Chinese readers will not be able to understand it. Of course translators can keep the form and add an explanation, but the effect will by no means be as good as that of the original, so this kind of loan words is untranslatable.
In conclusion, there are undeniably the phenomena of untranslatability in translation, and in many cases it has much to do with the linguistic form of the source language. That's why style is considered by many to be untranslatable in a strict sense, because among various kinds of elements which determine the style of a certain text, the linguistic form of a certain language is an essential one. However, untranslatability under certain circumstances cannot be an obstacle to the translators' conveying the main content of the original in their translations, and in fact, the untranslatability of style does not mean that translators cannot achieve a version with a style close to the original. When the pragmatic meaning of the original cannot be reproduced in the version together with the referential meaning, translators generally give up the former; and sometimes, for the sake of the aesthetic function of the version, they ignore the latter while keeping the pragmatic meaning.
Actually, all the cases involving untranslatability concerns a matter of ¡°losses¡± during the process of the transformation of one language into another. In translation, it is impossible for any translator to reproduce everything in the original into the target language, rather, there is always certain kind of ¡°giving up¡±. This kind of ¡°giving up¡± or ¡°losing¡± which is the specific manifestation of untranslatability is in fact inevitable. What translators ought to do is just to try their best to reduce their ¡°losses¡± in translation and to retain as much as possible the content of the original as well as the aesthetic devices adopted in the original. Anyway, there are no translations without ¡°losses¡±.
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Jin Di, Eugene A. Nida, 184. On Translation, with Special Reference to Chinese and English.
Liu Zhongde, 11. Ten Lectures on Literary Translation. Beijing China Translation & Publishing Corporation.
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