Karina Koagedal

Translation and Interpretation

JAPN 404

Dr. Sekine
4/23/16
In Other Words
Summary Essay

If languages were equivalent word for word everyone would become a polyglot
easily i.e. someone who knows more than three languages. That is not the case however.
Finding equivalency is a real problem for communicators across the world especially
translators.
A word is not the smallest unit of language that carries meaning. The smallest unit
that carries meaning is a morpheme and unlike a word a morpheme cannot be analyzed
further. This definition of the small unit of language that carries meaning really blows
my mind. It helps me to understand how truly difficult my native language English is and
what a challenge it must be for non-native speakers to learn it. For example the word
reintroduce to me looks so simple but when you break it down further into its parts such
re- (to do again) and introduce ( to bring something into use for the first time), it is so
much more complicated than I anticipated.
To start translating between languages narrowing the down the simple meaning of
what you want to translate into lexical meanings such as propositional and expressive can
help make sense of it all. When something is translated as inaccurate it is often the
propositional meaning that they are talking about. Propositional meaning or utterances
are judged as true or false in the world real or not by the speaker. Expressive meaning is
simply the meaning connected to the speakers feelings and is opposite to propositional in
that is cannot be judged as true or false. I can see how important expressive meaning or
utterances are in because they can totally change the tone of a conversation and especially

a written piece. It is no wonder how hard it is to text and to understand received texts on
the phone for some people because gauging expressive meaning is truly a guessing game.
That being said the existence of collocational restrictions for or arbitrary restrictions for
each language for example polished teeth verse brushing teeth in Japanese and English
respectively seems even more confusing going into the translation world. I can most
certainly see how important is it to have a large lexicon no matter what language you are
trying to translate.
This book suggestions solutions for the quandary of non-equivalence between
languages. I will briefly discuss the problems and some solutions. The problems author
brings up with non-equivalence at the word level include but are not limited to culturespecific concepts, the morpheme and or word is too complex, the languages in question
make different distinctions between meanings of words, some words have a specific
equivalent word but no general equivalent or but more commonly some languages have
general words and lack specific equivalent ones etc. I have found in my experience with
Japanese that culture-specific concepts are hard to translate. This is because western and
eastern cultures are drastically different in some ways to which there are some concepts
that one cannot translate cleanly. Another issue I have run into with non-equivalence is
for example concerning expressive meanings like rain. In English rain is described only
so many ways but in Japanese there are expressive meanings and other different
distinctions between meanings of words that have no equivalent in English.
The first suggestion of solving this issue non equivalence is using semantic fields
and its smaller parts (lexical sets) i.e. using the larger categories of words and getting
more specific as you go along between languages to find equivalence. The limitation with

this method is over simplification. I have found this strategy to be helpful in my

translation for the first draft of whatever I want to translate in Japanese but in terms of
specific translation it is not my favorite. Another suggestion is translating with neutral or
less expressive words so that meaning is not lost on feelings but content is preserved. I
can see how useful this strategy is if you are well versed in languages but I would
personally struggle with this solution as I am still learning about expressive words in my
native language. Another solution is using loan words to translate, thus inferring that who
ever is reading your text will be educated enough to get the meaning. This can be seen a
ton English to Japanese using Katakana characters and during my capstone I used this
method lot for example; communication style)
simply translates better in the context of my research as a loan word in Katakana. The last
method I have used to note in my capstone is translation by illustration to better explain
something in both English and Japanese I used wordless comics for same and different
communication styles to drive those definitions home.
The next issue the book brings forward is translating above the word level
because words are rarely alone. The first suggestion the book makes is the usefulness of
collocation and collocational range. This means that every language has words that are
similar and or in the same range. One can even put these words or items together to create
new meanings that over time become the standard and translate them accordingly. Still
this is not always easy for translators to do after all they are human and the easiest way to
avoid making mistakes, by being to engrossed in a translation, is to put the draft aside for
a while and come back to it. I have used this strategy myself at the start of capstone but as
I get closer to my assessment I do not have the time to take a step back and I do think my

work suffers a little bit. However, talking to other exchange students helps me see most
of my errors during the translation process now.
Finally the book covers the tension between accuracy and naturalness. This
tension is almost unavoidable with a complex text but often a small change in meaning
does not effect the overall translation in a simple translation. The goal is a smooth
translation where the reader does not have to work to understand the text. While this is
the goal of my capstone I find that only after the 7th or 8th translation of my slides do I
really have a smooth translation that is understandable. Still, given the academic nature of
my research I fear that I will still have some bumps in the road. In my experience with
translating into Japanese a smooth translation takes a lot of time.
Idioms are another next topic covered. Idioms do not translate well because they
do not allow for variation and it is even hard to recognize and idioms from other flexible
phrases. The use of these fixed expressions poses quite an issue for translators. During
my capstone experience I have encountered many idioms in English, quiet often when I
am explaining something to an exchange student. If I used an idiom in my explanation for
what I was trying to translate into Japanese I would hit a wall in communication. One of
the ways to deal with an idiom is to find the almost equivalent in the target language.
Another way is paraphrasing using context such as illustrations. Finally I typically try and
omit idioms when I am translating as the book suggests to make the process smoother.
Overall I found this book to be very enlightening when it comes to translation. It
puts definitions and names to some of the issues I have been struggling with when
translating my capstone. It also gave me further reading if I need too see grammatical

categories in English that would be helpful if I decided to learn another language and
translate further from a grammatical standpoint .