The Anatomy of Translation Problems: The Application of Minimal Deviation and The Proportionality Principle in The Translation of Economic Editorials

PING-YEN LAI
THE APPLICATION OF MINIMAL DEVIATION AND THE PROPORTIONALITY PRINCIPLE IN THE TRANSLATION OF ECONOMIC EDITORIALS
THE ANATOMY OF TRANSLATION PROBLEMS
The Anatomy of Translation Problems

The application of minimal deviation and the proportionality principle in the translation of economic editorials
Ping-Yen Lai
Chartridge Books Oxford Hexagon House Avenue 4 Station Lane Witney Oxford OX28 4BN, UK Tel: +44(0) 1865 598888 Email: editorial@chartridgebooksoxford.com www.chartridgebooksoxford.com First published in 2013 by Chartridge Books Oxford ISBN print: 978-1-909287-84-6 ISBN ebook: 978-1-909287-85-3 P-Y Lai, 2013 The right of P-Y Lai to be identied as author of this Work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. This publication may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior consent of the Publishers. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Permissions may be sought directly from the Publishers, at the above address. Chartridge Books Oxford is an imprint of Biohealthcare Publishing (Oxford) Ltd. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identied as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. The Publishers are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this publication. The authors, editors, contributors and Publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged, please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. Any screenshots in this publication are the copyright of the website owner(s), unless indicated otherwise. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty The Publishers, author(s), editor(s) and contributor(s) make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this publication and specically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties for tness of a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. The publication is sold with the understanding that the Publishers are not rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If professional assistance is required , the services of a competent professional person should be sought. No responsibility is assumed by the Publishers, author(s), editor(s) or contributor(s) for any loss of prot or any other commercial damages, injury, and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of product liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. The fact that an organisation or website is referred to in this publication as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the Publishers or the author(s), editor(s) and contributor(s) endorse the information the organisation or website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this publication was written and when it is read. Typeset by Domex e-Data Pvt. Ltd., India Printed in the UK and USA
Contents
Acknowledgements
ix
1 2
Introduction Methodology
2.1 2.2 Sample collection Bottom-up approach: problems, strategies, tests and principles
1 7
7 10
Data analysis
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 3.22 Example 3.1 Example 3.2 Example 3.3 Example 3.4 Example 3.5 Example 3.6 Example 3.7 Example 3.8 Example 3.9 Example 3.10 Example 3.11 Example 3.12 Example 3.13 Example 3.14 Example 3.15 Example 3.16 Example 3.17 Example 3.18 Example 3.19 Example 3.20 Example 3.21 Example 3.22
15
15 16 17 18 18 19 20 21 21 23 24 25 25 27 27 28 29 29 30 31 32 32
vi
3.23 3.24 3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28 3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35 3.36
Example 3.23 Example 3.24 Example 3.25 Example 3.26 Example 3.27 Example 3.28 Example 3.29 Example 3.30 Example 3.31 Example 3.32 Example 3.33 Example 3.34 Example 3.35 Example 3.36
33 34 35 36 36 37 38 38 39 40 41 42 43 43
4 The anatomy of translation problems

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 Distorting a rened statement Opening up wrong interpretations Omission Mistranslation of key words Distortion of logic Merging Mistranslation of technical knowledge Mistranslation of colloquial expressions The three-part onion sentence Contagion Elaboration Long word strings Confusing causal relationships Mistranslation of pivotal statements Concise statements with signicant implications
45
48 50 50 51 51 53 53 54 57 60 60 61 61 62 62
Major propositions
5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 The principle of minimal deviation and the relative back translation test The revised Turing test, active vs. conservative translation strategies Three-part onion sentences The principle of proportionality
67
67 70 73 74
Contents
vii
Conclusions
79 81 83 87
Appendix A Appendix B References
Acknowledgements
This is a book about translation strategies and principles, so first I would like to express special thanks to Professor Chang Shui-mu for providing one good strategy for writing this book. My mentor, Master C, who chooses not to have his real name revealed, instructed and inspired me with other great strategies. I must thank Jimmy Teng for his suggestion to the collection of samples and his encouragement on the publication of this book. Lastly, I must thank Ms. Liu for providing much needed and timely research assistance. Without their guidance, suggestions, encouragement and assistance, the pace of writing this book would have been much slower and its value would have been much diminished. Thanks to their encouragement I have been able to write this book and move on to the next stage of my life.
1
Introduction
This book is the summation of my eight years of teaching experience in the translation of economic editorials. Throughout my eight years of teaching experience, I have identified several problems that frequently occur for beginners as well as advanced translators. It is important to highlight these problems because many translators experience these same sorts of problems in a repeated manner. However, difficulties arose as I searched for a relevant translation theory for empirical problem-solving, because translation theories only provide general guidelines, most of which are not immediately applicable to translation problems. When a given translation problem arises, how should we deal with it? On most occasions, the translation theory does not provide an immediate guidance, as there is a gap between guiding principles and problem-solving. A translator without theoretical training in translation can still come up with quality work if he or she is proficient in both the source and target language because the knowledge of translation theory does not necessarily have much bearing on the quality of translation. Thus, the ultimate aim of this book is to derive translation principles and strategies that are able to solve a divergence of translation problems, subsequently leading to an enhancement of translation quality if translators are aware of, and know how to deal with these problems with the aid of these principles and strategies. There are two possible approaches for deriving translation principles, the bottom-up vs. the top-down approach. It appears that most translation theories belong to the latter camp as they are cultural or linguistic theories that stem from some insightful observations or theoretical induction. They are certainly not bottom-up approaches, because none of those theories were built up from the collection of samples, followed by deduction and categorisation, and eventually some generalisations. The top-down approach could be one of the reasons why translation theories are not immediately applicable to empirical problems because other than providing a general
guideline, there is no associated algorithm underlying these theories that suggests a way out of translation problems. Thus, a special advantage of a bottom-up approach is that, during the process of deriving translation principles, one can also derive its associated algorithm that helps to deal with future translation problems that might arise from the landscape. In order to pursue a bottom-up approach, a key step naturally involves the collection of samples, and especially quality samples. In the era of information technology, when people are vested with all kinds of information, there is no point in expending resources on translating materials that are not especially valuable for the advancement of knowledge. Similarly, the study of translation strategies would better be based on the translation of quality source texts because these would be the current, as well as future targets for translation. Naturally, one would expect a high correlation between a quality source text and quality translation, as more resources would be devoted to the translation of a quality source text. That happens to be the case on the Project Syndicate website, as it contains quality source texts as well as quality translations. Its economic editorials are mostly written by high-ranking economists, most of them also authors of best-selling books. In addition, its translation works are basically translated word-by-word, phrase-by-phrase, without the habitual skipping of words and phrases. Editorials are short articles that target a wide, general audience, and their use of language would normally be something down-to-earth rather than too obscure. These editorials are translated into Chinese once they are posted on the website. Thus, by relying on samples collected from the Project Syndicate website, I obtained easily accessible quality samples for my translation analysis. Although there are other websites that contain quality editorials, such as Slate, Business Week, and the New York Times, there is either no corresponding Chinese translation, or its Chinese translation is of low quality, thereby making it inconvenient to base my analysis on these samples. With a collection of 36 samples from a total of 12 editorials, I identified translation problems from these samples and classified them into 15 different categories. The problems of each piece of translation were illustrated through the technique of back translation, thus making it possible for the English reader to appreciate the translation problems during the translation into Chinese. Although the 36 examples have served well to cover most of the translation problems of economic editorials, they might not be sufficient to provide in-depth discussion on some categories of translation problem. In that case, it became necessary to include supplementary samples from other editorials in order to provide a good
Introduction
illustration of certain categories of translation problem. For that purpose, I selected several interesting samples discussed in Lai (2013a) and another three samples from the New York Times, in order to provide an in-depth discussion for some categories of translation problem.1 Problems then arose as to which of these categories went more to the core of translation problems, and which of them were more peripheral. I then conceived a test that would serve to classify these 15 categories into one broad category or another. This kind of test was inspired by the Turing test in artificial intelligence. The Turing test explores this question: can we tell the differences between a machine and human interrogator, and if not, are there no grounds on which to reject the machines ability to think?2 This book attempts to pose a revised version of the Turing test and applies it to the translation problems of economic editorials. Our revised test poses this question: what are the essential qualities that serve to differentiate a good translation of an economic editorial from a translation done by translation software or an average translator? For me, the answer to this test hinges on some critical writing features that are difficult for a computer to mimic or an average translator to translate. Based on the revised Turing test for translation, eight out of fifteen categories are classified as core translation problems, and we are looking for translation strategies that are able to deal with these problems. There are two sets of translation strategies: one for dealing with a complicated syntactic structure referred to as a three-part onion sentence, and another for the remaining seven categories of core writing features that are concerned with content. These two sets of strategies are justified on the grounds that they help to secure essential information embedded in the source text, even though these strategies in themselves distort the information of the source text. I advocate these information-distorting translation strategies in recognition of the fact that information from the source text is destined to be lost one way or another. All translators can do, is to make his or her endeavour to maintain a minimum loss of information. I refer to such a principle as the principle of minimal deviation, a principle that has real practical applications. Among the eight categories of core writing features, there is one category that is concerned with complicated syntactic structure. When faced with a complicated syntactic structure, a translator must contemplate whether to seek an active strategy that helps to restore the information in the source text, or to resort to a conservative strategy that replicates the syntactic structure of the source text. As for the remaining seven content categories of writing features, I advocate the adding of target language auxiliary words, in this case Chinese, and changing the order of words and phrase as
an active translation strategy when appropriate. Such a strategy will help to preserve the key writing features, which are often missing in the target text due to incorrect translation. This book proposes a test for the validity of translation strategy: the relative back translation test. Relative back translation is the application of back translation to two different target texts, which were translated back to the source language with and without a given translation strategy. If one translation strategy turns out to be effective in securing important information, it will be reflected in its back translation as more information has been secured, despite any secondary information distortion created by this strategy. The relative back translation test is to be used in conjunction with the principle of minimal deviation for the selection of a better translation strategy. It suggests that we should not abandon a translation strategy if this strategy in itself distorts certain information. Based on the principle of minimal deviation, information distortion is inevitable during the translation process. Instead, we should select a translation strategy if it ends up securing more information than distorting it, thereby creating a net information gain. Thus, the principle of minimal deviation, when used in conjunction with the relative back translation test, turns out to be an effective measure for picking the winner, i.e. a translation strategy that excels. However, the active strategies that are used to secure embedded information in the eight categories of writing features must still be bounded by an outer limit. Any change in the order of words and phrases should not be arbitrary, i.e. overly active, such that it drastically disrupts the syntactic structure of the target text, a lesson drawn from the study of three-part onion sentences. Meaning and syntactic structure are two sides of the same coin. Any substantial disruption of the source text syntactic structure will also mean a disruption of meaning. Such an overly active strategy is beyond the scope of translation principles because it is blatantly obvious that any practice of balancing or comparing is a requirement. In addition to the outer limit, translation strategies must still be governed by inner principles. The guiding principle is inspired by a widely applicable legal doctrine in constitutional and administrative law; the principle of proportionality. The principle of proportionality embodies some sense of appropriate relationship between means and ends.3 And based on that principle, a decision must then be made as to whether the public bodys decision was indeed proportionate or not.4 In the context of translation, I define addition, omission, changing the order of words and phrases, substitutions of expressions, and merging, among others, as the means, and the preservation of information in the source text as the end. Based on
Introduction
the principle of proportionality, any means engaged during the process of translation implies a risk of loss of information because some words have been added, omitted; some orders of words and phrases have been changed; some expressions have been substituted by others; or some options or statements have been merged. Thus, a means can only be justified, if by so doing, it helps to secure embedded information in the source text. If a means fails to achieve that, it violates the proportionality principle by distorting information in the source text without at the same time creating much associated benefit. A translation strategy that fails such a test should be abandoned because the end does not justify the means. In contrast to the principle of minimal deviation, the principle of proportionality fares better at retiring losers, i.e. translation strategies that are misguided as represented by the seven peripheral categories of translation problems. In Chapter 2, I will outline the basic tenet of the methodology. The collection and analysis of 36 samples will be presented in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, I will classify the translation problems identified from 36 samples into 15 categories and introduce a revised Turing test for translation to divide these 15 categories into two broad categories: a core category that is concerned with critical writing features of economic editorials, and a peripheral category that basically stems from translators misguided translation strategies. In Chapter 5, I will discuss the major propositions of this book: the principle of minimal deviation, the relative back translation test, the revised Turing test for translation, the 15 categories of translation problems and the active strategies associate with them, the constraints of an overly active strategy that has been obtained through the study of a complicated syntactic structure, i.e. three-part onion sentences, and finally, the principle of proportionality that governs all the strategies.
Notes
1. The translation of the New York Times editorials are plagued by serious omission problems. I did the best I could by selecting a piece of translation where the omission problem had been somehow moderated. 2. See Chapter 3 of The Language Instinct. 3. P Craig, Administrative Law, page 628. 4. P Craig, Administrative Law, page 628.
2
Methodology
There are two important methodologies adopted by this book. I developed an objective criterion for my sample collection and I will explain its underlying rationale in detail. This methodology of sample collection will be discussed in section 2.1. The second methodology is concerned with the anatomy of translation problems. I applied the methodology of legal tests and their bottom-up approaches in order to come up with appropriate translation strategies for each specific translation problem, and ultimately to develop translation principles that govern translation strategies.
2.1 Sample collection

I selected a total of 12 editorials written by seven notable scholars, i.e. two editorials from each of the five scholars who are regular contributors to the Economist Club on the Project Syndicate website, and one editorial from two contributors who write only occasionally for Project Syndicate, but are regular contributors to Business Week. The five scholars who wrote editorials on a regular basis for Project Syndicate are: Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, Barry Eichengreen of UC Berkeley, Robert Shiller of Yale University, and Dani Rodrik of the Institute for Advanced Study. The other two scholars who wrote occasionally for Project Syndicate are Gary Becker of the University of Chicago and Robert Barro of Harvard University. They were regular contributors to the Economic Viewpoint column in Business Week for many years. The purpose of including them in my samples is to balance the liberal orientation of Project Syndicate, as both of them are notable libertarian scholars. By including scholars from the libertarian camp, i.e. the right wing, the variety of writing styles, and hence the varieties of translation problems, could be increased. Our aim is to investigate a variety
of translation problems that are associated with a variety of writing styles within a well-defined scope, i.e. the economic editorials. The average Chinese translation quality that appears in newspapers, mostly translated by a journalist, is fairly low, and it will be difficult to discuss translation problems based on poorly-translated articles because the problems could be quite numerous. The Chinese translation posted on the Project Syndicate website does not suffer from such a problem. In general, its translator endeavours to translate editorials in a word-by-word, phraseby-phrase manner, without involving a great deal of omissions or arbitrary tailoring. The professional ethics of translation have been respected. Therefore, it serves as a great outlet for the collection of samples. However, our samples could very well contain a critical bias, as important editorials from other authors on the same or other websites are not or cannot be included. To rectify the balance, I included one editorial by Bradford DeLong of UC Berkeley, who is also a regular contributor to Project Syndicate, one from Robert Shiller and another editorial by Paul Krugman of Princeton University, in order to elaborate on the translation problems that I have identified from the 36 samples. Paul Krugman is a columnist for the New York Times. His editorials have been translated by the Economic Daily News of Taiwan. However, the translation quality is not comparable to those of Project Syndicate, as it involves a great deal of omission, often as much as several paragraphs. Thus, it would not be appropriate to include a translation from the Economic Daily News in our formal samples. These three editorials were included because the 36 examples do not provide sufficient depth for a couple of translation problems that I encountered throughout my eight years of teaching. The frequency of translation problems basically follows an uneven distribution, in that some translation problems occur at a higher frequency than others. If instead, I followed a different approach through collecting more formal samples, I would probably not have to supplement my samples since there would be sufficient samples in each category to provide an in-depth discussion. However, things would get pretty boring as there would be too many samples, and thus too many repetitions, concentrated on certain categories of translation problems due to their uneven distribution, thereby adding many pages to this book without generating any interesting insights. These seven economists, together with the other two economists, are heavy-weights in their fields. Among them, Gary Becker and Paul Krugman have a Nobel Laureate in economics. Table 1 in Appendix A contains the ranking of these economists based on publications and citations, composed by Tom Coup, and their average score ranking at IDEAS.1 The Coup
Methodology
ranking is based on data from 1990 to 2000, while the IDEAS ranking is based on data collected up until July 2013. Thus, one obvious reason for focusing on the Project Syndicate website is its influence and its targeted readers. Generally, the translation resources devoted to each article should be proportional to its perceived impact. Since the editorials from Project Syndicate were mostly written by heavy-weight economists, the translations of these editorials would normally be of reasonable, i.e. above average, quality. By inspecting translation problems in these editorials, I would be in a better position to explore the real embedded problems, rather than those that arise from a lack of professionalism. Indeed, most of the Chinese translations in Project Syndicate are of reasonable quality. Furthermore, perhaps due to the accumulated experience of its translators, the Chinese translation quality in Project Syndicate has actually improved over the years. In order to concentrate more on finely-translated articles, most of our selected articles are from editorials that were written and translated in recent years. The editorials in Project Syndicate are simultaneously distributed to more than 300 of its newspaper members. Its target readers are universal intellectuals. The expressions used in these editorials are so well-versed that even a non-economics or finance major could understand them, as long as he or she is sophisticated and critical in thinking. Thus, the modes of expression in these editorials belong to the universal domain, rather than a local one. Translation strategies that have derived from such a context could have very wide applications, as such strategies are tailored to expressions in use in the universal domain, and which could also be employed in other types of editorial, or in other genres. I analysed the translation problems that I discovered from each editorial. Three crucial translation problems were identified from each article, so that we can maintain a balanced view toward each article, regardless of translation quality. A poorly-translated editorial piece would normally contain numerous mistakes and discussing each and every one of them would distract our attention from other skilfully-translated articles. By limiting translation problems to three for each editorial, I am better able to identify the most crucial translation problems that have emerged in the landscape of economic editorial translation, while bypassing other trivial translation problems. In addition, due to the ever-improving translation quality in recent years, it would be difficult to identify more than three interesting translation problems in some editorials, especially those that have been translated in recent years.
10
Our examples are mostly composed of one sentence. A few examples actually contain two or three sentences, either because the translator has, by mistake, connected these sentences into one, making it difficult to separate one from another, or because the translator has committed a series of mistakes throughout the whole paragraph, due to his lack of understanding of the very first sentence, or because it would be difficult to explain the translation problems without referring to the whole paragraph. In these types of scenario, I will discuss the whole paragraph instead of just one sentence. The discussion of each sample is composed of several stages. First, the English source text and its Chinese translation were made available. Second, the Chinese translation was back translated into English so that English readers could see the translation problems that had occurred. Back translation is a technique frequently used for the inspection of translation quality. During the process of back translation, I only highlighted the portion where translation problems had occurred and translated the remaining parts back into the source text. By so doing, I could avoid the possible controversy of mistreating other peoples work. For the parts of the translation that lie within a grey area, I will treat them as correct translation. Otherwise, I will have to deal with numerous translation problems that lie in the grey area, and risk losing my focus on the big picture. Third, I enclosed my own translation so that the reader can see in what way the translation problems have been remedied; this would be the only part that separates Chinese readers from English readers. Finally, I pointed out the translation problems in each paragraph.
2.2 Bottom-up approach: problems, strategies, tests and principles

In the landscape of translation studies, there are diverse problems, and the translation strategies that are conceived to cope with these problems can be quite numerous as well. One way or another, one must rely on certain objective criteria in order to sort out one problem from another, or to distinguish one strategy from some other strategies. Translation studies basically lies in the area of humanities, and some sort of subjective judgment is necessary. However, if subjective judgment is not underpinned and supported by measures or criteria that are objective, such research will eventually be subject to criticism and its value will be much diminished.
Methodology
11
The law is an area where judges must conceive a divergence of legal doctrines to deal with a variety of cases. In addition, the law is also an area that necessarily involves subject judgments. However, any subjective judgment given by the judge is underpinned and supported by legal doctrine that relies on a legal test. Otherwise, the justice of the system will be subject to distrust. In fact, the whole confidence of our legal system hinges on the legal methodology for deciding cases, which are subjective judgments supported by legal tests that appeal to some sort of objectivity. Thus, due to the similarity between legal cases and translation problems, there is a reasonable chance that legal methodology may be readily extended to the study of translation problems. I aim to seek a few sets of translation strategies that are able to deal with most of the translation problems. Ideally, such strategies should be derived from a bottom-up, rather than top-down approach. A translation strategy that is derived from the bottom-up approach has the advantage of a deep connection with its underlying translation problems, such that it is readily applicable. The bottom-up approach used here was inspired by the development of English common law legal doctrines, which were elicited from some key legal cases, and can be readily applied to a diversity of legal cases in the real world. Because common law legal doctrines are derived from a common thread in several legal cases, or one representative case, they can be immediately applicable to other cases that share the same core features. Similarly, translation problems, just like legal cases, are divergent. Through deducting the common features of divergent translation problems, it is possible to eventually sort out the translation strategies and principles that govern most of the problems, and more importantly, such strategies and principles would be immediately applicable to translation problems. In the area of economics, where the bottom-up approach is not mainstream, there is, however, still someone who advocates a bottom-up approach. This approach has been suggested by Dani Rodrik, in his book One Economics, Many Recipes. The book suggested that one should follow a bottom-up approach in devising economic policies. A policy without a good understanding of its local context would more than likely lead to disaster rather than welfare. The translation problems that have been identified from the 36 samples were classified into fifteen different categories. In this book, I proposed two principles and two tests in order to sort out one translation problem or strategy from another. The two principles are the principle of minimal deviation and the principle of proportionality; the two tests are a revised Turing test for the translation of economic editorials, and the relative back
12
translation test. Starting from the bottom, the revised Turing test is used to distinguish core translation problems in economic editorials from peripheral ones. Based on the revised Turing test, which provides a basis for an objective criterion, eight out of the fifteen categories were classified as core translation problems, as these eight categories of translation problems are related to writing features that are sufficiently sophisticated for an average writer or computer to imitate. Ultimately, I derive translation strategies that are able to deal with all of the eight categories of major translation problems. I suggest, among other things, that translators should make every effort to faithfully transfer the important writing features that have been embodied in the source text to the target text because any loss of these writing features will cause a great distortion of information. The efforts of translators should include active strategies such as adding of auxiliary words and changing the order of words and phrases. How do we justify the validity of these strategies? Again, we must rely on certain objective criteria supplied by test. The principle of minimal deviation is proposed in recognition of the fact that it is impossible to secure all the information in source text. It could have a practical application in identifying a good translation strategy when used in conjunction with the relative back translation test. The relative back translation test is a measure to select translation strategy based on the information being secured. According to the relative translation test, we should select the translation strategy which ends up securing more information, rather than complete information, as in a back translation. In addition to the eight categories, there are seven peripheral categories of translation problems that mostly arise from misguided translation strategies.2 Such translation strategies can be ruled out by the principle of proportionality. The principle of proportionality suggests that we should forsake a translation strategy if its means fail to justify the end. Furthermore, the principle of proportionality is helpful for a translators decision-making when contemplating whether to pursue an active translation strategy or not. The two principles can also be used jointly to generate even greater applications, as will be illustrated in Chapter 5. Overall, the bottom-up approach underpinned by tests and principles has turned out to be effective in providing guidance for selecting translation strategies. The whole bottom-up approach is illustrated in Figure 1 of Appendix B. A unique benefit of the bottom-up approach is that, during the process of searching for translation principles for economic editorials, we can also derive the algorithm underlying these principles, thereby linking these principles to real problems.
Methodology
13
Notes
1. The IDEAS ranking can be located at http://ideas.repec.org/top/top. person.all.html and it is subject to change every month as new data is updated. 2. We can also classify core translation problems in terms of misguided translation strategy. For example, in section 4.15, a concise statement with rich implications can also be referred as a failure to interpret. The division between core categories and peripheral categories is, again, not watertight.
3
Data analysis
In the following section, I will examine a total of 12 editorials and identify three of the most crucial translation problems from each. Overall, that constitutes a total of 36 examples, which are discussed in sections 3.1 to 3.36. I will discuss the translation problems that occur for each example. The following three examples are quoted from the editorial An Optimistic Case for the Euro by Martin Feldstein1. I would like to start with this editorial because it illustrates an important translation problem in economic editorials; the distortion of economic outlook.
3.1 Example 3.1

Text: The prospects for the euro and the eurozone remain uncertain. But recent events at the European Central Bank, in Germany, and in global financial markets, make it worthwhile to consider a favorable scenario for the common currencys future. Translation: Back translation: The prospects for the euro and the eurozone remain uncertain. But recent events at the European Central Bank, in Germany, and in global financial markets suggest an optimistic scenario for the common currencys future. My translation: Translation problem: distortion of a refined statement (prediction statement)
16
This translation is misleading. The authors confidence towards the future of Euro, clearly is not as high as suggesting an optimistic scenario for the common currencys future. The translation has greatly diverged from its source text. If the future of the Euro is as optimistic as the translation has suggested, how can its prospect remain uncertain, as suggested by the very first sentence? In fact, the authors confidence towards the Euro is weak. It would be safe to say that his confidence towards a positive scenario for the Euro would actually fall below 50%, when measured in terms of probability. The author simply suggested that we could consider such a favourable scenario, which is much less than implying it as being a likely scenario. Thus, when the translator is not careful in addressing the modification that qualified the authors statement, he could come up with a translation that greatly distorts the basic message from its source text. What appears, in the eye of translator, a minor modification or a slight distortion of the original message, could turn out to be a major semantic building block in the source text. Such carelessness is especially serious in a statement like this, i.e. a statement of prediction. Economists are especially cautious and prudent when it comes to making predictions because their reputation is at stake, and it is a translators undeniable duty to safeguard the reputaion of the author.
3.2 Example 3.2

Text: The key to solving Spains fiscal problem lies in the semi-autonomous regions that generate spending and shift the financing burden to Madrid. Translation: Back translation: The key to solving Spains fiscal problem depend on the semi-autonomous regions that generate spending and shift the financing burden to Madrid. My translation: Translation problems: opening up wrong interpretations (mixing up subject and object) The Chinese reader mostly likely would not understand the meaning of this sentence simply by reading the translation. Such a translation could possibly lead to an interpretation that semi-autonomous regions are the problem-solvers
Data analysis
17
or decision-makers, rather than the problem to be solved. It has created the problem of shifting the object, i.e. the semi-autonomous regions that generate spending and shift the financing burden to Madrid, to the position of a subject. An appropriate translation should always avoid such a possible interpretation, if there is one. In my translation, I added auxiliary words and changed the order of phrases. All these steps helped to clear the air and avoided the kind of misinterpretation that occurred in this example.
3.3 Example 3.3

Text: Perhaps Italys success will help to convince Spain to adopt the tough measures that reduce projected future deficit without more current austerity. Translation: Back translation: Perhaps Italys success will help Spain to adopt the difficult measures that reduce projected future deficit without more austerity. My translation: Translation problems: omission; mistranslation (key words) The Chinese translation is very difficult to understand. The problem lies in the translation of the key noun phrase, the tough measures that reduce projected future deficit without more current austerity. There are several problems. First, the word current and adopt have both been omitted. Second, tough has been mistranslated as difficult. The omission of two words, plus the mistranslation of one word,, together with a shortage of Chinese auxiliary words, makes it almost impossible for a Chinese reader to understand this sentence. The next three examples are cited from the editorial Why Greece Will Default by Martin Feldstein. The quality of translation is the lowest out of our selected samples. Its problems are numerous and I have only focused on the most crucial ones.
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3.4 Example 3.4

Text: If it were not part of the euro system, Greece might not have gotten into its current predicament and, even if it had gotten into its current predicament, it could have avoided the need to default. Translation: Back translation: If it were not part of the euro system, Greece might face currency crisis, but it could have avoided the default. My translation: Translation problems: omission; mistranslation (distortion of logic); merging This is a difficult sentence, difficult in the sense that it involves a two-stage argument. Such a sentence can serve as a test to distinguish an advanced translator from a beginner. The translator scored poorly in that he omitted the first stage of the argument and merged the two-stage argument into a one-stage argument. This is a great distortion, because the flavour of the argument has been completely lost. The kind of logic that appears in the translation is not the same as the logical reasoning in the source text. This is a distortion of logic because readers of the target text cannot recover the logical relationship with the source text. A logical relationship is defined as a certain conclusion that is drawn from an assumption or presumption. If the link between assumption and conclusion, i.e. the if-then relationship, is disrupted, the internal logic would be much distorted. Such problems occur possibly because the translator is not familiar with dialectic reasoning and takes a difficult sentence to be an easy one.
3.5 Example 3.5

Text: More likely would be an IMF-organised restructuring of the existing debt, swapping new bonds with lower principal and interest for existing bonds. Or it could be a soft default in which Greece unilaterally services its existing debt with new debt rather than paying in cash. Translation: IMF
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Back translation: More likely would be an IMF-organized restructuring that refinance the current debt with lower interest rate, also known as soft default, which means unilaterally substituting current bonds with new bonds. My translation: IMF Translation problems: mistranslation (technical knowledge); mistranslation (key words); merging; omission These are again, difficult sentences for translators. The sentences here are difficult for a different reason; they involve technical knowledge in the area of economics and finance. The translator interpreted the two sentences in his own way and unfortunately, much of his interpretation is wrong. Obviously, the aforementioned translation suffers from many drawbacks. First, the two sentences are connected by or, which means, there are two distinct possibilities. However, or has been translated to also known as, thereby merging the two distinct possibilities into one. Obviously, this is a grave mistranslation. Second, both possibilities have been interpreted in the wrong way. For example, the first possibility involves a swap of new bonds with lower principal and interest with existing bonds, which has been interpreted as a low interest rate refinance, thereby substantially departing from its meaning in the source text. The key word swap appears to be substituted by refinance. However, these two financial glossaries are quite distinct and cannot be substituted by each other. Thirdly, there were a great deal of omissions. Taken together, this translation has totally diverged from its source text. Such arbitrary tailoring of the source text is impermissible. However, probably due to the lack of understanding of technical knowledge in economics and finance, the translator chose to scramble through such difficult sentences and found a way out. The outcome is the same as in the previous passage: grave mistranslation.
3.6 Example 3.6

Text: Depressing economic activity further through higher taxes and reduced government spending would cause offsetting reductions in tax revenue and offsetting increases in transfer payments to the unemployed. So every planned euro of deficit reduction delivers less than a euro of actual deficit reduction.
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Translation: Back translation: Depressing economic activity further through higher taxes and reduced government spending would cause offsetting reductions in tax revenue and offsetting increases in the unemployment rate. So every planned euro of deficit reduction delivers less than a euro of actual reduction. My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (technical knowledge); omission There are two major mistranslations in this paragraph. First, transfer payments to the unemployed has been translated as unemployment rate. Second, deficit in actual deficit reduction has been omitted. Again, perhaps due to the translators lack of understanding of the relevant economic concepts, the translator attempted to substitute these technical glossaries with something easier, something that he could understand, or something that appeared to be close. Unfortunately, something easier or something which appears to be close, is usually something else, i.e. something not even close. The next three examples are selected from the article, Whats Troubling India? by Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff. This article has been on the whole finely translated; however, it still contains a few problems.
3.7 Example 3.7

Text: Even the International Monetary Funds forecast of a modest improvement in 2013 is predicated on the governments ability to breathe life into a spate of stalled economic reforms. Translation: IMF2013 Back translation: Even the International Monetary Fund forecasted a modest improvement in Indias 2013 economy, because it would be difficult to breathe life into a spate of stalled economic reforms.
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My translation: IMF2013 Translation problems: mistranslation (distortion of logic) In this paragraph, the governments ability to breathe life into a spate of stalled economic reforms is a presumption of the IMF forecast, which is overly optimistic. However, the IMF did not assume it would be difficult to breathe life into a spate of stalled economic reform. If that is the case, the IMF would not have come up with a modest improvement in 2013 at all! This paragraph involves some technical knowledge in the area of economics, although not very sophisticated, and could be the reason that contributed to the mistranslation. Such problems can be classified as a messing up of logic because of the relationship between assumption and result, i.e. the if-then relationship has been distorted during the translation process. This example can be contrasted with example 3.4, where the same sort of problem also occurred.
3.8 Example 3.8

Text: Back then, Singh, as finance minister, played a central role. Translation: Back translation: But ever since then, Singh, as finance minister, played a central role. My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (colloquial expression) The translation problem occurred because the translator does not understand the expression back then, a colloquial expression, which might sound foreign to some translators. However, the sentences prior to and after this sentence provide sufficient context for double-checking.
3.9 Example 3.9

Text: As dysfunctional as a decentralized Europe seems to be these days, India might benefit from moving a few steps in that direction, even as Europe itself struggles to become more centralized. Devolution might sound unrealistic, but once upon a time so did the European Union.
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Translation: Back translation: If India is as dysfunctional as a decentralized Europe these days, then it might benefit from moving a few steps in that direction, even as Europe itself struggles to become more centralized. Devolution might sound unrealistic, but once upon a time the European Union has done it. My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (three-part onion sentence); contagion This paragraph is composed of two sentences. The first sentence is a difficult one and the translator obviously stumbled on it. The syntactic structure of this sentence is composed of three distinct parts, which are separated by two commas, and many translators encounter problems with this type of syntactic structure. I will refer to this kind of structure as a three-part union sentence, and to the three distinct parts as part A, B, and C following their order and separated by commas2. This can be illustrated in the following structure:
Part A, Part B, Part C.
(1)
The translators understanding would normally be disrupted due to the inclusion of part B, which disrupts the continuation of parts A and C.3 However, the three-part union sentence is very important in English writing, and especially in editorial writing, such that it occurs very often indeed, and the translator must eventually learn to deal with it. In the following, we will encounter several other examples of such three-part onion sentences. The translation strategies of the three-part onion sentence will constitute one of the major propositions of this book. The first sentence has been gravely mistranslated because the translator separated part B into two parts, say part B1, India, and B2, might benefit from moving a few steps in that direction, and merged part B1 with part A. This can be illustrated by the following structure:
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(Part B1 + Part A), Part B2, Part C.
(2)
Here, the plus sign denotes the merging of two syntactic units. The same notation will be used in later discussions. This structure can never be a viable strategy for translating a three-part onion sentence. The problem of the three-part onion sentence is difficult for a translator because the continuation from part A to part C has been disrupted by the inclusion of part B. But shifting part B1 to the front position and combining it with part A will not solve the problem because part B2 is still in-between, while the merging of part B1 and part A only creates additional confusion. Given that the translator has failed to understand the first sentence, his understanding of the second sentence is very limited at best. Thus, mistranslation can be correlated as one translation problem can immediately lead to another. In the following section, I will refer to such a problem as contagion. The next three examples are quoted from the article, Inflation Is Now the Lesser Evil by Kenneth Rogoff.
3.10 Example 3.10

Text: Modern finance has succeeded in creating a default dynamic of such stupefying complexity that it defies standard approaches to debt workouts. Securitization, structured finance, and other innovations have so interwoven the financial systems various players that it is essentially impossible to restructure one financial institution at a time. System-wide solutions are needed. Translation: Back translation: Modern finance has succeeded in creating an internal dynamic of such stupefying complexity that it ignores standard approaches to debt workouts. Securitization, structured finance, and other innovations have so interwoven the financial systems various players that it is essentially impossible to restructure one financial institution at one shot. Systemwide solutions are needed to restructure financial institution. My translation:
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Translation problems: mistranslation (key words); contagion; opening up wrong interpretations (mixing up subject and object) The translator has failed to identify and correctly translate two crucial words in the sentence. First, the verb defies has been translated to ignores. The correct translation of this word actually requires a good understanding of technical knowledge as well as context. In addition, finance means financial system and instead it has been translated as finance as an academic field. Thus, the whole sentence is very confusing. Furthermore, an internal dynamic of such stupefying complexity became a subject that ignores the standard approaches to debt workouts. Such a misunderstanding of the first sentence, again, created a contagion effect and subsequently contributed to the mistranslation of the second and third sentence. The focus on the financial system has been dropped and the financial institution brought forward to become a new focus.
3.11 Example 3.11

Text: The United Kingdom and Euro Zone will eventually decide to go most of the way. Translation: Back translation: The United Kingdom and Euro Zone will eventually move toward such interest rate level. My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (colloquial expression); distortion of a refined statement (predication statement) This translator mistranslated the verb phrase, decide to go most of the way, which is not the same as move toward. Thus, a refined statement has been turned into direct statement. His failure to do so could stem from a failure to appreciate the expression, which is colloquial. This is also what occurred in example 3.8. Such a failure is even more serious here because this is a statement of prediction.
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3.12 Example 3.12

Text: The main risk is that inflation could overshoot, landing at 20 or 30% instead of 56%. Translation: 20% 30%56% Back translation: The main risk is that inflation could be out of control, after landing at 20 or 30% instead of 56%. My translation: 20% 30%56% Translation problem: mistranslation (technical knowledge) Overshooting is a technical term and the translator failed to identify this technical term. In addition, landing has been translated as flight landing. This is a special expression in the source text and the translator obviously associated landing with its usage in GDP performance, which often adopts the analogy of a flight landing, and thereby is associated with terms such as hard landing and soft landing. However, inflation is something that climbs up and it is inappropriate to follow the same analogy. I translated landing to climbing up in order to reflect the association of upward climbing rather than downward landing. My translation obviously does not fare well if the back translation test has been applied here. I will discuss the limitation of the back translation test in Chapter 5. In the following, the quotations are cited from The Use and Abuse of Monetary History by UC Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen. This article has been finely translated.
3.13 Example 3.13

Text: For the Fed, it is important to ask whether the 1930s, when its premature policy tightening precipitated a double-dip recession, really is the best historical analogy to consider when contemplating how to time the exit from its current accommodating stance. Translation: 30 Back translation: For the Fed, it is important to contemplate how to time the exit from its current accommodating stance, must make sure in the
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1930s, when its premature policy tightening precipitated a double-dip recession, is the best historical analogy to consider. My translation: 30 Translation problems: mistranslation (three-parts onion sentence); mistranslation (technical knowledge) This is the only major mistranslation that occurred throughout this finely translated article. Unsurprisingly, the syntactic structure is again a threepart onion sentence. Thus, even a careful translator would occasionally stumble on this kind of syntactic structure.4 The translators strategy started with dividing part C into two parts, C1, really is the best historical analogy to consider, and C2 it is important to contemplate how to time the exit from its current accommodating stance. He then shifted part C2 to the starting position, followed by part A, part B and C1. This can be illustrated by the following structure: Part C2, Part A, Part B, Part C1. (3)
The division of part C is troublesome, which could never be a good translation strategy because both C1 and C2 are syntactic units that govern below part C, and are therefore of lower hierarchy than part A and B in terms of a syntactic tree diagram. When one mixes phrases of a lower and higher hierarchy, he is surely going to run into trouble because the original syntactic structure is not well-respected. A translator should not disrupt syntactic structure in such a way, because the meaning is attached to syntactic structure, and when it is disrupted, the meaning goes as well. This is another major proposition of this book and I will discuss it in further detail in Chapters 4 and 5. So, what would be a good translation strategy when encountering a three-part onion sentence? I recommend two strategies: one is to follow the original A-B-C order, and the other one is to follow the A-C-B order. The second strategy can be illustrated below as: Part A, Part C, Part B. (4)
In my translation above, I adopted the second strategy. So, even if the translator did not divide C into two parts, the order C-A-B still would not constitute a good translation strategy. Another minor mistake is the dealing
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with accommodating stance, which is a technical term and should be translated correctly and uniformly, and the translator failed to do both.
3.14 Example 3.14

Text: The Fed might also consider policy in 1924-1927, when low interest rates fueled stock-market and real-estate bubbles, or 20032005, when interest rates were held down in the face of serious financial imbalances. Translation: 19241927 20032005 Back translation: The Fed better also consider policy in 19241927, when low interest rates fueled stock-market and real-estate bubbles, or 20032005, when, in the face of serious financial imbalance, interest rates were suppressed. My translation: 19241927, 20032005 Translation problems: mistranslation (technical knowledge); opening up a wrong interpretation (technical terms) The problem occurred when the word order was changed and the final noun phrase was translated to interest rates were suppressed, without proper elaboration. It opened up a possible interpretation that interest rates were suppressed by serious financial imbalance, which was not the case because interest rates were held down by the Fed in face of serious financial imbalance. Even if one interprets it correctly after reading the translation, the whole expression sounds strange. In addition, the change of word order is unnecessary because it does not contribute much towards the clarification of ideas. The unnecessary change of the order of words and phrases is something that should be avoided based on the principle of proportionality, to be discussed in Chapter 5.
3.15 Example 3.15

Text: And, if current European governments are not committed to austerity and fiscal consolidation, then which governments are? Translation:
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Back translation: And, if current European governments does not commit to austerity and fiscal consolidation, then which governments will? My translation: Translation problem: distortion of a refined statement The above translation failed to catch the tone of expression. A Chinese reader would simply be confused about the real implication of this statement. The real focus of this sentence is: current European governments are pretty extreme in terms of their commitment to austerity and fiscal consolidation, and if they are not committed to that, which governments are? Clearly, such an implication is missing in its Chinese translation. The scale of mistranslation is average in this example, and the problem could be magnified if the same one occurred in a statement of prediction. As stated earlier, economists have put their reputation at stake, and the translators just have to be careful when they are dealing with other peoples reputations. Thus, the distortion of a refined statement, i.e. failing to capture the refined nuance of the original statement, would create problems of a different scale, depending on the nature of the source text. The next three examples are cited from Europes Inevitable Haircut, by Barry Eichengreen. This article was also finely translated; however, it contained a few problems that stemmed from the use of the domestication principle.5
3.16 Example 3.16

Text: Bank debts have to be converted into equity and, where banks are insolvent, written off. Translation: Back translation: Bank debts have to be fixed into equity and, where banks equity is insufficient to cover debt, written off. My translation: Translation problems: elaborating (colloquial expression); distortion of a refined statement There are two problems with this sentence that are associated with the two noun phrases. First, the translator attempted to rephrase the first noun
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phrase with the Chinese colloquial expression, fixed. However, such an expression does not enhance the readers understanding much, while it has disrupted the coherence of the original writing style. In addition, such colloquial expressions are also associated with other indecent expressions in Chinese and should be avoided as much as possible. Second, the translator has messed up the meaning of the second noun phrase. Clearly, banks equity is insufficient to cover debt is not equivalent to banks are insolvent. Again, a refinement expression has been turned into something straightforward.
3.17 Example 3.17

Text: When Latin American debt was restructured in the 1980s under the Brady Plan, these sweeteners were provided by the United States Treasury. Translation: 20 80 Back translation: In the 1980s, when Latin American debt was restructured under the Brady Plan, it was United States Treasury who served as big brother who guaranteed. My translation: 80 Translation problems: elaborating (colloquial expression); omission It appears that this translator really favoured street-talk, so he added expression such as big brother who guaranteed. In contrast, the expression sweeteners, which was stressed in the text, has been dropped. We will discuss in the next chapter that colloquial expressions can serve some useful functions. However, translators should not add colloquial expressions into the target text because that is outside the scope of the source text. Such a strategy will constitute a violation of the principle of proportionality discussed in Chapter 5.
3.18 Example 3.18

Text: They must convince their constituents that using public money to provide sweeteners for debt restructuring and to recapitalize the banks is
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essential to the internal devaluation strategy that they insist their neighbors follow. Translation: Back translation: They must convince their boss and constituents that using public money for debt restructuring and to recapitalize the banks is the sufficient condition to the internal devaluation strategy. Given that they insist their neighbors follow such a strategy, it is their undeniable duty to shoulder such a burden. My translation: Translation problems: elaborating (colloquial expression, clause); mistranslation (key words) The translation suffers from the problem of adding irrelevant expressions. First, boss was added. Again, this demonstrates an inappropriate use of the domestication principle that stems from the translators preference for street-talk. Second, a whole clause, it is their undeniable duty to shoulder such a burden, was added. This has nothing to do with the source text and does not serve well to clarify the meaning of the source text. In addition, essential has been translated as sufficient condition. In the area of economic editorial translation, translators must be careful with terms such as sufficient condition because it is a well-defined technical term and should not be used for other expressions. The next three paragraphs are quoted from the editorial A Metaphor for Obama by Yale economist, Robert Shiller. Professor Shiller is someone who is sophisticated in expressing his opinion through the use of refined statements. Not surprisingly, the translator committed the same error of the distortion of refinement statements, again and again.
3.19 Example 3.19

Text: By calling it a deal, Roosevelt made clear that the plan was not anti-business: it sounded like an offer to work, to participate, to seize an opportunity.
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Translation: Back translation: By calling it a deal, Roosevelt made clear that the plan was commercial: it sounded like an offer to participate in work, to seize an opportunity. My translation: Translation problems: distortion of a refined statement; merging This translation contains two mistakes. First, not anti-business has been translated as commercial. This constitutes distortion, although on a relatively minor scale as compared with some prior examples that appeared in a prediction statement. Certainly, they are not equivalent expressions, and the latter statement is less refined, stronger, and more straightforward. I suspect some translators might hold the view that two negative expressions will cancel each other out. This clearly cannot be the case. English, after all, is not mathematics. Second, there are three options in the final clause, and the translator has merged them into two. To participate is a distinct option from to work and should not be merged into to participate in work.
3.20 Example 3.20

Text: Formulating a good metaphor for Obamas second term is itself a task for intuitive creative thought that entails rethinking what he will propose in his second term. Translation: Back translation: Formulating a good metaphor for Obamas second term itself requires intuitive creative thought to rethink what he will propose in his second term. My translation: Translation problem: long word string A Chinese reader could have difficulty in understanding such a translation because it is composed of a 39-word string. Separating this sentence into two parts and adding some Chinese auxiliary words would help to make
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the task of reading easier. Otherwise, it becomes a string of sensible words that, when taken as a whole, do not make much sense.
3.21 Example 3.21

Text: The right metaphor would spin some of these ideas, or others like them, into a vision for Americas future that, like the New Deal, would gain coherence as it is transformed into reality. Translation: Back translation: The right metaphor would integrate some of these ideas, or others like them, into a vision for Americas future that, and such vision would gain coherent and realize just like the New Deal. My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (key words); distortion of a refined statement Spin is a key word that has not been appropriately translated. In addition, gain coherence as it is transformed into reality has been translated into gain coherent and realise. This is a distortion of a refined statement. This distortion of a message creates a problem, although not as serious as that which occurs in a prediction statement, without any associated benefits. The next three examples are cited from The New Cosmopolitans, by Robert Shiller. Most of Shillers article has been finely translated, perhaps due to his very approachable writing style, i.e. technical economic jargon or concepts have been toned down and expressed in an accessible style. However, several of his more refined expressions have been translated into direct expressions, even though other main ideas have been incorporated into the translation. In the next three examples, I will illustrate this distortion problem, just as occurred in example 3.21, and which is more likely to occur when translating this type of article.
3.22 Example 3.22

Text: As globalization proceeds, with the help of ever-faster communications, faster travel, and more powerful multinational corporations, a new, cosmopolitan social class seems to be emerging.
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Translation: Back translation: As globalization proceeds, communications becomes ever-faster, travel becomes more convenient, and multinational corporations becomes more powerful, a new, cosmopolitan social class emerges. My translation: Translation problems: mixing up of a causal relationship; distortion of a refined statement Faster communications, faster travel and more powerful multinational corporations are causes that boost globalisation. However, after translation, globalisation becomes the cause that leads to faster communication, travel and more powerful multinational corporations. This is a reversal of cause and effect and constitutes a serious mistranslation. The cause and effect relationship is a crucial feature of economic editorials, and mistranslation of this relationship definitely needs to be avoided. In addition, seems to be emerging has been translated to emerges, which constitutes a distortion of a refined statement. This distortion appears minor at first glance. However, distortion is a habit, and it seldom appears in just one sentence. In the following, there are more examples of distortion, and when an entire article is rife with distortion here and there, the whole writing style will have undergone substantial revisions.
3.23 Example 3.23

Text: It was an unusual experience, because I began to feel that none of these people were really foreign to me. It seemed they were probably easier to talk to than the local Americans who were waiting on us as and serving food. Translation: Back translation: It was an unusual experience, because I did not feel any of these people were really foreign. They were probably easier to talk to than the local Americans who were waiting on us for dinner and serving us.
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My translation: Translation problems: Distortion of a refined statement (sensitive issues); omission The kind of soft-spoken, reserved tone here and there has been replaced with more direct statements, and the holding-back attitude in the source text has disappeared from the target text. For example, I began to feel that none of these people were really foreign to me has been translated as I did not feel any of these people were really foreign. In addition, it seemed has been omitted. At first glance, such modifications appear to be minor. However, minor modifications could still lead to grave consequences because these kinds of statement involve issues that are socially sensitive. There are people waiting to serve people who are expecting to be served, i.e. class division, and that is probably one reason why the author has to be careful in his expression. In addition, such class divisions are based on the authors personal observation, something not backed up by hard evidence, and one has to be cautious in presenting this type of statement. Such behind-the-scenes considerations are not fully appreciated by the translator and the flavour of the source text has been much lost in translation.
3.24 Example 3.24

Text: Roveres influential people seemed to be sharply divided into cosmopolitan influentials, who habitually orient themselves with respect to the world at large, and local influentials, who orient themselves with respect to their own town. Translation: Rovere Back translation: Roveres influential people are divided into cosmopolitan influentials, who are familiar with the world at large, and local influentials, who are familiar with their own town. My translation: Rovere , Translation problem: distortion of a refined statement
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Again, a statement made with reservation has been translated into a direct statement. Seemed to be sharply divided into has been translated as are divided into. Habitually orient themselves with respect to has been translated as are familiar with. The flavour of the source text has been lost due to these modifications. Even though economics is something that is closer to science than the humanities and other disciplines of social science, quite a few economists, when writing their editorials, would opt for expressions that touch not only their readers minds, but their hearts as well. However, this aspect of consideration has been lost during translation. This could be something unusual, if say, a lot of translators were trained in a humanities background; they would be even more ready than others to capture such soft elements in their translation. We will see more examples like these in the following. The following examples are cited from the editorial The New Global Economys (Relative) Winners by Dani Rodrik.
3.25 Example 3.25

Text: But, regardless of how these immediate challenges are resolved, it is clear that the world economy is entering a difficult new longer-term phase as well one that will be substantially less hospitable to economic growth than possibly any other period since the end of World War II. Translation: Back translation: But, regardless of how these immediate challenges are resolved, it is clear that the world economy is entering a difficult new longer-term phase one that will be most disadvantageous to economic growth since the end of World War II. My translation: Translation problem: distortion of a refined statement Substantially less hospitable has been translated as most disadvantageous. The original expression is more refined and subtle, and again it has been translated into a direct statement. This example bears much similarity to example 3.19. As occurred in example 3.24, the soft touch of the source text has been lost again.
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3.26 Example 3.26

Text: The safe bet is that we will not see a return to the kind of growth that the world especially the developing world experienced in the two decades before the financial crisis. Translation: 20 Back translation: We can be sure that we will not see the kind of growth experienced in the two decades before the financial crisis, especially the developing world growth. My translation: 20 Translation problem: distortion of a refined statement (prediction statement) Again, the problem of distortion has occurred in a statement of prediction. The safe bet has been translated to we can be sure. Thus, the authors optimism toward such a prospect has been elevated by the translator. In terms of probability, the original prediction is something that is higher than 50%, but less than 90%. However, according to the translation, the probability is higher than 90%. Otherwise, how can we be sure?
3.27 Example 3.27

Text: But they provide the arenas of consultation, cooperation, and giveand-take among opposing social groups that are crucial in times of turbulence and shocks. Translation: Back translation: But they provide the arenas of consultation, cooperation, and give-and-take among opposing social groups, as these opposing social groups are crucial in times of turbulence and shocks. My translation: Translation problem: elaboration
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The translator added something, i.e. as these opposing social groups, in an attempt to clarify things. However, the result is quite the opposite because it ended up distorting the implication of the source text. Thus, elaboration as a translation technique carries with it much risk. When a translators comprehension of the original text is not perfect, such elaboration could distort more than clarify the source text. The strategy of unnecessary elaboration would, just like the strategy of unnecessary distortion discussed in Example 3.21, violate the principle of proportionality in Chapter 5. The next three examples are selected from the editorial, What Use Are Economists? by Dani Rodrik.
3.28 Example 3.28

Text: No matter how far apart their political views may have been, the two sides shared a common language about what constitutes evidence and for the most part a common approach to resolving differences. Translation: Back translation: No matter how far apart their political views may have been, the two sides shared a common language about what constitutes evidence, this can be taken as a common approach to resolving differences. My translation: Translation problem: mistranslation (pivotal statement) This is a mistranslation that results from a misunderstanding of the basic implication. This sentence is dependent on its context in the sense that it incorporates the major theme of the whole editorial. The major theme of this editorial is difficult for laymen because it is concerned with the research methodologies of economists, something that is highly technical, and the translators misunderstanding of the basic message could well be expected. We will refer to this translation problem as mistranslation of a pivotal statement. A pivotal statement is defined as a statement that plays a pivotal role in the argument. It is also a statement that is highly dependent on the context because it basically summarises the messages of earlier paragraphs, thereby making it pivotal.
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3.29 Example 3.29

Text: Journalists, politicians, and the general public have a tendency to attribute greater authority and precision to what economists say than economists should really feel comfortable with. Translation: Back translation: Journalists, politicians, and the general public have a tendency to attribute greater authority and precision to what economists say. My translation: Translation problems: omission; distortion of a refined statement The whole phrase than economists should really feel comfortable with has been omitted. This is also an arbitrary distortion of a refined statement. The flavour and precision of orginal expression has been much lost again due to this distortion.
3.30 Example 3.30

Text: Professors at the top universities distinguish themselves today not by being right about the real world, but by devising imaginative theoretical twists or developing novel evidence. If these skills also render them perceptive observers of real societies and provide them with sound judgment, it is hardly by design. Translation: Back translation: Professors at the top universities distinguish themselves today not by being right about the real world, but by devising imaginative theoretical distortions or developing novel evidence. If these skills also render them perceptive observers of real societies and provide them with sound judgment, it is not within their original intention.
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My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (key words); mistranslation (concise statement with significant implications) There is a mistranslation of the key word, twist. Twist here means something new, but not important or ground-breaking. It is not something as negative as distortion. In addition, the final clause, it is hardly by design has not been translated properly. The translator, probably not so sure of what the clause means, decided to stick to what the dictionary said. However, a more appropriate translation actually requires some degree of interpretation of such a concise statement, otherwise the Chinsese reader will not be able to understand its implications. This interpretation should elaborate on the basic message: for those scholars who specialise in theoretical twists and digging up new evidence, they would not normally be able to provide sound judgement for real societies, and if they did, it would actually be something that occurred purely by chance. The next three examples are selected from the editorial, The Morality of Capital Punishment, by Gary Becker. Beckers article presented challenges for the translator because the translator committed the error of mistranslating the pivotal statement, a statement that summarises the main gist of the article, in a repeated manner. We would like to select more of Beckers article in order to confirm this observation if we can. However, most of Beckers articles were written in earlier years, and there were no corresponding Chinese translations posted on Project Syndicate.
3.31 Example 3.31

Text: But, whereas Europeans, with crime rates well below American rates for the past half-century, could long afford to be relatively soft on most crimes, they have seen their crime rates increase sharply during the past twenty years. Translation:
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Back translation: For the past half-century, the crime rates of European countries are well below America. However, they have seen their crime rates increase sharply that could no long afford to be relatively soft on most crimes. My translation: Translation problem: mistranslation (three-part onion sentence)
This is, again, a three-part onion sentence. The translators strategy is wrong. He started by dividing C into two parts, i.e. part C1, they have seen their crime rates increase sharply, and C2, during the past twenty years, and shifted the prepositional phrase, part C2, to the very front. After that, he connected part A with part C1 and followed them with part B. The translators strategy can be illustrated below as:
Part C2, (Part A + Part C1), Part B. (5)
As mentioned earlier, when confronting this type of sentence, there are two viable translation strategies, either A-B-C or A-C-B. My translation above followed the first strategy. This can be contrasted with example 3.13, where the second strategy was adopted.
3.32 Example 3.32

Text: But, while marginal deterrence is important, I believe the resistance of murderers to being captured, possibly at the expense of their own lives, is really indirect evidence that criminals do fear capital punishment. Translation: Back translation: But, although marginal deterrence is important, I believe the resistance of murderers to being captured, possibly at the expense of their own lives, is really indirect evidence that criminals do fear capital punishment.
Data analysis
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My translation: Translation problems: mistranslation (key words); mistranslation (pivotal statement) While has been translated as although. In certain contexts, while can indeed be translated as although, but not in this case. The interpretation of this sentence is based on the context; thus, this sentence is not independent by itself. It is used to summarise the major gist of the whole argument. This kind of pivotal summary statement could turn out to be a challenge for translators if they are not careful about the basic message of the whole article. The implication of this sentence can be interpreted as: aside from the importance of marginal deterrence, which supports the use of capital punishment in murder cases, the fact that murderers fight hard against being captured, is indirect evidence pointing to the fact that criminals fear capital punishment, which provides additional support for capital punishment in murder cases.
3.33 Example 3.33

Text: I can understand that some people are skeptical about the evidence, although I believe they are wrong about both that and the common sense of the issue. Translation: Back translation: I can understand, although some people are wrong about both that and the common sense of the issue, they are still skeptical about the evidence. My translation: Translation problem: mistranslation (pivotal statement) This sentence occurs at the final paragraph, and it is heavily contextdependent since it summarises the whole argument of this editorial. The translator failed to capture the basic message of this sentence. This sentence is composed of two clauses and the second clause is more difficult to understand. However, the translator messed up the first clause instead. The implication of this sentence can be interpreted as: I can understand that
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some people are skeptical about the evidence, although they are wrong in both the evidence and theory, i.e. the common sense that criminals fear death and capital punishment deters them. The next three examples are selected from the editorial, Popes, Saints, and Religious Competition, by Harvard economist Robert Barro.
3.34 Example 3.34

Text: The idea of using saints to compete with evangelicals in Latin America goes back a long way the friars accompanying conquering Spanish troops introduced patron saints in every nucleated community. Coupled with persistent shortages of priests, the worship of saints in Latin America became more embedded in the regions culture than in that of Europe. Translation: Back translation: In Latin America, due to the persistent shortages of priests, the worship of saints in Latin America became more embedded in the regions culture than in that of Europe. My translation: Translation problem: mixing up a causal relationship The worship of saints in Latin America is more embedded in the regions culture than in Europe. This is due to the introduction of patron saints. The shortage of priests is a factor that applies to Europe in general. So, it cannot be translated as a major cause that contributed to the culture of saint worship in Latin America, as its influence is only secondary. This is mix-up of causal relationships as a secondary factor is magnified into a primary factor. This can be contrasted with example 3.22, where the causal relationship was reversed.
Data analysis
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3.35 Example 3.35

Text: Pope Benedict XVIs (20052013) large number of saints (44) reflects mainly the large stock of beatified people left behind by John Paul II. Translation: (20052013)(44) Back translation: Pope Benedict XVIs (2005-2013) canonized a large number of saints (44). This is a reflection of John Paul IIs large number of saint beatification. My translation: (2005-2013)(44) Translation problems: mistranslation (key words); mistranslation (concise word with significant implications) The translator has failed to make the implication clear. His failure was tied to the key word, reflect. Many translators have stumbled on the verb reflect as it is a verb that often, although not always, requires interpretation. In this context, it requires a certain degree of interpretation, rather than sticking to the dictionary definition, in order to pass the original message of reflect on to Chinese readers. This verb actually shows up frequently and deserves special attention from translators.
3.36 Example 3.36

Text: These shares compare with the mere handfuls of blessed persons from these regions who were named by previous popes. Translation: Back translation: Blessed persons from these regions who were named by previous popes are only handful and can be neglected. My translation: Translation problem: mistranslation (pivotal statement) This is a pivotal statement that summarises the message of the whole paragraph. Obviously, the translator failed to appreciate the implication of the whole paragraph and ended up by greatly distorting the message. This
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sentence can be contrasted with Examples 3.32 and 3.33 as they were both pivotal statements that were used to capture the main idea of earlier paragraphs. Overall, the data analysis in this chapter has served to identify several categories of translation problems in the translation of economics editorials. There are a total of fifteen categories of translation problems. These are: distortion of refined statements, opening up wrong interpretations, omission, mistranslation of key words, distortion of logic, merging, mistranslation of technical knowledge, mistranslation of colloquial expression, mistranslation of a three-part onion sentence, contagion, elaboration, long word strings, mixing up of causal relationships, mistranslation of pivotal statements and concise statement/word with significant implications. The fifteen categories of translation problems and their corresponding examples are listed in Table 2 of Appendix A. We will deal with their exact definition and evaluate their importance in Chapter 4. Before moving onto analysis, however, some attention should be drawn to the uneven distribution of translation problems. For example, when translating an editorial by Robert Shiller, a translator often meets with distortion problems. On the contrary, when translating editorials by Gary Becker, a translator encounters the difficulty of dealing with pivotal statements. In Chapter 4, we will also witness other examples. For example, a translator faced the difficulty of colloquial expressions when translating editorials by Nobel Laureate and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman. Basically, translation problems are associated with the different writing styles of different authors. Such an uneven distribution of translation problems provides a rationale for including a variety of articles by different scholars. Otherwise, some translation problems might be left without proper discussion.
Notes
1. This article and its translation problems have been discussed in Lai (2013a). 2. Onion sentences often create memory problems, a topic that has been discussed in Chapter 7 of The Language Instinct. 3. That is where the term, onion sentence, originated. 4. There are some other three-part onion sentences in this article and the translator has done a fine job with them. 5. See page 218221 of Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications for relevant discussions.
4
The anatomy of translation problems
In Chapter 3, I identified fifteen categories of translation problems from 36 examples cited from 12 editorials. Clearly, these categories are not watertight as one translation problem could be classified in one category instead of another. For example, a mistranslation of key words could stem from the fact that key words are technical terms and therefore could also be classified as mistranslation of technical knowledge. Also, as demonstrated by Example 3.4, merging and distortion of logic could be two sides of the same coin. However, such problems would occur in most categorisations and our purpose is just to provide a broad picture of the general categories of translation problems, which are defined by their core features, rather than dealing with their intertwining nature among different categories. In the following section, I will discuss each of these fifteen categories of translation problems and evaluate the importance of each of them from Sections 4.1 to 4.15. My ultimate goal is to derive translation strategies that are able to deal with most, if not all, of these problems. In order to classify these different categories into other broader categories, we need to see through these different categories with a certain perspective. The perspective adopted here was inspired by an idea in artificial intelligence, the Turing test. The Turing test is essentially a test designed for the development of artificial intelligence. Alan Turing, in his 1950 paper, made a suggestion to test whether machines can think. Such a test could be based on an imitation game. During this game, a judge converses with a person at one terminal, with a computer programmed to imitate another person at another terminal. If a judge cannot tell which is which, there would be no grounds for denying that computers can think.1 Alternatively, the Turing test can be phrased as: the development of artificial intelligence would reach its mature stage if one cannot tell a human interrogator from a machine one. Kenneth Rogoff, in his 2006 Project Syndicate editorial2, discussed the Turing test against the backdrop of online chess playing and suggested that it is getting more and more difficult
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to tell the differences between a human and computer chess player from online games. According to Rogoff (2010), todays chess programs have come close to passing the Turing test.3 This book is interested in revising the Turing test in a way that it can be applied to translation problems. Suppose that the development of translation software has advanced to a stage where it surpasses the average translator, as well as some advanced translators, what remains, apart from certain highly advanced aspects of translating, which cannot be achieved by computer software? Basically, the jobs of translators will be totally replaced by computer software if there is nothing that cannot be done by that software. In order to design a revised Turing test for translation, this argument will be presented in two stages. First, I will argue for a revised Turing test for writing. Second, because essential writing features are real challenges for translators, as suggested by our samples, I have revised the test for writing and applied it to translation. In his best-selling book, Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb discussed the possibility of whether one can rely on computer programs to produce an academic article that successfully fools the journal editor into accepting it.4 Of course, this would be a more difficult area in which to meet the Turing test. However, suppose computer programs really advance to some amazing stage, what would be the key writing features that distinguish good writers from average ones, so that good writers could still keep their jobs? Based on such underlying thinking, the revised Turing test for writing poses the following question: what are the key writing features that serve to distinguish a good economic editorial from an average one? Presumably, such features should be subtle in a way that makes it difficult for a computer as well as an average writer to imitate. The logic of a revised test for writing can be subject to further revision in order to come up with a revised test for the translation of an economic editorial. Following the same line of reasoning, we could instead pose this question: what are the essential qualities that serve to differentiate a good translation of an economic editorial from a translation done by translation software or an average translator? If there are some key features that serve to draw such a distinction, it would be the translators ultimate duty to make sure that any such feature is still preserved in its translation. The answer of this test is related to the answer of the writing test. Some refined and subtle writing features would make it difficult for a computer, as well as an average writer, to imitate. Similarly, these same writing features would also make it difficult for computer software or an average translator to translate. Seen through the above perspective; refined statements, the if-then relationship, technical knowledge, colloquial expressions, complicated
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syntactic structure, causal relationships, pivotal statements and concise statements with significant implications fall into this category because they are either essential for economic editorials or are the unique writing features of certain writers. For example, the if-then relationship and causal relationships are two hard-core writing features that distinguish economic editorials from other types of editorial. Economics is basically an academic discipline that relies heavily on model building, which in turn, is written up in mathematical language. Although economic editorials are expressed in daily language, such soft language is underpinned by hard-core model building. The if-then and causal relationships are two hard-core features that are tightly linked to model building and for a translator, it would be very difficult to find room to maneuver; the only options appear to be either to translate the whole thing, or totally surrender as there can be no grey area. Technical knowledge and refined statements are also important writing features of economic editorials. The essence of an economic editorial is to soften hard-core technical knowledge in a way that a general audience can understand. Refined statements are paramount for the prediction of the economic outlook, although it can also be used in other areas, such as diplomacy and law, where prudence in writing is required. Translators face a undeniable duty to accurately express the technical knowledge and the degree of confidence as reflected by refined statements in the source text. However, unlike the if-then and causal relationships, there is room, although not much, to maneuver. Colloquial expressions, pivotal statements, and concise statement/words with significant implications are also notable writing features of economic editorials. However, such features are not shared among economic editorials by most authors. They tend to be idiosyncratic features that characterise certain authors. In general, their negotiability in terms of room to maneuver is about the same as technical knowledge and refined statements. Furthermore, a complicated syntactic structure such as a three-part onion sentence is very useful in editorial writing, and can be useful in distinguishing editorials by scholars as opposed to those of journalists.5 Overall, among the fifteen categories of translation problems, there are eight categories that can be classified under this broader category, the category of distinctive features that are difficult to imitate by average authors or machines. The successful translation of these features will distinguish an advanced translator from a mediocre one. In practice, we often observe a convergence of several writing features in a given paragraph, as suggested by many of our examples discussed in Chapter 3. This will make it even harder to imitate or translate.
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Among them, there are two hard-core, logical links represented by the if-then relationship and causal relationships; four categories of sophisticated expression represented by refined statements, colloquial expressions, concise statements with significant implications, and pivotal statements; one category of sophisticated content, represented by technical knowledge; and one category of sophisticated syntactic structure, represented by a three-part onion sentence. The other seven categories are mostly problems that stem from translators misguided strategies such as omission, elaboration, merging, opening up wrong interpretations, and long word strings. The mistranslation of key words is associated with other major categories of translation problems: mistranslation of technical knowledge, pivotal statements, and concise statements with significant implications, and could conceivable as being an in-between category between the main and peripheral categories. Furthermore, if translation problems are not properly dealt with, there would be associated costs, such as contagion, which manifests itself as a side effect. I recommend that the preservation of refined and colloquial statements, the faithful presentation of causal relationships and if-then relationships, the transmitting of technical knowledge, the appropriate interpretation of concise statements/words with significant implications, and the clarification of pivotal statements are things to be sought after by translators. Successful transmission of these writing features is paramount for economic editorial translation. The translator ought to take active steps to preserve these elements. Although three-part onion sentences are not a syntactic structure specific to economic editorials, their discussion is very helpful for building up an important element of the translation strategy, i.e. the limits faced by translators when they are looking for an active strategy. Such limits will be explained in the discussion of three-part onion sentence in Sections 4.9 and 5.3. Next, I will discuss the implications of the fifteen categories of translation problems. In order to provide an in-depth discussion, I have supplemented the 36 examples in Chapter 3 with eight additional examples selected from three editorials. Five of these examples are from two editorials on Project Syndicate and have been discussed in Lai (2013a). The other three examples are from an editorial in the New York Times.
4.1 Distorting a refined statement

Distorting a refined statement turns a restrictive, or explorative, statement into something with wider applications or more certainty. It is a major
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category of problem that occurs in the translation of economic editorials and deserves special attention. This problem occurs very frequently.6 Distortion can arise from cultural barriers, as when the most subtle and refined statements are translated into something direct and straightforward. My own observation is that this could even be a cultural factor that explains the lacklustre performance in the service sector as opposed to the manufacturing sector in places like China. Most translators do not seem to appreciate the difference, and perhaps substantial ones, between subtle expressions and direct expressions. There could be several underlying considerations behind a subtle and refined expression, such as uncertainties when dealing with a predictive statement, as illustrated by Examples 3.1, 3.11 and 3.29; special care when dealing with socially sensitive issues, as illustrated by Example 3.23; and reservation when dealing with something not backed by scientific evidence, as illustrated by Example 3.23. It is in these areas that authors feel the need to employ expressions that are more tentative and reserved. However, such efforts from the authors are normally not much appreciated by translators. In addition to the examples provided in Chapter 3, this problem also occurs in the classroom setting, as most graduate students struggle with this type of expression. Because the prediction of economic outlook is a perennial topic in economics, translators must somehow learn to deal with it. Otherwise, the probability, as implied by the source text, will be amplified into something bigger in the target text. Because the preservation of the reserved statement is crucial, the translator must find a way out of such a problem. Failure to deal with it does imply a lack of professionalism on the part of translators. I would recommend the use of Chinese auxiliary words, and if necessary, a change in word order and phrases7, in order to preserve the original flavour and touch. Such a strategy is even more essential when dealing with prediction statements, socially sensitive issues, or statements not backed up by scientific evidence. The application of such a principle will be demonstrated again in Section 4.5 with the distortion of logic, and in Section 4.7 with the mistranslation of technical knowledge. However, any change in word order or phrases should not be arbitrary, as the basic syntactic structure must still be well-respected. The upshot is: a change in word order or phrases must somehow be constrained. The basic rule for such constraint will be discussed in Section 4.9. In addition, even if the syntactic constraint discussed in Section 4.9 is well-respected, translators still must contemplate if the change in word order or phrases, together with the adding of auxiliary words, is justified in bringing embedded information to light. Such an evaluation process, i.e. the principle of proportionality, is a major proposition that is to be discussed in Chapter 5.
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4.2 Opening up wrong interpretations

This problem does not occur frequently and often occurs in a form that mixes up the subject and object, such as in Examples 3.2 and 3.10. Such a problem could stem from the carelessness of translators and could be solved if translators are more careful about editing their work. A good piece of advice is to drop the source text for a while and simply read through the translation without the aid of the source text and see if it still makes sense from the perspective of a target reader. Translators must equip themselves with the awareness that most target language readers would be reading the translation without prior exposure to the source text.
4.3 Omission
Omission is a problem that occurs frequently. This problem could also stem from the carelessness of translators. Another important feature of this problem is that it seldom occurs in isolation. In fact, throughout our sample, it never occurs in isolation. So, the nature of this problem is similar to the contagion problem, which is to be discussed in 4.10. Overall, omission could be a side effect as it could be associated with other major types of translation problems. For example, distortion occurs in Examples 3.23 and 3.29, and when that happens, perhaps due to the lack of respect for the source text, omission also arises. Similarly, in Examples 3.5 and 3.6, the translator encountered the difficulty of translating technical knowledge, and when that occurs, omission also appears, probably because the translators attention has been distracted by the difficulty they are facing. Overall, omission is not a problem that is specific to the translation of economic editorials, as it could also occur, at about the same frequency, in other types of translation. In general, omission is not a good translation strategy as some information is lost after omission. However, it is possible, in some rare cases, that omission could be appropriate. For example, the translation of every word and phrase from the source text could create a long, incomprehensible word string, a problem discussed in Section 4.12. In such cases, omission could conceivably be applicable. Still, translators must find their way out by seeking other possible alternatives when encountering such problems, and view omission only as last resort. Omission as a translation strategy would not be something on the recommendation list of this book.
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4.4 Mistranslation of key words

Mistranslation of key words is also a problem that very often occurs, and a problem that seldom appears in isolation. As with omission, it never appears in isolation throughout our samples. From our examples, there are three subcategories: key words that are dependent on context, such as Examples 3.3, 3.10 and 3.32, technical terms, such as Examples 3.5, 3.10 and 3.18, and difficult key words in English, such as Examples 3.21, 3.30 and 3.35. These subcategories are related to other major categories of translation problems. The so-called difficult key words may not appear difficult at first glance, such as spin in Example 3.21, twist in Example 3.30 or reflect in Example 3.35. These words are difficult because they were used in a very specific context and translators often stumble on them due to lack of familiarity with these specific usages. Thus, this subcategory could be related to another major category of translation problems; concise statements with significant implications, as both are problems that stem from a failure to interpret them. Translators understanding of these words can be rigid, due to the explanation provided by a dictionary or memory associated with high school English learning and cannot be tailored to fit the specific context. The other two categories, i.e. the mistranslation of words that are dependent on context, and the mistranslation of technical words are related to the other two broader categories of problems, mistranslation of pivotal statements and mistranslation of technical knowledge, which are to be discussed in Sections 4.14 and 4.7 respectively. Again, these subcategories are not water-tight, as one mistranslation could possibly be classified in another subcategory, or under an other major category.
4.5 Distortion of logic

In this book, distortion of logic is defined as a problem that confuses the if-then relationship, a relationship that is concerned with the link between assumption and conclusion. This is a serious problem and should be avoided as much as possible. Economics is a field that is based on model thinking, and the if-then relationship is crucial whenever the author attempts to clarify the implications of an economic model. An economic forecast is based on its underlying model, which in turn is dependent on its assumptions. If translators are not careful in phrasing the underlying assumptions of an economic model, they could exaggerate results that are
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actually more confined. A lot of political controversies have stemmed from journalists or politicians misinterpretation of academic work, as discussed in What Use Are Economists? by Dani Rodrik. For example, in Example 3.7, the economic outlook of India implied by the source text is actually worse than that suggested by the target text, because the modest improvement in the Indian economy is based on an assumption that is overly optimistic. The failure to correct such an if-then relationship would therefore serve to distort and exaggerate any given prediction. Such a failure would create an effect similar to distorting a restrictive statement because distortion normally turns a reserved statement into something that is straightforward in its expression. The problem could be even worse because such a relationship is rigid in the sense that translators normally cannot find a way out by resorting to some similar verbal expressions. Any slight deviation from the appropriate expression could create a great distortion of information. The two examples of distortion of logic discussed in Chapter 3 fall only into the light-weight category. A translator could encounter a statement that involves rigorous economic modeling. This point can be illustrated through one example, cited from the editorial Friedman Completed Keynes by Berkeley economist Bradford Delong.
4.5.1
Text: Friedman added a theory of prices and inflation, based on the idea of the natural rate of unemployment and the limits of government policy in stabilizing the economy around its long-run growth trend limits beyond which intervention would trigger uncontrollable and destructive inflation. Translation: Back translation: Friedman added a theory of prices and inflation, based on the limited effectiveness of natural rate of unemployment and policy in stabilizing the long-run economic development. limits beyond which intervention would trigger uncontrollable and destructive inflation. My translastion:
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One can easily see that the information has been greatly distorted after translation. It would be quite difficult for someone to understand the implication of this sentence without proper training in economics. Even for someone with proper training in economics, it would still be difficult to translate this sentence without resorting to a proper translation strategy. In my translation, I added quite a few words in order to elaborate on the ifthen relationship, which is the backbone of this paragraph. This addition of words can be justified on the grounds that it helps to bring out the most crucial implication of the original text. Thus, it is recommended that translator, when facing an if-then relationship, should follow the same translation strategy that was discussed in Section 4.1. Basically, the translator should consider the addition of auxiliary words and the shifting of words and phrases order in order to correctly express the if-then relationship. Overall, the if-then relationship presents a serious challenge to translators, as it is associated with very difficult concepts underpinned by economic modeling. In addition, translators could commit a serious error if they deviate from proper expressions.
4.6 Merging
Merging is a serious translation problem and just like the distortion of logic, it should be avoided as much as possible. As a translation strategy, it would create a problem that is even more serious than omission, because through merging, the original logic is no longer preserved, as suggested by Example 3.4, or the technical knowledge could be much distorted, as suggested by Example 3.5. It is like a storm that has blown through the source text, and one would find it difficult to recover the message from the source text after reading the translation. Thus, the back translation test is applicable in this type of scenario because the source text would have been much distorted after merging. Through the back translation test we would discover that the translator scores poorly because the internal logic of the original text has been much distorted or even lost. When merging is applied alongside other active strategies, such as a change in word order and phrases, things would be even worse, a topic to be discussed in Section 4.9.
4.7 Mistranslation of technical knowledge

Mistranslation of technical knowledge is another major category of translation problem that deserves special attention. The translation strategy
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for dealing with this problem should follow the guidelines discussed in the distortion of refined statements and the distortion of logic. The translator should make every endeavour to transmit the embedded technical knowledge to readers of the target language because this knowledge is the key feature of editorials. It is something that distinguishes economic editorials from other types of editorial. Once the technical knowledge has been bypassed, the whole purpose of reading economic editorials is gone. Why waste time reading a series of technical jargon without fully understanding their underlying implications? In general, such endeavours on the part of the translator could include the adding of target language auxiliary words, and if necessary, change the order of words and phrases. Again, any change in word and phrase order should not be arbitrary and should obey the constraints as discussed in Section 4.9. In addition, the translator should also evaluate the technical content in the source text before resorting to the recommended translation strategies based on the principle of proportionality discussed in Chapter 5.
4.8 Mistranslation of colloquial expressions

Colloquial expressions have become popular in editorial writing as they facilitate the absorption of knowledge. Their use somehow shortens the distance between the writer and the reader. It is an important feature in editorials written by journalists. Since the editorials from Project Syndicate are mostly written by scholars, their frequency of use declines relative to the editorials that they appear in, for example, the New York Times and Slate. However, the importance of colloquial expressions could surge as the writing styles of some scholars actually mimic those of journalists. For example, we could witness a relatively high frequency of colloquial expressions in editorials written by Princeton economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who contributes regularly to the New York Times. As pointed out by Lai (2013b), colloquial expressions help to create a relaxed atmosphere, which could facilitate the transmission of knowledge. However, this relaxing atmosphere turns out to be not so relaxing for the translator. Translators, who are probably unfamiliar with such expressions, might choose to skip them entirely or translate an expression incorrectly. The following examples are cited from the New York Times editorial, Bernanke, Blower of Bubble by Paul Krugman, and its translation was selected from the Economic Daily News of Taiwan. The translator actually skipped a whole paragraph and a few sentences from that editorial.8 The
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paragraph that was omitted was full of colloquial expressions, and the translator probably did so because he was not comfortable with colloquial expressions. Indeed, there is a tendency in the translation of the Economic Daily News for the translators to avoid colloquial expression by changing every colloquial expression, including the title of this article, into formal expressions.9 This tendency of dropping colloquial expressions can be contrasted with Examples 3.16, 3.17 and 3.18, where the translator substituted expressions that were not colloquial with expressions that were. Both are going in the wrong direction as the information in the source text is distorted.
4.8.1
Text: Bubbles can be bad for your financial health and bad for the health of the economy, too. Translation: Back translation: Bubbles can be bad for the health of financial market and bad for the health of the economy, too. My translation: This sentence, by itself, does not appear to be especially colloquial. Yet, it is a colloquial expression when combined with the whole context of the editorial. The translator mistranslated the first clause by mistaking personal financial health for the health of the financial market. Even if that mistake is corrected, the whole expression does not sound colloquial at all for readers of the target text. Thus, the addition of a few auxiliary words can be justified because they serve to preserve the colloquial expression, a notable feature that can be witnessed everywhere in Paul Krugmans writings.
4.8.2
Text: And theres a lot of bubble talk out there right now. Much of it is about an alleged bond bubble that is supposedly keeping bond prices unrealistically high and interest rates which move in the opposite direction from bond prices unrealistically low.
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Translation: Back translation: Now a lot of people are talking about bubble. Much of it is about a bond bubble that is keeping bond prices unrealistically high and interest rates unrealistically low. My translation: . The first sentence is a colloquial expression and the translator failed to preserve it in the target text. This colloquial expression is actually very useful because it serves to ease into the second sentence, which contains technical knowledge, something that is not easily digestible for the layman. The second sentence is fairly serious in itself as it contains a certain amount of lecturing in economics; the opposite movement of interest rates and bond prices, a lesson that is frequently repeated but easily forgotten. The translator skipped this important content. Overall, the translator failed to complete two important tasks: the preservation of a colloquial expression and the transmission of technical knowledge. It is hard to say which one is more challenging, as translators frequently stumble on both.
4.8.3
Text: Why, then, all the talk of a bond bubble? Partly it reflects the correct observation that interest rates are very low by historical standards. Translation: Back translation: Why does everyone talk about bond bubble? Partly it reflects interest rates are very low by historical standards. My translation: The first sentence is a colloquial expression, followed by the second sentence, which is something technical. Thus, the example in 4.8.3 bears the same structure as that in 4.8.2, as a colloquial expression has been used to soften up technical expressions. Again, the translator has failed to include the colloquial expression. In addition, part of the technical expression has
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also been omitted. This paragraph illustrates again how important it is for the translator to deal with both: the preservation of colloquial expressions and the transmission of technical knowledge, as they together constitute an integral feature of editorials by writers such as Paul Krugman. The inherent nature of a colloquial expression is something along the lines of a refined statement discussed in the distortion problem, and is conceivably difficult for the translator as well. Together, refined expressions and colloquial expressions constitute the soft writing style of economic editorials. Presumably, the translation strategy acquired from dealing with the distortion problem could be readily applicable to the translation of colloquial expressions. Still, there is one crucial difference between a colloquial expression and an expression that implies a holding back attitude: a colloquial expression could involve daily life experience in countries such as the US, something that is foreign to local translators; they could be oblivious to the subtle implications in such expressions and do not even realise their very existence.
4.9 The three-part onion sentence

The three-part onion sentence is a common syntactic structure in editorials written by scholars. In contrast, its frequency is declining in editorials written by journalists, as suggested by Lai (2013b). It is an important syntactic structure because scholars rely on this kind of structure to modify and refine their statements. Such modifications or refinements are served by embedding part B into the three-part onion sentence. The embedding of part B ends up creating a unique tree diagram with branches extending toward the centre, which is distinctive from right-branching, as commonly occurs in English, or left-branching, as commonly occurred in Japanese.10 It is the embedding of part B that makes such modifications and refinements possible. However, such embedding also interrupts the continuation between parts A and C, and that is why translators find it difficult. Because of its importance in editorials written by scholars, and also because translators have trouble with such syntactic structures, it deserves special attention. As suggested in Chapter 3, there are two feasible strategies for dealing with three-part onion sentence: A-B-C or A-C-B, depending on the specific context. Underpinning these strategies is the respect for syntactic structure. Translators will pay a dear price if they disrupt the syntactic structure of the source text. In the first strategy, the original order of phrases has been maintained, while in the second strategy, the continuation
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between parts A and C has been restored. There are certainly pluses and minuses associated with each strategy that vary with specific context. In Chapter 3, we documented three cases where translators pursued wrong strategies when encountering three-part onion sentences, as witnessed by syntactic structures (2), (3) and (5). Another case has been discussed in Lai (2013a), which was quoted from the same editorial as discussed in Section 4.5.
4.9.1
Text: Friedman, in a 30-year campaign starting with his and Anna J. Schwartzs A Monetary History of the United States, restored the balance. Translation: Anna J. Schwartz 30 Back translation: A Monetary History of the United States, co-authored by Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, started a 30-year campaign that restored the balance. My translation: In this example, the translator pursued another wrong strategy, which can be illustrated as the following: (Part A + Part B2), (Part C + Part B1) (6)
In this example, part B has been separated into two parts, part B1, 30-year campaign starting and part B2, his and Anna J. Schwartzs A Monetary History of the United States. Some common features can be identified from these misguided strategies, which will serve as a roadmap, thereby providing a guide as to how not to translate when dealing with three-part onion sentences. First, these wrong strategies involve breaking up an integral syntactic unit; it is part B in structures (2) and (6), and part C in structures (3) and (5). Second, a sub-part of the broken up unit has been moved left to the very front position, either by itself as in structures (3) and (5), or merged with parts that were initially at the front, as in structures (2) and (6). Breaking up a syntactic unit, shifting part of it to the front, and merging it with another syntactic unit, together constitute a serious disruption of the syntactic structure. The end result is a serious distortion of the original message.
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This disruption can be appreciated from the angle of the syntactic tree diagram as defined in transformational grammar.11 A typical feature of a tree diagram based on transformational grammar is that it becomes more and more low-hanging as the syntactic structure extends to the right, i.e. the branches extend more and more as the syntactic structure moves to the right. Although left-branching is also possible in a few English constructions, it is more popular in languages such as Japanese.12 Thus, any dividing of a well-defined syntactic unit, and shifting part of it to the front, and possibly merging it with another unit, creates a phenomenon such that the tree branches cross over. Once the syntactic tree branches are disrupted in this way, both the syntactic structure and semantic structure are sabotaged and it becomes very difficult to restore the meaning of the source text. One lesson we could draw from these four misguided cases is that it is better not to change the syntactic order in a way that breaks the hierarchy of the syntactic tree diagram, as defined in transformational grammar, such that the branches of the syntactic tree cross over. This problem has been referred to as the crossed branch problem in Lai (2013a). Syntactic tree branches are crossed if phrases of a lower hierarchy are mixed up with phrases of a higher hierarchy. The end result is usually serious translation problems. Perhaps one would suspect that such a problem only arises when it involves the division, shifting and merging of large syntactic units. Would things still matter if we limited shifting to units as small as words instead of phrases or clauses? Another example from Friedman Completed Keynes by Bradford Delong provides a case in point:
4.9.2
Text: --- the private economy on its own might well be subject to unbearable instability and that strategic, powerful, but limited economic intervention by the government was necessary to maintain stability. Translation: --- Back translation: --- the private economy on its own might well be subject to unbearable instability and that limited but powerful government strategic intervention was necessary to maintain stability. My translation: ---
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Aside from other translation problems, the above example involves the shifting of three parallel word units: strategic, powerful and limited. In this case, the translator shifted limited and powerful to positions that are further away from the noun to be modified; intervention. This kind of shifting on a relatively minor scale also ends up disrupting the original structure, although the resulting information distortion is moderate as compared with prior examples. The original parallel relationship among the three adjectives has somehow become vertical, with strategic being more closely connected with intervention than limited or powerful. Such syntactic structure change also involves cross-branching and thus should be avoided as well. The above discussion provides an outer limit that should be respected by translators. This limit should be applied across the board. Any transgression will seriously distort the information embedded in the source text, and any translation strategy that violates such a constraint can be immediately invalidated without resorting to other evaluation mechanisms. In addition to this outer constraint, there are other inner guidelines that need to be followed when encountering sophisticated expressions in the source text, i.e. the principle of minimal deviation and proportionality, which are to be discussed in Chapter 5.
4.10 Contagion
Contagion is defined as the misunderstanding of one sentence that subsequently leads to the misunderstanding of the next sentence. It is essentially a side effect. It shows the dear price that a translator must pay if he or she is not careful in dealing with some major categories of translation problems. When two consecutive sentences have been mistranslated, a whole lot of information is lost. Readers of the target text would have a hard time in grasping the original meaning embedded in the source text.
4.11 Elaboration
Elaboration as a translation technique can be contrasted with omission. When dealing with the translation of technical knowledge, colloquial expressions, and tones of expression, among others, we recommend the use of target language auxiliary words, which is in itself is an elaboration
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technique. However, the use of such a technique is justified only when it serves to bring out the embedded information in the source text. In contrast, our examples in 3.16, 3.17, 3.18 and 3.27 suggest that translators could distort the information in the source text by arbitrarily adding something without the associated benefits of revealing the embedded information. In Examples 3.16, 3.17, and 3.18, this elaboration was partly achieved by the use of the domestication principle, and the outcome was not pretty. Economics and finance are academic disciplines that employ a unified language and concepts around the globe, and the use of the domestication principle would be especially inappropriate in the translation of economic editorials.
4.12 Long word strings

Long word strings are something that can be classified in the same category as causing a wrong interpretation, as both can be cured in much the same way. The translator needs to drop the source text for a while and see if the translation still makes sense without its aid. After all, the translators knowledge is enhanced due to their access to the source text. They must put themselves in the shoes of the target language readers who would be reading without the help of the source text. In addition, long word strings stand for a failure to seek an active strategy. They are something that could very well be generated by translation software and can be avoided if the translator seeks a proper active strategy. Similarly, Section 4.15 discusses the translation problems of concise statements with significant implications, which often arise due to not seeking an active strategy.
4.13 Confusing causal relationships

A causal relationship is something not to be confused with the distortion of logic, which is concerned with the if-then relationship that is implied in an economic model. The if-then relationship is mostly theory-oriented. In contrast, a causal relationship is concerned with the cause and effect relationship that can potentially be subjected to empirical testing. The importance of the causal relationship is on a par with the if-then relationship, because any deviation from the appropriate level of expression will lead to a significant mistranslation, as seen in Examples 3.22 and 3.34.
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Therefore, translators should follow the same set of translation strategies discussed in Section 4.5. In Example 3.22 and 3.34, the causal relationship was qualitative rather than quantitative as no empirical testing was involved. However, there are cases when a quantitative causal relationship is expressed verbally, as witnessed by some of Robert Barros Business Week editorials, or editorials in Slate by Ray Fishman and Joel Waldfogel.13 Those editorials are not included in our analysis because there is no corresponding translation in Chinese. Such quantitative causal relationships could be even more complicated because they normally involve multiple regression, i.e. an effect that is driven by multiple factors. It would be interesting to observe how translators perform in these types of scenario in future studies, as most of them probably do not have a statistical background or training.
4.14 Mistranslation of pivotal statements

A pivotal statement is defined as a sentence that summarises the message of prior paragraphs or the whole article. This can be difficult for translators because its meaning is highly dependent on the context. If translators do not have a good comprehension of the whole gist of the argument, they could fail to appreciate the pivotal statement, which serves to summarise ideas that have been discussed earlier, in order to smoothly move on to the next stage of the argument. It is more likely to appear in articles that have an emphasis on logical links. In our sample, there are four examples that stem from the mistranslation of a summary statement. Three of these are cited from the libertarian writers, Gary Becker and Robert Barro. Clearly, it is a writing feature valued by certain writers, as a summary can improve the readers comprehension of the whole argument. The correct translation of a pivotal statement requires a thorough comprehension of the text as a whole. Together with the if-then relationship and the causal relationship, they constitute hard-core writing features since they are overwhelmingly concerned with internal logic. Such features can be contrasted with soft writing features such as refined statements and colloquial expressions.
4.15 Concise statements with significant implications

In this book, a concise statement is defined as a concise expression in the target text which happens to carry significant implications. Mostly likely,
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translators fail to appreciate the significant implications of a concise statement, and subsequently fail to successfully transfer these implications to the target text. The significant implications are so buried or distorted that readers of the target text are at a disadvantage in terms of deciphering these implications. However, if the translator interprets the statement in a way that brings out the significant implications, the conciseness of the language can be lost. Thus, the translator faces a dilemma, as he or she must choose between a concise expression or the implications. If instead we classify this category of translation problem in terms of its misguided strategy, it can also be referred to as a failure to interpret. In our sample, there are only two examples. In Example 3.35, the failure to interpret actually coincides with the mistranslation of the key word reflect. So, failure to interpret could very well be a problem that coincides with other categories of translation problem. For example, most colloquial expressions are concise, so the failure to translate colloquial expression can sometimes be classified as a failure to interpret. However, there is still an important difference, as colloquial expression might not always carry rich implications. Due to an insufficiency of samples, we need to elaborate on this problem through citing other examples. The following example is cited from the editorial The Gospel According to Gates. by Robert Shiller.
4.15.1
Text: But Carnegies doctrine never became received doctrine even in America, because most people reject the view that rich business people are smarter and morally superior. Certainly, Gates and Buffet claim nothing of the sort. Translation: Back translation: But Carnegies doctrine never became received doctrine even in America, because most people reject the view that rich business people are smarter and morally superior. Certainly, Gates and Buffet claim they own these things. My translation:
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The translator mistranslated the final sentence. It is a difficult sentence for the translator because it is a combination of a pivotal statement and a colloquial expression. In addition, it is also a concise expression that carries with it significant implications. For translators, they need to conceive an appropriate translation strategy in order to secure the significant implications. The complexity of such a sentence constitutes a barrier to reading comprehension, and if translators are not careful, they could come up with a translation that fails to preserve the significant implications embedded in the source text. In my translation, I added Chinese auxiliary words in order to bring out the significant implication. Of course, this was done at the cost of sacrificing the conciseness of expression in the source text. Such an alteration is justified when the significant implications are really crucial and reinforce the main idea of the whole article, which I think would be the case in the example above. However, not all cases are unambiguous. The following example from the same editorial illustrates the difficult decisions faced by translators.
4.15.2
Text: Regardless of whether Gates lives up to his promise, are people like him the exception that proves the rule? Translation: Back translation: Regardless of whether Gates lives up to his promise, are people like him the exception that proves the rule? My translation: In my translation, I elaborate slightly in order to bring out the significant implication contained in this sentence. However, my strategy would not be a sure win when compared with the translation in Project Syndicate, because in that translation, the conciseness of expression has been kept intact. This would be a marginal case where an active strategy might not fare any better than a conservative strategy. Overall, the discussion of 15 categories of problems provides a real base for conceiving appropriate translation strategies to tackle translation problems and the translation principles that govern these strategies. In the following Chapter, we will move upwards in our bottom-up approach, as illustrated by Figure 1 in Appendix B, to discuss translation strategies and principles.
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Notes
1. For relevant discussion of Turing test, see Chapter 3 and Chapter 7 of The Language Instinct. 2. See Artificial Intelligence and Globalization (2006) by Kenneth Rogoff. 3. See Grandmasters and Global Growth (2010) by Kenneth Rogoff. 4. See Chapter 4 of Fooled by Randomness. 5. See discussions in Lai (2013b). 6. The problem of distortion was referred as semantic substitution in Lai (2013a). 7. The translation from English to Chinese always involves a change in word order or phrases. Thus, the change is defined in a relative sense, referring to benchmarks such as software translation, as illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 of Appendix B. 8. That is why I cannot include the translation from the Economic Daily News in my sample because it involved omitting several paragraphs. This editorial was selected because it is relatively intact, as only one paragraph was omitted. 9. The title has been translated as ...which can be back-translated to: US bond and stock bubble not a great chance. 10. For relevant discussions, see Chapter 7 of The Language Instinct. 11. The definition of syntactic tree diagram in transformational grammar has been discussed in Chapter 2 of Transformational Grammar: A First Course by Andrew Radford. 12. For the discussion of right-branching and left-branching, see Chapter 7 of The Language Instinct. 13. The editorial by Robert Barro is posted on his website http://rbarro. com/popular-writings/. The editorials by Ray Fishman and Joel Waldfogel can be found in The Dismal Science section of Slate on the Slate website http://www.slate.com/.
5
Major propositions
In previous chapters, I touched on some of the major propositions of this book such as the translation strategy for the three-part onion sentence. In this chapter, I will discuss each and every major proposition of this book and elaborate on their mutual relationship. However, there is still one major building block that is missing. In Chapter 4, we recommended the use of Chinese auxiliary words as a way to bring out important information contained within the source text. However, this strategy could be subject to criticism once the back translation test is applied because the elaboration through using auxiliary words will distort the information when the target text is translated back into the source language. In Section 5.1, I will introduce two major propositions of this book: the principle of minimal deviation, and the relative back translation test. The principle of minimal deviation, when used in conjunction with the relative back translation test, can serve as an effective measure for selecting good translation strategies. In Section, 5.2, I will discuss the underlying rationale of the Turing test, three different ways of dividing translation problems, and an active strategy associated with each division. In Section 5.3, I will address the constraint implied by the three-part onion sentence. A strategy that violates such a constraint would be something outside the scope of the principle of proportionality, as well as the principle of minimal deviation, as it involves a substantial revision of the source texts syntactic structure in a way that its invalidity as a translation strategy becomes more than obvious. Finally, in Section 5.4, I will address the principle of proportionality and its relationship to the principle of minimal deviation.
5.1 The principle of minimal deviation and the relative back translation test
Most translation theories have concentrated on the idea of equivalence. Equivalence is an insightful theoretical construct, however, one wonders if
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total equivalence between the source and target text ever exists in the first place. In fact, the concept of equivalence has been subject to criticism. For example, Larose (1989) discussed the impossibility of an equivalence effect or response. Through a series of five papers, Qian (1992a, 1992b, 1993a, 1993b, 1994) elaborated on the concept of the implausibility of an equivalent response.1 Indeed, any document, after going through the process of translation, will never be the same, as some sort of information is destined to be lost. To elaborate on this point, let us assume that Chang is the best translator in the world in English to Chinese translation, and Smith is the best translator in Chinese to English translation. Let Chang translate an article from an English source text to Chinese, and Smith translate Changs target text back into English. If one compares the original document with the translation that has undergone two translations, one would most likely find significant differences between these two texts. Even if someone who is proficient in both English and Chinese, who instead only compares the source text with Changs translation, he or she would have to admit that the Chinese translation is never the same as its corresponding English source text. Examples are legion. A great number of masterpieces, such as those by Shakespeare, have been translated by great Chinese translators and received critical acclaim. However, even if the translation itself is a work of art, things will never be the same. Overall, translation can be viewed as a process of intervention or intrusion; source texts are the input, while target texts are the output of this process. Information contained within the source text will have to undergo a process of reallocation, realignment and resettlement for their appropriate slot in the target text. No matter how good, how swift, and how delicate the translator is in handling this resettlement of information, there is always some point where things are not quite the same. The information landscape of the source text simply cannot be 100 percent replicated into the target text. It is more like the relocation of a small village rather than the relocation of puzzles. Although we could build the same style of houses with the same decorations and the same streets in a similar location inhabited by the same people, the villagers will learn that certain things, such as the ecology, are not quite the same as before. In this book, I will propose a principle of translation, the principle of minimal deviation, to recognise the fact that information is destined to be lost during the translation process. Due to the inevitable loss of information during the translation process, one should stick to a translation principle that seeks to minimise this loss, rather than keeping the complete information secure. A translation principle that claims to secure the
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complete information, like a drug that claims to be free from all side effects, could turn out to be an illusive quest. In Chapter 4, I identified eight important writing features of economic editorials, and these writing features are sophisticated enough to be classified as key information. It would be the translators ultimate task to preserve these features of the source text in his or her translation, as they are especially valuable. Although it is impossible to translate an article that preserves all the information in the source text, translators should make the best of their endeavour, i.e. to achieve minimal deviation from the complete information of the source text. As the first best solution is impossible, any endeavour should always be targeted towards the search for a second best. The principle of minimal deviation can have some real applications in terms of selecting translation strategies. A translation strategy will fare better, from the perspective of minimal deviation, if it secures the information contained in the source text more faithfully through a minimal tailoring of that text, such as the addition of auxiliary words and a change in the order of words and phrases, than other strategies. To sum up, the principle of minimal deviation is effective in picking the winner, and the translation strategy that does better than the others in terms of reducing information loss should always be favoured once such a principle has been followed. Its application will be further illustrated in section 5.4 below. If the principle of minimal deviation is the principle to be followed by translators, how are we supposed to select a translation strategy based on its merit? The minimal principle by itself is insufficient for strategy selection, and so another key component, the relative back translation test, is required to activate the selection mechanism. In this book, a relative back translation test is defined as a test targeted on the comparison of two translation works from the angle of minimal deviation and through applying back translation on these two different works. So, if a certain translation strategy is adopted in a translation work, as in our case, the use of Chinese auxiliary words, one could compare two versions of back translation, with and without the use of auxiliary words, to see which one ends up securing more information. The use of Chinese auxiliary words can be justified on the grounds that it helps to preserve the key writing features, while at the same time its distortions are minor. If that is the case, its back translation quality will come out clearly as a winner. Overall, a relative back translation test must be used in conjunction with the principle of minimal deviation in order to pick a better translation strategy. I will not support the use of Chinese auxiliary words in certain genres, for example, poetry, where the conciseness of language is a paramount
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writing feature, and the use of auxiliary words would serve the very opposite function by destroying such a feature. Indeed, in our eight writing categories, there is one category that is concerned with concise statements with significant implications, and translators will face a struggle between the preservation of concise language and the pursuit of significant implications. Which one is more important? Under such circumstances, translators must essentially choose between an active strategy that brings out significant implications, and a conservative strategy that retains the conciseness of expression. The major proposition of this book, the principle of proportionality, to be discussed in Section 5.4, could be an equally effective, and perhaps even more easily accessible, principle for guiding translators out of such a dilemma. Similarly, a change in the order of words and phrases can also be justified on the same grounds that it serves to bring the essential writing features over to the target text while creating only a minor distortion effect. Although this strategy distorts information in the source text through the change in the order of words and phrases, the distortion is more than compensated for by the preservation of key writing features when used properly. Again, through the comparison of back translations, with and without the use of this strategy, we are able to determine if more information has been secured due to its use.
5.2 The revised Turing test, active vs. conservative translation strategies
The Turing test is for the development of artificial intelligence, which poses the following question: would the development of artificial intelligence have reached its mature stage if one could not tell a human interrogator from a machine one? It essentially tackles the question: is there still anything left to be accomplished only by humans despite the advancement of artificial intelligence? The Turing test has wide applications that include online chess games and writing. I proposed a revised Turing test for economic editorial writing to set the stage for the testing of economic editorial translation based on the close association between writing and translation. The revised Turing test for writing poses this question: what are the key writing features that serve to distinguish a good economic editorial from an average one? Such a test for writing could be slightly revised, and then applied to economic editorial translations. Those writing features that are difficult for a computer or an average writer to imitate would also be
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the writing features that are difficult for computer software or an average translator to translate. Following the same line of reasoning, I propose the following test for the translation of economic editorials: what are the essential qualities that serve to differentiate a good translation of an economic editorial from a translation carried out by translation software or an average translator? The answer to this question actually hinges on whether a translator can successfully translate some subtle and refined writing features from the source text to its target text. In Chapter 4, I applied the revised Turing test to divide the translation problems related to economic editorials into two broad categories; one that stems from the failure to deal with key writing features, and another peripheral category that is mostly related to a translators misguided translation strategy. The key eight categories are related to subtle writing features that are not easily imitated by an average writer or computer software. They are also difficult for beginner translators, as they tend to ignore or underestimate the importance of these features. For example, editorial writers rely a lot on refined statements to express their forecast of the economic outlook, while most translators tend to mistranslate these refined statements by changing their subtle expressions into direct ones, thereby amplifying the implied probability in the economic outlook. There were several such examples discussed in Chapter 3 and by Lai (2013a). There are three ways to classify these eight categories of writing features. First of all, we could examine their inherent nature. There are two features that are concerned with logical links as represented by the if-then relationship and the causal relationship, four categories of sophisticated expressions as represented by refined statements, colloquial expressions, concise statements with significant implications, and pivotal statements, one category of sophisticated content, as represented by technical knowledge, and one category of sophisticated syntactic structure, as represented by three-part onion sentences. In sections 5.3 and 5.4, the argument has been presented through treating three-part onion sentences as a category of syntactic structure, and the other seven categories as content categories. This is also the basic division followed in Figure 1 of Appendix B, which illustrates the bottom-up approach. Secondly, we could divide these writing features into hard-core vs. softcore writing features. Among the eight writing features, there are three hard-core writing features: if-then relationships, causal relationships and pivotal statements. These are hard-core features as they are predominantly concerned with internal logic. In contrast, there are soft-core writing features such as colloquial expression and refined statements. Soft-core
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writing features are mostly concerned with sarcastic, humorous expressions, subtle observations, or held-back attitudes, among others. There tends to be something between the lines, something hidden within these soft-core expressions, to be deciphered by readers. However, the chance of deciphering this kind of text will pretty much be killed off by translators if they have not been careful in their translation work. A translator has a duty to check if the readers of the target text stand an equal, or close to equal, chance of deciphering the text just as the source text readers did. Other writing features, such as concise statements with significant implications, and technical expressions are categories that lie somewhere between hardcore and soft-core. In addition, the three-part onion sentence is a neutral feature since it is a syntactic structure commonly used by scholars to express complicated or refined ideas. Thirdly, we could divide these writing features based on their sensitivity to translation strategies. As mentioned in Chapter 4, the if-then relationships and causal relationships are two of the most non-negotiable writing features, as they are underpinned by mathematical language. Such nonnegotiability does not apply, at least not on the same scale, to other hardcore writing features, such as pivotal statements, as they are not underpinned by mathematics, although an active strategy such as the addition of auxiliary words and changing the order of words and phrases can be applied across the board to the seven content categories of writing features. There are significant differences between if-then relationships and causal relationships on the one hand, and the other five-plus-one categories2 on the other hand. When dealing with these two relationships, a slight deviation in verbal expression could mean a great deviation from the information content. There is no grey area for translators to maneuver and they must make their best efforts to preserve these two features. Once these relationships are distorted, the whole translation process would be a waste, as the translation ends up communicating information that is totally wrong. There is no such thing as half-right half-wrong when it comes to translating these two features. The different responses to the translation strategies between two logical relationships on the one hand, and the other six core categories of writing features on the other hand, are illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 in Appendix B. The horizontal axis measures the level of activity of the translation strategy, while the vertical axis measures the information gain. The information gain is composed of the successful transferal of the embedded information minus the information loss due to the level of activity of the strategies, such as a change in syntactic order or the addition of words,
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a definition to be further discussed in Section 5.4. The information gain is equal to 0 at the origin when the text is translated by computer software and there is zero activity, as translators are not involved in the process. Figure 2 shows an average case, which applies to the six core categories of writing features, while Figure 3 shows an exceptional case, which applies to if-then and causal relationships. The top diagram in Figure 2 indicates a case when a conservative strategy dominates an active strategy, while the bottom diagram indicates an active strategy dominating a conservative strategy. When one strategy dominates, its information gain will be higher than the others strategy. In both cases, however, an overly active strategy will score poorly, as its information gain could be lower than that of software translation. Similarly, in Figure 3, the top diagram indicates a case when a conservative strategy dominates an active strategy, while the bottom diagram indicates an active strategy dominating a conservative strategy. Also, in both cases, the information gain achieved by an overly active strategy is the lowest out of all three strategies. However, things are a bit different here. A misapplied strategy, such as an active strategy in the top diagram, and a conservative strategy in the bottom diagram, could result in an information gain that is lower than computer software, although this need not always be the case. The bottom line is: in both cases, there would be a greater fluctuation in information gain if the translation strategy has been misapplied, i.e. their sensitivity to misapplied strategies is higher. When dealing with these two writing features, translators are advised to seek out the appropriate strategy in order to safeguard these logical relationships from being distorted. The appropriate translation strategy could be either conservative or active, depending on the specific context. In contrast, there would be better room to maneuver when translating the other six categories of writing features. Overall, when it comes to translating these eight core categories of writing features, whether seeking an active strategy or resorting to a conservative strategy, it naturally involves an evaluation process as entailed by the principle of proportionality, a major proposition of this book to be discussed in section 5.4.
5.3 Three-part onion sentences

As suggested by the discussions in the previous sections, translators should seek active translation strategies when appropriate in order to bring out the key writing features embedded in the source text. However, even if a certain
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context justifies the use of an active strategy, a strategy that is overly active will create the very opposite effect, i.e. it could end up by greatly distorting the information of the source text, perhaps even worse than software translation, as it might not leave many clues for readers of the target text to recover the information from the source text, much as what is illustrated in Figures 2 and 3 in Appendix B. At times, the cure can be worse than the disease. A discussion of three-part onion sentences provides a key clue to how not to translate. In Chapters 3 and 4, we discussed six translation strategies that are used to deal with three-part onion sentences. Out of all of them, only structure 1, the A-B-C sequence, and structure 4, the A-C-B sequence, are appropriate. The other strategies are overly active translation strategies that violate the cross-branching constraint, as discussed by Lai (2013a). Breaking up a syntactic unit, shifting part of it to the front of the sentence, and merging it with another syntactic unit together constitute a serious disruption of the syntactic structure of the source text, which will simultaneously cause a disruption of the meaning that is attached to the syntactic structure. The cross-branching constraint provides an outer limit which restrains any active translation strategy that seeks to change the syntactic structure of the source text. A translation strategy that violates this constraint will also lie beyond the scope of the principle of proportionality, as well as principle of minimal deviation. Both the principle of proportionality and the principle of minimal deviation apply to cases where an addition of auxiliary words and a change in order of words and phrases are within reasonable scope, as there is a fair chance that any information distortion caused by these strategies might be compensated for by the informationsecuring function that they perform. Once the cross-branching constraint is violated, the information distortion effect created by an overly active translation strategy is so blatantly obvious that we do not need to rely on balancing the practice of the principle of proportionality, or comparing the practice of the principle of minimal deviation in order to determine its validity.
5.4 The principle of proportionality

Based on discussion in Chapters 3 and 4, there are two sets of translation strategies for dealing with the eight core writing features of economic editorials, one for three-part onion sentences, and another strategy for dealing with the other seven categories of writing features that are related
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to content. When it comes to dealing with three-part onion sentences, I recommend the use of A-B-C, or A-C-B, as other strategies would severely distort the syntactic structure. A-B-C is a conservative approach in that it preserves the original syntactic order of source text. In contrast, A-C-B is an active approach because it restores the continuation between parts A and C, so the the readers memory and comprehension are not interrupted. Whether a conservative or active strategy is better will depend on the specific context. The decision of appropriate strategy will involve an evaluation process. The active strategy incurs a cost by changing the syntactic order of the source text, which can be justified if it clarifies the basic message implied by this kind of sentence. The inclusion of part B might not disrupt the coherence in the source text by much, but it could end up greatly disrupting the coherence of the target text if the same syntactic order is being followed. In such cases, translators should pursue the basic message implied by the source text instead of sticking to the syntactic structure of the source text. As for the other seven categories of writing features, I recommend the use of Chinese auxiliary words, together with changing the order of words and phrases in order to present these writing features to the target text readers. However, the application of such a strategy necessarily imposes a cost on the target text, as some information would be lost due to the addition and changing the word order. Still, this strategy is justified on the grounds that it helps to safeguard important information such as the seven categories of writing features. The justification for an active strategy also involves an evaluation process. Translators must weigh key embedded information that has been secured against the distortion that arises due to the intervention of syntactic structure or the addition of words. In practice, translators would also find marginal cases where to apply or not to apply an active strategy becomes a dilemma as the information to be saved is about the same as the information that has been distorted due to the application of the translation strategy. Overall, these two sets of strategies can be unified by a principle; the principle of proportionality. The principle of proportionality is a legal principle that has wide applications in administrative and constitutional law, among others. According to Administrative Law by Paul Craig, The principle of proportionality embodies some sense of appropriate relationship between means and ends.3 Based on that principle, a decision must then be made as to whether the public bodys decision was indeed proportionate or not.4 Basically, the principle of proportionality relies striking a balance between the means and the end, and inquires if one means, such as an administrative measure, can be justified by the end that it claims to achieve.
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The principle of proportionality can be readily applicable to the study of translation problems if some relevant terms are appropriately defined. Based on the context of economic editorials, I will define changes in the order of words and phrases, the omission and addition of words and phrases, the substitution of expressions, and merging, among others, as means. The end is defined as the crucial information content of the source text. Thus, any active translation strategy that seeks to change the order of words and phrases, to add or omit words and phrases, to substitute one expression with another, to merge opinions or statements, can be justified if it eventually secures the crucial information contained in the source text; this information securing effect is significantly greater than the distortion effect created by an active strategy. In our case, the crucial information of the source text is linked to the eight core writing features of economic editorials. Viewing things from this perspective, an active strategy for three-part onion sentences can be justified if, by linking parts A and C together, it serves to clarify the message for the target text readers without at the same time creating too much distortion. If not, translators should resort to the conservative strategy, which replicates the syntactic order of the source text. Similarly, an active strategy such as changing the order of words and phrases, together with the addition of auxiliary words can be justified if they end up securing the seven key writing features from being lost without any serious distortion of other information. If not, translators should resort to conservative strategies by sticking to the original syntactic order, words and phrases of the source text. Translators must consider which strategy is better as measured by its information gain, defined in Section 5.2 and illustrated by Figures 2 and 3 in Appendix B. The addition of auxiliary words is somewhere in the lightweight category in terms of its impact on information distortion. In contrast, many of the peripheral, as well as core, categories of translation problems suffer from misguided translation strategies. These strategies are somewhere in the heavyweight category because their impact on information distortion is quite substantial. Elaboration is a case in point, as illustrated by Examples 3.16, 3.17, 3.18 and 3.27. In these examples, translators added something out of nothing without the associated benefit of securing the embedded information. This is a serious violation of the principle of proportionality. In addition, throughout this book, I do not support the omission of words and phrases as an active strategy, because one can hardly expect any information gain through omission, except in some rare cases, while the information loss due to this omission is quite obvious. The same argument can also apply to other misguided translation strategies in peripheral as well
Major propositions
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as core categories, such as merging, unnecessary distortion, substituting colloquial expressions with written expressions, or vice versa. To sum up, the principle of proportionality can be an effective principle for retiring the losers, i.e. the misguided translation strategies. The principle of proportionality could have a similar application as the principle of minimal deviation, and ends up generating the same outcome in most contexts. However, there are some differences between the two. As mentioned in Section 5.1, the principle of minimal deviation does a better job in picking the winner. In contrast, the principle of proportionality fares better in retiring the loser, as a misguided translation strategy cannot be justified by the information that it claims to secure. The principle of proportionality as a legal doctrine is used to determine whether certain government action is unconstitutional. Its effectiveness in picking the winner is questionable, and that is why I have introduced the principle of minimal deviation together with the relative back translation test in order to complement its lack of aggressiveness. The interplay between homogeneous principles that play similar roles is also a feature of law. These similar functioning principles can complement each other, as the real cases are too divergent to be governed by one single principle. Second, the principle of proportionality can be used independently, while the principle of minimal deviation must be used in conjunction with the relative back translation test in order to be effective. Third, when considering whether to apply or not to apply a given strategy, i.e. a marginal decision, the principle of proportionality provides more immediate, convenient and easier guidance, as it clearly defines its means and end, while the principle of minimal deviation must always rely on the comparison of two back translations, which is a more complicated thought experiment. In addition to its application of retiring misguided translation strategies, the principle of proportionality can provide an easy guideline for selecting strategies. This application can be illustrated through the examples discussed earlier. Examples 4.15.1 and 4.15.2 are two examples of concise statement with significant implications. When tackling this sort of problem, translators will likely face a tradeoff: whether to pursue the significant implications or to stick with the conciseness of the language? Of course, this problem would not exist if a translator could use concise expressions in the target language to bring out the significant implications. However, on most of these occasions, such a tradeoff is real and inevitable. When this occurs, translators can resort to the principle of proportionality to evaluate the relative merits of active and conservative strategies. For example, in Example 4.15.1, I resorted to an active strategy, while in example 4.15.2, I settled for a conservative strategy. An active strategy is more likely to be
78
justified if the implications are more significant, or if it is easier, as minimal changes in the order of words and phrases and the addition of auxiliary words are required, to bring out these implications. Another case in point involves the translation of technical knowledge. In cases where the technical knowledge is sophisticated, it tends to justify the use of an active strategy. By contrast, in cases where the technical knowledge is rather straightforward, a conservative strategy could turn out to be a better resort. Similarly, in cases where a refined statement is set against the backdrop of a prediction statement, an active strategy is more likely to be justified. To sum up, the principle of proportionality provides easily accessible algorithms that can guide translators out of their dilemma in certain marginal cases. Although the same conclusions can also be reached through the principle of minimal deviation, the principle of proportionality has the edge for its easy algorithms. The principle of proportionality can be used in conjunction with the principle of minimal deviation to become an even more effective guide for translation strategy. So, if a translator can resort to a minimal addition of auxiliary words, or restrict the changes in the order of words and phrases to a minimum, without hampering the information securing effect, he is advised to follow the principle of minimal deviation by confining any active strategy to this, because the end, i.e. the securing of information, would have been equally well served by such a minimal scale active strategy. Translators should always be aware of the information distortion associated with an active strategy, and the degree of activity is only justified by the degree to which it helps to secure key information. Thus, out of all the active strategies that serve to secure some crucial information, translators should opt for the least active strategy in order to limit the information distortion to a minimum.
Notes
1. See Chapter 3 of Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications for discussions of equivalence. 2. Five content categories plus one category of syntactic structure. 3. Page 628. 4. Page 628. 5. One rare case that I can think of is long word strings. However, one could use a better strategy to handle the problem of long word strings.
6
Conclusions
This is a book about information, translation strategies, and the application of legal methodologies on translation problems. As information is transmitted between the source text and the target text, with the facilitation of translators, some sort of information distortion will arise during the translation process. In order to conceive translation strategies that are applicable in practice, translators must recognise the impossibility of total equivalence of information between the source and target texts. Translation studies are much influenced by literature and linguistics theories. In recent years, we also witness another influence from quantitative side, much of it are concerned with the statistical inference. Thus, researchers of translation studies are torn between methodologies that are drastically different, qualitative method from literature and linguistics on the one hand, and quantitative method from statistics, on the other hand. The purpose of this book is to seek a third way through discussion of samples and the application of legal methodologies to translation studies. The 36 examples, together with eight supplementary examples, may not be sufficient for someone who is serious about statistical test. However, they are quite fruitful from the perspective of case studies. The collection of samples might not be as objective as random sampling. However, the embedded objectivity within the samples is amazing that it actually provides an automatic compass toward the search of appropriate strategies such that the final results presented in this book are never quite the same as what have been conceived before. Whether the third way is a good way will be ultimately judged by its practical applications. In order to conceive translation strategies and principles that are practical, this book follows the methodology of law. Legal doctrines are practical in that they serve to solve legal cases. An important feature of legal methodology is its reliance on a legal test. Judges must rely on a legal test to decide whether a defendant is guilty or not. Why not rely on a test
80
to decide one thing from another? There are two important tests in this book; the relative back translation test and the revised Turing test for the translation of economic editorials. The revised Turing test for the translation of economic editorials has been used to sort out translation problems from one category to another, while the relative back translation test is to be used in conjunction with the principle of minimal proportionality, to select a translation strategy that excels. The revised Turing test divides translation problems into core categories that are concerned with critical writing features and peripheral categories that arise from misguided translation strategies. Generally speaking, most lessons on how to translate can be drawn from the study of the core categories, and most lessons on how not to translate can be drawn from the study of most of the peripheral categories, as illustrated by Figure 1 in Appendix B. The appropriate strategies for dealing with core categories can be justified by the principle of proportionality or the principle of minimal deviation, while the misguided strategies that create peripheral translation problems can be dismissed by the principle of proportionality. The two principles perform a similar function in distinguishing one strategy from another. However, one important difference between the two is that the principle of minimal deviation does better at picking the winner, while the principle of proportionality fares better at retiring the loser. When the two principles are used in conjunction, they function even better at selecting translation strategies. An interesting feature of legal methodology is the mutual interplay of several homogeneous doctrines, each with somehow different applications that work together to solve a diversity of cases. Overall, the bottom-up legal methodology governed by the two tests and the two principles, together with the collection of samples, turns out to be an effective approach in guiding us toward the search for translation strategies for economic editorials. The whole roadmap is clearly illustrated in Figure 1 of Appendix B. It started from a sample collection, followed by a categorisation of translation problems, which in turn, was followed by a broader categorisation suggested by the revised Turing test. Finally, the broader categorisation was followed by strategies justified or retired through the use of translation principles. One ironic point is: such detailed algorithms, if further elaborated, can actually enhance the performance of artificial intelligence once it is incorporated into programming. The basic premise of this book is to search for something that cannot be easily achieved by computer software, while the studies presented by this book may eventually enhance the performance of computer software, making it even harder for a human to beat a computer. Thus, this book is doing something like digging its own grave; is that a good strategy?
Appendix A
Table 1. Rankings of Economists

Name of Economists Robert Barro Gary Becker Barry Eichengreen Martin Feldstein Dani Rodrik Kenneth Rogoff Robert Shiller Bradford DeLong Paul Krugman Coup Ranking Coup Ranking (Publications) (Citations) 38 258 301 12 31 219 142 83 40 2 64 462 154 45 66 286 118 3 Average Score Ranking at IDEAS (July 2013) 3 14 30 13 66 10 72 448 21
Table 2. Translation Problems and Their Corresponding Examples

Translation Problems Distortion of Refined Statements Examples 3.1, 3.11, 3.15, 3.16, 3.19, 3.21, 3.22, 3.23, 3.24, 3.25, 3.26, 3.29 Opening Up Wrong Interpretations 3.2, 3.10, 3.14 Omission 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.17, 3.23, 3.29 Mistranslation of Key Words 3.3, 3.5, 3.10, 3.18, 3.21, 3.30, 3.32, 3.35 Distortion of Logic 3.4, 3.7 Merging 3.4, 3.5, 3.19 Mistranslation of Technical Knowledge 3.5, 3.6, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14 Mistranslation of Colloquial Expression 3.8, 3.11 Three-Part Onion Sentences 3.9, 3.13, 3.31 Contagion 3.9, 3.10 Elaboration 3.16, 3.17, 3.18, 3.27 Long Word Strings 3.20 Confusion of Causal Relationship 3.22, 3.34 Mistranslation of Pivotal Statement 3.28, 3.31, 3.33, 3.36 Concise Statement/Word with 3.30, 3.35 Significant Implications
Appendix B
Select the strategy justified by principle of proportionality or Picking the winner through principle of minimal deviation
Conservative strategy
Active strategy
Conservative strategy
Active strategy
Seven categories of key writing features
One category of syntactic structure
Overly active strategy
Violation of cross-branching constraint
Content
Syntactic structure
Rule out misguided strategies
Principle of proportionality
Eight core categories of writing features
Seven peripheral categories
Revised Turing test

15 Categories of translation problems
Deduction
Collection of samples
Figure 1. Bottom-up Approach
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Information gain
A1 A2
Strategy 0 Conservative Active Overly active
A3
Information Loss
Information gain
B2 B1
B3
Information Loss
Figure 2. Regular Case: the Relationship between Information Gain and the Level of Activity of Translation Strategies
Appendix B
85
Information gain
C1
C2 C3 Information loss
Information gain
C2
C1 C3
Information loss
Figure 3. Exceptional Case: the Relationship between Information Gain and the Level of Activity of Translation Strategies
References
Barro, R. (2013) Popes, Saint, and Religious Competition, Project Syndicate. Becker, G. (2006) The Morality of Capital Punishment, Project Syndicate. Craig, P. (2008) Administrative Law, 6th edn (Sweet and Maxwell). Coup, T. (2003) Revealed Performances: Worldwide Rankings of Economists and Economic Department, 1990-2000, Journal of the European Economic Association 1(6): 13091345. DeLong, J. and Bradford, (2006) Friedman Completed Keynes, Project Syndicate. Eichengreen, B. (2010) Europes Inevitable Haircut, Project Syndicate. Eichengreen, B. (2013) The Use and Abuse of Monetary History, Project Syndicate. Feldstein, M. (2010) Why Greece Will Default, Project Syndicate. Feldstein, M. (2012) An Optimistic Case for the Euro, Project Syndicate. Krugman P. (2013) Bernanke, Blower of Bubble, New York Times. Lai, P.Y. (2013a) The Information Distortion Problem in Op-Ed Translation: The Principle of Proportionality and Its Applications, NCUE Journal of Humanities 8: 2336 (in Chinese). Lai (2013b), The Differences in Writing Styles between Scholars and Journalists: an Illustration through Economic and Financial Editorials, Spectrum: NCUE Studies in Language, Literature, Translation and Interpretation 11, forthcoming. Larose, R. (1989) Thories, Contemporaines de la Traduction, 2nd edn (Quebec: Presses de lUniversit du Qubec). Munday, J. (2012) Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications (Routledge). Pinker, S. (1995) The Language Instinct (Perennial).
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Qian, H. (1992a) On the Implausibility of Equivalence Response (Part I), Metra 37(2): 289301. Qian, H. (1992b) On the Implausibility of Equivalence Response (Part II), Metra 37(3): 491506. Qian, H. (1993a) On the Implausibility of Equivalence Response (Part III), Metra 38(2): 226237. Qian, H. (1993b) On the Implausibility of Equivalence Response (Part IV), Metra 38(3): 449467. Qian, H. (1994) On the Implausibility of Equivalence Response (Part V), Metra 39(3): 418432. Radford, A. (1988) Transformational Grammar: A First Course (Cambridge University Press). Rogoff, K. (2006) Artificial Intelligence and Globalisation, Project Syndicate. Rogoff, K. (2008) Inflation is Now the Lesser Evil, Project Syndicate. Rogoff, K. (2010) Grandmasters and Global Growth, Project Syndicate. Rogoff, K. (2012) Whats Troubling India, Project Syndicate. Rodrik, D. (2007) One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Princeton University Press). Rodrik, D. (2012) The New Global Economys (Relative) Winners, Project Syndicate. Rodrik, D. (2013) What Use Are Economists? Project Syndicate. Shiller, R.J. (2006) The Gospel According to Gates, Project Syndicate. Shiller, R.J. (2006) The New Cosmopolitan, Project Syndicate. Shiller, R.J. (2013) A Metaphor for Obama, Project Syndicate. Taleb, N.N. (2005) Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Market (Random House). Turing, A.M. (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind 59: 433460.

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PING-YEN LAI

THE ANATOMY OF TRANSLATION PROBLEMS

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

4 The anatomy of translation problems

Appendix A Appendix B References

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

2.1 Sample collection

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

2.2 Bottom-up approach: problems, strategies, tests and principles

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.1 Example 3.1

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.2 Example 3.2

3.3 Example 3.3

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.4 Example 3.4

3.5 Example 3.5

3.6 Example 3.6

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.7 Example 3.7

3.8 Example 3.8

3.9 Example 3.9

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

Part A, Part B, Part C.

(Part B1 + Part A), Part B2, Part C.

3.10 Example 3.10

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.11 Example 3.11

3.12 Example 3.12

3.13 Example 3.13

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.14 Example 3.14

3.15 Example 3.15

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.16 Example 3.16

3.17 Example 3.17

3.18 Example 3.18

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.19 Example 3.19

3.20 Example 3.20

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.21 Example 3.21

3.22 Example 3.22

3.23 Example 3.23

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.24 Example 3.24

3.25 Example 3.25

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.26 Example 3.26

3.27 Example 3.27

3.28 Example 3.28

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.29 Example 3.29

3.30 Example 3.30

3.31 Example 3.31

The Anatomy of Translation Problems

3.32 Example 3.32

3.33 Example 3.33

The Anatomy of Translation Problems