Untranslatability by pakfaizal.web.id

Untranslatability, the translator's greatest “nightmare” and the scholar's chief interest, is usually seen as existing in two forms. Linguistic - when the target language has no corresponding words, tenses, phonetic or grammatical entities that occur in the source language; Cultural - when the target language and its culture lack a relevant situational feature for the source language text.

Linguistic problem  Linguistic untranslatability, according to Catford, occurs when there is no lexical or syntactical substitute in the target language for a source language item.  For example, the Danish ”Jeg fandt brevet”  is linguistically untranslatable, because it involves structures that does not exist in English. The German Um wieviel uhr darf man sie morgan wecken? Is belong to untranslatable sentence.

Cultural problem translating the names of objects characteristic of a L community (meals, clothes, habits, customs .etc.) into another L in which these objects do not exist For example the javanese: minyak kayu putih (kajuput oil), krambil (old coconut meat), serundeng (sauteed grated coconut) selametan (traditional fiest?),siraman (showering?), diruwat (cleansed?), kembang setaman (flower water?), ki dalang (the puppeteer), kunduran truk (???)

Just kidding- just for fun > Enemy at the Gates — Musuhe Wis Tekan Gapuro > Die Hard — Matine Angel > Die Hard II — Matine Angel Tenan > Die Hard III With A Vengeance — Kowe Kok Ra Mati2 To? > Bad Boys — Bocah-bocah Elek > Lost in Space — Ilang Neng Awang-awang >> Paycheck — Kasbon > Independence Day — Pitulasan > The Day After Tomorrow — Sesuke

> Die Another Day — Matine Ojo Saiki > There is Something About Marry — Meri Ono Apa-apane > Silence of the Lamb — Wedhuse Mutung > All The Pretty Horses — Jarane Ayu-ayu > Planet of the Apes — Planete Wong Apes > Gone in Sixty Second — Minggat Sakcepete

Original Sin — Dosa Tenanan > The Abyss — Entek-entekan > Sea biscuit — Klethikan Neng Laut > Terminator — Terminal Montor > Lord Of The Ring — Pedagang Akik… > Deep Impact — Ngantem Njero > Million Dollar Baby — Babi Regone Sayuto

Literary works’ title A doll’s house – menjual rumah-adol omah King Lear – dari utara –King ler

if languages segment reality differently  different “world view” certain phenomena of reality appear in excessive detail in one L, while there is only a collective name for them in another one: e.g., - Eskimo: many names for the different types of snow; - Argentinean gauchos: the multitude of colour names for horses; - Arabic: the postures of camels; - Russian: the types of fish; - Italian: the types of pasta; -Indonesian : the types of rice: nasi,beras, gabah. In English these different types will be translated into just one word “rice”. Saya makan nasi/beras/gabah??? 

However, some scholars deny the existence of untranslatability, e. g However, some scholars deny the existence of untranslatability, e.g. pointing to the years of translation practice. Others, mostly the deconstructionists, deny the possibility of translating anything - and no wonder, since they also deny the possibility of understanding in communication in one language.

How to solve untranslatability Translators deal with untranslatability by employing a number of procedures. These include: Adaptation - Borrowing - Calque - Compensation - Paraphrase - Translator's note -

Adaptation Adaptation - when social or cultural reality of the source text with reality taken from the culture of the target language; An adaptation, also known as a free translation, is a procedure whereby the translator replaces a term with cultural connotations, where those connotations are restricted to readers of the original language text, with a term with corresponding cultural connotations that would be familiar to readers of the translated text.

For example, in the Belgian comic book The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin's trusty canine sidekick Milou is translated as Snowy in English, Bobbie in Dutch, Kuttus in Bengali, and Struppi in German; likewise the detectives Dupont and Dupond become Thomson and Thompson in English, Jansen and Janssen in Dutch, Jonson and Ronson in Bengali, Schultze and Schulze in German, Hernández and Fernández inSpanish, 杜本 and 杜朋 (Dùběn and Dùpéng) in Chinese, Fomichoff and Fomichoff in Russian and Skafti and Skapti in Icelandic. Adaptation is often used when translating poetry, works of theatre, and advertising.

Borrowing - Borrowing - when the translator uses the word or phrase of the original, usually in italics; Borrowing is a translation procedure whereby the translator uses a word or expression from the source text in the target text unmodified. In English text, borrowings not sufficiently anglicised are normally in italics.

Calque - Calque - when the translation of an expression is rendered word-for-word; Calque entails taking an expression, breaking it down to individual elements and translating each element into the target language word for word. For example, the German word "Alleinvertretungsanspruch" can be calqued to "single-representation-claim", but a proper translation would result in "Exclusive Mandate". Word-by-word translations usually have comic value, but can be a means to save as much of the original style as possible, especially when the source text is ambiguous or undecipherable to the translator.

Compensation  Compensation - when the translator adds elements to the target texts to make up for their absence in the target language; Compensation is a translation procedure whereby the translator solves the problem of aspects of the source text that cannot take the same form in the target language by replacing these aspects with other elements or forms in the source text.

Compensation  For example, many languages have two forms of the second person pronoun, namely a informal\singular form and a formal\plural form. This is known as T-V distinction, found in French (tu vs. vous), Spanish (tú / vos vs. usted), Bengali (aapni vs.tumi vs. tui), German (du / Ihr vs. Sie) and Italian (tu vs. voi/lei), for example, but not contemporary English. Hence, to translate a text from one of these languages to English, the translator may have to compensate by using a first name or nickname, or by using syntactic phrasing that are viewed as informal in English (I'm, you're, gonna, dontcha, etc.), or by using English words of the formal and informal registers, to preserve the level of formality.

Translator's note Translator's note - when the translator breaks the flow of the text by an annotation that compensates the untranslatability.

A translator's note is a note (usually a footnote or an endnote) added by the translator to the target text to provide additional information pertaining to the limits of the translation, the cultural background, or any other explanations. Some translation exams allow or demand such notes. Some translators regard resorting to notes as a failure, although this view is not shared by most professionals.