1. The issue of translatability
Translatable or Not?
The issue of translatability
One of the most controversial issues in translation and translation studies is that of translatability and untranslatibility. From our own experience we know that some things (terms, notions) are easier to translate than others

2. Robert Frost: Poetry is what gets lost in translation
We can even draw on authoritative statements like this one, which indicates that we believe in words that are translatable and words that are not translatable.

3. Translatable or Not?

4. Untranslatable? solicitor al fresco croissant gemütlich
terraced house to drizzle
Zeitgeist
Credit crunch
It is not fair
Let’s look at the examples

5. Word for word or sense for sense?
Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating from the Greek – except of course in the case of the Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery – I render, not word for word, but sense for sense.
(St Jerome , Letter to Pammachius, 359
Before we discuss the specific reasons for translatability and untranslatability, let’s go to some historical statements about the issues

6. Words or ideas?
A moderate skill in different languages will easily satisfy one of the truth of this, it being so obvious to observe great store of words in one language which have no any that answer them in another. Which plainly shows that those of one country, by their custom and manner of life, have found occasions to make several complex ideas, and give names to them, which others never collected into specific ideas.
(J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
1690)

7. One could compile a Dictionary of Untranslatables that would include all the words that are (or were proudly claimed to be) culturally untranslatable into another language. Perhaps every cross-cultural study should begin with a glossary of untranslatables and cultural differences, to prevent the transformation of a culture into a mere exotic movie backdrop or kitch object. Until recently many words used in Western public and private spheres lacked Russian equivalents: among them are the words for ‘privacy’, ‘self’’, ‘mentality’ and ‘identity’. The distinction between ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ is also incomprehensible in Russian, since they both translate as ‘politika’.
(S. Boym, Common Places, 1994
Universals or not?

8. Different realities?
No two languages are sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
(B. Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality. Ed. J.B. Caroll, Cambridge Mass, MIT Press
See also: S. Pinker, The Language Instinct, New York 1994
and R. Needham, Belief, Language and Experience, Oxford, 1972
Set the context – Indian languages

9. Universals or not?
What neither side seems to prepared to consider is the possibility that languages, and the ways of thinking reflected in them, exhibit both profound differences and profound similarities; that the study of diversity can lead to the discovery of universals; that SOME hypotheses about universals are indispensable for the study of the diversity; and that hypotheses about conceptual universals have to be checked and revised in response to empirical findings emerging from systematic cross-linguistic investigations. (A. Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures…

10. The Universe of categories
Prototypes
Prototype ‘extensions’
Segmentation of the same world.
(See Aitchison and Wierzbicka)
How do we divide the day?
Show the bird hand-out

11. How do we divide our days?
Good morning
Good afternoon
Good evening ?
Guten Morgen ?
Guten Abend, Buona sera, Dobry wieczór
Guten Tag, Buon Giorno, Dzień dobry

12. Family (See Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures…
X’s family (English) X’s rodzina (Polish)
Some people, not many people Some people, not many people
These people are like one thing These people are like one thing
Because everyone of these people Because everyone of these people
is a mother, father, wife is a mother, father, wife
husband or child of another husband or child of another
one of them one of them
X is a part of this thing X is a part of this thing
X’s children are part of this thing
X’s mother and father are
part of this thing
X’s children are part of this thing Other people are part of this thing

13. Causes for untranslatability
Linguistic > Extralinguistic > Mixed
Examples
Culture specific concepts
The source language concepts with no equivalent in target culture
Different linguistic distinction (gender markers, articles, etc.)
Difference in spatial arrangements
Use of loan words and borrowings
Lack of the shared cultural space

14. Strategies and solutions Vinay, J. P. and J
Strategies and solutions Vinay, J.P. and J. Darbelnet, Comparative Stylistics. See in Venuti
Borrowing ( perestroika, tapas)
Calques (fruits of the season, w czym mogę pomóc?)
Literal translation
Transposition (rauchen verbotten > no smoking)
Modulation (Vou l’avez échappé belle > You’ve had a narrow escape)
Equivalence
Adaptation
Areas affected by the above: the lexicon, syntax, the message

15. “Gilette. La Perfection au Masculin”
“Gilette. The Best a Man Can Get”

16. Thank you
Reading for the next week