CHAPTER – IV
PROSE TRANSLATION AND ITS PROBLEMS
4.1. PROSE TRANSLATION
4.2. PROBLEMS IN PROSE TRANSLATION
GENERAL INFORMATION
The researchers discuss the problems of Prose Translation. This chapter presents the
various types of problems underwent by the researcher in translating a prose during the
translation process and the methods adopted by the researcher to solve them.
Professor H. G. Widdowson in his book Stylistics and the Teaching of Literature, (1975),
appears less extreme. He assumes that the translation of poetry is extremely difficult
because of "the patterning of sound and sense into a single meaning."
It is supposed here that since poetry has its distinctive features, it cannot be rendered into
pure prose. The poet is mainly concerned with the connotative force of words. The
translation of poetry into poetry entails preserving the rhyme, figurative language and the
general tone of the original. This cannot be achieved unless the translator has a special
talent and introspection. Some poetic translations, so deep and original, have impressed
readers in the other languages. Few of the translated versions have been deemed even
more illuminating than the original.
The difficulty of poetic translation leads many to think that the translator of poetry must
himself be a poet, otherwise he should not dare to square the circle!
Translation proves to be a challenging task because differences between one language
and another loom large in the domain of lexis, in the field of grammar and in the sphere
of culture. Charges are leveled against the translator that he is a traitor , betrayer or a
‘conjuror’. The Italian proverb “A translator is a traitor “is a hint at the inefficiency of the
translator .Brendan Kennedy calls translation “the art of failure.”
Novels, short stories and essays are written in prose .Prose is said to be a simple structure
and therefore it is simpler and easier to translate .This is far from being true. It proves to
be a tough job , if the prose is in classical style , descriptive in details ,symbolic in its
purpose , satirical and ironic in its tone and colloquial in its flavour. But attempts can be
made to achieve a readable translation, instead of closely following the SL text. General
rules of translation for prose and poetry may also be followed wherever applicable.
4.2.1. UNTRANSLATABILITY
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Translation used to be considered an inter-language transfer of meaning, which is the
point of departure for research and study, many earlier definitions demonstrate this, using
source language and target language as their technical terms. Moreover, translation
theories strictly confined themselves within the sphere of linguistics.
Translation of poetry was, by someone skill is, believed as impossibility for any
unfaithful elements would have been taken as failure, be it content or form
Poetry itself serves a purpose, be it an illusive matter, and aesthetics can be reproduced in
another language and culture if accommodation is made. It would be highly likely that the
target readers would obtain rather similar if not the same aesthetic pleasure reading the
translation as would the source readers reading the original poem.
"Traduttore-traditore." (Translator = traitor.), says the well-known Italian phrase. “Poetry
is what gets lost in translation,” Robert Frost says.
Western tradition and culture founded on untranslatability. This may sound like a
paradox, if one thinks of the long tradition of translatio studii or translatio imperii in the
culture, or if you just ponder the very word tradition. Tradition, from Latin tradere
(‘hand over'), implies a process of communication, transmission, and transference that
necessarily allows for the transformation, whether in terms of “losses” or “gains,” usually
associated with what we consensually mean by translation. To translate is not to say the
same thing in another tongue, but to make manifest a different thing. This may sound
close to what we used to call “the impossibility of translation'.
Zhu guangqian (Zhu, 1987: 113) says that the reason why poetry translation poses more
difficult than prose translation lies in this poetry stress more on its musical quality while
prose emphasizes more on meaning. Translating meaning is apparently easier than
translating the musical quality (researcher’s translation). Chinese, unlike English, uses
characters which are all single syllables, namely, one character as one syllable. So
phrases and clauses are easily arranged into even number phrases and neat even number
couplets, if the need arises for comparison or contrast. However, the western languages
have strict grammatical rules, requiring fixed structures that forbids free inversions or
disorders.
Not all words need to be translated. Some cannot. Some can be transcribable, but if there
is no cultural equivalent, whether it is translatable or not it still needs to be explained, just
like a jargon needs to be explained
Words, expressions or interjections that are exclusive to a culture, a religion or a jargon
cannot always be translated in a satisfactory way because the same term many not exist in
the other language's culture. In many cases, such words with no perfect equivalent are the
words that end up being borrowed by the other
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language, sometimes with a possible spelling adaptation to ease pronunciation in
the other language.
Jacobson ( 1966: 238) (quoted in Wolfram Wilss, 2001) comes to the conclusion
that poetry by definition is untranslatable. Only creative transposition is possible
Ebel (1969: 50) (quoted in Wolfram Wilss, 2001) says that indeed, modern
translation theory denies the very existence of translation as it has previously
been understood, i.e. as the replacement of an utterance in one language by
another, so that the two are interchangeable. The dream of “literal” or “close”
translation, which culminated in the attempt to computerize translation, has
given way in turn to what might be termed a higher subjectivity. Since “there are
connections but not correlations or diagnostic correspondences between cultural
norms and linguistic patterns”, no language is ever a valid substitute for another;
“faithfulness” in translation is thus impossible.
There are problems and difficulties in finding equivalence and thus there are
areas of untranslatability. Catford talks of two types of untranslatability.
Linguistic untranslatability and
Cultural untranslatability
Linguistic untranslatability is due to the absence of lexical or syntactical
substitutes in the T.
Lexical untranslatability (at the lexical level)
It is due to the absence of lexical substitute in the TL. Eg:-The Tamil word
(‘Saaral’ =) Intermittent shower cannot be rendered into English , for there is no
lexical substitute for “saaral” in English . The French fails to provide a word for
‘home’ in English. English has a large number of words for ‘snow’ making
minute differences ice, snow, fog, mist ,dew, etc. Tamil has only one word
“pani”
to denote all these. In Eskimos’ language, there are more than sixty words for
‘snow’.
Tamil has 7 terms for various stages in the growth of a flower, 7 terms for the
different stages in the growth of a female child and 9 terms for the various
stages in the growth of an infant. But English has no such classification. Hence
difficulty arises in translating most of them.
4.2.2. SYNTACTICAL UNTRANSLABILITY ( AT THE GRAMMATICAL
LEVEL )
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The distinction between syntactical systems of the Source Language and the
target Language Pose problems.
4.2.2.1. PERSON
The second person ‘you’ in English has three corresponding words in most of
the Indian languages. Ex:- ‘you’ takes a plural verb in English but in tamil it
takes a singular verb or a plural verb or both.ni ( )=you (sg) ni:r ( )= you (pr)
Honorific ni:nkal ( ) =you (sg) & rs
Tamil makes use of exclusive “We” and inclusive ‘we’ “na:nka” means
exclusive “na:m” means inclusive.
4.2.2.2. TENSE
English has a fairly complicated form of the verb and in languages which are
close to it, it is not easy to say “it has been …….”and so the translation simply
says “It was …..”. The following sentences prove to bring out
the subtle
distinction between them when rendered from English into Tamil.
I will go tomorrow.
I may go tomorrow
3. I might go tomorrow
In English, subject, verb agreement is very important.
4.2.2.3. VOICE OF VERBS
English has both active and passive voice but Tamil has no passive voice. In a
good translation, most passive voice verbs are rendered into active voice in
Tamil.
4.2.2.4. GRAMMATICAL SHIFTS
Catford speaks of Tamil of how one or the other of grammatical shifts occurs in
translation from one language into another.
4.2.2.5. STRUCTURE-SHIFTS
A shift occurs in the order of words between the SL and the TL. It is called
structure –shift.
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In English, the object normally follows the verb: svo. In Tamil and in most
of the Indian languages, the verb normally follows the object: sov.
In English, the adverb and prepositional phrase follow the verb. In Tamil, they
proceed the verb.
4.2.2.6. CLASS-SHIFT
A shift occurs in the word-class or part of speech .It is called a class-shift. Ex: -
certain verbs in English for example ‘watered ‘auctioned’ etc become nouns in
Tamil translation.
4.2.2.7. RANK SHIFT
A shift occurs when a unit at one rank in the SL becomes a unit at a different
rank in the TL. It is called rank shift. Ex: The word ‘window’ in the SL
(English) becomes a phrase in the TL (Tamil)
4.2.2.8. INTRA-SYSTEM-SHIFT
The shift occurs internally without a system.
Certain nouns in the plural in the SL (English) become nouns in the singular in
the TL (Tamil)
Ex.scissors= Kadhirikol=mookku kannadi.
4.2.2.9. MARITAL CULTURE
Terms connected with love and marriage in Indian culture do not have
equivalents in English.
Certain culture based words connected either Tamil marriage, for instance, tha
:li ( ) and “maruvi:du” ( ) have no equivalents in English . Descriptive
equivalence can be given but not cultural equivalence.
4.2.2.10. SOCIAL CULTURE
Indian languages have more kinship terms than in English or European
languages. For example, words like ‘uncle’, ‘aunt’, and cousin ‘ have a number
of equivalents in English .Some of the kinship terms in Tamil (ma:ma, ma:mi ,
amma;akka; Annan, etc)are used as a mark of respect or as a token of affection .
In the Indian social content, a person does not address one’s elders in the family
or society by name but by some honorific or kinship terms. In Hindi, suffixes
such as ji’(for a respectful person) sa:heb’(for an educated person) colloquially
flavored terms cannot be translated into another language (ye ) (yele), (de)
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4.2.2.11. MATERIAL CULTURE
It is impossible to find an equivalent term for items if food and drink , articles of
clothing and ornamens, units of weights cup measures between languages that
are not culturally linked
4.3. FOOD AND DRINKS
Bun, bread , cake, ice –cream etc (English) idli, vadai, sa:mba:r, etc (tamil)
halva, pu:n (Hindi)Kapp kanji, wine, gin, beer, etc(English)cannot accurately be
translated into another language.
4.4. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
Kilo, metre, litre, reem (eng) ha:li, akkroni, muntiri (Tamil) do not have
equivalents in other languages.
4.5. FLORA AND FAUNA
Names of plants and blossoms, birds and beasts in a given geographical locality
and in a target language and at a particular time in history may not have
equivalents. For example, carrot (eng) cuntaikai (Tamil),dinosaur (animal),
asunam (a bird in sangam literature).
4.6. PROVERBS
Proverbs are culture-bound. Proverbs are cannot be successfully translated into a
language with a different culture.
4.7. IDIOMS
One idiom is substituted another “not on the basis of the linguistic elements in
the phrase not on the basis of a corresponding or similar image contained in the
phrase but on the function of the idiom”.
4.8. FIGURES OF SPEECH
Metaphors, Alliteration, Assonance and Onomatopoeia cannot be rendered from
SL to TL.
4.8.1. METAPHOR
Word – for – word translation of metaphors may lead to confusion. In England
‘our’ is a symbol of wisdom but in Indian languages, it is a symbol of bad omen.
Alliteration :-(Repetition of initial consonant sounds)
Example i) Graded grain make five flour.
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ii) Peter piper picked a peck of pickled pepper
Alliterative sentences from one language cannot be translated into another.
Dialects :-( A language variety related to a geographical area or social class)
It is difficult to find equivalents in the TL for the regional linguistic devices
particular to a specific region or class of the SL.
Employment of an elevated diction will fail to bring out the colloquial or
regional flavors .A common feature of Tamil is that there are dialectal variations
between the kind of Tamil spoken in Chennai and that spoken in Madurai. The
regional flavor cannot be produced in the TL. Words like (Manni=Sister-in-law).
(Mattu ponnu, wife) are the language varieties spoken by a particular
community. These words have to be transliterated with their equivalents given in
brackets to preserve the flavor and style of the particular brand of Tamil spoken
by a particular community.
4.9. PHONOLOGY AND GRAPHOLOGY
At the graph logical level, there are no capitals or italics in Tamil. Phonological
translation of Hindi phonemes into Tamil remain an actuate problem. Each stop
in Hindi is either aspirated or unaspirated, AK.Ramanujam claims.”It is
impossible to translate the phonology of one language into another even related
actually neighboring language.” He adds old Tamil has six nasal consonants
labial, a dental, an alveolar, a retroflex, a palatial and a velar. But English has
only three, a bilabial, an alveolar and a velar. Tamil has no initial consonant
clusters but English abounds in them. English words may end in stops but Tamil
words do not (220) Hindi glibly translates words because Hindi has 52 letters as
against 44 phonemes in English .But in Tamil, as Kanakaraj says, “there are no
separate symbols to indicate voiced consonants and there are no fricatives. So,
most English words cannot be transliterated into Tamil”.
We have to agree that the translators also have to face lots of difficulties when it
comes to translating prose. When the source and target languages belong to
different cultural groups, the first problem faced by the prose-translator is
finding terms in his or her own language that express the highest level of
faithfulness possible to the meaning of certain words. For example, there are
some words that are related to typical fabrics, cookery specialties, or jobs; they
also represent specific culture and the translators should be very careful in
translating such words. They also find it difficult to render ambiguous puns.
Similarly, the titles of stories and novels provide many examples of such
ambiguities, which are hard or even impossible to translate.
Many people think that the translation of literary works is one of the highest
forms of retention because it is more than simply the translation of text. A
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literary translator must also be skilled enough to translate feelings, cultural
nuances, humour and other delicate elements of a piece of work. In fact, the
translators do not translate meanings but the messages. That is why, the text
must be considered in its totality. Alternatively, Peter Newmark (1988)
delineates translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into another language
in the way that the author intended the text” Language has more than a
communicative, or societal and connective purpose in literary-prose translation.
The essence of ‘Translation’ guiding towards the ‘Translation of Literary Prose’
Plainly, the word “translation derives from the Latin translatio (which itself
comes from trans-and fero, the supine form of which is latum, together meaning
‘to carry across’ or ‘to bring across’)” (Kasparek, 1983: 83). It “began only after
the appearance of written literature” (Cohen, 1986: 12). It is the
“communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an
equivalent target-language text” (Bhatia, 1992: 1,051). In brief, to translate is to
pour meaning from one vessel to another one that is equivalent to the first.
Whereas, prose represents ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure.
It indicates “words in their best order” At the very beginning, the translator
keeps both the Source Language (S.L) and Target Language (T.L) in mind and
tries to translate carefully. But, it becomes very difficult for a translator to
decode the whole textbook literally; therefore, he takes the help of his own view
and endeavors to translate accordingly. So, translation can be ‘servitude’ and
‘freedom’ (Vieira, 1999: 111). It is broadly accepted that ‘the original text’, ‘the
translated version’, ‘the language of the original’ and ‘the language of the
translation’ are constantly transformed in space and time. Translation is not a
translation in reality, but the original. Incidentally, the prose-translators can
learn many things from Jhumpa Lahiri.
4.10. PROBLEMS IN TRANSLATING LITERARY PROSE
Translation is a challenging activity and there are few difficulties that emerge
throughout the translation process since every language portrays the world in
diverse way and has its own grammar structure, grammar rules and syntax
variance he difficulty in translation just lies in the fact that both the content and
the style are already existent in the original and as a result, you will have to do
your best to reproduce them as they are in quite a different language. (p. 7)
The most particular problems that the translators face include- illegible text,
missing references, several constructions of grammar, dialectical terms and
neologisms, irrationally vague terminology, inexplicable acronyms and
abbreviations, untranslatability, intentional misnaming, particular cultural
references etc. Nonetheless, there are some theorists who think that ‘literal
translation’ is not possible.
They present three main reasons supporting their stance:
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Because a particular word in one language often contains meanings that involve
several words in another language. For example, the English word
‘wall’ might be rendered into German as Wand (inside wall) or as Mauer
(exterior wall),
Because grammatical particles (verb, tenses, singular/dual/plural, case markers
etc.) are not available in every language, and
Because idioms of one language and culture may be utterly perplexing to
speakers from another language and culture. The central problem of translation
practice is that of finding T.L (target language) equivalents.
A central task of translation theory is therefore that of defining the nature and
conditions of translation equivalence. The translators, using equivalence
approaches, also endeavour to influence their readers by the ‘Standard
Translation’. Yet, the notion of equivalence creates several problems since we
can interpret it in miscellaneous manners. Both the words as well as context are
considered in equivalence. In this connection, Catford (1965) simply puts
forward that translation is the “substitution or replacement of textual materials in
one language by equivalent textual material in another language”. The prose-
translators find it very difficult to translate proper names. It is only one instance
whereby the translators face problems to translate S.L system into a T.L, which
is devoid of any equivalent system.
4.11. GUIDELINES FOR PROSE TRANSLATORS
Hillarie Belloc has outlined six general rules for the translation of prose
texts:
The translator should not ‘plod’ on, word by word and sentence by sentence but
should always “block out” his work.
The translator should render idiom by idiom and idiom of their nature demand
translation into another from that of the original.
The translator must render ‘intention by intention bearing in mind that ‘the
intention of a phrase in a language may be less emphatic or more emphatic than
the form of the phrase in the target text.
Belloc warns against ‘les faux amis’, those words or structures that may appear
to correspond in both source Language and Target Language but actually do not.
Ex: - demander – to ask, translated wrongly as to ‘demand’.
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The translator is advised to ‘transmute boldly’ and Belloc suggests that the
essence of translating is the resurrection of an alien thing in a native body.”
4.12. TRANSLATOR SHOULD NEVER EMBELLISH
A few of the English terms used in every day Tamil just as they are and by
constant use, they have come to be regarded as Tamil words. If such words are
translated scrupulously, the translation will become a stained one. The
difficulty, generally, faced in translating a Tamil version into English is giving
equivalent names in English. As the sounds of the two languages do not
synchronize always, the difficulty arises there.
Geographical barriers in this is another obstacle in translation .The readers will
not understand the equal terms in English as it is mentioned in the Tamil works .
It will be unfamiliar to the English readers. However, explicitly and tactfully the
translator may translate, still it seems to be quite a listen to the readers.
In translating the translator needs a depth of knowledge of the author, his
background, etc. in order to interpret what he has written. If the translator does
not understand the meaning of the particular word, one can only guess the
meaning and translate, sometimes it may be dangerous.
The translations of the proper names are an example for the problems of trying
to render a SL system in TL that does not have a comparable system. The proper
names in the short stories have to be transliterated as such.
A literal translation of long winding complex sentences will fail to recapture the
spirit of the original work. Apart from this Tamil version of long sentence will
appear clumsy and cumbersome. The translator has however. Overcome this
problem by splitting the long sentences conveyed in the original.
To conclude, poetry can be translated by those who have deep interest in poetry
and who possess the poetic feel and sensation, in addition to their mastery of the
other language. The prose-translators can unite some of the following methods
to deal with the translation problems efficiently.
1. Back Translation: “Comparison of a back-translation with the original text is
sometimes used as a check on the accuracy of the original translation…”
(Crystal, 2004: 5). It is one of the most familiar practices used to search for
equivalents through: a. The translation of items from the source language to the
target language.
The prose-translators must not think that any bilingual individual is able to
produce satisfactory or even high-quality document translations simply because
he is a fluent speaker of a second language. The ability, skill and even the basic
mental process required for bilingualism are mostly different from those
required for translation. Primarily, the prose-translators must be able to read,
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understand and cling to somebody else’s thoughts, then translate them
accurately, completely and without omission. If they are able to do so, the
readers will get the original meaning. Normally, the translators think that the
best translations are produced by persons who are translating from their second
language into their native language, because it is unusual for someone who has
learned a second language to have total fluency in that language.
However, the prose-translators should not worry much about the ‘loss of
meaning’, which may occur if the text describes a situation, which has elements
that are unusual to the natural environment, institutions and culture of its
language area, since the transference to the translator’s language can only be
estimated.
4.13. CONCLUSION
This chapter presents the various types of problems undergone by the researcher
in translating a prose during the translation process and the methods adopted by
the researcher to solve them.
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