Thinking German Translation

Thinking German Translation is a comprehensive practical course in translation for

advanced undergraduate students of German and postgraduate students embarking on
Master’s translation programmes. Now in its third edition, this course focuses on translation
as a decision-making process, covering all stages of the translation process from research,
to the ‘rewriting’ of the source text in the language of translation, to the final revision
process.
This third edition brings the course up to date, referencing relevant research sources
in Translation Studies and technological developments as appropriate, and balancing the
coverage of subject matter with examples and varied exercises in a wide range of genres
from both literary and specialised material. All chapters from the second edition have been
extensively revised and, in many cases, restructured; new chapters have been added—
literary translation; research and resources—as well as suggestions for further reading.
Offering around 50 practical exercises, the course features material from a wide range of
sources, including:

• business, economics and politics

• advertising, marketing and consumer texts
• tourism
• science and engineering
• modern literary texts and popular song
• the literary canon, including poetry

A variety of translation issues are addressed, among them cultural differences, genre
conventions, the difficult concept of equivalence, as well as some of the key differences
between English and German linguistic and textual features.
Thinking German Translation is essential reading for all students seriously interested in
improving their translation skills. It is also an excellent foundation for those considering a
career in translation.
A Tutor’s Handbook offers comments and notes on the exercises for each chapter,
including not only translations but also a range of other tasks, as well as some specimen
answers. It is available to download from www.routledge.com/9781138920989.

Margaret Rogers is Professor Emerita in Translation and Terminology Studies at the

University of Surrey; Michael White is Lecturer in German at the University of St Andrews.
The two co-authors of the second edition, Michael Loughridge and Ian Higgins, as well as the
originator of the Thinking Translation series, the late Sándor Hervey, are all former colleagues
at St Andrews, the former both with extensive experience of professional translation.
Thinking Translation

Thinking Spanish Translation

A Course in Translation Method: Spanish to English, 2nd Edition
Louise Haywood, Michael Thompson and Sándor Hervey

Thinking Chinese Translation

A Course in Translation Method: Chinese to English
Valerie Pellatt and Eric T. Liu

Thinking Italian Translation

A Course in Translation Method: Italian to English, 2nd Edition
Stella Cragie, Ian Higgins, Sándor Hervey and Patrizia Gambarotta

Thinking Arabic Translation

A Course in Translation Method: Arabic to English, 2nd Edition
James Dickins, Sándor Hervey and Ian Higgins

Thinking English Translation

Analysing and Translating English Source Texts
Stella Cragie and Ann Pattison

Thinking German Translation

A Course in Translation Method: German to English, 3rd Edition
Margaret Rogers and Michael White, with material from the 2nd edition by Michael
Loughridge and Ian Higgins, based on an original idea by Sándor Hervey

For more information about this series please visit: www.routledge.com/Thinking-

Translation/book-series/SE0006
Thinking German Translation
A Course in Translation Method:
German to English
Third Edition

Margaret Rogers and Michael White

with material from the second edition by
Michael Loughridge and Ian Higgins
based on an original idea by Sándor Hervey
Third edition published 2020
by Routledge
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Ian Higgins and Sándor Hervey
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Names: Rogers, Margaret, [date] author. | White, Michael James, author. |
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Title: Thinking German translation : a course in translation method :
German to English / Margaret Rogers and Michael White ; with material
from the second edition by Michael Loughridge and Ian Higgins based
on an original idea by Sándor Hervey.
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2020. | Series: Thinking translation | Includes bibliographical references
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With grateful thanks to our own translation teachers
and colleagues
Contents

Preface to the third editionxi

Acknowledgementsxiii

Introduction 1

SECTION A
Overview and basic concepts 5

1 Translation: a decision-making process 7

Practical 1 13
1.1 Thinking about translating for a purpose 13
1.2 Rewriting a text for a different purpose and audience 14
1.3 Translating for a constrained space 15
1.4 Translating culture-specific items for a new audience 16

2 Translation methods: decisions about ‘closeness’ 19

Practical 2 24
2.1 What is the translation for? 24
2.2 Comparison: closeness and text function 24

3 Equivalence and non-equivalence 27

Practical 3 35
3.1 Evaluating translation strategies in terms of equivalence 35
3.2 Equivalence, genre and culture 38

SECTION B
Some key issues 41

4 Textual genre and translation issues 43

Practical 4 56
4.1 Comparative analysis 56
viii Contents
4.2 Research exercise 57
4.3 Translation: annual financial report 58
4.4 Translation: Novelle 59

5 Cultural issues in translation 63

Practical 5 72
5.1 Text for discussion: novel 72
5.2 Translation: tourism brochure 73

6 Compensation 76
Practical 6 84
6.1 Translation: company report 84
6.2 Translation analysis: song 85

SECTION C
Formal properties of texts89

7 Meaning and translation 91

Practical 7 98
7.1 One-to-many meanings: the case of ‘Sicherheit’ 98
7.2 Analysing meaning choices: art exhibition leaflet 99
7.3 Translation: lexical meaning in a specialised text 100
7.4 Lexical meaning in the translation of poetry 101
7.5 Translation: lexical meaning in a journalistic text 103

8 Text-related issues in translation 106

Practical 8 116
8.1 Comparison: coherence in poetry translation 116
8.2 Translation: cohesion and coherence in an essay 117
8.3 Translation: CD booklet 118

9 Sentential issues in translation 121

Practical 9 127
9.1 Research exercise 127
9.2 Translation: literary history 127
9.3 Translation: tourist guide 128

10 Grammatical issues in translation 130

Practical 10 138
10.1 Text for discussion: poem 138
10.2 Translation comparison: international agreement 139
10.3 Translation: essay 140
 Contents ix
11 Phonological issues in translation 143
Practical 11 151
11.1 Translation and discussion: verse 151
11.2 Analysis and translation: verse 151
11.3 Translation: verse 152

SECTION D
The translation process and translation specialisms 155

12 Research and resources for translation 157

Practical 12 176
12.1 Comparing resources 176
12.2 Researching terminology for translation 176

13 Translating consumer-oriented texts 181

Practical 13 194
13.1 Analysis and evaluation: tourist brochure/website 194
13.2 Translation: in-flight magazine 194
13.3 Analysis and evaluation: university website 195
13.4 Translation: marketing slogan 196
13.5 Comparison and evaluation: promotional text for visitors 196

14 Translating scientific and technical texts 198

Practical 14 209
14.1 Translation: technical text (specification of works) 209
14.2 Translation: scientific text (expert journalistic
article) 210

15 Translating literary texts 213

Practical 15 223
15.1 Translating poetry 223
15.2 Translating dialogue 224

16 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 227

Practical 16 239
16.1 Revision (including proofing): critical analysis
(information leaflet—Economics) 239
16.2 Revision (including proofing): information
leaflet—Economics 240
16.3 Revision (including proofing) or reviewing: holiday
company magazine 241
x Contents
16.4 Post-editing MT output: university website 243
16.5 Revision (including proofing): translation by fellow
student 243

Postscript: a career in translation? 245

Index 251
Preface to the third edition

In introducing the second edition of Thinking German Translation (2006) our

colleagues noted that the original 1995 edition had been completely revised
and rewritten. We have maintained that tradition, taking into account develop-
ments over the intervening years as well as incorporating some refinements
based on earlier years of translation scholarship, not to forget our own class-
room experiences over time. The important link with St Andrews is maintained,
acknowledging the origins of the course in the early 1990s and the original idea
of Sándor Hervey. We are particularly grateful to Michael Loughridge and Ian
Higgins, co-authors of the second edition, for the wealth of material with which
we have been able to work in our attempt to fashion a new edition. Thanks are
due to students in St Andrews who have trialled much of the material and many
of the exercises set.
In terms of structure, we have kept the idea of sections, of which there are
now four: Overview and Basic Concepts; Some Key Issues; Formal Properties of
Texts; and The Translation Process and Translation Specialisms. The introduction
provides a preliminary orientation to contextualise the course within the current
Translation Studies landscape and in the practice of translation. Each section also
has its own brief introduction, which can be used by the tutor and/or the students
to decide where to focus their interest and attention if they need or wish to be
selective in pursuing the course.
Many of the topics and some material from the second edition have been car-
ried over into the new chapters, with many revisions and additions, bearing in
mind the time gap between the second and third editions. We have also split two
chapters (one on translation as a product and one on grammatical and sentential
issues), combined two chapters (literal and connotative meaning), and added two
new chapters (research and resources; literary translation). In our efforts to accom-
modate these changes, we have incorporated some of the topics and material from
the second edition section on Contrastive Topics and Practicals in the chapters on
Formal Properties of Texts. The number of exercises has been increased to almost
50 and we have attempted to broaden the range of exercises to include tasks other
than but still related to translation, such as research, analysis and evaluation.
Our focus remains that of the original course, namely, written translation
rather than, for example, the fast-developing area of multimedia or audio-visual
xii Preface to the third edition
translation. That would require another book. We have continued to work with
examples from a range of text genres, both literary and non-literary or ‘special-
ised’, and dating from the middle ages to the present, in order to root the discussion
in each chapter in practice, and because we believe that the different forms of tex-
tual study and production which inform Translation Studies and modern languages
more broadly are mutually informing. The final section of the course applies the
essential points of the previous chapters to the translation process from research
to revision, with a chapter on each of three specialisms: consumer-related texts,
science and technology, and literature.
One new feature is a Further Reading section at the end of each chapter, which
we hope will help both tutors and students to pursue further any particular points
which interest them and to build up an inventory of key literature and resources.
Responsibility for the changes made since the second edition, sometimes radi-
cal, remains, of course, our own, including our reorientation of a central theme of
the second edition—translation loss—towards translation as a more creative and,
we hope, exciting activity, namely, translation as a process of decision making and
text production. And that is how we open this new edition.
Margaret Rogers, University of Surrey
Michael White, University of St Andrews
August 2019
Acknowledgements

In acknowledging the help and support we have received during the production
of this course, we think not only of our personal contacts, but also of the good-
natured helpfulness of many employees of large and small firms and other insti-
tutions whose texts we asked to use. But at the very least we would like here to
say thank you publicly to the following friends and colleagues: Professor Sabine
Braun for her valuable advice and insights on some of the German material used
in this book and Eyvor Fogarty for her professional advice on the Postscript. We
would also like to thank colleagues at Routledge—Camille Burns and Claire
Margerison—for their efficiency, helpfulness and patience in providing editorial
assistance.
The authors and publisher would like to thank the following people and institu-
tions for permission to reproduce copyright material. Every effort has been made
to trace copyright holders, but in a few cases this has not been possible. Any omis-
sions brought to our attention will be remedied in future printings: Cambridge
University Press for extracts from the Authorized Version of the Bible (The King
James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the Crown, are reproduced by per-
mission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press; Wolf Biermann for
permission to cite the song ‘Kunststück’; The Random House Group Ltd. for per-
mission to reprint ©1994: extracts from All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich
Maria Remarque. Translated by Brian Murdoch. Published by Jonathan Cape; The
Random House Group Ltd. for permission to reprint ©1963: an extract from Cat
and Mouse by Günter Grass, translated by Ralph Manheim published by Martin,
Secker and Warburg; The Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie, for material
from its Für ein attraktives Deutschland programme (1994); Verlagsgruppe Ran-
dom House GmbH ©2003 for permission to reproduce the poem ‘Todesfüge’ by
Paul Celan. Published by Suhrkamp; Georg Thieme Verlag for material from Diwok
et al. ‘Superoxiddismutasenaktivität von Ginkgo-biloba-Extrakt’, Zeitschrift ges-
amte Inn. Medizin, Vol. 47, 1992; Professor H. Feldmeier of the Charité University
Medicine Berlin, for part of his Die Welt online article on malaria research (‘Neuer
Impfstoff bremst Vermehrung von Malaria-Erregern’); Lufthansa Magazin (2000)
for extracts from the in-flight publication. Reprinted with permission from Luf-
thansa Magazin; Germanwings Magazin (November 2014) published on behalf of
Germanwings by Ink for extracts from their magazine; Niederrhein Tourismus for
xiv Acknowledgements
an extract from their website; Alfred Kröner Verlag for permission to reproduce
extracts from Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft by Hadumod Buβmann, 1990, 2nd
edition; Taylor & Francis Group for permission to reproduce extracts from Rout-
ledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics by Hadumod Bussmann, translated
and edited by G.P. Trauth and K. Kazzazi, 1996; Tourismus und Stadtmarketing
Husum GmbH and Husumer Bucht—Ferienorte an der Nordsee e.V. for an extract
from a Husum tourist board brochure; C.H. Beck for permission to reproduce
an extract from Königsallee. Roman by Hans Pleschinski, 2013; The Frankfurter
Rundschau for permission to reproduce ‘Selbst linke Querdenker werden umgarnt’
by J. Schindler published on 11 September 1998. © Frankfurter Rundschau. All
rights reserved; Reckitt-Benckiser for permission to reproduce the Calgon slo-
gan; The British National Corpus Consortium for data extracted from the Brit-
ish National Corpus, distributed by Oxford University Computing Services on
behalf of the BNC Consortium. All rights in the texts cited are reserved; Oxford
University Press for permission to reprint an extract from Faust Part One by J.W.
von Goethe. Translated by David Luke. Oxford University Press. 1987; Berliner
Forum für Geschichte und Gegenwart e.V. for permission to reprint part of their
flyer for Checkpoint Charlie; Oxford University Press for permission to reproduce
‘Blaue Hortensie/Blue Hydrangea’ from Selected Poems with parallel German
text, by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Susan Ranson and Marielle Sutherland.
Oxford University Press. 2011; The Modern Humanities Research Association for
permission to reproduce an extract from An Impossible Man, by Hugo von Hof-
mannsthal, translated by Alexander Stillmark. MHRA. 2016.
Introduction

In the years since the previous edition of this course book appeared, and certainly
since the first edition of 1995, much has changed in the translation world, both
in theory and in practice. Translation Studies as a discipline is becoming increas-
ingly interdisciplinary. This development reflects not only the ways in which
translation as a practice is embedded in many aspects of our lives, including
socially, politically, economically, educationally, medically, legally and last but
certainly not least, creatively; it also reflects new ways of analysing a whole range
of translation issues from new disciplinary perspectives and using new methods.
Translations have also increasingly come to be valorised as ‘rewritings’ based
on the creative expertise of the translator in refashioning texts for new situations
and new readerships in a different linguaculture. The dominant narrative has
been shifting away from translations as largely derivative, involving unavoidable
loss, towards translations as new texts with often creative solutions to complex
problems. While it is certainly the case that source texts differ in their degree of
­difficulty—e.g. pulp fiction versus literature from the canon, or a parts list versus
a learned article on ground-breaking science—all texts pose difficulties of one
kind or another, whether these are generic, terminological, textual or cultural.
There is, of course, also the unavoidable fact that a text in the original language
serves as a starting point for the translation, but translations are not the only kind
of text to have certain derivative qualities, as our first chapter will argue.
As a practice, translation in the professional world is becoming ever more con-
nected with technology. The translation of many texts is today supported to vary-
ing degrees by suites of interlinked tools ranging from ‘memories’ of previous
translations, electronic dictionaries or ‘termbases’, online text corpora and machine
translation. While this kind of ‘workbench’ approach is used now throughout what
has become a global industry, online means for researching and solving translation
problems are relevant not only for translators of what in German are sometimes
called ‘Gebrauchstexte’, ‘Sachtexte’ or ‘pragmatische Texte’, but also for transla-
tors of literary texts.
A further change which has gained pace over the last two decades is the spread
of translation as a degree subject in many universities, not only within the UK
but also throughout Europe and globally. Whilst the dominant pattern in the UK
has been to offer specialised three-semester courses at Master’s level, building on
2 Introduction
the linguistic and cultural proficiency attained in a Bachelor’s programme, more
and more translation-specific courses are now being introduced at undergraduate
level; in some cases, even whole degree programmes are offered. This reflects a
growing acknowledgement of the role such courses and programmes can play in
raising students’ awareness of the complex nature of translation and in preparing
them to be ‘communication brokers’. A certain expediency must also be acknowl-
edged in the response of many modern language departments to recruitment prob-
lems exacerbated by a shrinking pool of suitably qualified language candidates.
At the same time, the language programmes that students encounter in different
universities in the UK and abroad are now extremely varied: where this course
was originally written for students (and teachers) with experience of prose and
translation as a principal mode of language learning, this can no longer be taken
for granted.
Perhaps more than ever, then, this book attempts to speak to an increasingly
diverse readership. For students on non-literary degrees or students entering trans-
lation courses from different backgrounds, it contains a short chapter on literary
translation, as well as an introduction to analysing sound patterns in verse—and
plenty of literary texts for translation. For students on more traditional programmes,
the scientific and technical aspect of the course has been expanded, in particular in a
new chapter on translation resources, but also through the range of examples which
seek throughout to balance literary with non-literary texts. The level of difficulty
too varies, from sales catalogues and short pieces for discussion, to complex texts
which require more detailed knowledge. Our feeling here is that often seemingly
easier pieces offer productive scope for the full discussion of particular issues, and
more syntactically and culturally complex pieces offer a challenge appropriate at
honours or Master’s level.
This book is not an introduction to theories of translation. There are a number
of excellent publications already fulfilling this role, to which we refer at appropri-
ate moments in the course. Rather, it is an attempt to introduce students to some
of the key issues in doing translation, principally from German into English rather
than the reverse, with a strong emphasis on the practice as a decision-making
process. It is now accepted that a translator’s competence—whether as a qualified
professional or as a student—includes the ability to articulate specific reasons for
their chosen translation solutions. ‘It sounds better’ will no longer do. Our aim
is to facilitate the identification and classification of translation problems and to
open up choice in dealing with them. Key issues here—anticipating the sort of
questions that students might have in their minds when setting out, rather than a
theory-led agenda—include the ancient story of closeness or freedom, the rather
disputed and now relativised notion of translation ‘equivalence’, the nature of
texts (genre and text function), (inter)cultural issues (even between German and
English), meaning and translation, and some formal properties of texts and their
relation to translation (from text to sound). The section covering the formal prop-
erties draws on the three contrastive topics in the second edition, which are no
longer presented as stand-alone chapters. Instead, we have opted for greater inte-
gration with our key translation issues. Throughout the book, we also introduce
 Introduction 3
a wide range of strategies for dealing with translation problems, and in one case,
dedicate a whole chapter to a particular strategy (compensation), in keeping with
the previous edition.
The translation process can sometimes be viewed rather narrowly by students
as the actual act of writing out/typing a draft translation. To counter this, we have
added a new chapter on research and resources, covering what could be viewed
either as ‘pre-translation’ preparation or, depending on preferred working meth-
ods, an ad hoc activity interleaved with the actual writing activity. The use of
online resources is crucial although not exclusive here. The final stage of produc-
ing a translation which is fit for purpose is covered by the chapter on revising and
editing, including many updates on the second edition version focusing in particu-
lar on the clarification of key terms (‘editing’, ‘revising’, ‘proofing’).
While the book is not in itself a study of translation theories, it does refer more
explicitly to Translation Studies than previous editions, and contains suggestions
for further reading; for us, engagement with scholarship on translation as a lin-
guistic and cultural phenomenon and its practice underpins and supports critical
reflection on translation as a practical activity.
Section A

Overview and basic

concepts

In this opening section, we lay some of the groundwork on which the book builds,
considering translation as text production and the relationship of the translated
text to its source text, dealing with issues which often shape the expectations of
new translation students such as closeness and equivalence.
Chapter 1 focuses on translation as writing for a purpose, developing the idea
of translation as situated textual production in which the translator is a decision
maker. Throughout the course we will be introducing strategies which you can
add to your translator’s ‘toolbox’ in order to tackle particular issues arising from
linguistic, cultural and other differences in both systems and actual texts. Our
first two strategies are chosen to raise your awareness of translation as a text-
creation task, not simply as an encoding-decoding exercise, including moves that
you may not even have regarded as legitimate parts of a translation task. These
are the reduction (or even omission) of elements in the source text and expansion
or exegesis in the target text.
Chapter 2 takes this discussion a step further but through the lens of a
­common question posed by students when translating: how close should my
translation be to the source text? We aim to show that the translator as decision
maker has a number of legitimate methods: literal translation, often seen as
accurate or faithful, is not necessarily the default approach, but one of a range
of methods from word for word to much more nuanced choices. In order to
decide on their overall approach or method, translators therefore need to know
what the target text is for, including who it is for, and where/when it will be
used or made available.
Asking about closeness raises the issue of equivalence, which is the focus of the
third chapter. Although equivalence as a key concept in translation has been chal-
lenged from both a cultural and a functional perspective, it is often an intuitive
starting point when learning to translate. The chapter focuses mainly on equiva-
lence below the textual or even the sentential level: these topics are dealt with in
more detail in later chapters. But common to all is our aim to refine the notion of
equivalence and to distance it from a common-sense understanding of ‘sameness’.
The many examples serve as vehicles to introduce more translation strategies,
including cultural and functional equivalents, compensation, transfer/borrowing,
substitution and a combination of strategies as a ‘couplet’.
1 Translation
A decision-making process

One productive way of thinking about translation is to think of it as a form of

rewriting, that is, as a process of composing a text for which there are models and
antecedents, contexts and purposes. While many people new to translation tend to
have a rather mechanical view of a process in which there is a single, inevitable,
‘correct’ or ‘accurate’ solution for every problem encountered, translation is actu-
ally a process which involves choices and implications at many levels. And these
choices are often interdependent, as well as being dependent on the context in
which they are located.
In this opening chapter, we begin by thinking about translation and writing as
related processes, and then introduce you to translation by considering two par-
ticular strategies—‘standard conceptual tools of the trade’ (Chesterman 2000:
87)—which you may not consider to be translation at all, namely expansion (or
exegetic translation), and reduction or omission. Both literary and non-literary—
or ‘specialised’—texts will be considered, focusing on translation as a situated,
decision-making process of text interpretation and production. Indeed, it is one of
the primary aims of this course to help you shape your own decisions in an informed
way when translating. But before we go any further, it is useful to think about the
kinds of skills you have as a linguist already that you can bring to, and develop
through, your work on translation.
To put it simply: translations and their sources are texts which originate and
function in particular and often rather different socio-cultural contexts. Becom-
ing better at German translation involves, in part, gradually becoming better at
managing the inevitable changes and challenges that moving between the two
languages and cultures causes; but it equally means becoming more aware of the
nature of textual production and meaning in general, in other words, how texts are
written, how they generate meanings, and how they are read and used.

Translation and (re)writing

All texts have two aspects: they are documents, objects, produced at a given
time, by a human being, for a more or less conscious purpose, from the banal
to the sophisticated; once written, they are, in a sense, detached from their
8 Overview and basic concepts
authors, having both an existence of their own and creating meanings as they
are interpreted by their readers. All texts, thus, are always pulled in two direc-
tions, their meanings and their significance are governed and created by two
different sets of circumstances. This is obviously the case for historical texts,
but it is equally a commonplace to observe that contemporary texts such as
letters, emails and tweets are often misunderstood because they are ephem-
eral forms dependent on the moods and immediate situations of the writer
and reader, which are often different. Most writing in fact involves address-
ing and overcoming contextual differences of some kind and anticipating
the reader’s understanding. As a student, you know this from the written
work you produce. When we write essays, if we want to get better at it, we
must always ask ourselves two questions: what do I really mean (i.e. in my
mind)? And what have I really said (on the page)? Good writing—and good
translating—involves being able to be clear about the meaning that needs
to be communicated, as well as having the analytical frame of mind to
decide what the text in front of you actually communicates, and whether the
text meets the expectations or needs of the reader. Good writing involves
being able to see the text from the point of view of the reader as well as the
author.
The distinctiveness about translation resides then in two things: firstly, the
meanings we wish to convey are not primarily our own, though they will of
course be the product of our own (hopefully informed) reading; secondly, the
language of the text and the cultural context in which our text will have to func-
tion as a piece of writing are different from those of the original. Hence, texts
which are translations have to be conceived both in terms of their relationship to
the source text (ST), a relationship that raises issues of ‘equivalence’ (more of
this in Chapter 3), and their existence and functions as texts in their own right
within the linguistic and cultural systems of the target language. The transla-
tor interprets the source, formulates the translation, re-interprets the source and
reformulates the translation in a continuous process of interaction. And while
this interpretive process governs all writing, the successful translator is aware
of and manages the potential interpretations of their text by making necessary
changes and choices governed both by the resources of the target language (TL)
and the purpose of the target text (TT). Translation is thus an exercise in exact-
ing pragmatism.
It is useful to recall, however, how pragmatic most writing is. Many people
think of pieces of writing, especially literary works, as stable, unchangeable
wholes, written by a single person, with writing being a more or less single
act. This is rarely the case. Scientific articles are, for example, often co-
written and edited by a team of researchers, but the same is often true even
of works of literature: Goethe’s great play Iphigenie auf Tauris, the most
classical of classical dramas, is a case in point. Itself a reworking of classical
material for an eighteenth-century audience, Goethe’s play was composed
and privately performed in Weimar in an early prose version before it was
 Translation 9
refashioned under the influence of Italy to become the verse classic we know
today. Furthermore, in his rewriting in Italy, Goethe even sent the text to his
contemporary, the literary critic Herder, giving him scope to amend the text
(Goethe 1945/1960: 404). Writing is a process, and texts, including transla-
tions, are the outcome of that ongoing process, which involves consideration,
evaluation, revision and meeting external constraints. It is not only transla-
tion which is a kind of ‘rewriting’—as one well-known translation scholar,
André Lefevere, has characterised this type of text production (see Asima-
koulas 2020: 494–98 for an overview)—it is also so-called ‘original’ texts,
whether literary or specialised.

Starting on strategies
Goethe lived through a period in which translation and the reception of for-
eign literature were of formative importance for German letters, and his late
eighteenth-century novel, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–6), gives us a fas-
cinating insight into the translator’s need for pragmatism. On his travels with
a theatre company, Wilhelm is given Hamlet to read in the prose translation by
Wieland. An enraptured Wilhelm decides that the theatre troupe should per-
form the play, but in a new translation which he will produce without changes,
because Shakespeare’s original is a work of genius. Serlo, the manager of the
troop, sees matters differently. Notably he sees a number of practical problems,
the number of players available is restricted and the public is not used to plays
of this kind. Significantly, Wilhelm comes around to Serlo’s way of thinking: he
makes some adaptations and the play is performed. In other words, the practical
necessities of circumstance mean that he is compelled to produce a version that
meets a specific purpose.
The eighteenth-century German reception of Shakespeare is one of the all-time
great stories of translation and reception; and though it might seem far removed
from everyday concerns, in fact Wilhelm’s actions as a translator, tailoring his
text to meet particular cultural and pragmatic constraints, are commonplaces of
professional translation. Indeed, often ‘translation’ involves changes which may
not seem like translation at all—eliding or reducing the message, or adding new
material—and which offer a useful starting point for our consideration of transla-
tion as purposeful writing.
The following example is from a mail-order catalogue, published in both Ger-
man and English. Both are in A4 format, and both are printed in the same font and
size of type. But the English catalogue is less than half the length of the German
one: many items are omitted altogether, and many others (though not all) are
given less text than in the German original. In this example, the ST and the TT are
both printed under a photograph of the item; the photograph is the same size in
both, but the TT is only allotted a column of 27 mm of text, as against the 44 mm
of the ST. The texts are presented below in parallel and with the same column
width for ease of comparison.
10 Overview and basic concepts

ST TT
Pfeifen von Hudson & Company. Das THE ORIGINAL SILVERPLATED
versilberte Original: METROPOLITAN WHISTLE
METROPOLITAN PFEIFE Probably the most famous whistle in the
Wahrscheinlich die berühmteste Pfeife der world, because since 1873 Hudson & Co.
5 Welt, denn die englische Hudson & Co. has been supplying them to Scotland
(‘world renowned whistles’) liefert sie Yard. At 115 decibels, its sound is
seit 1873 an Scotland Yard. Sie wirkt mit terrifying indeed. Solid brass, silver-
ihrer Lautstärke von 115 dB aus der Nähe plated. Length 6.5 cm.
weitaus erschütternder, als jemand ahnen Order no. 5539 590 £9.50
10 kann, der sie bisher nur aus dem Kino (Manufactum 2003b: 159)
kennt. Ob ihr Betrieb in London als
Amtsanmaßung geahndet wird, entzieht
sich unserer Kenntnis. Massives Messing,
versilbert, Länge 6,5 cm.
Bestell-Nr. 5539 € 15,00
(Manufactum 2003a: 356)

The translation process here involves reduction. Primarily, this reduction is

made necessary by the formal restrictions imposed on the translator, i.e. the per-
mitted length of the text. But two of the translator’s omissions are not: for an
English-speaking audience, the explicit references to the company’s Englishness
and an evocative reference to London are less relevant. These are choices which
are pragmatically or culturally governed, particularly by marketing considerations
in this case.
More often, perhaps, than reduction, translation involves expansion, in the
form of explanation or clarification (exegesis). Exegetic translation is often used
in professional translation—literary and specialised—for cultural reasons. In the
following example from a tourist brochure, the translator translates some of the
names for clarity (e.g. ‘the Nahe Valley’), but also includes the ST names (e.g.
‘Naheland’) because the tourist is likely to see them on road signs and on maps:

ST TT
Im Süden wird der Hunsrück In the south of the area the Hunsrück is
eingerahmt von dem Flüsschen Nahe framed by the small river Nahe and the
und dem Naheland. Gleich drei Nahe Valley—Naheland. Three spas can
Heilbäder bieten Körper und Geist provide relaxation for both body and spirit
5 Entspannung bei mineralhaltiger Erde, with their mineral rich earth, salty air and
salzhaltiger Luft oder heilendem healing waters. Along the German
Wasser. Entlang der deutschen gemstone trail—Edelsteinstraße—in and
Edelsteinstraße rund um Idar-Oberstein around Idar-Oberstein precious stones are
werden Edelsteine geschliffen und zu cut and turned into works of art.
10 Kunstwerken veredelt. From here the journey continues to the
Von hier aus führt die Reise weiter ins romantic Rhine valley—Rheintal—
romantische Rheintal, zwischen between Bingen and Koblenz, in the
Bingen und Koblenz, ins Tal der Loreley Valley [. . .].
Loreley [. . .].
 Translation 11
Another cultural issue is that of reference or allusion, which may also require
some kind of expansion. An allusion that is transparent to source-language readers
might be opaque to TT readers without exegetic translation. Here is an example
from Remarque’s excoriating 1929 WW1 novel Im Westen nichts Neues. Him-
melstoß is a blustering NCO. He encounters a group of soldiers he had humiliated
when they were new recruits, and starts trying to bully them again. One of them,
Tjaden, refuses to do as he is told: ‘Tjaden erwidert gelassen und abschließend,
ohne es zu wissen, mit dem bekanntesten Klassikerzitat. Gleichzeitig lüftet er
seine Kehrseite’ (Remarque 1955: 64). The allusion is to Goethe’s Götz von Ber-
lichingen, who rejects a call to surrender thus: ‘Sag deinem Hauptmann [. . .], er
kann mich im Arsch lecken’ (Goethe 1985: 349). (Most editions since 1774 have
dashes instead of the last three words, but such is their legendary status that Ger-
man readers are well aware what they stand for.) The first published English TT
is mystifying, and misleading: ‘Tjaden replies, without knowing it, in the well-
known classical phrase. At the same time, he ventilates his backside’ (Remarque
1930: 94, trans. Wheen).
A later translation takes the exegetic approach: ‘Tjaden gives an unworried and
conclusive reply, quoting (although he doesn’t know he’s doing so) one of Goe-
the’s best-known lines, the one about kissing a specific part of his anatomy. At the
same time he sticks his backside up in the air’ (Remarque 1994: 59, trans. Mur-
doch). This makes explicit much of what the ST leaves implicit, while preserving
with its coyness something of the allusiveness of the ST. The cost is length and
cumbersomeness, but at least the reader has a much better chance of understand-
ing Tjaden’s action.
Translators regularly make decisions about what to expand and what to
reduce or even omit in their translations. However, these decisions may not
always be consistent, as the following example from a document on social
policy shows:

ST TT
1990 etablierte sich die internationale In 1990, the global organization Disabled
Organisation ‘Disabled People People International (DPI) was set up in
International’ (DPI) in Deutschland unter Germany as ‘Interessenvertretung
der Bezeichnung Interessenvertretung “Selbstbestimmt Leben” Deutschland’
5 ‘Selbstbestimmt Leben’ (ISL). (ISL—i.e. Self-Determined Life).
(Stern 1996a: 9) (Stern 1996b: 8)

On the one hand, the TT is exegetic, insofar as an English translation of the Ger-
man ‘Selbstbestimmt Leben’ is provided as an accompaniment to the transferred
German phrase ‘i.e. Self-Determined Life’; on the other hand, the TT neither
translates nor explains ‘Interessenvertretung’, even though this is also included
in the acronym ‘ISL’.
On occasion, a translator might employ a mixture of strategies in close prox-
imity: there is no reason that the whole of a piece needs to be translated in the
12 Overview and basic concepts
same way in order to shape the text for new readers. Take, for example, the fol-
lowing parallel German and English extracts from a bilingual in-flight magazine
published by a German carrier (Das Germanwings Magazin, November 2014,
published on behalf of Germanwings by Ink). The piece is publicising the world
premiere of a play at a spectacular new riverside theatre in Hamburg:

ST TT
Das Wunder von Bern im neuen Das Wunder von Bern
Hamburger Theater Stage Theater an der Elbe, Hamburg
Ab 23. November From 23 November
Mit der Uraufführung des Musicals Das Stage Entertainment launches its new
5 Wunder von Bern eröffnet Stage theatre on the banks of the river Elbe on
Entertainment im November in Hamburg 23 November with the world premiere of
seinen Theaterneubau direkt an der Elbe . . . the musical The Miracle of Bern . . .

It is apparent that the titles of the German and English texts are different: the
English heading shows the German name of the musical and also the full German
name of the theatre, but fails to indicate that the theatre is new. The original Ger-
man, on the other hand, omits the actual name of the theatre in the heading (and
in fact throughout the whole article), just referring to the location of the perfor-
mance ‘im neuen Hamburger Theater’ and later repeating the information about
it being new in the compound ‘Theaterneubau’. In the translation therefore, the
information that the theatre is confined to the main body of the text, and the thea-
tre’s full name is added in the title. Perhaps the translator concluded that the Ger-
man audience would know the name of the new theatre and it was therefore not
necessary to include this, but that the international English-speaking audience
was unlikely to know much about it at all, including its riverside location (‘an
der Elbe’). Other changes can be seen as a matter of taste, such as the formula-
tion of the date of the performance: the German is precise in the title and vague
in the first sentence, whereas the English is precise in both cases.
Elsewhere, the translator has little choice but to introduce expansions and
reductions in order to deal with differences in the language systems. This is often
inevitable, for example, when the translator has to convey a significant sociolin-
guistic distinction such as that between ‘du’ and ‘Sie’, as in this further example
from Im Westen nichts Neues:

ST TT
Himmelstoß wendet sich ihm zu: ‘Das Himmelstoss turns to him. ‘Tjaden, isn’t
ist doch Tjaden, nicht?’ Tjaden hebt den it?’ Tjaden lifts his head. ‘And do you
Kopf. ‘Und weißt du, was du bist?’ know what you are, chum?’ Himmelstoss
Himmelstoß ist verblüfft. ‘Seit wann is taken aback. ‘What do you mean,
5 duzen wir uns denn? Wir haben doch “chum”? I don’t think we’ve ever drunk
nicht zusammen im Chausseegraben ourselves into the gutter together’.
gelegen’. (Remarque 1994: 58–9, trans.
(Remarque 1955: 63) Murdoch)
 Translation 13
The first ‘chum’ is an exegetic addition to ‘you’, an attempt to render the
insubordinate familiarity of the ‘du’. It prepares the way for ‘What do you mean,
“chum”?’, an exegetic translation which acts as a kind of compensation (more
in Chapter 6) in view of the absence in the standard English linguistic system of
an informal-formal second-person distinction. At the same time, however, ‘chum’
only gives the gist of ‘du’, losing the specificity of second-person singular address.

Concluding remarks
Whatever the nature of the source material with which translators have to work, all
translation tasks require knowledge of the subject matter (see Chapter 12 on research
and resources) and of textual conventions (see Chapter 4 on genre), familiarity with
the source language and source culture in general (see Chapter 5 on culture), and
interpretive effort. But they also require knowledge of the nature and needs of the tar-
get public, familiarity with the target culture in general—and, above all, mastery of
the target language. The next two chapters deal with two closely related key issues in
translation: how close should my translation be? and what is meant by ‘equivalence’?

Further reading
Bassnett, Susan 2007. ‘Writing and translating’, in Bassnett, S. and Bush, P. (eds) The
Translator as Writer. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 173–83.
House, Juliane 2018. Translation: The Basics. London and New York: Routledge.
Newmark, Peter 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
Palumbo, Giuseppe 2009. Key Terms in Translation Studies. London and New York:
Continuum.
Shuttleworth, Mark and Cowie, Moira 1997. Dictionary of Translation Studies. Manchester:
St. Jerome.

Practical 1

The first exercise below focuses on translating for a purpose, a topic to which we
return in many places. The second assignment takes intralingual rewriting as a
starting point: you will be re-fashioning an English text for a different purpose
and readership. The third exercise concerns translation in a constrained space,
requiring a reduction in length for the target text. The last task asks you to con-
sider whether a text needs to be culturally adjusted in any way for a new audience.

1.1 THINKING ABOUT TRANSLATING FOR A PURPOSE

Assignment
If you have had to translate in the language classroom, try to think back to your
experiences; if not, just imagine you are a teacher setting a passage for transla-
tion. When you (or your imagined students) write a translation into your native
language, what is it that determines the success of the translation (i.e. gets a good
14 Overview and basic concepts
mark)? And when translating into the foreign language? How do these criteria
change as you progress through university? Try to come up with a sheet of marking
criteria and discuss in class: what are the characteristics of the best translations?
The worst? What would cause a text to fail? The point of this exercise is to realise
that writing a translation in the classroom in itself is a specific purpose, with (often
uncodified) rules. To what extent do you anticipate that the criteria of success will
be different in the workplace or in this course, as opposed to in the language class?

1.2 REWRITING A TEXT FOR A DIFFERENT PURPOSE AND

AUDIENCE

Assignment
i Identify the salient features of content and expression in the following ST,
and say what you think its purpose is.
ii Recast the ST in different words, adapting it for a specific purpose and a spe-
cific public (i.e. a specific readership or audience e.g. contemporary youth,
rapping fans, older non-native speakers of English). Say precisely what the
purpose and the public are. Treat the ST as if you were recasting the whole
book of Exodus, of which it is a part. (As a rule, whenever you do a transla-
tion as part of this course, you should try to proceed as if you were translating
the whole text from which the ST is taken.)
iii Comment on your overall approach and individual decisions you took in
making the textual changes. (One way of doing this is to insert into your TT a
note-number after each expression you intend to discuss, and then discuss the
points in numerical order. Another possibility is to use the Endnote function
in your word-processing program.)

Contextual information
The text is from the Authorized Version of the Bible, published in 1611. The best
way of making sense of it is to read the rest of Exodus 14. The forces of Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, are pursuing the children of Israel, led by Moses, who are seeking
to escape slavery in Egypt. Seeing their pursuers, the people lose their nerve, and
ask Moses why he has led them into this adventure.

ST
And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the
children of Israel, that they go forward:
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it:
and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. [. . .]
5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten me honour
upon Pharaoh, and upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. [. . .]
 Translation 15

ST
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to
go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the
waters were divided.
10 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground:
and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even
all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of
15 the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the
Egyptians,
And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the
Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them
against the Egyptians.
20 And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the
waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their
horsemen.
And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his
strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord
overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
(Exodus 14, v. 15–27)

1.3 TRANSLATING FOR A CONSTRAINED SPACE

Assignment
i You have been commissioned to translate, in abridged form, the upmarket
mail-order catalogue from which the following ST is taken. The TT is to
take up three-quarters as many lines as the ST, so it should contain between
220 and 240 words (the ST only contains 236, but many of these are long
compounds). Discuss the decisions that you have to take about your overall
approach before starting detailed work on this ST.
ii Produce a translation of the specified length.
iii Discuss the main decisions of detail you took, concentrating on explain-
ing your reductions, omissions and any exegetic elements that you
introduced.
iv Compare your TT with the published one, which will be made availa-
ble to you by your tutor. Concentrate on the omissions and any exegetic
elements.

Contextual information
The text introduces the long section on kitchen knives in the catalogue. The Eng-
lish catalogue is just as comprehensive, though more economical of space. Both
repeatedly emphasise the superior quality of the knives offered.
16 Overview and basic concepts

ST
SCHNEIDWERKZEUG—FÜR DEN GUTEN SCHNITT
Küchenmesser—der Unterschied.
Bei Messern liegen Welten zwischen einem handwerklich gearbeiteten
Qualitätsprodukt und billiger Massenware.
5 Sie merken es—Schnitt für Schnitt.
Die Stähle:
schnitthart oder rostbeständig?
Zähe, Härte und Elastizität sind Eigenschaften, die nur als Möglichkeit im
(ursprünglich weichen) Eisen liegen und erst durch Schmelzen, ‘Frischen’,
10 ‘Puddeln’ und die vielen anderen hüttentechnischen Prozeduren geweckt werden.
Hohe Härte und elastische Bruchfestigkeit sind die Kennzeichen eines guten
Messerstahls, und optimal vereinigt waren sie in den Werkzeugstählen mit relativ
hohem Kohlenstoffanteil. Dieser klassische Messerstahl ist allerdings nicht rostfrei,
und deshalb—wegen mangelnder Koexistenzfähigkeit mit der Spülmaschine also—
15 wurde er in den letzten Jahrzehnten von rostbeständigeren, aber weniger hoch
härtbaren Edelstählen aus der Messerproduktion fast vollständig verdrängt. Kenner
haben das immer bedauert.
Die Bearbeitung:
geschmiedet oder gewalzt.
20 Hochwertige Messer, bei denen es auf Langlebigkeit ankommt, werden geschmiedet,
also in jenem Verfahren der Metallverformung erzeugt, bei dem das Material unter
Hammerschlägen solange getaucht, gestreckt und verdichtet wird, bis es in Form und
innerem Gefüge optimal der späteren Funktion entspricht. Die Rohlinge für
einfachere Messer werden aus gewalztem Bandstahl gestanzt.
25 Die Zurichtung: ‘Haarscharf’
bis zur Schrammenreinheit.
Ob geschmiedet oder gestanzt: Seine endgültige Qualität erhält ein Messer erst durch
die Zurichtung in der Schleiferei. Dort wird die ‘Wate’ (Schneide) aufgebaut, die
bei besten Messern in schlanken Schliffwinkeln bis zu 1/400 mm dünn wird, und
dort wird die Oberfläche bearbeitet, bis alle Schleifriefen für Hand und Auge
unerkennbar sind.
(Manufactum 2003a: 11)

1.4 TRANSLATING CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS FOR

A NEW AUDIENCE

Assignment
i You have been commissioned to translate the following short piece—a trial run
for a longer commission—from the tourism pages on the website of a locale in
North Rhine-Westphalia for an English-speaking audience. The ST is the open-
ing gambit on the homepage. The potential readership for the TT includes visi-
tors who are not native speakers of English. The ST consists of 68 words and sits
immediately underneath changing images of scenes from the local landscape,
including trees in blossom, lakes and walkers: the length of your translation (in
terms of space occupied) should not exceed that of the German original.
 Translation 17
ii Do some desk research looking at German tourism websites which have an
English translation to see how cultural differences have been handled. You
can also check out original English websites for similar areas to get a sense
of the tone, the register and the general approach adopted.
iii Produce a translation according to the client’s requirements.
iv Discuss the main decisions of detail you took, concentrating on explaining
how you dealt with culturally specific items for a new audience e.g. did you
expand or reduce these items?
v Compare your TT with that of a fellow student:
a did you identify the same items as culturally specific? if not, why not?
b which items did you expand, how and why? how do your decisions com-
pare to those of your partner?
c which items did you omit or reduce, how and why? how do your deci-
sions compare to those of your partner?
vi Your tutor will also be able to supply you with a proposal for the translation.

ST
WILLKOMMEN AM NIEDERRHEIN
‘Tach auch’—im grünen Westen der Republik. Wir laden Sie ein: zum Rad fahren in
flachem Gelände, Reiten im deutsch-niederländischen Grenzgebiet, Wandern auf
Premiumwegen, Schlemmen in der ‘Genussregion Niederrhein’, zu ganz viel Kultur
5 an vielen Orten und noch mehr Natur in gleich zwei Naturparken. Aber auch zum
Relaxen und Entspannen in unseren Beauty Spas und Wellness-Oasen.
Auf den Geschmack gekommen? Wir freuen uns auf Sie!
(Niederrhein Tourismus)

References

Primary
Goethe, J.W. von 1945/1960. Goethes Werke. Edited by Trunz, Erich. Hamburg: Wegner.
Goethe, J.W. von 1985. Sämtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche. Frankfurt am
Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag.
Manufactum 2003a. Warenkatalog Nr. 16. Waltrop: Manufactum.
Manufactum 2003b. Catalogue No. 2. London: Manufactum Ltd.
Niederrhein Tourismus n.d. Willkommen am Niederrhein [Online].
Remarque, Erich Maria 1930. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated by Wheen, Arthur
W. London: Putnam & Co.
Remarque, Erich Maria 1955. Im Westen nichts Neues. Berlin: Ullstein.
Remarque, Erich Maria 1994. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated by Murdoch,
Brian. London: Cape.
Stern, S. 1996a. Die soziale Integration von Behinderten in Deutschland. Bonn: Inter
Nationes.
Stern, S. 1996b. The Social Integration of People with Disabilities in Germany. Bonn:
Inter Nationes.
18 Overview and basic concepts
Secondary
Asimakoulas, Dimitris 2020. ‘Rewriting’, in Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds) Rout-
ledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 3rd edn. London and New York: Routledge,
pp. 494-8.
Chesterman, Andrew 2000. Memes of Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
2 Translation methods
Decisions about ‘closeness’

In Chapter 1, we began our discussion by thinking about translation less as

recoding the words of a text and more as a form of purposeful rewriting. In this
chapter and the next we turn to two issues which have been the subject of discus-
sion for millennia, namely: how close should a translation be? And what does it
mean for a translation—whether of word, phrase or text—to be equivalent to the
source? Through these discussions of ‘closeness’ and ‘equivalence’ we approach
the relationships between the ST and TT from a number of different viewpoints,
providing an overview, which subsequent chapters will then explore in more
detail.

How ‘close’ should my translation be?

There are many possible answers to the question of how close your translation
should be to the source text, depending on a number of factors. Translators make
their decisions about the shape of the translation according to what, in their expe-
rience, is optimal in order to achieve their goal; indeed, a major part of learning
to translate is in fact learning precisely to think about what those goals are and
what factors influence your options. These factors include the genre (Textsorte)
of the ST (business letter, poem, report, fire notice, short story, and so on), the
function (Texttyp) of the ST (e.g. informative, operative/persuasive or expressive),
the setting of the TT (where the translation is to be published or used in the target
culture), the audience for the translation (who the primary readers are to be) (see
Newmark 1988: 15, 13), and what the purpose of the translation is (e.g. is it for
information purposes about the source culture or is it going to function as a quasi-
original text in the target culture?) (see Risku 1999: 107–12; Martín de León 2020:
199–203). All these factors are part of what has been called the ‘translation com-
mission’, the phrase itself being a not very transparent translation of the German
Űbersetzungsauftrag. Also known more helpfully as the ‘translation brief’, this is
a set of instructions issued under ideal circumstances by the person who has com-
missioned the translation, detailing specifications for the considerations listed pre-
viously, all of which in some sense indicate the degree of ‘closeness’ the translator
should be aiming for. However, we should note that many clients—or their inter-
mediaries—do not understand the need to brief the translator (‘just translate it’),
20 Overview and basic concepts
and so it is part of the translator’s job and expertise both to ask pertinent questions
wherever possible, and to draw on experience and research to ensure their transla-
tion choices are informed.
In asking how close our translation should be, what we mean is how far our
translation method—our overall approach to the translation brief—needs to
favour or be oriented towards the target text, language and culture, or how far it
should favour the source text, language and culture. In fact, this is not, or is sel-
dom, an either/or question: rather we can think of our different translation options
as existing on a sliding scale from word for word to literal to creative adapta-
tion, moving from source-oriented to target-oriented. We discuss below some of
the implications of these methods, beginning with the ‘closest’ translation of all,
‘word-for-word’ translation.

Methods of translation

ST-oriented methods

Word-for-word translation
‘Close’ translation is usually understood to mean ‘close to the form of words in
the ST’. In its most extreme form, it is sometimes called interlinear as well as
word-for-word translation (see also Newmark 1988: 69); in this case, the TT
does not follow the TL grammar, but has grammatical units corresponding as
closely as possible to every grammatical unit of the ST without regard for the
sense. Here is an example, a short extract from a furniture manufacturer’s cata-
logue, to which we return below:

Das Sofa lässt sich mit wenigen Handgriffen in ein Bett verwandeln.
the sofa lets itself with few manipulations into a bed transform

Word-for-word translation is normally only used in Linguistics or language teach-

ing; in the past it was used to gloss sacred texts, focusing on the ‘difficult’ words.
One particular contemporary use, usually known as ‘back translation’, is con-
ventionally employed by translation scholars to provide an insight into examples
which are cited in languages other than that in which they are writing, since it
cannot be assumed that all readers will be familiar with the languages used in the
examples. Students writing essays on translation are also often asked to use back
translation for their cited examples if the class deals with a range of languages. We
should add, however, that even ‘word-for-word’ translation involves choices: in
the previous sentence, ‘verwandeln’ could easily have become ‘change’.

Literal translation
Word for word can be distinguished from the more common literal transla-
tion, where the words or phrases are translated one-to-one but TL grammar is
respected. A possible literal translation of our example is: ‘The sofa can, with few
 Translation methods 21
manipulations, be transformed into a bed’. This translation involves a number of
changes: (1) the reflexive verb ‘lässt sich’ becomes the modal verb ‘can’; (2) con-
sequently, the infinitive ‘verwandeln’ becomes the present passive infinitive ‘be
transformed’, conveying the passive sense of ‘lässt sich’ + infinitive (see Eisen-
berg 1986: 381); and (3) the position of the non-finite verb has changed, as Eng-
lish main clauses do not have the Satzklammer (‘verbal bracket’), characteristic of
German declarative main clauses (see Johnson 1998: 185–7, and Chapter 9): ‘Das
Sofa lässt sich mit wenigen Handgriffen in ein Bett verwandeln’.
Literal translation is on the whole much more likely to work effectively in
closely related languages. Nevertheless, while German and English are genea-
logically close, sharing many lexical roots as members of the Germanic branch of
the Indo-European language family, they are syntactically rather different and so
you should be prepared to make a number of grammatical changes in your trans-
lations, particularly in relation to word order. This means that there will nearly
always be a difference between a word-for-word and a literal translation between
German and English. But then the purpose of these two methods of translation is
also different. Whilst a word-for-word translation makes the structure and seg-
mentation of the ST transparent, often for analytical purposes, a literal translation,
formally or structurally much closer to the TL, can serve a different purpose.
A good example of how literal translation is used is in the translation of drama.
So-called ‘versions’ of plays are created by well-known playwrights based on a close
translation of an original commissioned for that purpose (see, for instance, Ander-
man 2009: 92–5). The nineteenth-century farce by Viennese writer Johann Nepomuk
Nestroy—Einen Jux will er sich machen—was, for example, reworked by the English-
language playwright Tom Stoppard on the basis of a literal translation as On the Raz-
zle for the National Theatre in London. Unfortunately, the translator’s indispensable
contribution to ‘versions’ (or ‘adaptations’) is not always fully acknowledged.

TT-oriented methods
Translation methods such as close literal translation or interlinear translation are
thus appropriate when foregrounding as much as possible of the ST’s original lin-
guistic form is a priority. Often, however, the particular form or phrasing of the
original is less important than the text’s communicative function. Returning to our
sofa example, the literal translation can be understood, but it is not very ‘natural’,
a criterion which is easier to sense than to define (see Rogers 1998 and Chapter 10
for more examples). Researching texts with similar design features in the TL is
often helpful in establishing genre conventions and matters of tone or naturalness
in keeping with the text’s communicative function, in this case, as a sales text, pre-
dominantly persuasive. Other possibilities then suggest themselves for a translation:

With a few simple movements, the sofa can be converted into a bed.

This translation has the same morphological and syntactic changes or shifts,
but adds a reordering of the information, foregrounding the ease with which the
sofa can be converted; the terminology is also more suitable (‘movements’ and
22 Overview and basic concepts
‘converted’ instead of ‘manipulations’ and ‘transformed’). This TT is more appro-
priate for a furniture sales catalogue in both structure and vocabulary, but a further
possibility can still be imagined:

It’s quick and easy to convert the sofa into a bed.

The essential differences from the ST are still grammatical but with a different
impact. Relative to the ST, (1) the sofa has its grammatical role switched from
subject to object, implying a direct address to the reader (‘[for you] to convert’);
(2) a new, impersonal (or ‘dummy’) subject is introduced (‘it’); (3) the adverbial
phrase ‘mit wenigen Handgriffen’ is turned into the complement of the new finite
verb ‘[i]s’ in an informal contracted form, positioning the interpretive phrase
‘quick and easy’ in a clause of its own, thereby giving it more weight; and (4)
as a consequence, the English now comprises two clauses, a main clause and a
non-finite subordinate clause, thereby changing the rhythm of the sentence. The
text’s purpose in both the ST and the TT is to sell convertible sofas, and the real
selling point is now highlighted in a more prominent grammatical form, although
both TT versions foreground how easy it is to perform the conversion. Four gram-
matical transpositions, then, but they are unexceptional and acceptable: this last
translation is more reader-oriented and punchier, hence arguably better as a selling
text than the alternative translations.
The translation brief might, however, change one of the ST features of the set-
ting such as the medium of publication (e.g. ST in print, TT on the www), the
time of publication (e.g. updating a ST for a more contemporary audience) or the
audience itself. In the latter case, we can consider an even more radical transla-
tion of the sofa sentence, based on a translation brief which asks for a jokey tone:

Take one sofa, press here, pull there—and hey presto, it’s a bed!

This translation is addressed directly to the reader and achieves its humorous note
by drawing on the features of completely different genres, namely, a recipe and a
magic trick (an example of what is called ‘intertextuality’). But that tone is also
riskily achieved by details not found in the ST: ‘press here, pull there’ would be
rash indeed unless the translator had actually checked the facts.

The closeness question and translation studies

If you feel that it is a naive question to ask ‘how close should a translation be?’,
you should not, for many of the theories of translation in the twentieth century
have addressed precisely that question. Some writers on translation take literal
translation to be the basic approach, i.e. your starting point (see, for instance,
Newmark 1988: 70). Others argue that the function of the target text within
the target language and culture should be the focus of the translator’s atten-
tion. The modern impetus for ‘functionalist approaches’ (see Nord 1997) came
some 40 years ago, early in the development of translation as an academic
 Translation methods 23
discipline; the German scholar Katharina Reiß (1971, 1977/1989) proposed, for
example, that the function of a text is crucial when evaluating the success of
a translation, assuming that this remains the same for both the ST and the TT.
Within the particular text typology which she adopted, she argued that when
translating texts with an informative function, the content is the most important
feature; in ‘operative’ texts (also ‘persuasive’), the effectiveness of the appeal to
the reader is dominant, whilst in ‘expressive’ texts, the form of the original is a
crucial factor. These three types can be respectively exemplified by genres such as
an encyclopaedia entry, an election leaflet seeking votes, and a novel. Reiß’s ideas
have since been developed, and in practice, these categories are more like ‘ideal
types’, as many texts are complex constructs embodying and integrating many
different features, as Reiß acknowledged.
The five exemplar translations discussed in this chapter illustrate how wide the
choices which are available to you can be—even within a single sentence—and
that the decisions you make are guided by a number of factors related to the trans-
lation such as its purpose and its audience.

Concluding remarks
To sum up, the decision on how ‘close’ to make your translation depends on a
number of factors related to the translation brief which are hard to capture in bina-
ries such as ‘close’ versus ‘free’. Two main perspectives have been emphasised
here. Firstly, the reason why the text is needed in the target culture, i.e. its purpose,
can give a preliminary indication of whether a word-for-word (rare), a literal (in
some circumstances) or a more creative translation solution is needed. Secondly,
the dominant function of the text can guide you in terms of focus on content
(informative), the reader’s behaviour (operative/persuasive) or the author’s voice
(expressive). The next chapter will consider ways of analysing relative closeness
in more detail, this time in terms of equivalence, the relationship between the
source and target texts, languages and cultures.

Further reading
Baker, Mona and Saldhana, Gabriela (eds) 2020. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation
Studies. 3rd edn. London and New York: Routledge.
France, Peter (ed.) 2000. The Oxford Guide to Literature in Translation. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Göpferich, Susanne 1999a. ‘Text, Textsorte, Texttyp’, in Snell-Hornby et al., pp. 61–4.
Kuhiwczak, Piotr and Littau, Karen (eds) 2007. A Companion to Translation Studies. Clev-
edon: Multilingual Matters.
Munday, Jeremy (ed.) 2009. The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies. New York
and London: Routledge.
Munday, Jeremy 2016. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. 4th
edn. London and New York: Routledge.
Snell-Hornby, Mary, Hönig, Hans, Kußmaul, Paul and Schmitt, Peter A. (eds) 1999. Hand-
buch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.
24 Overview and basic concepts
Practical 2

2.1 WHAT IS THE TRANSLATION FOR?

Assignment
Consider the following phrases, brief, but still potential texts. Suggest two transla-
tions for each, according to two different purposes: (a) for a non-German speaking
linguist researching how notices are worded in a number of languages, including
German and (b) for use on a notice to be situated on a newly painted fence and in
someone’s front garden, both as warnings.

i Frisch gestrichen!
ii Vorsicht! Bissiger Hund.

Did you need to research the answers to (b)? If so, how did you go about this?

2.2 COMPARISON: CLOSENESS AND TEXT FUNCTION

Assignment
i How would you characterise the function of the ST and the TT extracts
below? Or can you identify a mixture of functions? If so, which function do
you think is dominant? Identify examples from each of the texts to support
your case.
ii Taking the published TT (printed below the ST) as a whole, how ‘close’ do
you think it is to the ST? Explain your conclusions.
iii Where you think the TT can be improved? Give your own revised version and
explain the revision.

Contextual information
The ST is from the first part an annual report (published in identical format in
German and English) of the car manufacturer Audi. The second part of the report
consists purely of the detailed financial statements and balance sheets, but the first
part, elaborate in layout and illustration, combines publicity with information on
the company’s main activities and policies. The ST is taken from a section entitled
‘Technik’, and concerns a new engine called the V8-TDI. The A8 is a model of car.
‘Biturbo’ is explained in a glossary at the end of the report as follows: ‘Der Zusatz
“Biturbo” weist bei Audi V-Motoren darauf hin, dass zwei Abgasturbolader—einer
je Zylinderbank—eingebaut sind’.
 ST
Audi setzt weiteren Meilenstein in der Dieseltechnologie
Bulliges Drehmoment, hohe Leistung, Bestwerte in Beschleunigung und Durchzug:
Charakteristika eines Spitzensportlers.
Seit 1989 stellt Audi seine Vorreiterrolle bei der Entwicklung hoch effizienter und
5 leistungsfähiger TDI-Modelle immer wieder eindrucksvoll unter Beweis.
Jüngstes herausragendes Beispiel ist der neu entwickelte 4,0-Liter-V8-TDI, der im
A8 zum Einsatz kommt. Er verleiht der leichtgewichtigen Luxuslimousine den
Charakter eines Spitzensportlers: Moderate Verbrauchswerte und hohe Laufkultur
machen den A8 4.0 TDI quattro auch zum idealen Langstreckenspezialisten.
10 Der leistungsstärkste V8-Dieselmotor der Welt
Mit dem neuen Modell vergrößert Audi das Angebot um eine weitere, sportliche
Variante. Der V8-TDI-Motor im Audi A8 ist mit 202 kW (275 PS) und 650
Newtonmeter Drehmoment der derzeit leistungs- und drehmomentstärkste V8-
Selbstzünder, der in einer Serienlimousine zu finden ist. Das maximale Drehmoment,
15 das zwischen 1.800 und 2.500 Umdrehungen pro Minute anliegt, verschafft dem
Fahrer in allen Geschwindigkeitsbereichen ein Durchzugserlebnis, das sich sonst nur
in Sportwagen erfahren lässt.
Der 4,0-Liter-V8-TDI mit Biturbo-Aufladung und zwei Ladeluftkühlern ist ein
weiterer Vertreter der neuen V-Motorenfamilie von Audi, der bei den Benzinmotoren
20 bereits die 4,2-Liter-Aggregate im Audi S4 und Audi allroad quattro 4.2 angehören.
Wichtige Neuerung bei den V-Motoren: Anstelle eines Zahnriemens kommt ein
Kettenantrieb für Nockenwellen und Nebenaggregate zum Einsatz.
(Audi 2004a: 20)

Published ST
Another landmark achievement in diesel technology for Audi
Substantial torque, high performance, and outstanding acceleration and pulling
power: all characteristics of a top athlete.
Audi has repeatedly restated its pioneering role in the development of ultra-
5 efficient, high performance TDI engines since as far back as 1989.
The latest remarkable example is the new 4.0-litre V8 TDI, which is used in the
A8. It lends this lightweight luxury saloon the attributes of a top athlete. Moderate
fuel consumption and plentiful refinement also make the A8 4.0 TDI quattro the ideal
companion for long journeys.
10 The most powerful V8 diesel engine in the world
The new model represents the addition of a further sporty version to Audi’s range.
The V8 TDI engine in the Audi A8 is currently the highest-powered, highest-torque
V8 diesel engine in any production saloon car, developing 202 kW (275 bhp) and
650 Newton-metres of torque. Its peak torque of 650 Newton-metres, which is
15 achieved from engine speeds of 1,800 to 2,500 rpm, offers a quality of traction across
the entire road-speed range that can otherwise only be experienced in sports cars.
The 4.0-litre V8 TDI biturbo with two intercoolers is a further representative of
Audi’s new family of V-engines, which already includes the 4.2-litre petrol versions
in the Audi S4 and Audi allroad quattro 4.2. One significant new feature of the V-
20 engines is that there is a chain drive for the camshafts and auxiliaries instead of a
toothed belt.
(Audi 2004b: 20)
26 Overview and basic concepts
References

Primary
Audi 2004a. Geschäftsbericht 2003. Ingolstadt: Audi AG.
Audi 2004b. 2003 Annual Report. Ingolstadt: Audi AG.

Secondary
Anderman, Gunilla 2009. ‘Drama translation’, in Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds) Rout-
ledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge,
pp. 92–5.
Eisenberg, Peter 1986. Grundriß der deutschen Grammatik. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche
Verlagsbuchhandlung.
Johnson, Sally 1998. Exploring the German Language. London, New York, Sydney and
Auckland: Arnold.
Martín de León, Celia 2020. ‘Functionalism’, in Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds) Rout-
ledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 3rd edn. London and New York: Routledge,
pp. 199–203.
Newmark, Peter 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
Nord, Christiane 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches
Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Reiβ, Katharina 1971. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungskritik. Kategorien und
Kriterien für eine sachgerechte Beurteilung von Übersetzungen. München: Hueber.
Reiss, Katharina 1977/1989. ‘Text types, translation types and translation assessment’,
in Chesterman, A. (ed.) Readings in Translation Theory. Helsinki: Oy Finn Lectura
Ab, pp. 105–15 [Translated by Andrew Chesterman from Reiβ, K. 1977. ‘Texttypen,
Übersetzungstypen und die Beurteilung von Übersetzungen’, Lebende Sprachen, 22(3),
pp. 97–100.].
Risku, Hanna 1999. ‘Translatorisches handeln’, in Snell-Hornby, M., Hönig, H., Kuβmaul,
P. and Schmitt, P. A. (eds) Handbuch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg,
pp. 107–12.
Rogers, Margaret 1998. ‘Naturalness and translation’, SYNAPS. Fagspråk, Kommunikasjon,
Kulturkunnskap, 2, pp. 9–31. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2394654 (Accessed:
14 February 2018).
3 Equivalence and
non-equivalence

Many of the issues concerning closeness of the TT to the ST which were discussed
in the previous chapter can be related to the notion of equivalence. In some sense,
asking how close your translation should be is another way of asking: what does
it mean for a translation to be equivalent to the source text? In the first part of
this chapter, we will look at some ways in which equivalence can be understood,
and present one account of equivalence which introduces a number of issues that
later chapters in the book will explore in more detail. We then consider some of
the criticisms which have been levelled against a key concept in the development
of Translation Studies, dynamic equivalence. In the third part of the chapter, we
address some typical areas of non-equivalence and the challenges they set for
translators.

The concept of equivalence

A preliminary and naive understanding of equivalence implies sameness, for
example, of meaning if not of form. While we might intuitively speak of ‘equiv-
alent’ words and phrases, or even texts, the relationship of sameness is not
­straightforward and the notion has been a contentious one in Translation Studies.
We thus need to say what we mean, and what we do not mean, by ‘equivalence’
and ‘equivalent’.
As we noted in Chapter 1, translation is a process which involves necessary
change, because even closely related source and target languages and cultures
are fundamentally different, and because the new communicative context may
not exactly match that of the original; but translation is distinct from many other
forms of writing in that it is defined by a necessary relationship—variable though
that may be—to its source text. Clearly, in this sense, ‘equivalence’ does not mean
‘sameness’ in a simplistic sense of the term; rather the term ‘equivalence’ denotes
the relationship between a ST and a TT—or parts of those texts—that can be
understood as implying some kind of appropriate value to readers in a given con-
text. For instance, in the sofa example (Chapter 2), each of the TT sentences illus-
trates varying degrees and types of equivalence, from formal to pragmatic; and
each is in some sense a legitimate translation of ‘Das Sofa lässt sich mit wenigen
Handgriffen in ein Bett verwandeln’.
28 Overview and basic concepts
Another way of putting this is to say that thinking about equivalence is a way
of analysing the relationship between the source text and its possible translations.
Dating from the late 1970s, Werner Koller’s typology of equivalence is one of
the first comprehensive accounts, and it remains one of the best known (Koller
2011). He distinguishes five types of equivalence, or what he calls ‘frameworks’
(Bezugsrahmen der Űbersetzungsäquivalenz):

• denotative, relating to the world outside the text (material or immaterial)

• connotative, relating to the way in which words and phrases are used to
achieve a particular effect
• text-normative, relating to the conventions established for particular genres
• pragmatic, relating to the supposed effect of the text on the readership
• formal-aesthetic, relating to the aesthetic form of the ST

Koller’s ‘framework’ is a useful one because it provides a lens through which

we can analyse aspects of the relationship between the ST and TT, but as with all
models (of translation or anything else), some further issues need to be consid-
ered. We will discuss these in turn, starting with denotative equivalence, the focus
here being on the word level.

Denotative equivalence
Perhaps the most obvious issues of equivalence turn around individual
words—how to translate ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, or ‘Tafelspitz’. At the level of deno-
tative equivalence, Koller categorises the different types of relationships between
lexical items in languages into ‘correspondence types’/Entsprechungstypen
(2011: 230–43), for which a number of strategies—Űbersetzungsverfahren—
can be identified. Table 3.1 summarises Koller’s typology, including possible
translation strategies:

Table 3.1 Denotative equivalence: types of correspondence and translation strategies after

Koller (2011: 231–43) (with some adaptations and examples added)

SL-TL Examples Possible translation strategies

correspondence type

one-to-one ‘control signal’ > • normally no difficulty except

‘Stellgröße’ occasionally a choice of
synonyms occurs e.g. ‘car’ >
‘Auto’, ‘Wagen’
one-to-many, often meaning that ‘Sicherheit’ > • ST or prior knowledge
there is no generic expression in ‘safety’, ‘security’ guides choice of specific
the TL where there is in the SL, expression
i.e. there is a lexical gap in the • irrelevant in the TT
TL: e.g. ‘Großvater’ (de)> • spell out all possibilities
‘morfar’, ‘farfar’ (sv): Swedish or find an alternative
has no generic term for generic expression where
‘grandfather’ possible
 Equivalence and non-equivalence 29

SL-TL Examples Possible translation strategies

correspondence type
many-to-one: i.e. a distinction ‘ein Bekannter—eine • leave generic if distinction
in the SL can be lost in the TL Bekannte’ > ‘an irrelevant
acquaintance’ • add a modifier e.g. ‘male’/
‘female’
one-to-none i.e. there is a • transfer the ST word/expression
lexical gap in the TL, often ‘Bratwurst’ to the TT as a loan word e.g.
related to cultural differences ‘bratwurst’
or different metaphorical ‘the grassroots of • loan translate (i.e. syllable by
expressions; some may the nation’ syllable) e.g. ‘die Graswurzeln
become established in the TL, der Nation’
others may not • use an available TL
‘public relations’ word/expression with a similar
meaning e.g.
‘Öffentlichkeitsarbeit’
• use an explanatory phrase e.g.
‘Berufsverbot’ ‘exclusion from a civil service
profession by government
ruling’ (Collins)
• adapt i.e. find a cultural
‘Burberry’ equivalent e.g. ‘Lodenmantel’
one-to-part i.e. the TT ‘Beamte’ > ‘civil • use nearest equivalent where
word/expression only partly servant’ ST and TT meanings overlap
overlaps in meaning with an e.g. ‘civil servant’ for a
SL word/expression i.e. the ‘Hexe’ > government official
world is divided up in different ‘hag’ (shared • add an in-text explanation
ways in each language: meaning includes old, or a footnote e.g. if the ST
ugly, woman without ‘Beamte’ refers to a teacher,
magical powers) or, substitute ‘teacher’
‘witch’ (shared • choose the most appropriate
SL TL meaning includes equivalent for the context
word word magical powers e.g. ‘hag’ or ‘witch’
but also overlaps
partly with the
German ‘Fee’)

We return to some of these ‘correspondence types’—with more examples—

later in the chapter.

Connotative and pragmatic equivalence

Connotative equivalence goes beyond the purely denotative/referential to encom-
pass the potential that a particular word or expression has to affect the recipient.
So, for example, ‘sterben’ (neutral), ‘entschlafen’ (euphemistic) and ‘ins Gras
beißen’ (slang) (examples from Koller 2011: 243) are all possible translations
of ‘to die’, but the effect is likely to be quite different in each case. An accumu-
lation of several slang expressions would, for example, result in a text which
could be either humorous or disrespectful, or perhaps both if black humour is
the effect to be achieved. Errors in judging the connotative meaning of a word or
30 Overview and basic concepts
expression—and hence also the overall tenor of a text—can lead to breakdowns in
communication which can be just as serious as errors in denotation.
The notion that equivalence should encompass the effect on the reader has
perhaps been most famously expounded by the Bible scholar Eugene Nida who
proposed the concept of dynamic equivalence of effect (1964: 159), to which
we return below, as the aim of translation. This also shares some characteristics
with Koller’s ‘pragmatic equivalence’. One of the main questions here, accord-
ing to Koller (2011: 252)—echoing our question in Chapter 2 of how close a
translation should be—is how far the translator should go in meeting readers’
anticipated needs without tipping over from what he calls Textreproduktion to
Textproduktion, that is, moving from translation proper to writing a new text.
For example, though not all scholars agree, the reworking of a ST for a differ-
ent audience—Textproduktion—is excluded from what Koller understands to be a
translation: he excludes, for example, a ‘translation’ of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
for children (many omissions) and a reworking of a specialist legal textbook for a
popular audience (much simplification).

Text-normative equivalence
Koller’s category of ‘text-normative’ equivalence (2011: 250–1) focuses attention
on the need for the translator to look beyond the level of words or even sentences
to the whole text when making decisions about equivalence. In Chapter 2, we con-
sidered some issues relating to genre, including its importance in the translation
brief and the role of genre conventions in shaping translation decisions. Genres,
dealt with in more detail in the following chapter, can be thought of as classes
of texts which perform certain social functions expressed in recurring patterns of
form. As cultures vary in their social structures and customs, so can genres.
These variations can affect features ranging from organisation (e.g. the order of
text components in patents, see Göpferich 1999b) to tone (e.g. friendly or formal).
Some scholars have suggested that in the genre of academic writing, for exam-
ple, the style of writing in German can be characterised as ‘author-oriented’ and
in English as ‘predominantly co-operative, reader-oriented’ (Kreutz and Harres
1997: 181). So certain adjustments—such as a simpler syntax, more signposts for
the reader to indicate the structure of the paper and the direction of the argument,
as well as changes to the method of citation—could be justified if a German soci-
ologist, say, wanted an article translated into English for possible publication in an
English-language learned journal. The TT would be equivalent to the ST in terms
of meeting readers’ expectations of genre conventions.
In trying to create a TT which is equivalent in terms of conventions, it is also
wise for the translator to explore how typical the ST is of its genre: if a ST is
judged to be, say, particularly subversive with respect to genre conventions for
purposes of irony, then this would need to be reproduced in the TT. For example,
the English comedian Russell Brand introduced humour into his resignation letter
to the BBC after some risqué on-air repartee in a radio programme led to seri-
ous complaints. This deviation from the prototypical conventions of the genre
 Equivalence and non-equivalence 31
would need to be reproduced in any TT for it to be considered ‘equivalent’ in tone,
reflecting the identity of its author. What Brand did was to introduce an unconven-
tional element of personal expression into the genre.

Formal-aesthetic equivalence
Koller’s last equivalence type (2011: 255–69), concerns what he calls the aesthetic
function of texts, the ways in which the ST author uses language to convey their
meaning. Many authors develop an individual style, using rhyme, rhythm, metaphor,
wordplay, syntax and words in a unique way, which can be important in translation,
most obviously in the translation of canonical literary texts. These idiosyncrasies
of style—often syntactically and lexically creative—can pose significant problems
for translators. The compound adjective in the phrase ‘stinkfreundliches Lächeln’,
for example, poses a problem in its conflicting emotions: something unpleasant
and something friendly, reflecting the fact that the character in question is in pain
but apparently putting a brave face on things. There is no standard equivalent in
English as this is an original phrase. The published translation—‘super-friendly
smile’—misses the irony in the author’s innovative use of language (example from
Kenny 2001: 171).
Issues of voice are much less likely to occur in non-literary texts. Even where
they do, Koller argues that they are less constitutive of the relevant genre: in
other words, he maintains that the content—the focus of the communication
for Sachtexte (broadly speaking Reiß’s informative text type)—can still be suc-
cessfully conveyed, regardless of whether stylistic effects such as metaphors are
retained or not.

Some issues with dynamic equivalence

Nida’s concept of dynamic equivalence, ground-breaking in its day in terms of its
focus on text reception rather than formal equivalence, stems from his activity as
a translator of the Bible, a sacred text but one which he analyses as an operative
text, i.e. a text which is reader-oriented and aims to affect or even change behav-
iour in some way. However, this rather appealing concept has a number of well-
known problems, focusing in particular on the question of how we can possibly
know what goes on in someone’s head. More specifically, how can we know what
the relationship between the ST message and source-culture receptors is. For that
matter, is it plausible to speak of the relationship, as if there were only one: are
there not as many relationships as there are receptors? And who is to know what
such relationships can have been in the past? Indeed, these problems apply as
much to the TT as to the ST: who can foresee the multiple relationships between
the TT and its receptors, however well specified in the translation brief ?
When making decisions about possible solutions to the reception problem,
one suggestion is for the translator to assess what has been called the ‘cognitive
environment’ (Gutt 2010) in which the utterance (spoken or written) features in
order to understand the intention of the speaker/writer and the reaction of the
32 Overview and basic concepts
hearer/reader. In translation, this cognitive environment may differ between the
source and the target, meaning that inferences could be missed in the TT.
A good example is provided by an English version of a German newspaper
article by the German novelist Ingo Schulze (12 January 2015) about a Pegida
[Patriotische Europäer gegen (die) Islamisierung des Abendlandes] demonstra-
tion in Dresden (Schulze 2015a, 2015b). Noting the use of the slogan ‘Wir sind
das Volk! Wir sind das Volk!’, Schulze recalls its origin in the East German
Monday demonstrations which preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall in Novem-
ber 1989 and the subsequent reunification of Germany in 1990. Whilst a literal
translation (‘We are the people!’) is provided in the English version of Schulze’s
article, none of the political or historical background is made explicit for the
English reader, who, in the absence of any personal knowledge of events in
Germany at the end of the 1980s, is therefore operating in a different context,
making it hard to draw relevant inferences. These might include the idea that
the Pegida crowd was misappropriating the originally democratic slogan for
less noble purposes, thereby also partially accounting for Schulze’s reported
discomfort with the use of the slogan. Thus, while the published translation
is a close formal equivalent, as far as the communicative purpose of the text
is concerned, it could be seen as pragmatically inadequate and therefore not
equivalent. In order to simulate an equivalent cognitive environment, the trans-
lator could have chosen to add ‘in October 1989, when crowds of protestors
expressed their opposition to the East German regime and its claim to speak for
“the people” ’.
What both Schulze and the English translator do both assume, however, is
that the educated readers of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and The Guardian, both
‘quality’ newspapers, will be familiar with the political concept of ‘nützliche
Idioten’/‘useful idiots’. The translation is therefore in this respect equivalent in
its assumptions to those made by the ST author about readers’ general political
knowledge, arguably better justified than in the case of the uncontextualised rep-
lication, ‘We are the people’.
In the rest of this chapter we examine some of the more problematic areas
of equivalence between German and English, often discussed under the label of
‘non-equivalence’.

Some problems of non-equivalence

Koller’s inclusion of non-equivalence as a type of (denotative) equivalence (see
also Baker 2011: 15–44) is odd in one way, but understandable in another, as
translators have to find some kind of solution in the TT. As we have seen, many
problems associated with non-equivalence are of a cultural nature involving
features that are specific to the SL and the SC (source culture) but which are
absent and/or unknown in the TL/TC (target culture)—Koller’s one-to-none cor-
respondence. In the rest of this chapter, we give a brief introduction to some
problems of the equivalence concept, which will be explored in more detail later
in the book.
 Equivalence and non-equivalence 33
Cultural issues
The translation of food or clothing terms (‘material culture’ after Newmark 1988:
97–8) presents very familiar difficulties, as do more serious issues such as the con-
ceptualisation of illness. Neither the German ingredient ‘Speck’ (a kind of pork belly
fat) nor the Swabian soft egg noodles ‘Spätzle’ exist in British cuisine, the ‘kilt’ is
as specifically Celtic phenomenon as ‘Dirndl’ is German or Austrian, and English
speakers do not suffer from something called ‘circulation disturbances’ i.e. ‘Kreis­
laufstörungen’. The medical example illustrates well how conceptualisations of a
universal physical phenomenon—here, the human body—can be culturally filtered.
The food examples can show us how different solutions might be preferred
according to, say, the genre of the text. If the ST were a recipe in which ‘Speck’
was an important ingredient, some kind of substitution might be needed, as
‘Speck’ is not readily available outside the German-speaking area; research indi-
cates that ‘fatty bacon’, ‘pancetta’ or ‘lardons’ are possibilities. If the source text
is firmly rooted in the source culture, however, say a description of Swabian cui-
sine for a tourist brochure, then the translator could opt for a descriptive phrase
to add to the transfer into the TT of the German term ‘Spätzle’. This kind of
textual intervention is known as a ‘couplet’, where two translation strategies are
combined: in this case, a loan word (‘Spätzle’) plus an explanation in the text (‘a
kind of soft egg noodle’, or ‘Swabian soft egg noodles’).
Also falling within a broad cultural remit, other common problems of non-
equivalence are posed by administrative and organisational terms, for which there
may or may not be an established equivalent. Take, for example, the political term
‘Innenministerium’; this has an established translation of ‘Ministry of the Interior’
(or ‘recognised equivalent’ after Newmark). However, it may also be translated
in a target text with an addition as the ‘German Ministry of the Interior’ if it is
judged necessary to remind the reader which country is in question. Beyond such
established equivalents, there may also be a case for a cultural equivalent such
as the ‘Home Office’ or even ‘the German equivalent to the Home Office’. Or per-
haps a couplet combining two of these possibilities in some texts e.g. transfer +
cultural equivalent: ‘the Innenminsterium, the German equivalent of the Home
Office’. We return to cultural issues in Chapter 5.
In all these cases, the translator has to choose a translation strategy which is
optimal for the new text, its readership and the purpose of the translation. It is
important to remember that the translator’s job does not end with a dictionary
consultation or Koller’s correspondence types: the solution has to be crafted in a
specific way according to the context of the translation, as translators have done
since the time of Cicero. It is the translator’s job to find textual solutions, for which
the dictionary, glossary, termbase, and so on are often only a good starting point.

Issues of form and content

As we shall see throughout this course, it is the translator’s job to work
with a range of possible strategies which, in their view, make the TT fit for
its purpose. In some cases, however, strategies such as transfer, addition
34 Overview and basic concepts
or substitution may not be appropriate or readily available if dealing with a
case of non-equivalence. A few very simple examples, at the primitive level
of the sounds, rhythm and literal meaning of individual words, will illustrate
this. Here, we are more likely to resort to another translation strategy, namely,
compensation.
The translation of poetry presents one of the biggest challenges for translators
as formal patterns (e.g. rhyme, metre, alliteration, assonance) vie with meaning
for the translator’s attention. Consider, for example, the following extract from
a children’s poem by Josef Guggenmos: ‘War ein Ries’ bei mir zu Gast,/Sieben
Meter maß er fast’. A possible translation which aims (not entirely successfully)
to reproduce the metre and the rhyme whilst retaining the narrative message is as
follows: ‘A giant came to visit me,/Twenty feet, so tall was he’. The change from
metric to imperial measurements is not entirely motivated by cultural considera-
tions: ‘twenty feet’ scans better than ‘seven metres’. Precision is unimportant
here: whether the giant is seven metres or twenty feet tall makes little difference.
In fact, the precise equivalent—22 feet 11.6 inches—would be more than odd in
this text, although crucial in another, such as the length of a piece of equipment
which has to be fitted into a given space. So again, we have different criteria when
judging what is ‘equivalent’.

Concluding remarks
Intuitively, equivalence is at the heart of translation. But as we have seen in this
chapter, there are many good reasons to challenge the implication of ‘sameness’
and to nuance the concept in many different ways. To some extent, the scope
of ‘equivalence’ as a concept depends on your view of the scope of ‘transla-
tion’, whether all-embracing—including adaptations, (software) localisation
and audio-description (intermodal translation)—or more traditional—focusing
on a written text, the meaning and form of which closely guides the production
of a text in another language. But whatever your view, equivalence will turn out
to be a relative concept which depends on a number of factors, including the
text type (function) and the text genre, as well as the purpose of the translation
as set out in the translation brief. It is these factors that will help to shape your
decisions about which translation strategies to apply when creating your new
target text.

Further reading
Bellos, David 2012. Is That a Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation.
London: Penguin [what is ‘translation’? pp. 322–7].
Boase-Beier, Jean 2020. ‘Poetry’, in Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds) Routledge Encyclo-
pedia of Translation Studies. 3rd edn. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 410–414.
Hatim, Basil and Munday, Jeremy 2004. Translation. An Advanced Resource Book.
London and New York: Routledge [what is ‘translation’? pp. 3–9; form and content,
 Equivalence and non-equivalence 35
pp. 10–1; cognitive issues, pp. 57–64; dynamic equivalence and the receptor of the mes-
sage, pp. 253–61].
Munday, Jeremy 2016. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. 4th
edn. London and New York: Routledge [Chapter 8.1 Translation as re-writing].
Newmark, Peter P. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall
[functional/cultural equivalence, pp. 82–3; translation of political and administrative
terms, pp. 99–102; translation of measurements, pp. 217–8].
Schmitt, Peter A. 1999a. ‘Maßeinheiten’, in Snell-Hornby, M., Hönig, H., Kuβmaul,
P. and Schmitt, P. A. (eds) Handbuch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg,
pp. 298–300.

Practical 3

3.1 EVALUATING TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN TERMS

OF EQUIVALENCE

Assignment
Here is a ST for comparison with two published TTs. The exercise focuses on the
notion of equivalence in terms of the two different versions.

i Read through the ST and list potential equivalence problems, bearing in mind
Koller’s five types of equivalence.
ii Choose one or two equivalence types and identify one or two problems of
each type, analysing how your chosen problems have been solved in each of
the TTs: can you identify (a) which translation strategy has been used in each
case; (b) a rationale for any differences? And (c) did you identify any ‘prob-
lems’ which turned out not to be; or (d) find any features of the TTs which
indicate that you failed to anticipate a particular problem?
iii Consider whether you could improve on the solutions to any of the problems
identified in (i). State your new solution together with your reasons for it in
terms of equivalence.

Contextual information
The ST is from Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nichts Neues (first published
1929), perhaps the best-known of all Great War novels. A group of comrades
who, as new recruits, had been bullied by Unteroffizier Himmelstoß (a post-
man in civilian life), encounter him at the front. One of them, Tjaden, insolently
refuses to obey an order given by Himmelstoß, who storms off to report the
matter to his superiors. Tjaden goes off into a hut so as to keep out of trouble.
The others fall to reminiscing about their schooldays and wonder what, if any-
thing, they learned at school. After a few minutes, Himmelstoß returns with a fat
Feldwebel.
 ST
Wir erheben uns. Der Spieß schnauft: ‘Wo ist Tjaden?’
Natürlich weiß es keiner. Himmelstoß glitzert uns böse an. ‘Bestimmt wißt ihr es.
Wollt es bloß nicht sagen. Raus mit der Sprache’.
Der Spieß sieht sich suchend um; Tjaden ist nirgendwo zu erblicken. Er versucht
5 es andersherum. ‘In zehn Minuten soll Tjaden sich auf Schreibstube melden’.
Damit zieht er davon, Himmelstoß in seinem Kielwasser.
‘Ich habe das Gefühl, daß mir beim nächsten Schanzen eine Drahtrolle auf die
Beine von Himmelstoß fallen wird’, vermutet Kropp.
‘Wir werden an ihm noch viel Spaß haben’, lacht Müller.
10 Das ist unser Ehrgeiz: einem Briefträger die Meinung stoßen.
Ich gehe in die Baracke und sage Tjaden Bescheid, damit er verschwindet.
Dann wechseln wir unsern Platz und lagern uns wieder, um Karten zu spielen.
Denn das können wir: Kartenspielen, fluchen und Krieg führen. Nicht viel für zwanzig
Jahre—zuviel für zwanzig Jahre.
15 Nach einer halben Stunde ist Himmelstoß erneut bei uns. Niemand beachtet
ihn. Er fragt nach Tjaden. Wir zucken die Achseln. ‘Ihr solltet ihn doch suchen’,
beharrt er.
‘Wieso ihr?’ erkundigt sich Kropp.
‘Na, ihr hier—'
20 ‘Ich möchte Sie bitten, uns nicht zu duzen’, sagt Kropp wie ein Oberst.
Himmelstoß fällt aus den Wolken. ‘Wer duzt euch denn?’
‘Sie!’
‘Ich?’
‘Ja’.
25 Es arbeitet in ihm. Er schielt Kropp mißtrauisch an, weil er keine Ahnung hat,
was der meint. Immerhin traut er sich in diesem Punkte nicht ganz und kommt uns
entgegen. ‘Habt ihr ihn nicht gefunden?’
Kropp legt sich ins Gras und sagt: ‘Waren Sie schon mal hier draußen?’ ‘Das geht
Sie gar nichts an’, bestimmt Himmelstoß. ‘Ich verlange Antwort’.
30 ‘Gemacht’, erwidert Kropp und erhebt sich. ‘Sehen Sie mal dorthin, wo die
kleinen Wolken stehen. Das sind die Geschosse der Flaks. Da waren wir gestern. Fünf
Tote, acht Verwundete. Dabei war es eigentlich ein Spaß. Wenn Sie nächstens mit
rausgehen, werden die Mannschaften, bevor sie sterben, erst vor Sie hintreten, die
Knochen zusammenreißen und zackig fragen: Bitte wegtreten zu dürfen! Bitte
35 abkratzen zu dürfen! Auf Leute wie Sie haben wir hier gerade gewartet’.
Er setzt sich wieder, und Himmelstoß verschwindet wie ein Komet.
(Remarque 1955: 68–9)

TT (i)
We get up.
‘Where’s Tjaden?’ the sergeant puffs.
No one knows, of course. Himmelstoss glowers at us wrathfully. ‘You know very
well. You won’t say, that’s the fact of the matter. Out with it!’
5 Fatty looks round enquiringly; but Tjaden is not to be seen. He tries another way.
‘Tjaden will report at the Orderly Room in ten minutes’.
Then he steams off with Himmelstoss in his wake.
‘I have a feeling that next time we go up wiring I’ll be letting a bundle of wire fall
 TT (i)
on Himmelstoss’s leg,’ hints Kropp.
10 ‘We’ll have quite a lot of jokes with him,’ laughs Müller.—
That is our sole ambition: to knock the conceit out of a postman.—
I go into the hut and put Tjaden wise. He disappears.
Then we change our possy and lie down again to play cards. We know how to do
that: to play cards, to swear, and to fight. Not much for twenty years;—and yet too
15 much for twenty years.
Half an hour later Himmelstoss is back again. Nobody pays any attention to him.
He asks for Tjaden. We shrug our shoulders.
‘Then you’d better find him,’ he persists. ‘Haven’t you been to look for him?’
Kropp lies back on the grass and says: ‘Have you ever been out here before?’
20 ‘That’s none of your business,’ retorts Himmelstoss. ‘I expect an answer’.
‘Very good,’ says Kropp, getting up. ‘See up there where those little white clouds
are. Those are anti-aircraft. We were over there yesterday. Five dead and eight
wounded. And that’s a mere nothing. Next time, when you go up with us, before they
die the fellows will come up to you, click their heels, and ask stiffly: “Please may I
25 go? Please may I hop it? We’ve been waiting here a long time for someone like you.” ’
He sits down again and Himmelstoss disappears like a comet.
(Remarque 1930: 100–2, trans. Wheen)

TT (ii)
We stand up. The sergeant major puffs, ‘Where’s Tjaden?’
None of us knows, of course. Himmelstoss glares angrily at us. ‘Of course you
know, you lot. You just don’t want to tell us. Come on, out with it’.
The CSM looks all round him, but Tjaden is nowhere to be seen. He tries a
5 different tack. ‘Tjaden is to present himself at the orderly room in ten minutes’.
With that he clears off, with Himmelstoss in his wake.
‘I’ve got a feeling that a roll of barbed-wire is going to fall on Himmelstoss’s
legs when we’re on wiring fatigues again,’ reckons Kropp.
‘We’ll get a good bit of fun out of him yet,’ laughs Müller.
10 That’s the extent of our ambition now: taking a postman down a peg or two . . .
I go off to the hut to warn Tjaden, so that he can disappear.
We shift along a bit, then lie down again to play cards. Because that is what we
are good at: playing cards, swearing and making war. Not much for twenty years—
too much for twenty years.
15 Half an hour later, Himmelstoss is back. Nobody takes any notice of him. He
asks where Tjaden is. We shrug our shoulders. ‘You lot were supposed to look for
him’.
‘What do you mean “you lot”?’ asks Kropp.
‘Well, you lot here—’
20 ‘I should like to request, Corporal Himmelstoss, that you address us in an
appropriate military fashion,’ says Kropp, sounding like a colonel.
Himmelstoss is thunderstruck. ‘Who’s addressing you any other way?’
‘You, Corporal Himmelstoss, sir’.
‘Me?’
25 ‘Yes’.

(Continued)
38 Overview and basic concepts
(Continued)

TT (ii)
It is getting to him. He looks suspiciously at Kropp because he hasn’t any idea of
what he is talking about. At all events, he loses confidence and backs down. ‘Didn’t
you lot find him?’
Kropp lies back in the grass and says, ‘Have you ever been out here before,
30 Corporal Himmelstoss, sir?’
‘That is quite irrelevant, Private Kropp,’ says Himmelstoss, ‘and I demand an
answer’.
‘Right,’ says Kropp and gets up. ‘Have a look over there, Corporal, sir, where the
little white clouds are. That’s the flak going for the aircraft. That’s where we were
35 yesterday. Five dead, eight wounded. And that was actually an easy one. So the next
time we go up the line, Corporal, sir, the platoons will parade in front of you before
they die, click their heels and request in proper military fashion “Permission to fall
out, sir! Permission to fall down dead, sir!” People like you are all we need out here,
Corporal, sir’.
He sits down again and Himmelstoss shoots off like a rocket.
(Remarque 1994: 63–5, trans. Murdoch)

3.2 EQUIVALENCE, GENRE AND CULTURE

Assignment
There follows a link to a recipe for Apfelkuchen mit Streuseln, published online.
The translation brief is to produce an English-language version for an online col-
lection of recipes for German-style cakes and pastries.

i Work in pairs or small groups to produce an English translation, bearing in

mind the following points.
ii How much freedom do you have in this translation compared to that in the
translation of a novel such as Im Westen nichts Neues? And how would you
account for any differences in the degrees of freedom?
iii Identify what you anticipate to be the main equivalence problems in the ST.
Are these lexical or syntactic? Are they to do with genre conventions?
iv List what you think might be an appropriate translation strategy for each
problem identified.
v Compare your draft translation with that of another group. Discuss any differ-
ences, explaining the reasons for your translation decisions.

ST
Apfelkuchen mit Streuseln (available at www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/220403135333
8061/Apfelkuchen-mit-Streuseln.html)

References

Primary
Remarque, Erich Maria 1930. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated by Wheen, Arthur
W. London: Putnam & Co.
 Equivalence and non-equivalence 39
Remarque, Erich Maria 1955. Im Westen nichts Neues. Berlin: Ullstein.
Remarque, Erich Maria 1994. All Quiet on the Western Front. Translated by Murdoch,
Brian. London: Vintage.
Schulze, Ingo 2015a. ‘Pegida-Demonstration in Dresden: Die nützlichen Idioten’, Süd-
deutsche Zeitung, 27 January.
Schulze, Ingo 2015b. ‘Pegida: Germany’s useful idiots’, The Guardian, 1 February. Trans-
lated by Derbyshire, Katy.

Secondary
Baker, Mona 2011. In Other Words. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Göpferich, Susanne 1999b. ‘Patentschriften’, in Snell-Hornby, M., Hönig, H., Kuβmaul,
P. and Schmitt, P. A. (eds) Handbuch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg,
pp. 222–5.
Gutt, Ernst-August 2010. Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context. 2nd edn.
London and New York: Routledge.
Kenny, Dorothy 2001. Lexis and Creativity in Translation: A Corpus-Based Study. Man-
chester: St. Jerome.
Koller, Werner (unter Mitarbeit von Kjetl Berg Henjum) 2011. Einführung in die
Űbersetzungswissenschaft. 8th edn. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.
Kreutz, Heinz and Harres, Annette 1997. ‘Some observations on the distribution and func-
tion of hedging in German and English academic writing’, in Duszak, A. (ed.) Culture
and Styles of Academic Discourse. Trends in Linguistics. Vol. 104. Berlin: de Gruyter,
pp. 181–202.
Nida, Eugene A. 1964. Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: Brill.

Lexical and rfelated sources

Collins German Dictionary 1999. 4th edn. Glasgow: Collins.
Section B

Some key issues

In this second section of the course, we start by picking up on two themes which
emerged in the examples from Section A, namely the importance of genre and the
pervasiveness of culture in shaping translation decisions.
Chapter 4 covers a topic on which much has been written in Translation Stud-
ies, especially since the 1980s, namely textual genre. One way of classifying texts
as communicative entities is to group them according to their social purpose, usu-
ally well recognised in the general population e.g. a short story, or within a more
specialised discourse community e.g. a technical data sheet. In describing the fea-
tures of genres, the focus is on ‘conventions’ rather than ‘rules’, indicating that
each genre is likely to be realised in practice by some prototypical texts and some
more peripheral examples with degrees of variation within and between each lan-
guage/culture. The approach we take in this chapter—of necessity, selective—is
a functional one. Three case studies are presented and analysed from a translation
perspective, each with a primary but not exclusive rhetorical function.
In moving on to cultural issues in Chapter 5, we aim to show that dealing with
cultural differences is important in non-literary as well as in literary translation.
Two overall approaches are presented, namely ‘exoticism’ and ‘cultural trans-
plantation’, showing how particular strategies—calque (loan translation), cultural
borrowing, cultural equivalent—can contribute to what could also be called the
chosen ‘global strategy’ or approach. Once again, it is argued that ‘pure’ types are
rarely found in practice and that the translator’s expertise lies in judging which
strategy is appropriate given the chosen overall approach, sometimes belying the
dichotomies which we work with as models.
The third chapter in this section, Chapter 6, deals with one particular strat-
egy, compensation. It has a whole chapter to itself as it is rather open-ended and
therefore often under-represented in course books. When faced with a challenging
problem for which no standard solution is immediately apparent e.g. wordplay or
an absence of correspondence in forms of address, the translator has to be both
analytical (what is the translation problem?) and imaginative (how do I fill the
gap?). What distinguishes the use of a particular strategy as ‘compensation’—still
selected from the available ‘toolbox’—is that the solution can be applied at a loca-
tion in the translation which is not necessarily the ‘same’ as the location of the
42 Some key issues
problem item in the source text. The strategy might also result in a different kind
of mechanism in the translation, so a humorous wordplay may be replaced by an
alternative humorous device. The examples discussed are taken from both literary
and specialised texts, although compensation tends to be most often discussed in
the context of the former, being perceived as a way of solving problems of stylis-
tic effect or emotional force.
4 Textual genre and translation
issues

In the previous two chapters on closeness and equivalence, the notion of genre
(Textsorte) has cropped up in many different ways. In the current chapter we will
be taking a more systematic look at genre as a crucial feature of both the source
and the target text. In brief, you do not approach the translation of a safety notice
in the same way as you approach the translation of a short story.
In Chapter 3, we offered a provisional explanation of genres as classes of texts
which perform certain social functions expressed in recurring patterns of form. We
noted that as cultures vary in their social structures and customs, so can genres.
Understanding genre is important because it can help us to make generalisations
as a basis for our decisions when understanding or producing texts.
The concept of genre covers the traditionally identified forms of literary expres-
sion (e.g. poem, novel, short story, Novelle), as well as texts bearing what Baker
calls ‘institutionalized labels’ such as ‘journal article’, ‘science textbook’, ‘news-
paper editorial’ or ‘travel brochure’ (Baker 2011: 123). We can also include texts
beyond the ‘professional’, the ‘academic’, the ‘literary’ and the ‘institutional’ to
embrace new genres such as those which have emerged from social media (e.g.
tweets) and online communication (e.g. emails). One well-known definition of
genres in professional contexts is:

a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communica-

tive purpose(s) and mutually understood by the members of the professional
or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly
structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions
in terms of their intent, positioning and functional value.
(Bhatia 1993: 13).

Like other cultural conventions and indeed like language itself, genres evolve,
new ones emerge, and old ones can lose importance, though certain genres are
less susceptible to change than others. For example, legal genres such as con-
tracts and agreements—which have worked for many years and have their basis
in an established profession—are unlikely to undergo any change without serious
consideration, as this could lead to unanticipated loopholes. Most STs can be said
prototypically to share some of their properties with other texts of the same genre
44 Some key issues
(e.g. length, layout, degree of creativity or formulaicity), and, significantly, STs
are perceived by an SL audience as being what they are on account of such genre-
defining properties and the text’s relation to other genres.
In order to assess the nature and function of the ST and to judge the relative typ-
icality of a specific ST, the translator must have some sort of overview of genres
in the source culture, be familiar with their characteristics and, where appropri-
ate, how they are developing, as well as making themselves familiar with target-
culture genres. It is not difficult to see, for instance, that the linguistic conventions
typically used to give commands in instructions for use in German (infinitive)
and English (imperative) can be different: ‘Verpackungsmaterial ordnungsgemäß
entsorgen’/‘Dispose of packaging material correctly’ (example from Parianou and
Kelandrias 2007: 528). Paying due attention to the nature and function of the
TT helps the translator to create a text with the relevant features, from layout to
phrasing. In some cases, the translator is aiming to create a text in the TL as if it
had been written in that language, e.g. instructions for use, product packaging,
safety information. In other cases, however, the conventions of the ST play a
much stronger role. It is the translator’s job to judge what is appropriate.

Classifying genres
There are many suggestions for how genres can be classified. An earlier edition
of this course suggested five broad categories, both thematically and function-
ally based: extralinguistic (of the world), philosophical (the world of ideas), reli-
gious (the world of belief), persuasive (purposeful) and literary (imaginative).
The UK translation scholar Peter Newmark has distinguished between literary
and non-literary texts, the former dealing with the ‘world of the imagination’ con-
cerned with ‘persons’, the latter with the ‘world of facts’, concerned with ‘objects’
(2004). Koller (2011: 278) makes a similar distinction between Fiktivtexte and
Sachtexte, in other words, between texts that ‘reflect one person’s unique thought’
and texts that ‘reflect the extralinguistic world’, according to Mossop (1998: 235).
This is, of course, an obvious distinction to draw, but it is not without its prob-
lems. Newmark himself blurs the binary in an expedient way by introducing an
interim class of texts ‘between literary and non-literary texts’; as examples, he
cites genres such as the essay and the autobiography as well as specific academic
subject fields, broadly in the Social Sciences (2004: 10). But subject matter can-
not in itself be the sole criterion for describing genres, because the same subject
matter can figure in very different genres, e.g. ‘sport’ can feature in an academic
journal (sports science article), a newspaper (report of a match) or in a magazine
(advertisement for a sports-related product). We should also add that science texts
can be highly creative and metaphorical such as the Danish physicist Nils Bohr’s
conception of the atom, which was inspired by the orbit of planets around the sun.
All this shows that attempts to assign clear-cut categories to the artefact, text,
created by human beings for other human beings, quickly encounters difficulties,
as does any model of human behaviour. The well-known translation scholar Mary
Snell-Hornby suggested 30 years ago that language ‘[i]n its concrete realization [. . .]
 Textual genre and translation issues 45
cannot be reduced to a system of static and clear-cut categories’ (1988: 31).
Instead, she proposed a system of ‘blurred edges and overlappings’ (ibid.) in what
she called the ‘basic text types’—here, broad categories of genre—consisting of:
Bible—Stage/Film—Lyric Poetry—Modern Literature—Newspaper/General infor-
mation texts—Advertising Literature—Legal Literature—Economic Literature—
Medicine—­Science/Tech. (1988: 32). As examples of the blurring between ‘types’,
Snell-Hornby cites the occurrence of ‘technical terms’ in non-science texts and the
use of ‘prototypically literary devices such as word-play and alliteration in “general”
newspaper texts and advertising’ (1988: 31–2).
The translator needs to be aware—and follow this through with ST analysis,
as well as TL research—that not only may there be differences between the gen-
re’s conventions of the SL and the TL, there may also be differences within the
same genre: we can recall the example of the expressive resignation letter from
Chapter 3, in one sense an informative text but one with a highly personalised
style. Another example—this time in the operative genre of recipes—is provided
by the different ‘voices’ of best-selling authors Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith, the
former cheeky and irreverent, the latter didactic; so for Jamie, wine is ‘sloshed’,
for Delia, it is ‘poured’, for instance (Tanner 2012). Whether such differences
are carried over in translation may well depend on the prevailing conventions of
acceptability in the target culture in the relevant genre. Breaking new ground is
also, of course, a possibility.
Differences between genres in the same language should be more obvious, but
some can be rather elusive. For example, intralingual differences in cohesive con-
ventions have been identified in English academic texts and business news stories:
the frequency of conjuncts such as ‘yet’, ‘therefore’, ‘finally’, ‘to conclude’ is much
higher in the former than in the latter (Morrow 1989). Thus, underuse or overuse
of certain features can, in a way which is not immediately apparent, lead to a text
which sounds inauthentic. Charting differences in frequency distributions is usually
the preserve of the researcher rather than the practising translator, but developing
an awareness of possible differences of this kind can help to sharpen the translator’s
analytical eye.

A modest proposal
Where do all these overlappings and different classifications leave the poor trans-
lator who is trying to sort out which class of texts the ST belongs to and what
features to observe in the TT in order to guide their research and to shape their
translation decisions? As a starting point, we suggest firstly that it is useful to
recall Reiß’s distinction between function (Texttyp) and genre (Textsorte), as a
way of grouping text forms which does not rely on subject classifications. How-
ever, we cannot necessarily map genres and functions in any neat way: genres can
function internally in a number of ways: persuading, informing, entertaining etc.
and functions are conceptually broad categories which encompass many genres.
In what follows, in order to illustrate for translation purposes how certain gen-
res function, we consider texts as falling into two broad categories: on the one
46 Some key issues
hand, texts whose primary function and use is governed by the presentation of
information; on the other, texts whose primary function is to engage the reader,
to entertain or to move. We might call these categories ‘factual’ and ‘aesthetic’
respectively, the two of course having significant overlap in terms of means but
being fundamentally distinguished by the reader’s expectation about their rela-
tionship to the empirical world. As always, broad definitions and models can only
take us so far. We present three case studies, two belong broadly to the category
of factual texts one to the category of aesthetic texts. This way of presenting
genre has the advantage of revealing some shared characteristics between texts
which are often masked by more detailed categorisations. We will also note how
hybridity of function is exhibited in many genres: the world of ‘real’ texts is not
an ‘ideal’ one.
We conclude the chapter with a brief discussion of an increasingly important
characteristic of text which features in many literary and specialised genres,
namely, multimodality.

CASE STUDY 1: Encyclopaedia entries

Purely factual texts—content-focused according to Reiß (see Chap-

ter 2)—of a pure or ‘ideal’ kind are very hard to find: even scholarly texts
present and interpret data in particular ways, despite the apparently neu-
tral conventions of academic writing. For our present purposes, we have
chosen texts which might be considered as close to an objective, informa-
tive form of writing as possible: entries from an encyclopaedia of Linguis-
tics, for which a German (original) and an English version are available
(Bußmann 1990, Bussmann 1996). However, even here, despite the
apparently objective nature of the exercise, the Preface to the translated
English text acknowledges terminological problems in English reflecting
methodological differences between linguists: ‘The task of “translating”
became, therefore, not a linear word-for-word rendering of German lin-
guistic concepts into English, but rather an adaptation’ (Bussmann 1996:
vii)—an interesting comment since ‘adaptation’ is more commonly asso-
ciated with literary translation, such as the recasting of an adult text for
children.
The entry in the German ST chosen for comment here is Lehnüber-
setzung; in the English version, the comparable entry is ‘loan transla-
tion’, a strategy to fill a lexical gap in the TT (see Chapter 3, Table 3.1).
In the entry as shown here, the single arrow in the German entries signi-
fies a cross-reference to another entry; the double arrow in the English
performs the same function (remember to check for variation in such
conventions e.g. in a publisher’s style sheet):
 Textual genre and translation issues 47

Lehnübersetzung. Vorgang Loan translation

und Ergebnis einer genauen 1 In the narrower sense: the process and result
Glied-für-Glied Űbersetzung of a one-to-one translation of the elements of
eines fremdsprachlichen a foreign expression into a word in one’s own
Ausdrucks in die eigene language: Eng. Monday for Lat. dies lunae, Eng.
Sprache: Dampfmaschine accomplished fact for Fr. fait accompli.
für engl. steam engine, 2 In a broader sense: (a) a loose translation of the
Montag für latein. dies foreign concept into one’s own language, e.g.
lunae, Geistesgegenwart Ger. Wolkenkratzer (lit. ‘cloud scratcher’) for Engl.
für frz. présence d’esprit. Skyscraper; or (b) an adoption of the foreign
Zur Űbersicht über den concept into one’s own language, e.g. brotherhood
Lehnwortschatz im Dt. for Lat. fraternitas. (⇒ also borrowed meaning,
→Entlehnung (Űbersicht). borrowing, calque, loan word).

It is immediately apparent here that the English version is longer and

structured differently from the German original (macrostructure), as well
as containing different examples. The English ‘loan translation’ entry distin-
guishes between what it calls a ‘narrower’ and a ‘broader’ sense, a distinc-
tion not made in the German entry for ‘Lehnübersetzung’. But why? The
reason is simple. Only the first sense of the English entry is strictly speaking
a ‘Lehnübersetzung’; the second sense—a looser concept—is a ‘Lehnüber-
tragung’, dealt with in a separate entry in the German edition of the encyclo-
paedia: German linguists have established finer distinctions than linguists
dealing with English for related phenomena. So even for apparently factual
data, interpretations can vary. Trying to map equivalents therefore poses
problems similar to those encountered when mapping culturally specific
phenomena, but this is made explicit in the structuring of an encyclopaedia.
Returning to the first part of the English entry, from a microstruc-
tural perspective we can see that it corresponds closely to the German
entry—both are highly nominal, both use italics for words in other lan-
guages. Differences can, however, be noted in three areas:

• the examples, as they need to show loans which have come into
that particular language: a change in content
• the abbreviations (engl./Eng.; frz./Fr.): a matter of convention
• the addition of the introductory phrases ‘In the narrower/broader sense:’
in the two-part English entry to reflect the change in macrostructure

Translators might well have to make such adjustments to the content,

as well genre conventions, when moving between languages and are
advised to consult accordingly, in this case with the editor/s of the
48 Some key issues

English version. Cross-references to other entries would also need to

be checked, especially as the linguistic world is mapped differently in the
relevant German- and English-speaking discourse communities.

CASE STUDY 2: Gebrauchsanleitung

(Instructions for use)

Genres such as instruction manuals, laws and regulations, propaganda

leaflets, menus and sales promotion letters have an operative/persua-
sive function, aiming to make listeners or readers behave in prescribed
or suggested ways in relation to the world around them. Some have an
option about future behaviour such as advertisements and recipes, and
some do not, such as contracts or treaties (see Hatim and Mason 1990:
156–8). The linguistic and rhetorical conventions characteristic of the
many genres with an operative function vary considerably: here we focus
on a typical set of instructions for using a domestic device.
The following German ST and English TT are extracts from the
‘Gebrauchsanleitung’ (operating instructions) for an appliance variously
called a ‘Fußbad ’, ‘Fußwanne’, ‘Fußsprudel-Bad’ (‘foot bath’, ‘foot spa’,
‘spa’) (Bosch 2009). Interestingly, there is no consistent equivalent in
the English translation for these apparent synonyms; so, for example,
‘Fußbad’ and ‘Fußwanne’ are both translated as ‘foot bath’, but ‘foot spa’
and ‘spa’ are on occasion used to translate ‘Gerät ’ (otherwise ‘appli-
ance’). Each language version in the multilingual documentation is
organised in two columns per A4 page, the various languages appear-
ing consecutively i.e. German, then English, then French and so on. We
have displayed the texts in parallel below in order to facilitate compari-
sons between the German and the English:

Anwendung Application
Allgemein General
Durch die sanften Schwingungen und das The gentle oscillations and the
sprudelnde Wasser können Muskeln bubbling water relax muscles and
gelockert und müde Füße erfrischt werden. reinvigorate tired feet.
Mit den beigelegten Aufsätzen kann man die The attachments supplied pamper
Füße pflegen und massieren. and massage the feet.
Eine Anwendung sollte nicht länger als 10 A session should not last longer than
Minuten dauern. 10 minutes.
 Textual genre and translation issues 49

Das Fußbad kann mit oder ohne Wasser The foot bath can be used with or
benutzt werden. without water.
Während der Benutzung sitzen und Sit down during use, and under
keinesfalls mit den Füßen im Gerät no circumstances stand up with
aufstehen! your feet in the spa!
Das Gerät ist nicht für eine Belastung mit The appliance is not designed to take
vollem Körpergewicht ausgelegt. the full weight of the user.

The layout of any text is important for a number of reasons. In the

present case, the column format—as also in newspapers and some
magazines—affects the length of paragraphs in particular: the lines are
shorter and the number of lines per paragraph is restricted, presumably
to allow for easier reading and navigation through the text. The TT cor-
rectly follows the ST in this layout. Rather oddly for our expectations of
instructions for use in German, the use of modals (‘können’, ‘sollen’) is
more evident than the more conventional use of the infinitive (‘sitzen’,
‘aufstehen’). However, the infinitive structure is used in the penultimate
sentence of our extract, where, through its contrasting form, it draws
attention to this sentence as a safety warning, reinforced further by the
bold font and the preceding greater line spacing. The variation in verb
forms can therefore be understood as functional rather than deviant.
While the choice of punctuation in the TT could be questioned—
exclamation marks are not required with commands in English—the
pace of the ST is well maintained by the change from modals to imper-
ative in the TT. The final sentence offers a reinforcing explanation for
the warning. In addition to the modal structures used in the first four
sentences, the choice of certain words (notably adjectives and verbs)
is also designed to emphasise the wisdom of the purchase in terms
of its restorative qualities: ‘sanft ’, ‘sprudelnd ’, ‘erfrischt ’, ‘pflegen ’ (‘gen-
tle’, ‘bubbling’, ‘reinvigorate’, ‘pamper’). This rather lyrical feature is con-
trasted with a later section, namely the ‘Garantiebedingungen ’.
Consumer-related quasi-legal issues often feature in ‘Operating
instructions’. The following information on the product’s guarantee is the
last item in each language section:

Garantiebedingungen Guarantee
Für dieses Gerät gelten die von unserer The guarantee conditions for this
jeweils zuständigen Landesvertretung appliance are as defined by our
herausgegebenen Garantiebedingungen, in representative in the country in
dem das Gerät gekauft wurde. Sie können which it is sold. Details regarding
die Garantiebedingungen jederzeit these conditions can be obtained
50 Some key issues

über Ihren Fachhändler, bei dem Sie das from the dealer from whom
Gerät gekauft haben oder direkt bei the appliance was purchased.
unserer Landesvertretung anfordern. Die The bill of sale or receipt must
Garantiebedingungen für Deutschland und be produced when making any
die Adressen finden Sie auf den letzten vier claim under the terms of this
Seiten dieses Heftes. guarantee.
Darüber hinaus sind die Garantiebedingungen Changes reserved.
auch im Internet unter der benannten
Webadresse hinterlegt. Für die
Inanspruchnahme von Garantieleistungen
ist in jedem Fall die Vorlage des
Kaufbeleges erforderlich.
Änderungen vorbehalten.

It is immediately apparent that the English TT omits that part of the

German ST (highlighted) which is concerned specifically with the con-
ditions of the German guarantee. Such omissions or generic amend-
ments are a regular feature of multilingual documentation accompanying
internationally marketed products as the cultural setting (including legal
conditions) of the text changes.
The vocabulary in this section is specialised (‘Landesvertretung’,
‘Garantiebedingungen’, ‘Inanspruchnahme’), and shows no sign of the
more colourful vocabulary of the earlier section: the foot bath is always
referred to as ‘Gerät ’ in the ST and ‘appliance’ in the TT. The TT makes
appropriate syntactic changes, such as the shift from the extended
attribute phrase in the first ST sentence to a predicative phrase, and
avoids the direct address to the reader of the ST (‘Sie können . . . ’) by
using a passive construction, the more usual form for a guarantee in
English. The categorical adverbials ‘jederzeit ’ and ‘in jedem Fall ’ are
also dropped in the TT. The final phrase ‘Änderungen vorbehalten’ trans-
lated as ‘Changes reserved’ is the only slip, as the conventional English
phrase is ‘Subject to change without notice’.

CASE STUDY 3: A Dinggedicht in sonnet form

Many texts have some form of aesthetic function, or appeal to the emo-
tions in some way, whether that is a stylised editorial, an impassioned let-
ter, or more narrowly defined literary texts as we will discuss here. For our
example, we take the poem ‘Blaue Hortensie’ from Rainer Marie Rilke’s
 Textual genre and translation issues 51

Neue Gedichte (first published in 1907). The text and its translation pre-
sented here are given as they appeared in a 2011 edition by Susan Ran-
son and Marielle Sutherland, with the German text and the translation on
facing pages (Rilke 2011: 68–9), presented here sequentially:

Blaue Hortensie

So wie das letzte Grün in Farbentiegeln

sind diese Blätter, trocken, stumpf und rauh,
hinter den Blütendolden, die ein Blau
nicht auf sich tragen, nur von ferne spiegeln.

Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau,

als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren,
und wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren
ist Gelb in ihnen, Violett und Grau;

Verwaschnes wie an einer Kinderschürze,

Nichtmehrgetragnes, dem nichts mehr geschieht:
wie fühlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kürze.

Doch plötzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen

in einer von den Dolden, und man sieht
ein rührend Blaues sich vor Grünem freuen.

Blue Hydrangea

Dull and rough these leaves, like vestiges

of green paint left in a jar, grown
dry under flowers whose blue is not their own
but tint reflected from the distances.

They mirror it through stains of tears, blurred,

as though they wished it could be lost from them,
and have the look of old, blue letters, dimmed
to violet, and yellow-tinged, and greyed;

washed out like a child’s pinafore,

like things no longer worn, kept for no use,
and as affecting as a life soon over.
52 Some key issues

Then with a start the blue seems new again

within one umbel, and before your eyes
a touching blue gladdens beside the green.

Like the most famous poem in the Neue Gedichte collection ‘Der Pan-
ther ’, ‘Blaue Hortensie’ can be considered a Dinggedicht. This is an
instructive genre for our purposes, because it is defined in contrast to
more obviously subjective, lyrical forms—a Dinggedicht usually is a
poem which seeks to present a distanced, objective presentation of an
object in the real world—but is simultaneously defined as a modern vari-
ant of a classical poetic genre, the epigram, or Bildgedicht, that is the
poetic description of a work of art (Best 1972: 57). This Dinggedicht is
also a sonnet. The sonnet represents strictness of form, though there is
variation in rhyme scheme, and cultural variation in metre. The German
sonnet is in Petrarchan form, 14 lines of five iambic feet (containing five
stressed syllables) typically rhyming abba, abba, or less strictly, abba,
cddc, and then the sestet (the last six lines) rhyming cdc, cdc, or cdc,
efe (as here). In English there are also two native variations, the Shake-
spearean and the Spenserian, both slightly different from the Petrar-
chan: where a Petrarchan sonnet usually has a significant turning point
between the two quatrains and the two tercets, the English forms contain
a final couplet, the last two lines concentrating or summarising the poem
(Greene, Cushman and Cavanagh 2012, entry ‘sonnet’). Rilke’s poem
here in fact has the important caesura at the end of the first tercet, the
final tercet initiating change: ‘Doch plötzlich . . . ’.
If we consider the English translation of Rilke’s poem from a formal
perspective first, we note some discrepancies: where in Rilke’s poem
rhyme is a clear structural marker, this is much less pronounced in the
English text, where there are mostly only impure rhymes or assonances
(vestiges/distances, them/dimmed, pinafore/over); similarly while the
German text is more or less regular, with five iambic feet (i.e. five alter-
nate unstressed and then stressed syllables), the English translation is
less regular, with several lines notably deviating from this pattern (‘of
green paint left in a jar, grown’; ‘washed out like a child’s pinafore’).
Enjambment also plays a greater role in the English poem. In short, the
English text favours preserving the imagery of the poem over meeting
formal constraints, a procedure that is not at all uncommon in the trans-
lation of poetry, and which has perhaps greater legitimacy here in this
reflection on the colour of a flower, and within the context of a volume of
translations which appear alongside the original texts, and may thus be
used by readers as a way into the German original.
 Textual genre and translation issues 53

Conversely, the English text appears to signal its distinctly poetic nature
to the reader syntactically and lexically: the poem’s beginning in English
is more marked, with the omission of the copula verb ‘to be’ and the inver-
sion of subject (‘these leaves’) and predicative complement (‘dull and
rough’). The lexis is more differentiated and often of a higher and more
literary register (‘letzt ’ > ‘vestiges’; ‘freuen’ > ‘gladden’; ‘Dolde’ > ‘flower’,
‘umbel’). In fact, the strategy of focusing on the imagery of the poem
tends to lead to an expansiveness in the English images, and a greater
presence of nouns, at least in the first stanzas which set the tone of the
poem (‘letzt ’ > ‘vestiges’; ø > ‘tint’; ‘verweint ’ > ‘through stains of tears’);
one might conclude that the English poem exaggerates das Dingliche
in this Dinggedicht. This is perhaps most noticeable in the word ‘umbel’,
which may strike many English readers as unfamiliar, certainly it is more
specifically botanical than the German ‘Dolde’. This is a good example of
a translator having to deal with relatively specialist vocabulary in a literary
text: here the first strategy is a generalising translation (‘hinter den Blüten-
dolden’ > ‘under flowers’), the second, once the idea of the text has pro-
gressed, is more specific (‘Dolden’ > ‘umbel’) (more on this in Chapter 7).
In sum, this poem by Rilke is a good example of (a) how broad state-
ments about literary genres need to be treated with caution (the idea that
literature is detached form the world, or the idea that they are ‘expres-
sions’ in a direct sense); (b) how genres always exist and function within
constellations of other genres which evolve over time and (c) that genres
are not to be thought of as empty vessels into which a text fits, but often
have a significant role in determining what the text says.
Not least, as with other categories of genre, the translator needs to
balance general observations about the category (this is literature), with
detailed knowledge about the function of the specific genre (here, a Ger-
man Dinggedicht in sonnet form from around 1900), and analysis of the
text as it both fulfils and deviates from the norms of that genre: this poem
is in fact principally about abstractions, the blue quality of the flower and
about time.

Multimodal texts
Comic strips, graphic novels, TV adverts and websites are all examples of genres
which are ‘multimodal’ texts, consisting of at least two ‘modes’ of communica-
tion: language, image and/or sound. Multimodal texts can be ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’.
As is the case for monomodal verbal texts, multimodal texts can have different
functions and embrace a wide range of genres. An increasing number and range
of multimodal texts are now being translated.
54 Some key issues
As an example of a static multimodal text, a cartoon-type format designed
to give instructions to a multilingual audience can be found later in Chap-
ter 13 (Consumer-oriented texts). Graphic novels such as Der Boxer: die
wahre Geschichte des Hertzko Haft (2012) by Reinhard Kleist, produced
in English as The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft
(2014) by the London-based publisher SelfMadeHero, fall into the category of
functionally expressive or ‘aesthetic’ genres. And printed encyclopaedias—
as a very established type of informative text—are hard to imagine with-
out illustrations, maps and photographs, although as we have seen (Case
Study 1), translation might involve changes to content for broadly cultural
reasons.
Whether a particular text appears in print or digital form can depend on the
genre. Many texts such as academic publications, novels and product informa-
tion can appear in different media, i.e. in print and/or online, tending increas-
ingly to appear online. The sole medium for other texts, such as SMSs (or
‘texts’), or emails is digital; both can incorporate non-verbal signs, of which
emoticons or more recently, Emojis, are an increasingly familiar feature.
Whether such pictograms are universal—and therefore whether they need to
be ‘translated’ or can simply be transferred—is a moot point (for a discussion,
see Arndt 2016).
Moving on to dynamic multimodal texts, these also include many genres,
such as feature films, TV documentaries and vlogs. Again, in some cases the
medium may vary, so films can be viewed at the cinema, on TV, online or on
mobile devices. The most familiar translation activities relating to dynamic texts
(broadly, ‘audio-visual translation’ or ‘AVT’) are foreign-language subtitling
and dubbing, although the field is growing fast in terms of game localisation,
a huge commercial market, as well as media accessibility as legally required
(e.g. subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and audio-description for the
visually impaired). Functionally, dynamic genres also range across the text func-
tions discussed here: for example, feature films can be characterised as princi-
pally expressive/aesthetic, safety videos as operative/persuasive and informative
(often translated with a new voiceover rather than subtitles), and online lectures
such as the TED series, as broadly informative, with an element of persuasive
rhetoric.
In a single chapter, we do not have enough space to go into any more detail
on multimodal texts. Instead, we refer you to the list of texts for Further Reading
below.

Conclusion
Genre is a crucial factor influencing translation decisions in terms of content,
(macro)structure, vocabulary choice, linguistic conventions and layout. And as
the case studies in this chapter have shown, genres are rarely if ever of a ‘pure’
text type. For the translator, decisions are therefore often not straightforward: not
 Textual genre and translation issues 55
only do genres conventionally vary in form and tone between linguacultures, they
also vary within each linguaculture for a variety of reasons, including the exist-
ence of established subgenres, developments resulting from technological change,
and the appearance of new genres to fill emerging social needs. Existing genres
may also undergo change as writing practices evolve, and also as social conven-
tions shift. Take, for example, the commissioning of retranslations of works from
the literary canon by publishers.
In practice, most translators specialise, and part of that specialism includes
building up a knowledge of genre conventions. Nevertheless, a good awareness
of how genres function in certain ways and an ability to analyse texts in terms of
genre will help you to produce translations that are fit for purpose.

Further reading
Becker, Sabina, Hummel, Christine and Sander, Gabriele 2006. Grundkurs Literaturwis-
senschaft. Stuttgart: Reclam, pp. 75–217 [A useful introduction to genre issues for stu-
dents of literature.].
Bernal-Merino, Miguel Á. 2015. Translation and Localisation in Video Games: Making
Entertainment Software Global. New York and London: Routledge.
Bhatia, Vijay K. 1993. Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London:
Longman [Not specifically written from a translation perspective, this short book con-
tains useful overviews on genres in business, legal and academic settings.].
Díaz Cintas, Jorge, Orero, Pilar and Remael, Aline (eds) 2006. Audiovisual Translation
[Special Issue]. JoSTrans, Issue 06/July 2006 [Online]. Available at: www.jostrans.org/
issue06/issue06_toc.php (Accessed: 12 February 2018).
Díaz Cintas, Jorge and Remael, Aline 2007. Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling. Manchester:
St. Jerome.
Fawcett, Peter 1997. Translation and Language: Linguistic Theories Explained. Manches-
ter: St Jerome. Chapter 9 ‘Text functions’, pp. 101–15 [A brief discussion of text types
and text functions.].
Munday, Jeremy 2016. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. 4th
edn. London and New York: Routledge. Chapter 5 ‘Functional theories of translation’,
pp. 113–40 [An introduction to approaches that prioritise text function and text type.].
O’Sullivan, Carol and Jeffcote, Caterina 2013. ‘Translating multimodalities’ [Special
Issue]. JoSTrans, Issue 20/July 2013 [Online]. Available at: www.jostrans.org/issue20/
issue20_toc.php (Accessed: 14 February 2018).
Perez-Gonzalez, Luis 2015. Audiovisual Translation Theories, Methods and Issues. London
and New York: Routledge.
Snell-Hornby, Mary 1988. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Weimar, Klaus et al. (eds) 2007. Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft. Berlin:
De Gruyter, I, entries ‘Gattung’, ‘Gattungsgeschichte’ and ‘Gattungstheorie’, pp. 651–4,
655–8, 658–61 [Though a reference work, rather more advanced, contains very useful
bibliographies.].
Zanettin, Federico 2020. ‘Comics, Manga and graphic novels’, in Baker, M. and Saldanha,
G. (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 3rd edn. London and New
York: Routledge, pp. 75–9.
56 Some key issues
Practical 4

4.1 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Assignment
i Your task is to compare two texts (see websites shown below) created in Ger-
man and in English for a very similar purpose, namely to get elected as mayor
of a large city. The aim is to develop your awareness of web genre conven-
tions in this context for German and English.
ii How would you characterise the function of each text, i.e. what is the domi-
nant text type?
iii In comparing the two texts, the following formal features are of interest:
a Layout
b Use of images (relation to verbal text)
c Use of typeface/font
d Sentence and paragraph length
e Complexity of sentence structure (how many clauses? type of clause? ellip-
tical structures?)
f Choice of vocabulary (formal/informal? general/specialised? neutral/emotive?)
g Use of headings
h Use of personal pronouns
iv What do you think the collective effect is of the features analysed in (iii), for
example, in terms of achieving the purpose of each text?
v How would you characterise the main points of similarity and difference
between the two texts?

Contextual information
The texts chosen here for analysis are political declarations by candidates wish-
ing to be elected as mayor of a capital city: Berlin (Michael Müller) and London
(Sadiq Khan):

https://michael-mueller-agh.de/
https://sadiq.london/standing-up-for-london/
(Your tutor can supply copies if necessary)

Both candidates represent parties on the centre left (SPD and Labour) and both were
successful in their previous campaigns. These texts are what are often called ‘paral-
lel’ texts i.e. a text is identified in the target culture with similar design features and
function to those of the ST. They can be useful in providing guidance on translation
decisions when the brief is to produce a TT which is a ‘covert’ translation (often anony-
mous texts). This would clearly not apply to the texts discussed here as the particular
character of each candidate needs to be given voice.
 Textual genre and translation issues 57
4.2 RESEARCH EXERCISE

Assignment
i You have been appointed as a consultant to a project (currently in its plan-
ning stages) to ‘translate’ a German dictionary on the terminology of transla-
tion for publication in English. You have been given the following sample
entry from a previous publication as a starting point (Bußmann 1990: 444–5;
Bussmann 1996: 287–8).
ii Your brief is as follows:
a Note any different conventions and compare the conventions in the Eng-
lish version with original authoritative publications in English.
b Note any conceptual or terminological problems as an indication of
where ‘translation’ might merge into ‘adaptation’.
iii Would you still describe this as a ST-TT relationship? Give at least one rea-
son for your response.

Contextual information

Please refer to the example in the chapter (Case Study 2).

Lehnwort. loan word
(1) L. im engeren Sinn: im Unterschied zum 1 In the narrower sense: in contrast with
→Fremdwort solche →Entlehnungen foreign word, words borrowed from
einer Sprache A aus einer Sprache B, die one language into another language
sich in Lautung, Schriftbild und Flexion (⇒ borrowing), which have become
vollständig an die Sprache A angeglichen lexicalized (= assimilated phonetically,
haben: dt. Fenster aus lat. Fenestra, dt. graphemically, and grammatically) into
Wein aus lat. vinum, frz. choucroute aus d. the new language: Eng. <Lat. pictura,
Sauerkraut. Ger. Flirten (‘to flirt’) <Eng. flirt.
(2) L. im weiteren Sinn: Oberbegriff für 2 In the broader sense: an umbrella term
Fremdwort und L. im Sinn von (1). for foreign word and loan word (in the
Bei dieser Verwendung wird zwischen previously-mentioned sense). Here, a
lexikalischen und semantischen distinction is drawn between lexical
Entlehnungen (→Lehnprägungen) and semantic borrowings (⇒ calque):
unterschieden: bei lexikalischen in lexical borrowings the word and
Entlehnungen wird das Wort und seine its meaning (usually together with
Bedeutung (meist zusammen mit der the ‘new’ object) are taken into the
“neuen” Sache) in die eigene Sprache language and used either as a foreign
übernommen und also Fremdwort word (= non-assimilated loan) like
(= nicht assimiliertes Lehnwort), wie Sputnik, paté, and rumba, or as an
Psychologie, Flirt, Sputnik, oder als assimilated loan word (in the narrower
assimiliertes Lehnwort im engeren sense).
Sinn (Beispiel unter (1)) verwendet.
Zur semantischen Entlehnung
→Lehnschöpfung, eine Űbersicht über
den dt. Lehnwortschatz findet sich
unter →Entlehnung.
58 Some key issues
4.3 TRANSLATION: ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORT

Assignment
i You are translating the annual financial report of BASF, from which the fol-
lowing ST extract is taken. Discuss the overall approach that you decide to
adopt before starting your detailed translation, justifying your decision in
terms of the textual genre and its primary function.
ii Try to identify a suitable parallel text, i.e. an annual report published online
by a UK company: in what respects is this helpful (or not) in guiding your
translation decisions?
iii Translate the ST extract into English.
iv Explain the main decisions of detail you took.
v Compare your TT with the published one (BASF 2004b), which will be made
available to you by your tutor.

Contextual information
The ST extract is taken from the ‘Lagebericht’, which precedes the ‘Jahresab-
schluss’ or Consolidated Financial Statement. It is part of an outline of the com-
pany’s strategy. The financial report as a whole is soberer in layout, illustration
and tone than the Audi report used in Practicals 2.2 and 6.1; the company is never-
theless confident enough for its aim to be ‘auch in Zukunft das weltweit führende
Unternehmen der chemischen Industrie’. ‘EBIT’ is an acronym of the English
‘earnings before interest and taxes’.

ST

WERTMANAGEMENT DER BASF

Die nachhaltige Steigerung des Unternehmenswertes ist unser vorrangiges Ziel.
Darum messen wir unternehmerische Entscheidungen und Leistungen an den
Renditeanforderungen unserer Kapitalgeber, den Kapitalkosten. Unser Anspruch ist
5 es, eine Prämie auf die Kapitalkosten zu erwirtschaften.
Ab 2004 setzen wir daher das EBIT (Ergebnis der Betriebstätigkeit vor Zinsen
und Steuern) nach Kapitalkosten als zentrale Ziel- und Steuerungskennzahl für
unsere Unternehmensbereiche und Geschäftseinheiten ein. Diese müssen ein EBIT
von 10% auf das operative Vermögen erzielen, um den Verzinsungserwartungen der
10 Eigen- und Fremdkapitalgeber gerecht zu werden sowie die zu entrichtenden
Steuern zu decken. Bezogen auf das für 2004 geplante operative Vermögen von 28
Milliarden € entspricht dies einem von der BASF-Gruppe zu erzielenden Mindest-
EBIT von 2,8 Milliarden €.
Der so definierte Kapitalkostensatz vor Zinsen und Steuern in Höhe von 10%
15 entspricht einem Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) von rund 6% nach
Zinsen und Steuern. Wir setzen uns damit ein ehrgeiziges Ziel. Die Berechnung von
WACC ist eine international anerkannte Methode, um die Kapitalkosten eines
 Textual genre and translation issues 59

Unternehmens zu ermitteln. Dazu werden die Renditeansprüche der Aktionäre und

die Zinsen auf das Fremdkapital bestimmt und gewichtet. Die Kosten des
20 Eigenkapitals ermitteln wir auf Basis des Marktwertes der BASF-Aktien.
Eine Prämie über die Kapitalkosten können wir sowohl durch eine Verbesserung
des EBIT als auch durch eine optimale Nutzung des eingesetzten Kapitals erzielen.
Die Kennzahl unterstützt damit unsere Bemühungen zur Verbesserung der
Kostenstrukturen, zum profitablen Wachstum und einer noch größeren Disziplin
25 beim Kapitaleinsatz.
Verankerung des Wertmanagements in den Zielvereinbarungen
Konsequenterweise nutzen wir den Wertschaffungsindikator EBIT nach
Kapitalkosten auch als Basis der erfolgsabhängigen Managementvergütung. Der
Vorstand gibt im Rahmen der operativen Planung diese Zielgröße für die gesamte
30 BASF-Gruppe sowie daraus abgeleitet für die einzelnen Unternehmensbereiche und
Geschäftseinheiten vor. Die Zielerreichung bestimmt dabei entscheidend die
variable Vergütung.
Für unsere Mitarbeiter, zum Beispiel in Produktion, Marketing, Vertrieb und
Supply-Chain-Management, haben wir darüber hinaus ein Kennzahlensystem
35 entwickelt, das es ihnen ermöglicht, ihren persönlichen Beitrag zur Wertsteigerung
zu erkennen und dementsprechend zu handeln. Durch ein verbessertes
Wertmanagement wird unternehmerisches Denken auf allen Ebenen der BASF
gefördert.
(BASF 2004a: 19)

4.4 TRANSLATION: NOVELLE

Assignment
i You have been commissioned to produce a new translation of Katz und Maus
(originally published in 1961), the novella by Günter Grass from which the
following ST extract is taken. Discuss the overall approach that you decide
to adopt before starting your detailed translation, justifying your decision in
terms of the textual genre and its function.
ii Translate the ST extract into English.
iii Explain the main decisions of detail you took.
iv Compare your TT with the published one (Grass 1966, trans. Manheim),
which will be made available to you by your tutor. Which features do you
think are important here?
v Having compared your version with Manheim’s, do you think an adaptation/
update of the published translation might have achieved a better outcome?
Discuss your reasons.

Contextual information
The narrator is a pupil at a boys’ secondary school in Danzig during the Second
World War. A former pupil of the school, now a U-boat captain, has come to give
a talk about his war experiences. Pupils from the top two classes of the local girls’
60 Some key issues
school have also been invited to the talk. The submariner wears a medal at his
throat, which is actually more often referred to as ‘das Ding am Hals’ than as an
‘Orden’. The ‘Sprechmund’, insisted on (six mentions) as the narrator sets the
scene, appears to be an authorial alienating device drawing attention to the artifi-
ciality of the language that is put into the mouth of the ‘Kapitänleutnant’. ‘Wabos’
are ‘Wasserbomben’.

ST

Es füllte jener Kapitänleutnant mit dem hochgestochenen Ding am Hals seinen

Vortrag, obgleich er zweihundertfünfzigtausend Bruttoregistertonnen, einen leichten
Kreuzer der Despatch-Klasse, einen großen Zerstörer der Tribal-Klasse angebohrt
hatte, weniger mit detaillierten Erfolgsmeldungen als mit wortreichen
5 Naturbeschreibungen, auch bemühte er kühne Vergleiche, sagte: ‘. . . blendend weiß
schäumt auf die Hecksee, folgt, eine kostbar wallende Spitzenschleppe, dem Boot,
das gleich einer festlich geschmückten Braut, übersprüht von Gischtschleiern, der
todbringenden Hochzeit entgegenzieht’.
Es gab nicht nur bei den Mädchen mit Zöpfen Gekicher; aber ein nächster
10 Vergleich wischte die Braut wieder aus: ‘Solch ein Unterseeboot ist wie ein Walfisch
mit Buckel, dessen Bugsee dem vielfach gezwirbelten Bart eines Husaren gleicht’.
[. . .]
Peinlich wurde es, wenn er Sonnenuntergänge auszupinseln begann: ‘Und bevor
die atlantische Nacht wie ein aus Raben gezaubertes Tuch über uns kommt, stufen
15 sich Farben, wie wir sie nie zu Hause, ein Orange geht auf, fleischig und
widernatürlich, dann duftig schwerelos, an den Rändern kostbar, wie auf den Bildern
Alter Meister, dazwischen zartgefiedertes Gewölk; welch ein fremdartiges Geleucht
über der blutvoll rollenden See!’
Er ließ also mit steifem Ding am Hals eine Farbenorgel dröhnen und säuseln, kam
20 vom wäßrigen Blau über kaltglasiertes Zitronengelb zum bräunlichen Purpur. Mohn
ging bei ihm am Himmel auf. Dazwischen Wölkchen, zuerst silbrig, dann liefen sie
an: ‘So mögen Vögel und Engel verbluten!’ sagte er wörtlich mit seinem
Sprechmund, und ließ aus dem gewagt beschriebenen Naturereignis plötzlich und aus
bukolischen Wölkchen ein Flugboot, Typ ‘Sunderland’, mit Kurs auf das Boot
25 brummen, eröffnete, nachdem das Flugboot nichts hatte ausrichten können, mit
gleichem Sprechmund aber ohne Vergleiche, den zweiten Teil des Vortrages, knapp
trocken nebensächlich: ‘Sitze auf Sehrohrsattel. Angriff gefahren. Kühlschiff
wahrscheinlich: sinkt übers Heck. Boot in den Keller auf hundertzehn. Zerstörer
kommt auf in hundertsiebzig Bootspeilung, Backbord zehn, neuer Kurs
30 hundertzwanzig, hundertzwanzig Grad liegen an, Schraubengeräusch wandert aus,
geht wieder an, hundertachtzig Grad gehen durch, Wabos: sechs sieben acht elf:
Licht bleibt aus, endlich Notbeleuchtung und nacheinander Klarmeldung der
Stationen. Zerstörer hat gestoppt. Letzte Peilung hundertsechzig, Backbord zehn.
Neuer Kurs fünfundvierzig Grad . . .’
35 Leider folgten dieser wirklich spannenden Einlage sogleich weitere
Naturbeschreibungen, wie: ‘Der atlantische Winter’, oder: ‘Meeresleuchten auf
dem Mittelmeer’, auch ein Stimmungsbild: ‘Weihnachten auf dem U-Boot’ mit dem
obligaten zum Christbaum verwandelten Besen. Zum Schluß dichtete er die ins
Mystische gehobene Rückkehr nach erfolgreicher Feindfahrt mit Odysseus und allem
40 Drum und Dran: ‘Die ersten Möwen künden den Hafen an’.
(Grass 1995: 78–80)
 Textual genre and translation issues 61
References

Primary
BASF Aktiengesellschaft 2004a. Finanzbericht 2003. Ludwigshafen: BASF.
BASF Aktiengesellschaft 2004b. Financial Report 2003. Ludwigshafen: BASF.
Bosch 2009. Gebrauchsanleitung: Fußbad PMF 2232. Extracts from ‘Anwendung
(Allgemein)’/‘Application (General)’ and ‘Garantiebedingungen’/‘Guarantee’ [Online].
Available at: www.bosch-home.com/de/supportdetail/product/PMF2232/01#/Tabs=section-
manuals/ (Accessed: 15 February 2018).
Grass, Günter 1966. Cat and Mouse. Translated by Manheim, Ralph. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Grass, Günter 1995. Katz und Maus. Munich: DTV.
Kleist, Reinhard 2012. Der Boxer: die wahre Geschichte des Hertzko Haft. Hamburg:
Carlsen.
Kleist, Reinhard 2014. The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft.
Translated by Waaler, Michael. London: SelfMadeHero.
Rilke, Rainer Maria 2011. Selected Poems with Parallel German Text. Translated by Ranson,
Susan and Sutherland, Marielle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Secondary
Arndt, Tamara 2016. ‘Emoji als universelle Sprache? Eine technische und terminolog-­
i­sche Betrachtung’. Fachzeitschrift für Terminologie, 2(16), pp. 5–10. Available online
at http://dttev.org/images/edition/ausgaben/edition-2016-2-e-version.pdf (accessed 13
February 2017).
Baker, Mona 2011. In Other Words. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Best, Otto F. 1972. Handbuch literarischer Fachbegriffe: Definitionen und Beispiele.
Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
Bhatia, Vijay K. 1993. Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London
and New York: Longman.
Greene, Roland, Cushman, Stephen and Cavanagh, Clare (eds) 2012. The Princeton Ency-
clopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 4th edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hatim, Basil and Mason, Ian 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London and New York:
Longman.
Koller, Werner (unter Mitarbeit von Kjetl Berg Henjum) 2011. Einführung in die
Űbersetzungswissenschaft. 8th edn. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.
Morrow, Phillip R. 1989. ‘Conjunct use in business news stories and academic journal
articles: A comparative study’, English for Specific Purposes, 8(3), pp. 239–54.
Mossop, Brian 1998. ‘What is a translating translator doing?’ Target, 10(2), pp. 231–66.
Newmark, Peter 2004. ‘Non-literary in the light of literary translation’, JoSTrans, Issue 01/
January 2004, pp. 8–13 [Online]. Available at: www.jostrans.org/issue01/art_newmark.
php (Accessed: 8 March 2018).
Parianou, Anastasia and Kelandrias, Panayotis 2007. ‘Instructions for use and their transla-
tion in a global age’, in Ahmad, K. and Rogers, M. (eds) Evidence-Based LSP: Transla-
tion, Text and Terminology. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 525–40.
Snell-Hornby, Mary 1988. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
62 Some key issues
Tanner, Nick 2012. Jamie in German: The Translation of Jamie Oliver’s Cookbooks into
German. Unpublished MA Dissertation, University of Surrey.

Lexical and related sources

Bußmann, Hadumod 1990. Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 2nd edn. Stuttgart: Alfred
Kröner.
Bussmann, Hadumod 1996. Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. Edited and
translated by Trauth, Gregory P. and Kazzazi, Kerstin. London: Routledge.
5 Cultural issues in translation

In his famous, and famously vitriolic, defence of his own translation of the New
Testament, the Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen (1530), Martin Luther argued that a
translator should not look to the words of the Latin text for an appropriate transla-
tion, but rather to the users of German, and the users of his text, in short to the
language as it functions within a community of speakers. Indeed, for him, über-
setzen is verdeutdschen:

Da der Engel Mariam gruͤ sset un̅ spricht/Gegruͤ sset seistu Maria vol gnaden/
der Herr mit dir. Wolan/so ists bisher schlecht den Lateinischen buchstaben
nach verdeudschet/Sage mir aber/ob solchs auch gut deudsch sey? Wo redet
der deudsch man also/du bist vol gnaden? Und welcher Deudscher verstehet/
was gesagt sey/vol gnaden? Er mus denken an ein fas vol bier/odder beutel
vol geldes/Daruͤ mb hab ichs verdeudscht/du holdselige /damit doch ein Deud-
scher/deste mehr hin zu kann dencke̅ / was der Engel meinet mit seinem grus.
Aber hie woͤ llen die Papisten toll werden uber mich/das ich den Engelischen
grus verderbet habe/Wie wol ich dennoch damit nicht das beste deudsch habe
troffen. Und hette ich das beste deutsch hie sollen nehmen/und den grus also
verdeudschen/Gott gruͤ sse dich du liebe Maria (denn so viel wil der Engel
sagen/und so wuͤ rde er gered haben/wenn er hette woͤ llen sie deutsch gruͤ ssen)
Ich halt sie solten sich wol selbst erhenckt haben fur grosser andacht/du der
lieben Maria/das ich den grus so zu nichte gemacht hette.
(Luther 1965, Text B, 19)

Luther’s argument here is in part an argument about literalness and idiomatic

expression (‘voll’ collocates with beer, but not grace), but really, he posits the
translation of this greeting as a cultural translation problem. Luther argues that
the angel’s words (highlighted) are culturally determined because if the angel had
been greeting in German he would have acted differently. Luther rejects a literal
translation as fundamentally unrecognisable as a greeting to a German, but also
points out that he has taken a middle path, having chosen not to replace the angel’s
greeting entirely with a German one, but rather to have written something which
is at least comprehensible to a German native speaker. It is this focus on the forms
and pragmatics of language as governed by and informing the lives of its speakers
64 Some key issues
that makes this a cultural issue, and it is cultural issues in translation which will
be the focus of this chapter.
As you are working through this book, you will come across ‘cultural issues’
many times. We have already discussed problems of equivalence that can arise
because of cultural differences in Chapter 3, for example. By cultural issues, what
we mean are those kinds of translation problems which occur because there is a
relationship between the source language and the source culture which does not
have a direct parallel in the target language and culture. By culture we do not
mean simply references to national traditions or cultural life in the sense of the
arts, although of course these do pose problems and many of the most obvious
cultural issues in translation are of this kind; rather we mean culture in a broad
sense, encompassing a community’s institutions, habits, traditions and ways of
seeing the world. ‘Cultural’ issues in translation then can be everything from deal-
ing with translating terms with literary and cultural resonance in a narrow sense,
to institutional terms, to problems that are harder to identify, such as industry
regulations, modes of address, or genre norms. Hence, ‘cultural transposition’ is
the term we have chosen to designate a range of strategies translators use to over-
come these sorts of problems. Let it be said, however, that most translation will
involve cultural transposition of some kind, to the extent that most translation can
be thought of as intercultural mediation.
Translation methods and strategies for dealing with cultural issues can be said
to exist on a scale between ‘domestication’ and ‘foreignisation’ as in our Luther
example. The extent to which a translation should be ‘domesticating’ and thus the
kinds of strategies that will be used when dealing with cultural issues is one of the
principal questions in Translation Studies and depends on a range of factors, nota-
bly on whether the translation will primarily serve to point the reader to the source
text (such as in a bilingual edition of a story) or whether it will function inde-
pendently (in the case of say, a set of instructions for operating a printer). In this
chapter, we will for the most part be discussing short examples rather than whole
texts, but the strategies may also be used to analyse the translation of whole texts.

Types of cultural issues

Our first example is from a booklet on the architectural history of Lübeck’s
Rathaus:

Zum erstenmal wird ein Rathaus der 1158/59 von Heinrich dem Löwen an
der jetzigen Stelle neu gegründeten Stadt kurz vor 1225 im Zusammenhang
mit dem Hinweis auf die dort ausgeübte Rechtsfindung genannt. 1250, wenig
später, ist schon von einem ‘alten Rathaus’ die Rede [. . .]. Über das Aussehen
dieses ersten Rathauses ist nichts bekannt. Wegen seiner späteren Nutzung
für die Weißgerber, die im Erdgeschoß ihre Verkaufsstände hatten, kann ver-
mutet werden, dass das damals als ‘Lohhus’ bezeichnete Gebäude unten als
offene Halle ausgebildet war.
(Wilde 2014: 1)
 Cultural issues in translation 65
The first problem, apart from the word ‘Rathaus’ itself, is the proper noun ‘Hein-
rich dem Löwen’. The issue is not so much that an English version does not exist,
it does, but rather that for an English-speaking reader the reference to ‘Henry the
Lion’ may not be transparent. Here a short gloss, an exegetic addition may be
appropriate. The second, more obviously ‘cultural’ problem is the word ‘Lohhus’,
which here probably means ‘tanners’ building’, but with a dialect form, ‘-hus’. In
this case the term is transparent enough for the German reader that it has simply
been integrated into the standard German to give some local colour: the translator
may here opt to preserve the original term (a cultural borrowing or loan word)
but offer a translation too, at the first mention, i.e. a couplet. The final issue, which
is more difficult to spot, is the term ‘Weißgerber’.‘Gerber’ means ‘tanner’, but
‘Weiß-’ or ‘Mineralgerber’ means a tanner who produced high-quality white leather
products in the Middle Ages (in contrast to a ‘Lohgerber’!). While ‘Weißgerber’ is
common enough in German (as a name and in street names), English has no such
neat and identifiable term. Here the best solution is a generalisation (‘tanner’),
because the tanners are incidental: what matters is the inference that the town hall
must have been an open building because it was used by tanners as a place to set
up stalls. This example also shows that a problem can at once be seen as linguistic
(here a problem of denotative equivalence) or cultural (the fact that Germans are
specific in the way they use these terms).
Our second example is this time an intralingual translation of sorts: a mod-
ern German translation of a Middle High German text (from circa 1200), the
famous Nibelungenlied, which recounts the life of Siegfried, his murder and
Kriemhild’s vengeance. Below is a standard version of the text, here the begin-
ning of âventiure 2, or ‘chapter 2’, with a well-known modern translation by
Helmut Brackert:

Dô wuochs in Niderlanden eins edelen küneges kint,

des vater der hiez Sigemunt, sîn muoter Sigelind,
in einer rîchen bürge, wîten wol bekant,
nidene bî dem Rîne: diu was ze Santen genant.

Sîvrit was geheizen der snelle degen guot.

er versuochte vil der rîche durch ellenhaften muot.
durch sînes lîbes sterke er reit in menegiu lant.
hey was er sneller degene sît zen Burgonden vant!

Es wuchs in den Niederlanden, in einer weithin berühmten, mächtigen Burg,

die am Niederrhein lag und Xanten hieß, der Sohn eines edlen Königs heran,
dessen Vater Siegmund und dessen Mutter Sieglind hießen.

Siegfried hieß der tapfere, treffliche Held. Er durchstreifte viele Reiche, um

sich kämpferisch zu erproben. Um seine Kraft zu beweisen, ritt er in zahllose
Länder. Wie viele tapfere Helden sah er später erst bei den Burgunden!
(Nibelungenlied 1970: 10–1)
66 Some key issues
Leaving aside syntactic changes, perhaps the most obvious change made here is the
shift from verse to prose (albeit matching the stanza breaks). On the one hand, this
is clearly an approach determined by the function of Brackert’s text which, while
being written so that it can be read on its own, primarily serves to guide the reader
through the Middle High German narrative. On the other, the choice is culturally
determined: while the primary mode of narrative was verse in the Middle Ages,
the primary narrative mode today is prose. Other twentieth-century translations of
historical literature have also rewritten verse into prose, perhaps most famously
E.V. Rieu’s 1946 translation of the Odyssey.
Another, unobtrustive but significant translation decision involves proper
nouns which are modernised: Siegmund, Sieglind, Siegfried, Xanten, and similarly
‘nidene bî dem Rîne’ which becomes ‘am Niederrhein’. With Santen > Xanten, the
translation strategy is simply modernised spelling. With Sîfrit>Siegfried (a mod-
ern reconstruction, see Ehrismann 1987: 112), we have an example of using TL
standard equivalents. Note: the translator here changes the name of the principal
character in the story to accommodate what the TL reader expects (Siegfried is
famous, am Niederrhein helps place the story in a setting the reader can identify
concretely).
Rather more interesting are the words which still have similar forms in modern
German, but which had a different cultural resonance in the courts of twelfth-century
feudal Germany. ‘Degen’ (cognate of English ‘thane’) notably still appears in
modern German dictionaries. A major dictionary from around the same era of
Brackert’s translation gives ‘Ritter’ as the first synonym for ‘Degen’, followed
by ‘Gefolgsmann’, followed by ‘Held’, which is Brackert’s translation (Wahrig
1980).‘Ritter’ (knight) would be a problematic translation here, however, because
the values of chivalry which are associated with that word are historical develop-
ments which the early forms of the Nibelungenlied predate (see Ehrismann 1987:
30–2). Older terms such as ‘degen’, ‘recke’ and ‘helt’ appear alongside the more
modish ‘ritter’ (‘Ritter’) in the Nibelungenlied, because it is an old epic rewritten
for a twelfth-century, Christian, courtly audience (see: Ehrismann 1987: 99–100).
Brackert’s translation is sensitive to the historical and cultural specificity of these
terms and preserves the distinction in the text, rather than conflating the terms.
Similarly, ‘versuochen’ has a particular meaning here, in that Siegfried has proved
his courage and strength and is thus able (later in the âventiure) to be dubbed a
knight; here Brackert clarifies, replacing the following prepositional phrase with
a verb phrase (‘um sich kämpferisch zu erproben’).
These examples show the range of issues that the cultural embeddedness of
texts raises: problems to do with dialect, historical or cultural references, norms
relating to the use of terms for trades, occupations, but also the kinds of subtler
background which can easily go unnoticed, and here gave specific meaning to
relatively common nouns and verbs. In short there is a difference between what
Koller calls ‘offene und verdeckte kulturspezifische Elemente’ (Koller 2011: 169).
Indeed, although many of the examples we discuss in this chapter are lexical, the
translator will usually need to address the cultural embeddedness of a text at all
levels of language: in the lexis, syntax, text structure and pragmatics (Stolze 2009).
 Cultural issues in translation 67
In all of these cases, it is the background knowledge and expectation that the
reader/user in the source-text situation brings to the text which is crucial, which is
why being aware of cultural issues, and the solving of cultural problems in trans-
lation often involves experience and research.

Forms of cultural transposition

Luther, in his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen describes how, when faced with the
translation of the angel Gabriel’s greeting, he could have chosen a literal transla-
tion, but that would have posed cultural problems because a German would not
recognise the communicative function of the phrase. He could also have chosen
‘Gott grüße dich’, but instead chose a middle route which would be unnatural to a
German reader but where the communicative function at least was clear. In short,
he could choose between producing a ‘domesticating’ translation, which adapts
the ST to meet TL cultural norms (how Germans greet each other), meeting the TT
reader’s horizon of expectations, or he could have chosen to produce a ‘foreignis-
ing’ translation, which maintains forms of the SL culture present in the ST at that
particular time. As with other problems in translation then, approaches to cultural
issues in translations can be seen as existing on a scale from the SL culture (for-
eignising) to the TL culture (domesticating), with two extremes, exoticism and
cultural transplantation.

Two broad approaches: exoticism and cultural transplantation

A TT marked by exoticism is one which consistently uses cultural, lexical and
grammatical features imported from the ST with minimal adaptation, thereby con-
stantly signalling the exotic source culture and its cultural strangeness. This may
be one of the TT’s chief attractions, as in certain translations from Arabic (e.g.
Nicholson 1987), but the TT will have an impact on the TL public quite unlike any
that the ST could have had on an SL public, for whom the text is not exotic. At the
other end of the scale is cultural transplantation, whose extreme forms are more
like adaptations than translations—the wholesale rewriting of the ST in a target-
culture setting. One example would be a 2005 Dundee production of The Visit, in
which the Swiss Anytown of Dürrenmatt’s Der Besuch der alten Dame (1956),
with its long-haul trains that no longer stop, was transposed to a Scottish airport
town where the last fragments of hope ‘departed with the last Ryanair flight’.
Sometimes, the decision whether to operate cultural transplantation is taken
out of the translator’s hands by the TL publisher or even the target-culture
censor. Despite their relatively high status and secure working environment,
translators working in East Germany had to meet other ideological demands
(Thomson-Wohlgemuth 2003). In such extreme cases, the decision is not the
translator’s to make, though this does raise issues around the ethics of transla-
tion and what Christiane Nord has called the translator’s ‘loyalty’ towards their
‘partners in translational interaction’, i.e. their moral obligation not to deceive
(Nord 1997: 125).
68 Some key issues
Cultural transplantation is sometimes used by literary translators where a
ST contains a lot of dialect. Derek Bowman’s translation of Theodor Fontane’s
Berlin novel Irrungen Wirrungen (1887) gave pseudo-cockney accents to working-
class characters to evoke the urban setting of a capital city, for example (Bance
and Chambers 1995: 300). Cultural transplantation (changing ST content and
replacing it with TL culture-specific content) may appear radical when thinking
about a novel, but for an informative text which is to function within the TL sys-
tem this can often be essential. In a translation of a German text about steel, a text
could be considered marked by exoticism if it did not signal to the reader or some-
how deal with the fact that the national standards surrounding the composition of
‘alloy steel’ and ‘legierter Stahl’ are different in the UK and Germany, although
the terms are given as equivalents in authoritative dictionaries (Schmitt 1986); if,
however, the translator adapted the text so that it consistently fitted the cultural (in
this case legal and standard industry) practices without reference to German, then
it could be considered cultural transplantation. In specialised texts, however, the
translator’s choice, e.g. in a structural engineer’s specification for building regula-
tion purposes, has potential safety implications.

Three strategies: calque, cultural borrowing, cultural equivalent

While cultural issues govern a translator’s overall approach, within the same text,
different problems may require different solutions (Ramière 2006). Below we dis-
cuss three strategies calque, cultural borrowing, and cultural equivalent (pre-
viously mentioned in Chapter 3 generally as ‘loan translation’, ‘transfer’ from SL,
and ‘cultural borrowing’ (as below), and discussed here in greater depth).

Calque
A more reduced form of exoticism is a calque. A calque is a form of a linguisti-
cally close translation consisting of either an expression or word (lexical calque)
or a structure (structural calque) which brings out the foreign in the TT (as a
deliberate strategy) or which can be regarded as ‘translationese’, as in the follow-
ing unidiomatic translation of a well-known proverb: ‘Morgenstund hat Gold im
Mund’ > ‘Morning hour has gold in the mouth’. Unless the person requesting the
translation of proverbs specifically wants to know how they work in the SL, the
translator clearly has to use a conventional equivalent (‘The early bird catches
the worm’/‘Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise’). While it is clear that calquing proverbs is likely to result in an unidiomatic
rendering, lexical calquing (i.e. loan translation) can be a useful technique for
filling lexical gaps in the TL e.g. ‘Schrittmacher’ for ‘pace maker’ (see Chapter 3,
Koller’s ‘one-to-none’ denotative equivalence). Literary texts where proverbs
play a significant role can be problematical: for example, in translating Theodor
Fontane’s novels, translators have to adopt a range of strategies, using equivalent
TL expressions where available, and recreating proverbs where they are absent in
the TL (Kirby 1995).
 Cultural issues in translation 69
Cultural borrowing/couplet
Another alternative introducing an element of foreignness is to transfer a ST expres-
sion verbatim into the TT. This is termed cultural borrowing or transfer (see
again Koller’s ‘one-to-none’ denotative equivalence in Chapter 3). But cultural
borrowing is different from calque, because it does not involve translation of the
SL expression into TL forms. Translators often turn to cultural borrowing when
it is impossible to find a suitable indigenous TL expression. ‘Weltanschauung’ is
an example: first attested in English in 1868, it is defined in the Concise Oxford
English Dictionary as ‘a particular philosophy or view of life; a conception of the
world’. Cultural borrowing is frequent in texts on history or legal, social or politi-
cal matters, in references to institutions or concepts which have no clear counter-
part in the TL. As noted when we were discussing equivalence in Chapter 3, the
simplest solution if we judge the borrowing to be opaque to the intended readers is
often a couplet. We can recall that this involves inserting into the TT an explana-
tion or gloss—sometimes described as a ‘functional equivalent’—of terms like
‘Bundesrat’, ‘Bund’, ‘Länder’ or ‘Bafög’ the first time they occur. Thereafter the
SL term can be used as a loan word in the TT.
However, caution needs to be exercised in dealing with SL words that have become
TL loan words, and vice versa. A good example is ‘Lebensraum’, which is used in a
much wider range of situations in German than in English. In English, having entered
the language during the 1930s when the Nazis were using it as part of their expan-
sionist rhetoric, it specifically denotes ‘territory claimed by a nation or state as being
necessary to its growth or survival’. Both the literal meaning and the connotations
are now inescapable when the term is used in English. The same connotations are
of course present in German too—but to what extent they are active depends on the
context. The difference is that English knows only the one sense, whereas in German,
despite historical memories still uppermost for some, the term ‘Lebensraum’ is used
routinely in Biology and is also found in texts on Architecture and Town Planning.
In such contexts it is a value-neutral term meaning ‘habitat’, ‘living space’, etc., and
to translate it with the loan word ‘lebensraum’, rather than with a term appropriate
to the discipline, would be a serious error. The translator therefore needs to use this
strategy with care, based on sound cultural knowledge of both cultures.

Cultural equivalent
Cultural equivalents, as the examples in Chapter 3 have shown, include terms and
concepts which are different in the two cultures but which are parallel in some
way. Cultural shifts can involve adaptation or cultural transplantation: weights
and measures, for example, may need to be adapted, as in educational marking
systems e.g. 1,1 > grade ‘A’ (see also Chapter 13) or, in other cases, transferred,
depending on the context. Indeed, educational terms, embedded as they are in dif-
ferent educational systems, can be deceptively difficult to deal with. For example,
‘Abitur’ and ‘A levels’ are both school-leaving examinations taken around the
age of 18 or 19, but are clearly different in their form and content. Functional and
70 Some key issues
cultural equivalents differ in so far as the former are ‘neutral’ or ‘culture-free’
(‘German secondary school-leaving certificate’) whereas the latter are culture-
specific (‘A-levels’) (Newmark 1988: 83, our examples). As a translation strat-
egy, translating ‘Abitur’ only with the UK cultural equivalent might be seen to
imply that the candidate actually sat A-level examinations, which if the German
ST is, for instance, the CV of someone educated at a Gymnasium is unlikely. The
transfer of ‘Abitur’ to the English translation of the CV might be accompanied
by a gloss/functional equivalent, although this addition is unlikely in a novel.
However, we can note a trend in contemporary literature for a glossary of cultur-
ally specific terms to be provided at the end of translated works such as novels,
anticipating that some readers may not be familiar with the target culture.
With the concept of cultural equivalence we may also denote shifts at levels
other than the lexical level. At a pragmatic level, in a new translation of Kafka’s
Der Verschollene, Ritchie Robertson abbreviates and generalises terms of address:
‘Frau Oberköchin’ and ‘Herr Oberportier’ become ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’ (Kafka 2012:
xxxi–xxxii). At a syntactic level, Stolze notes that whereas lists of ‘that’-clauses
are a defining feature of British and American court sentences, the equivalent
(dass-clauses) is unusual in German ones (2009: 132), further illustrating (see also
Chapter 4 on genre) that texts—not just individual expressions—are also subject to
differences of convention between cultures. Here, it would be odd for the translator
culturally to transplant English-language conventions to a text which is culturally
set in the context of the German legal system. If the result sounds ‘exotic’ to a UK or
US lawyer, then so be it: this clearly signals that the text is ‘other’ in its legal origins.

Functionalist approaches and intercultural communication

The general extent to which a translation ought to be ‘domesticating’ or ‘for-
eignising’ has been a topic of considerable discussion in Translation Studies.
Lawrence Venuti has argued that translation culture in the West assimilates,
essentially expunging difficult foreignness. Conversely Hans Vermeer, for
example, has argued that the success of a translation is judged less by its similar-
ity to the ST and more by its role as an act of ‘purposeful transcultural activity’
(Schäffner 2009: 115). In our view, thinking about whether a text is or should
be domesticating or foreignising is a false dichotomy, and in many senses these
seemingly contradictory discussions are really addressing different things:
Venuti is arguably writing about the effect of translation on culture essentially
with reference to literary translation; Reiß, Vermeer, and other functionalists
arguably take non-literary texts as their starting point. But even then, different
approaches are possible. Literary texts are published by named authors, which
favours a ST orientation in order to represent the author’s voice, but they can
still be adapted and shifted to a target-culture setting (e.g. a BBC production of
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler transposed to rural Ireland). Specialised texts are often
anonymous, meaning that the voice issue is superseded by target-culture genre
conventions (e.g. instructions for use), but they can also, depending on context
 Cultural issues in translation 71
and subject matter, be rooted in a source-culture context, as is the case for many
education-related and legal texts.
In any case, a cultural adaptation which conveys the ideas and issues of a liter-
ary text such as a play could well be said to be just as ‘foreignising’ for the reader
as a translation in which misunderstood exotic references impede understanding.
Cultural sensitivity in relation to specialised texts involves judgements about the
cultural embeddedness of the ST in its source culture, or the greater universality
of, say, product information which has to cross international boundaries.
Christiane Nord reframes the ‘exoticism/transplantation’ distinction with a dif-
ferentiation between textual functions: a documentary function (such as a transla-
tion of a German legal document: the German document is the document which
is important, the English text aids the comprehension of that text) and texts with
an instrumental function (texts which do not point the reader to a ST but function
independently in the TL, such as a car manual). Although these are broad brush-
strokes, the distinction is an important one, and a useful starting point for you as
you begin these practicals and move through this book.

Concluding remarks
Getting better at translation involves getting better at thinking through the spe-
cificities of how to make your text ‘work’ fully. All translation involves cultural
mediation; the strategies involved in that process and the ‘visibility’ of the trans-
lator, to use Venuti’s term, depend on the function and ultimately the purpose of
the translation, something which itself occurs within the limits of what a given
culture sees as ‘translation’. To come back to Luther’s Sendbrief, translating a text
often means not just looking to the words to offer a translation, but to the cultural
context—often that means translating concepts, forms and habits, not ‘just’ Buch-
staben. Translation not only deals with, but is determined by culture itself.

Further reading
Berman, Antoine 2012. ‘Translation and the trials of the foreign’, in Venuti, L. (ed.) The
Translation Studies Reader. 3rd edn. London: Routledge, pp. 240–53 [Takes issue with
‘ethnocentric’ translation.].
JoSTrans (Journal of Specialised Translation online at www.jostrans.org/) [Contains a
number of interesting short articles on intercultural issues in specialised translation.].
Koller, Werner (unter Mitarbeit von Kjetl Berg Henjum) 2011. Einführung in die
Űbersetzungswissenschaft. 8th edn. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto [Kulturspezifik
der Übersetzung, pp. 163–70.].
Luther, Martin 2017. Ein Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen: An Open Letter on Translating.
Translated by Jones, Howard. Oxford: Taylorian Institute [Contains a useful guide to
reading the text, a translation and facsimile.].
Munday, Jeremy 2016. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. 4th
edn. London and New York: Routledge [Chapter 5, pp. 72–88; Chapter 8, pp. 126–43;
Chapter 9, pp. 144–61.].
72 Some key issues
Nord, Christiane 2018. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches
Explained. 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge [Esp. section on ‘Translating as
intercultural action’ in Chapter 2.].
Rogers, Margaret 2015. Specialised Translation: Shedding the Non-Literary Tag. Basing-
stoke: Palgrave Macmillan [On specialised translation and culture, pp. 23–30.].
Snell-Hornby, Mary (ed.) 1986. Übersetzungswissenschaft—eine Neuorientierung.
Tübingen: Francke [Now a little dated but contains several interesting contribu-
tions. See especially her introduction (pp. 9–29) and the excellent article by Peter
A. Schmitt, ‘Die “Eindeutigkeit” von Fachtexten: Bemerkungen zu einer Fiktion’,
pp. 253–82.].
Snell-Hornby, Mary, Hönig, Hans, Kußmaul, Paul and Schmitt, Peter A. (eds) 1999. Hand-
buch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, pp. 112–5 [For an overview of inter-
cultural communication and how it relates to translation.].
Vinay, J-P. and Darbelnet, J. 1958/1995. Comparative Stylistics of French and English:
A Methodology for Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins [Translated
and edited by Sager, Juan and Hamel, Marie-Jo from Vinay, J-P. and Darbelnet, J. 1958.
Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais: Méthode de traduction. Paris: Didier.].

Practical 5

5.1 TEXT FOR DISCUSSION: NOVEL

Contextual information
The following is an excerpt from the 2013 novel Königsallee, by Hans Pleschin-
ski. The novel is set in the early 1950s. In this episode in the first half of the novel,
Thomas Mann’s daughter, Erika Mann, is performing a sketch she has planned to
mark her famous father’s eightieth birthday.

Assignment
i Read the text and analyse the types of cultural issues it poses for the translator.
ii Outline and justify your global and local strategies, offering sample transla-
tions to illustrate your points.

N.B. The character Anwar is Indonesian and has poor German.

ST
‘Ich habe mir eine kleine imaginäre Radiostation ersonnen. Sie sendet regelmäßig: Das
Wort im Gebirge. In Sketchen zwischen Herrn Roßgoderer und Frau Motzknödel kann
ich mich austoben. Wartet . . .’ [...] ‘Für seinen Achtzigsten nächstes Jahr habe ich mir
schon eine Huldigung ausgedacht, die ich vorführen werde’. Mit einem Räuspern war
5 Erika Mann in einer Rolle, deren Stammessprache Anwar als Klangmasse wahrnahm.
‘Herr Roßgoderer’, kündigte sie mit verstellter Männerstimme an: ‘Ich fang jetzt an und
erzähl a bissl was von den Werken, ned woa, von diesem Thomas Mann. Als der hat
seinen ersten großen Bucherfolg g’habt mit am Roman namens ‘Puddenbruch—Abfälle
einer Familie’. Darauf Frau Motzknödel’, fiel sie ins Falsett: ‘Ja, ich weiß nicht, Herr
 Cultural issues in translation 73

ST
10 Roßgoderer, wenn man sich denkt eigentlich, was so eine ganze Familie also für
Abfälle z’samm bringt, ned, da muß man schon so a Ding, a Einbildungskraft, gell, a
Phantasie mitbringen.—Roßgoderer’, sank die Stimme: ‘Fernerhin—ich hab’ den
Sketch noch nicht ganz fertig—hat er dann, hat ein sehr nettes Mädchenbuch
geschrieben, Frau Motzknödel, des heißt: ‘Lotte Kröger’. Also ein sehr hübsches Buch
15 soll’s sein un hat ja auch einen schönen Erfolg eingebracht. Sodann ham wir zu
vermelden eine größere Erzählung, die auch einiges Aufsehen aufgewirbelt hat, die
heißt ‘Der Tod in Weimar’. Ich persönlich, Sie, habe keine Ahnung, was in dem Ding
also da drinsteht, aber . . .’ Aus dem Baß wechselte sie wieder ins Gepiepse von Frau
Motzknödel: ‘Also ich hab g’hört, grad die Erzählung, ‘Der Tod in Weimar’, also das
20 sei also äußerst—Ding, ned—also schwül, schwül’. [. . .] ‘Ja, verzeihen Sie, Frau
Motzgoderer, äh, Motzknödel, wollen Sie damit andeuten, daß unser Jubilar, der
Thomas Mann, der, also ein Ding g’schrieben hat, ein . . . ein perverses Buch. Sie:
Mein Gott, also ich mein, natürlich—es is’ halt a Ding . . . es is’ eben halt schwül, ned’.
(Pleschinski 2015: 133–5, slightly abridged)

5.2  TRANSLATION: TOURISM BROCHURE

Assignment
i The ST below is from a brochure from the Husum tourist board. The board is
looking to produce a full English version of the brochure. At present there is
only limited information on the website.
ii Translate the text into English, paying special attention to the cultural issues
involved.
iii Comment on your overall approach and decisions of detail you had to make.
Which of the strategies outlined previously did you use at different stages,
and why?

Note: the first line stands on a page of its own at the beginning of the brochure.
The rest of the text is accompanied by pictures and is from a different page of the
brochure. The telephone number is printed at the bottom of the page.

ST
Moin Moin und herzlich Wilkommen!
Hattstedtermarsch—Wobbenbüll—Horstedt
Kleine nordfriesische Paradiese
Weite, Wasser, Wiesen
5 Weit geht der Blick gen Westen—von Wobbenbüll über das Wattenmeer zur Halbinsel
Nordstrand. Unendlich ist der Himmel der Hattstedtermarsch, denn Weite prägt die
Niederung des Flüsschens ‘Arlau’, das übrigens als ‘Köm-Grenze’ gilt. Fragen Sie die
Einheimischen danach. Direkt an ‘die Marsch’ grenzt der ‘Beltringharder Koog’—ein
Wasserparadies für Naturfreunde. Mehr erfahren Sie im wohl kleinsten
10 Naturkundemuseum des Nordens, im Schöpfwerk Arlau-Schleuse.
74 Some key issues

ST
Auf der höher gelegenen Geest liegt Horstedt, einst wichtiger Standort am
Ochsenweg bei den Viehtrieben von Jütland nach Hamburg. Weite und Watt, Wasser
und Wiesen, Knicks und Klönschnack—hier, nördlich von Husum, präsentiert sich
Nordfriesland mit all seiner Schönheit, Plattdeutsch-Stunde inklusiv.
15 Hoch zu Ross
Ein alter Brauch an der schleswig-holsteinischen Westküste ist das Ringreiten. Hoch zu
Ross im Galopp mit einer Lanze bewaffnet, zielt der Reiter auf einen kleinen Ring, der
an einem ‘Galgen’ hängt. Wer die meisten Ringe sticht, wird zum König oder Königin
gewählt. Eine Tradition, die man in allen Orten der Husumer Bucht erleben kann.
20 Schimmelreiter-Land
So einzigartig ist diese Landschaft, dass sie auch als Schauplatz mehrerer Theodor
Storm-Werke und Verfilmungen diente, so für Storms wohl bekanntestes Werk ‘Der
Schimmelreiter’, der in der berühmten Novelle über Deiche dieser Landschaft ritt.
Baden und Wattwandern
25 Beim Radfahren, Wandern oder Reiten finden Sie hier die Ruhe und Erholung, die Sie
sich für die schönsten Tage im Jahr wünschen. Und für kleine Leute wird Urlaub auf
dem Land zu einer nordfriesischen Entdeckertour. Zum Baden geht’s an den Seedeich
beim Lüttmoorsiel oder Holmer Siel. Oder zum Wattwandern zur Hallig
Nordstrandischmoor. Die Tourist Information Husum vermittelt Ihnen gern ein
30 gemütliches Urlaubsdomizil in dieser Gegend—im Hotel achter’n Diek, auf dem
Fereienhof oder . . .

Service-Telefon: 0 48 41 / 89 87 0
(Tourismus und Stadtmarketing 2015: 2, 38.)

References

Primary
Das Nibelungenlied 1970. Mittelhochdeutscher Text und Übertragung. Edited and trans-
lated by Brackert, Helmut. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich 1956. Der Besuch der alten Dame. Zürich: Verlag der Arche.
Kafka, Franz 2012. The Man who Disappeared (America). Edited and translated by Rob-
ertson, Ritchie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luther, Martin 1965. Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen. Edited by Bischoff, Karl. Tübingen:
Niemeyer.
Pleschinski, Hans 2013. Königsallee: Roman. Munich: Beck.
Tourismus und Stadtmarketing 2015. Husumer Bucht 2016 Urlaubsmagazin: Stadt Husum
und Ferienregion Husumer Bucht. Husum: Tourismus und Stadtmarketing.
Wilde, Lutz 2014. Rathaus Lübeck. Berlin and Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag.

Secondary
Bance, Alan and Chambers, Helen 1995. ‘Fontane translation workshop’, in Bance, A.,
Chambers, H. and Jolles, C. (eds) Theodor Fontane: The London Symposium. Stuttgart:
Heinz, pp. 297–302.
Ehrismann, Otfrid 1987. Nibelungenlied: Epoche—Werk—Wirkung. Munich: Beck.
 Cultural issues in translation 75
Kirby, Sara 1995. ‘Three women and their proverbs: An analysis of usage and translations’,
in Bance, A., Chambers, H. and Jolles, C. (eds) Theodor Fontane: The London Sympo-
sium. Stuttgart: Heinz, pp. 111–36.
Koller, Werner (unter Mitarbeit von Kjetl Berg Henjum) 2011. Einführung in die
Űbersetzungswissenschaft. 8th edn. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto.
Newmark, Peter 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
Nicholson, R.A. 1987. Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose. London: Curzon Press;
Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Nord, Christiane 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches
Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Ramière, Nathalie 2006. ‘Reaching a foreign audience: Cultural transfers in audiovisual
translation’, JoSTrans, Issue 06/July 2006, pp. 152–66 [Online]. Available at: www.
jostrans.org/issue06/art_ramiere.pdf (Accessed: 14 February 2018).
Schäffner, Christina 2009. ‘Functionalist approaches’, in Baker, M. and Saldanha, G. (eds)
Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edn. London and New York: Rout-
ledge, pp. 115–21.
Schmitt, Peter A. 1986. ‘Die “Eindeutigkeit” von Fachtexten: Bemerkungen zu einer
Fiktion’, in Snell Hornby, M. (ed.) Űbersetzungswissenschaft—eine Neuorientierung.
Tübingen: Francke, pp. 252–82.
Stolze, Radegundis 2009. ‘Dealing with cultural elements in technical texts for translation’,
JoSTrans, Issue 11/January 2009, pp. 124–42 [Online]. Available at: www.jostrans.org/
issue11/art_stolze.pdf (Accessed: 14 February 2018).
Thomson-Wohlgemuth, Gabriela 2003. ‘Children’s literature and translation under the East
German regime’, META, 48(1–2), pp. 241–9 [Online]. Available at: www.erudit.org/en/
journals/meta/2003-v48-n1-2-meta550/006971ar/ (Accessed: 14 February 2018).

Lexical and related sources

Wahrig, Gerhard 1980. Deutsches Wörterbuch. Gütersloh: Mosaik.
6 Compensation

In previous chapters, we have introduced a number of strategies for dealing with

various translation problems in different contexts. In the current chapter we single
out one of these strategies for particular attention, namely, compensation, a rather
elusive and often poorly defined concept. In fact, one of the main problems for
both theoretical and pedagogical purposes has been defining the scope of ‘com-
pensation’ (Harvey 1995: 77). In her well-known coursebook on translation, Mona
Baker even excludes compensation from any detailed consideration on grounds of
space (2011: 86). One reason for dedicating a whole chapter to a single strategy is
precisely that, i.e. the choices available to the translator are legion, open and often
creative. A further reason, as noted over two decades ago, is that compensation has
a particular importance for translation pedagogy as it is ‘first and foremost a tech-
nique available to translators engaged in the process of transferring meanings and
effects across linguistic boundaries’ (Harvey 1995: 66, emphasis in the original).
Compensation is a way of mitigating translation loss which can, according to New-
mark’s rather broad account (1988: 90), involve ‘meaning, sound-effect, metaphor
or pragmatic effect’. In order to solve a translation problem by compensation, the
translator can draw on any number of specific translation strategies, as we shall see.
What distinguishes compensation from other translation options is, according
to Harvey, its ‘stylistic, text-specific function’ (1995: 77). There are many defini-
tions or explanations of compensation. Here are two:

compensation is the making up for the loss in translation of stylistic effect in

the source text by the use of the same or another stylistic effect in the target
text, either in the same textual location as in the source text or in another
place in the text.
(Harvey 1998: 268)

[compensation] means that one may omit or play down a feature such as idioma-
ticity at the point where it occurs in the source text and introduce it elsewhere in
the target text. This strategy is not restricted to idiomaticity or fixed expressions
and may be used to make up for any loss of meaning, emotional force or stylistic
effect which may not be possible to reproduce at a given point in the target text.
(Baker 2011: 86)
 Compensation 77
The principal difference between these definitions concerns the location of
the item of compensation in the TT. Whilst Harvey explicitly includes a
substitution in the same location e.g. a different pun or idiom, Baker and
most other authors focus instead on a different location for the compensa-
tory strategy. One of the problems with this is actually deciding what the
‘same’ location is, as we shall see from the architecture example below. Our
working understanding is as follows: where translation loss is unavoidable,
the potential impact of this loss is mitigated by recourse to a range of strat-
egies, in the same, adjoining or more distant position, such that important
ST effects are rendered approximately in the TT by means other than those
used in the ST.

Compensation in practice
A good example of compensation was provided in Chapter 1, where it was shown
how the absence of the formal/informal du/Sie distinction in English (‘you’) was
compensated by the addition of informal vocabulary, i.e. ‘chum’. In this example,
two different devices—grammatical system and lexical choice—are used in dif-
ferent but contiguous positions in the same sentence with the aim of creating the
same cheeky effect.
There follows below another example, this time from a non-literary text in
which an architect sarcastically criticises the slabs projecting over the front
doors and steps in housing designed by a rival architect: ‘Da sie weder Entwäs-
serung noch Gefälle haben, bleibt der Schnee auf ihnen vermutlich bis zum
Wegtauen und Abtropfen—gerade auf die “geschützten” Treppen—liegen, die
so aus dem Regen in die Traufe kommen dürften’ (Adler 1927: 387). While ‘vom
Regen in die Traufe (kommen)’ can usually be translated without significant loss
by its standard equivalent, ‘(to jump) out of the frying pan into the fire’, the
translator has to think again here because of the double meaning of the phrase,
both as idiom and in a non-figurative sense. If the TT is to convey the writer’s
barb with similar polemic force, it must do it with compensation. Here is one
possibility: ‘[. . .] the meltwater runs off—straight onto the “sheltered” steps,
upon which one may thus truly say it never rains but it pours’. The ST uses a
popular idiom to tease the architect. The standard equivalent cannot be used
because the literal interpretation of ‘frying pans’ and ‘fire’ have nothing to do
with melting snow, and would produce a rather absurd translation. The TT com-
pensates for the potential loss of the literal meaning by substituting a popular
but different idiom in the same place to do the teasing. The image is different,
but it is a similar kind of rhetorical ploy to that of the ST, and aims at a similar
effect. While retaining a suitably damp imagery, the TL idiom nevertheless loses
its own figurative meaning: its function is not actually to say that ‘misfortunes
never come singly’, but to preserve a style and tone. This is in itself a loss but
is mitigated in turn by the addition of the slightly facetious formulation ‘upon
which one may thus truly say’ and the rather more general negative sense of the
substituted idiom.
78 Some key issues
The location of the substituted idiom could be said to be the ‘same’ in the TT as
in the ST, in so far as it appears in the relative clause at the end of the sentence, but
it follows the embellishment which affirms the ironic tone. It is because of such
problems in defining ‘location’ that we have adopted—with Harvey—a broader
understanding of compensation which does not insist on compensation occurring
in a ‘different’ place from the original ST feature.
It has been claimed that compensation is more of a concern in the transla-
tion of literary texts than of specialised i.e. non-literary ones. However, it is
certainly not excluded from the latter, as our architecture example has shown
(see also Byrne 2012: 128–9). Specialised texts are less likely to contain jokes
or wordplay, but metaphors and other tropes feature prominently in some sub-
ject areas such as Economics (e.g. ‘haircut’), Politics (e.g. ‘spin’) and even
(Popular) Science (e.g. ‘selfish gene’). Nevertheless, many specialised terms
which are metaphorically based have standard equivalents which are available
in dictionaries or term banks and so do not require compensation. But some
highly reader-oriented persuasive texts such as advertisements and political
speeches overlap in their creative and rhetorical features with literary texts
and may therefore require some kind of compensation, as standard solutions
are less likely. The examples which follow are taken from literary texts, but
the principles which are illustrated are equally applicable to some non-literary
genres.

Analysing cases of compensation

Several of our examples come from W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz (2001). This is
because it is a well-known and unusually compelling text, embraces a familiar
and morally urgent subject, and has been translated by a distinguished English
translator, Anthea Bell (Sebald 2002). The lessons we draw from it are, however,
potentially applicable to any ST, not just to Sebald’s.
In Austerlitz, many foreign expressions are quoted verbatim, in Flemish,
French, Czech, etc., without translation or explanation. In practically every
case, the English translator has kept this feature. This strategy ensures that TL
readers face the same kind of challenge to their sophistication as SL readers.
However, a difference between SL and TL readers’ experience does arise when
the narrator singles out German expressions as especially significant. These
sometimes pose serious problems. Most come late on, when Austerlitz tells
the narrator about the notorious Theresienstadt ghetto set up by the Nazis
as, in effect, an antechamber to the concentration camps. We shall take two
examples from a long, ten-page sentence which, in its exhaustive and often
grotesque detail, imitates the suffocating nightmare existence of the inmates.
In this context, certain words are so emotionally loaded that it is vital for the
TT’s purpose that the reader be aware of their full force, as the ST reader
is intended to be. Here is one (the reference is to temporary improvements
designed to conceal the true nature of Theresienstadt from a Red Cross visita-
tion in 1944):
 Compensation 79

ST TT
[. . .] über tausend Rosenstöcke wurden [. . .] over a thousand rose-bushes were
gesetzt, eine Kriechlingskrippe und ein planted, a children’s nursery and crèche
Kleinkinderhort mit Zierfriesen, or Kriechlingskrippe, as it was termed,
Sandkästen, Planschbecken und said Austerlitz, in one of those perverse
5 Karussellen ausgestattet, [. . .] formulations, were adorned with pretty
(Sebald 2001: 343) fairy-tale friezes and equipped with
sandpits, paddling pools and merry-go-
rounds, [. . .]
(Sebald 2002: 339–40, trans. Bell)

Almost inevitably, the TT is an exegetic translation. Like the ST reader, the TT

reader will see the irony of setting up a crèche and a nursery in a transit camp on the
road to extermination. But the ST expressions are more expressive than their TT coun-
terparts. Comparing them is an instructive illustration of semantic translation loss,
for which the translator has tried to compensate by at least one explanatory addition.
‘Nursery’ denotes a place providing day care for young children. ‘Kleinkinderhort’
has a similar denotative meaning, but differs in its connotations by drawing atten-
tion to the littleness and vulnerability of the children through its explicit reference
to ‘Kleinkinder’ and the sense of ‘Hort’ as a refuge. There is an even stronger con-
trast between ‘crèche’ and ‘Kriechlingskrippe’. ‘Crèche’, a loan word from French,
denotes a place where very young children can be looked after. ‘Kriechlingskrippe’
is more vivid: it explicitly mentions babies at the crawling stage, and ‘Krippe’ still
regularly denotes a manger or crib (cognate with ‘Krippe’): the allusion of ‘Nativity
scene’ in ‘Kriechlingskrippe’ is, however, absent in ‘crèche’. Taken together, the two
ST words are far more compelling than their TT counterparts, particularly in their
connotations of vulnerability and Christ’s Nativity. Of course, for a German-speaker,
these connotations are predominantly latent. But in this context they are triggered by
two things: partly by the very inappropriateness of this show of tenderheartedness
in Theresienstadt, but largely also by the alliteration on /k/ in the key words, which
marks them out and crystallises their layers of meaning into an overall emotive sense
of ‘littleness’, ‘weakness’, ‘protection’ and (via the allusion to Nativity) ‘generous
love’. The contrast between the sham of care and the reality of Theresienstadt is
made strident and painful, and arguably even blasphemous.
The TL words can have little of this effect. The TT compensates for this poten-
tially significant loss in two ways. The first is a transfer or cultural borrowing,
‘Kriechlingskrippe’, which suggests that the very language used by the authorities
is in some way noteworthy. The second device is the emotive exegetic addition to
the cultural borrowing: ‘as it was termed, said Austerlitz, in one of those perverse
formulations’. This confirms that there is something objectionable about the official
term, and although it does make explicit some of the critical attitude that is implicit
in the ST, it is too general to be clear: which perverse formulations? and what’s
perverse about them? Here, for discussion in class, are some possible alternatives:

‘Kriechlingskrippe’, as it was termed, said Austerlitz, in another of their

barbarisms.
80 Some key issues
‘Kriechlingskrippe’, as they termed it, said Austerlitz, in another barbarous
perversion of the language.
‘Kriechlingskrippe’, as it was termed, said Austerlitz, in one of their barbarous
perversions of the language.
‘Kriechlingskrippe’, as they barbarously called it.
‘Kriechlingskrippe’, as they chose to call it, said Austerlitz.

These suggestions use a similar strategy to the published TT’s, but make the target
of criticism more explicit. However, they introduce an explicit emotiveness that is
absent from the ST: a major feature in Austerlitz’s account of Theresienstadt is his
relative dispassionateness—more eloquent than exclamations of outrage. In addi-
tion, the specific ST connotations are lost; the closest these alternatives come to
compensating for this is in a connotation of wickedness in ‘perversion’, and, espe-
cially, of uncivilised, primitive and murderous cruelty in ‘barbarous/barbarism’.
The next example illustrates another typical approach to compensation for lost
ST connotations. Early in the ten-page sentence, Austerlitz lists some of the myr-
iad jobs that the ghetto inmates were compelled to do. There were 60,000 people,
he says, forced to work

in einer von der Abteilung für Außenwirtschaft zur Profitschöpfung eingerichteten

Manufakturen, in der Bandagistenwerkstatt, in der Taschnerei, in der
Galanteriewarenproduktion, in der Holzsohlen- und Rindsledergaloschenerzeugung,
auf dem Köhlereihof, bei der Herstellung von Unterhaltungsspielen wie Mühle,
5 Mensch ärgere dich nicht und Fang den Hut, beim Glimmerspalten, in der
Kaninchenhaarschererei, bei der Tintenstaubabfüllung, der Seidenraupenzucht der SS
oder in den zahlreichen Binnenwirtschaftsbetrieben, in der Kleiderkammer, den
Bezirksflickstuben, der Verschleißstelle, im Lumpenlager, bei der
Bucherfassungsgruppe, der Küchenbrigade, der Kartoffelschälerei, der
10 Knochenverwertung oder im Matratzenreferat, [etc.]
(Sebald 2001: 337)

The arbitrary diversity and sheer number of these activities mirrors the intim-
idating incomprehensibility of the whole lunatic enterprise. But the emotional
impact of this passage is more than the sum of its parts. For instance, the reference
to parlour games acquires grisly overtones in this context, which literal translation
cannot convey. Here is the published translation of the whole extract:

in one of the primitive factories set up, with a view to generating actual profit, by the
External Trade Section, assigned to the bandage-weaving workshop, to the handbag
and satchel assembly line, the production of horn buttons and other haberdashery
items, the manufacturing of wooden soles for footwear and of cowhide galoshes, to
5 the charcoal yard, the making of such games as Nine Men’s Morris and Catch the Hat,
the splitting of mica, the shearing of rabbit fur, the bottling of ink dust, the silkworm-
breeding station run under the aegis of the SS or, alternatively, employed in one of the
operations serving the ghetto’s internal economy, in the clothing store, for instance, in
one of the precinct mending and darning rooms, the shredding section, the rag depot,
10 the book reception and sorting unit, the kitchen brigade, the potato-peeling platoon,
the bone-crushing mill, the glue-boiling plant or the mattress department, [etc.]
(Sebald 2002: 333, trans. Bell)
 Compensation 81
The ST expressions that concern us here are the parlour games. ‘Mühle’ is trans-
lated as ‘Nine Men’s Morris’, and ‘Fang den Hut’ as ‘Catch the Hat’, although
these games are no longer well known. ‘Mensch ärgere dich nicht’ is more of a
problem. It is much the same game as ‘Sorry’, a children’s variant of Ludo in
which players take fiendish delight in thwarting one another and saying ‘sorry’
as they do so. Compared with ‘Sorry’, the German term has greater potential for
exquisitely polite malicious glee. This is perhaps why ‘Mensch ärgere dich nicht’
has been omitted from the translation. The loss is, however, very successfully
compensated for, together with another loss incurred in the translation of ‘Mühle’.
Although nothing in the etymology of ‘Nine Men’s Morris’ suggests it, the
reference to a group of men and the collocation of ‘men’ with ‘morris’ is likely
to prompt an association with Morris dancing, a form of entertainment, and
Nine Men’s Morris is a sociable game. In this context, there is a potential irony
in these TL connotations that might partly compensate for the loss of those in
‘Mensch ärgere dich nicht’. Even so, ‘Mühle’ here has gruesome overtones that
Nine Men’s Morris certainly lacks. It acquires these in two stages. Firstly, this
context of unremitting labour will, for some readers, awaken the basic sense of
‘Mühle’ as ‘mill’ or ‘grindstone’, and so perhaps also the association of ‘Knochen-
mühle’, in its colloquial figurative sense of a place of unremitting toil (as in e.g.
‘der Betrieb ist die reinste Knochenmühle’). But then, a few lines later, almost
comically slipped in between potato-peeling and the mattress department, comes
‘Knochenverwertung’, the ‘utilisation’ or ‘exploitation’ of bones. For many read-
ers, this will clinch the implication of ‘Knochenmühle’ in its literal sense as well
as its figurative one—especially as the text is addressed to a public all too aware
that the Nazis did sometimes literally ‘process’ the bodies of their exterminated
victims.
Acceptable translations of ‘Knochenverwertung’ here would be ‘bone-processing’
or ‘recycling bones’. But the ST word offers a good opportunity to compensate
for the loss incurred in translating ‘Mühle’ as ‘Nine Men’s Morris’. This is what
the translator has done, turning the abstract ‘-verwertung’ element into specific
physical instances of utilisation or processing and explicitly mentioning a bone-
works: ‘the bone-crushing mill, the glue-boiling plant’, a kind of explicitation
strategy. The TT is certainly less economical than the ST, and goes into explicit,
concrete detail where the ST is implicit, abstract and generic. Yet the translator’s
chosen solution triumphantly compensates for the loss incurred in the omission
of ‘Mensch ärgere dich nicht’ and in the innocent associations of ‘Nine Men’s
Morris’.
The Theresienstadt examples mostly involve problems posed by connota-
tions. But connotation is not the only thing that can necessitate compensation.
Compensation often solves problems posed by grammatical structures. A com-
mon problem is the difference between SL and TL verb systems as in the follow-
ing example involving the German subjunctive, taken from Bernhard Schlink’s
Der Vorleser (1997), translated as The Reader (2003) by the Scottish-American
translator Carol Brown Janeway. Five women are on trial for an alleged war
crime. One of them is Hanna, with whom the narrator, the law student Michael,
has a complex relationship. Michael attends the proceedings. Eventually, the
charges are read out:
82 Some key issues

In der zweiten Woche wurde die Anklage verlesen. Die Verlesung dauerte eineinhalb
Tage—eineinhalb Tage Konjunktiv. Die Angeklagte zu eins habe . . ., sie habe ferner
. . ., weiter habe sie . . ., dadurch habe sie den Tatbestand des Paragraphen
soundsoviel erfüllt, ferner habe sie diesen Tatbestand und jenen Tatbestand . . ., sie
5 habe auch rechtswidrig und schuldhaft gehandelt. Hanna war die Angeklagte zu vier.
(Schlink 1997: 101)

There is an acute problem here. Michael comments on the special form of lan-
guage used in the reading of the charges—‘eineinhalb Tage Konjunktiv’—and
gives six examples. This Konjunktiv I is used for certain limited special purposes,
is formal, and is instantly recognised. The convention of using it for reported
speech is nowhere more scrupulously observed than in reporting unproven allega-
tions. Yet, although it is utterly conventional in this situation, Michael deliberately
emphasises it, with the dash and repeated ‘eineinhalb’. The suggestion is that a day
and a half of this stuff is highly tedious, and that the linguistic impersonality does
not reflect the emotional reality of the position the defendants find themselves in.
For translating subjunctives, there are some recognised procedures. However,
for ‘eineinhalb Tage Konjunktiv’ the translator does have a choice: between a lit-
eral and a more creative solution. The former would be technically accurate, but
would baffle most English readers as English uses means other than the subjunc-
tive to signal reported speech. It would also not account for Michael’s reaction.
A contextually more imaginative translation could compensate for the loss by
expressing Michael’s reaction through other means. The first course is, however,
taken in the published TT:

In the second week, the indictment was read out. It took a day and a half to read—a
day and a half in the subjunctive. The first defendant is alleged to have. . . .
Furthermore she is alleged. . . . In addition, she is alleged. . . . Thus she comes under the
necessary conditions of paragraph so-and-so, furthermore she is alleged to have
5 committed this and that act. . . . She is alleged to have acted illegally and culpably.
Hanna was the fourth defendant.
(Schlink 2003: 103, trans. Janeway)

The legal jargon and the repetition of ‘is alleged’ convey oppressive formal-
ity, so some of the ST effect is preserved. But can one compensate for the loss
of Michael’s attitude? To drop the term ‘subjunctive’ might be a pity, since there
could be some TL readers who do understand its implications. One possibility,
then, would be to embed the key word in an exegetic translation:

During the second week the charges were read out. The reading took a day and a half.
A day and a half of the stiff subjunctive verbs used for indictments: Prisoner no. 1 is
alleged to have. . . . It is further alleged that she. . . . Subsequently, it is alleged, she. . . .
In so doing, it is alleged, she committed a felony as defined in Subsection such and
5 such. . . . She is further alleged to have committed a felony in terms of Subsection this
and Subsection that. . . . She is charged with having acted unlawfully and with malice
aforethought. Hanna was Prisoner no. 4.
 Compensation 83
‘Stiff subjunctive verbs’ suggests there is something alien about the legal lan-
guage, and the liberal injection of TL legal jargon gives a flavour of this. So, although
an important ST effect is lost in the literal translation of ‘Konjunktiv’ (assuming the
TT reader has no relevant knowledge of German grammar), there is some com-
pensation for that in the rest of the sentence. This solution has a serious drawback,
however: it contains no subjunctives. A better exegetic rendering might therefore
be to drop reference to the subjunctive and to compensate in a different way: ‘The
reading took a day and a half—one and a half days of the stuffy language used for
indictments’. The switch to ‘one and a half days’ draws extra attention to the length
of time, and so prepares the way for ‘stuffy’. We preferred ‘stuffy’ to alternatives
like ‘stiff’, ‘starchy’ or ‘pompous’ because it has stronger connotations of the stifling
atmosphere of a boring courtroom. Once this atmosphere is set, the rest of the pub-
lished TT can be used, because there is no longer any need for extra jargon.
Omitting the rather dry reference to the subjunctive and its associations is
therefore a translation loss, but keeping it would arguably be a bigger one; a suit-
able paraphrase is substituted in order to compensate for this loss. However, it is
important to note that this is the full extent of the compensation in this example.
The use of ‘is alleged’ to render ‘habe’ is not really a case of compensation. Cer-
tainly, ‘she is alleged’ is more redolent of the courtroom than ‘she is said’ or ‘it is
claimed that’, but that is simply a matter of deciding on the correct conventional
expression for the context.

Concluding remarks
The examples we have analysed illustrate three of the most common features of
compensation. The first is that it generally (but not always) involves a change
in place, the TT effect often occurring in a different textual position—relative
to other features in the TT—from the corresponding item in the ST. Not all our
examples clearly show this, but the ‘Mühle’/‘Mensch ärgere dich nicht’ compen-
sation is a particularly good case of a distributed or ‘displaced’ (Harvey 1995: 72)
solution.
Compensation usually also entails a change in ‘economy’, which has been char-
acterised as ‘compensation by merging’ or ‘compensation by splitting’ (Hervey
and Higgins 1992). In the first case, the TT feature will be shorter than the cor-
responding ST one. More often, though, ST features have to be spread over a
relatively longer stretch of the TT, whether continuous or divided into parts. This
is almost inevitable when there is any element of exegetic translation. This, too,
is seen in all our examples.
Finally, it is useful, following Harvey (1995), to distinguish between the desired
effect of the compensatory strategy in conveying irony, humour, a hidden threat,
and the device or devices used to achieve it, ranging from phonic through lexical
to grammatical. The ST and TT devices can be the same, e.g. an idiom aimed at a
humorous effect in the ST may be replaced by a different idiom in the TT, but still
an idiom, or different, e.g. the loss incurred through the absence of a grammatical
feature may be compensated by the addition of a word with a particular semantic
84 Some key issues
load, or, a ST rhyme or pun may have to be replaced with a different form of word-
play. Compensation may also involve making explicit in the TT what is implicit in
the ST, or vice versa. It may involve substituting abstract for concrete, or concrete
for abstract. All these sorts of change may be confined to single words, but they
more usually extend to whole phrases, sentences or even paragraphs. Sometimes,
indeed, a whole text may be affected, as in Practical 6.2 below.
To conclude, the question of whether and how to compensate can never be
considered in and for itself, in isolation from other crucial factors: context, style,
genre, the function of the ST, the function of the TT, the TT’s readership, etc. Com-
pensation is needed whenever consideration of these factors confronts the transla-
tor with a challenging compromise and is unlikely to be successful if inspiration is
not allied with analysis. It is not a matter of putting any old fine-sounding phrase
into a TT in case any weaknesses have crept in, but of countering a specific, clearly
defined loss with a specific, clearly defined compensatory gain. So, before decid-
ing on how to compensate for a translation loss, it is best to assess as precisely as
possible what the loss is and why it matters both in its immediate context and in the
TT as a whole. When all the possibilities have been reviewed, the decisive question
is: ‘Will the proposed compensation make the TT more fit for its purpose, or less?’

Further reading
Low, Peter 2016. Translating Song: Lyrics and Texts. London and New York: Routledge
[see Practical 6.2].
Stolze, Radegundis 1999. Die Fachübersetzung. Eine Einführung. Tübingen: Gunter Narr
[Section 7.3.2.2: Kompensatorische Übersetzungsverfahren, pp. 224–7; details many
relevant and well-illustrated strategies.].
Thome, Gisela 2002. ‘Methoden des Kompensierens in der literarischen Übersetzung’,
in Thome, G., Giehl, C. and Gerzymisch-Arbogast, H. (eds) Kultur und Übersetzung.
Methodologische Probleme des Kulturtransfers. Tübingen: Narr, pp. 299–314.

Practical 6

6.1 TRANSLATION: COMPANY REPORT

Assignment
i You are translating Part 1 of the Audi AG annual report from which Practical
2.2 was taken. (Some further details about the report are given there.) Discuss
the decisions that you have to make before starting detailed translation of this
ST extract, paying particular attention to the constraints imposed on your TT
by the layout requirements explained in the contextual information.
ii Translate the text into English.
iii Discuss the main decisions of detail you took, paying special attention to
cases where you used compensation.
iv Compare your TT with the published one, which will be made available to
you by your tutor.
 Compensation 85
Contextual information
The ST for this assignment is advertising copy carefully laid out to accompany
the ‘Technik’ chapter’s photographs and informational text (see Practical 2.2). The
car featured is the A8 L 12-Zylinder. The ST starts on a left-hand page, and then
stretches across all six A4 pages of the chapter as a kind of continuously develop-
ing header; thus it is split into six fragments, one to a page, each marked off by
suspension points before and after. Certain words are printed in larger type—one
on each page except the first. On each of pages 19–23, the ST is printed in a single
line across the page without undue stretching. Audi require the English-language
edition of their company report to be laid out exactly like the German edition.
The numbers we supply in square brackets are the page numbers of the original
publication.

ST
[18] Er ist gewohnt, vorn . . .
[19] . . . mitzufahren. Vorwärtsdrang ist seine typische Eigenschaft. Stets und
zu jeder Stunde . . .
[20] . . . Die Gewissheit, gut zu sein: Anspruch des Gewinners. Hochschalten in
5 den sechsten Gang . . .
[21] . . . Entschlossenheit heißt Format beweisen. Führen mit Stil und Klasse. Im
Detail und mit Niveau . . .
[22] . . . Genau wie sein A8. Blinker links. Sanfte Beschleunigung. Sicher lenkt er
auf die Überholspur . . .
10 [23] . . . Erfolg mit allen Sinnen genießen. Jeden Tag aufs Neue. Für heute ist er
erst einmal am Ziel.
(Audi 2004a: 18–23)

6.2 TRANSLATION ANALYSIS: SONG

Assignment
Comparing the ST and TT printed here, examine the main cases where the
translator seems to have used compensation to alleviate translation loss. Say
why you think the compensation is successful or unsuccessful; if you think it
could be improved, give your own translation, and explain why you think it is
better. Include in your analysis cases where you think that significant transla-
tion loss is incurred without the translator apparently having tried to alleviate it
with compensation; give your own translation of these cases, and explain why
you think it is better. Keep in mind that the English version of the song will
need to be performed to the same music as the original German. You can find
versions of the song performed on YouTube, including by its author/composer,
Wolf Biermann.
86 Some key issues
Contextual information
It will be useful to bear in mind that the ST is a song with a ballad-like rhythm
which the translator imitates fairly closely. As a singer-songwriter in the GDR,
Biermann’s critical political songs made him a thorn in the flesh of the regime
throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1976, while he was performing in the Fed-
eral Republic, he was stripped of his citizenship by the East German authorities.
Although banned from the East German media, Biermann’s critical, acid songs,
proclaiming his own personal communism and his opposition to hypocrisy and
degradation, continued to penetrate every corner of German culture. Kunststück is
one of his lighter pieces, but it is characteristic in its blend of politics with celebra-
tion of a love of life and of the common man.

ST TT

Wenn ich mal heiß bin When I get hot, son

Wenn ich mal heiß bin When I get hot, son
lang ich mir ne Wolke runter I reach up and grab a cloud
und wring sie über mir aus. and wring it out over me.
Kalte Dusche. Ice-cold shower.
6 Kunststück. Piece a cake.
Wenn ich mal kalt bin When I get cold, son
Wenn ich mal kalt bin When I get cold, son
lang ich mir die Sonne runter I reach up and grab the sun
und steck sie mir ins Jackett. and pop it under my coat.
Kleiner Ofen. Little oven.
12 Kunststück. Piece a cake.
Wenn ich bei ihr bin When I’m with her, son
Wenn ich bei ihr bin When I’m with her, son
schwimmen Wolken mit uns runter clouds come floating down, son, with us
rollt die Sonne gleich mit. and the sun comes down too.
Das ist Liebe. That’s love for you.
18 Kunststück. Piece a cake.
Wenn ich mal müd bin When I get tired, son
Wenn ich mal müd bin When I get tired, son
lang ich mir den lieben Gott runter I reach up and grab the dear Lord
und er singt mir was vor. so he’ll sing me a song.
Engel weinen. Angels weeping.
24 Kunststück. Piece a cake.
Wenn ich mal voll bin When I get pissed, son
Wenn ich mal voll bin When I get pissed, son
geh ich kurz zum Teufel runter I nip down to see the devil
und spendier Stalin ein Bier and buy old Stalin a beer.
Armer Alter Poor old bugger.
30 Nebbich. Nebbish.
Wenn ich mal tot bin When I am dead, son
Wenn ich mal tot bin When I am dead, son
werd ich Grenzer und bewache I’ll be keeping an eye on the border
die Grenz zwischen Himmel und Höll. the border of heaven and hell.
Ausweis bitte! Passports ready!
36 Kunststück. Piece a cake.
(Biermann 1977: 70–2) (Biermann1977: 71–3, trans. Steve Gooch)
 Compensation 87
References

Primary
Adler, L. 1927. ‘Siedlung in Berlin-Britz’, Wasmuths Hefte für Baukunst, 11(10).
Audi 2004a. Geschäftsbericht 2003. Ingolstadt: Audi AG.
Biermann, Wolf 1977. ‘Kunststück’, in Gooch, Steve (trans) Wolf Biermann: Poems and
Ballads. London: Pluto Press.
Schlink, B. 1997. Der Vorleser. Zürich: Diogenes.
Schlink, B. 2003. The Reader. Translated by Janeway, Carol Brown. London: Phoenix.
Sebald, W. G. 2001. Austerlitz. München: Hanser.
Sebald, W. G. 2002. Austerlitz. Translated by Bell, Anthea. London: Penguin.

Secondary
Baker, Mona 2011. In Other Words. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Byrne, Jody 2012. Scientific and Technical Translation Explained: A Nuts and Bolts Guide
for Beginners. London and New York: Routledge.
Harvey, Keith 1995. ‘A descriptive framework for compensation’, The Translator, 1(1),
pp. 65–86.
Harvey, Keith 1998. ‘Compensation and the brief in a non-literary translation: Theoretical
implications and pedagogical applications’, Target, 10(2), pp. 267–90.
Hervey, Sándor and Higgins, Ian 1992. Thinking Translation: A Course in Translation
Method, French to English. 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge.
Newmark, Peter 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
Section C

Formal properties of texts

So far in this book, much of our attention has been directed towards the translation
as a product, thinking primarily about the translation as a piece of writing which
will have to function adequately in the target language system and which meets
the needs of a particular brief. In the following group of chapters we turn our
attention back to the source text, in a sense, and ask how linguistic structures at
many levels contribute to the construction of texts and how a deeper understand-
ing of those structures can help us identify, account for and manage inevitable
systemic differences that arise when moving between German and English.
We begin with an overview of lexical meaning (Chapter 7), the aspect of mean-
ing with which students may feel they are most familiar. We then move on to
the largest unit of meaning, the text (Chapter 8), a perspective which can help
to contextualise many translation decisions and which students are less likely to
have considered. The importance of information ordering—i.e. ordering beyond
grammatical constraints—within the sentence is considered in Chapter 9, before
we tackle words and phrases from a grammatical perspective (Chapter 10). The
final chapter in this section deals with how the sounds of words can impact on
written translation (Chapter 11).
7 Meaning and translation

Translation is centrally concerned with interpreting and (re)creating aspects of

meaning in texts, often using a variety of sources ranging from other texts to codi-
fied collections such as dictionaries (see Chapter 12 on Research and resources).
In monolingual dictionaries, lexicographers try to capture the meaning, or in
most cases, the meanings, of words and expressions (whether general-purpose
or specialised) using definitions and, less helpfully, synonyms. In bilingual
dictionaries in print or online—often the first and favourite choice of student
translators—definitions are rare and lists of undifferentiated equivalents common.
In this chapter we consider various relations of meaning, mainly between words
and expressions, and show how even some apparently straightforward ‘basic’ mean-
ings can be problematic. Building on the discussion of equivalence in Chapter 3, we
suggest some ways of dealing with the translation issues which arise.

From basic denotative meaning to translation strategies

The central meaning of a word or expression is a matter of categories into
which a language divides the totality of experience. This is usually called the
‘denotative’ aspect of meaning and is a characteristic of nouns. Thus, the basic
meaning of the word ‘umbrella’ derives from the fact that there are similar
objects exhibiting the same essential characteristics—and all sorts of other
objects that are excluded from this category. There are many cases, however,
where a particular class of objects can be designated by more than one linguistic
expression, i.e. by synonyms, such as ‘gamp’, an archaic word for ‘umbrella’.
Denotative meaning (i.e. of nouns) can be broadly understood as the codified
dictionary definition, which sets out the meaning potential for communicative
use of actual word forms in texts—i.e. the act of referring—where particular
nuances or selective aspects of the meaning are realised, ‘activated’ or fore-
grounded in context. This distinction (see Lyons 1977: 206–15) goes some way
to accounting for the fact that the same ST word might be translated differently
in different TTs.
For practical purposes, we shall take it that comparisons of denotative mean-
ing can also be made between different languages. For example, in most contexts
92 Formal properties of texts
‘father’ and ‘Vater’ in the sense of male parent cover exactly the same range of
essential characteristics, and are therefore equivalent in terms of the class of
objects in the world which they denote in specific instances. Nevertheless, there
are, as we have seen in Chapter 3, a range of possible types or degrees of ‘equiva-
lence’ and translation strategies for dealing with these. In a sense, the only true
formal ‘equivalence’ is the one-to-one type. We can recall the other types as
one-to-many, many-to-one, one-to-part, or one-to-none.
One way of characterising the one-to-many and many-to-one types of
denotative equivalence is to regard the translation strategy for the former as
‘particularising’ and for the latter as ‘generalising’. For example, depending
on situation or context, the English word ‘exit’ has to be translated either as
‘Ausfahrt’ or as ‘Ausgang’. The English word is a kind of interlingual hypero-
nym i.e. it is wider and more general than either of the German ones. Trans-
lating from German to English, on the other hand, the converse is the case,
i.e. ‘Ausfahrt’ has to be translated as ‘exit’, with the discretion to modify the
generic word to form the more specific hyponym ‘motorway exit’, if required
by the context. A generalising translation is acceptable if the omitted specifi-
cation is either unimportant or is implied in the TT context. Even items in the
natural world can be classed differently in each language. The German terms
‘Falter’ or ‘Nachtfalter’, for example, are both subsumed under the more gen-
eral ‘moth’, but with one major exception. When holes are gnawed in stored
clothes, German requires the specific term ‘Motte’, while English is still con-
tent with ‘moth’.
Processes as well as objects can display the same many-to-one relationship. For
example, German has two well-known standard terms for ‘to eat’: ‘essen’, used of
humans, and ‘fressen’, of animals; this lexical lack of specificity in English is in
most cases unlikely to cause any problems, unless an insult to a person is intended
by the metaphorical use of ‘fressen’ (‘gorge’ instead of ‘eat’ might work here or a
compensatory addition, ‘like a pig’).
Moving on to partial equivalence (one-to-part), we can cite as an example
the English word ‘anticlimax’. According to Collins (in the English-German
section) ‘Enttäuschung’ is given as a translation of ‘anticlimax’. Significantly,
under ‘Enttäuschung’ in the German-English section, the same dictionary does
not give ‘anticlimax’, but only ‘disappointment’ (plus ‘let-down’ in a phrase).
The fact is that there is no single German word that covers exactly the same
semantic range as ‘anticlimax’. In such cases, researching the use of both the
SL and TL words in texts (online using a search engine) or in online diction-
aries which include contextual examples (e.g. Leo or Linguee, Chapter 12) is
recommended.
A generalising or particularising translation will only be unacceptable if
the TL does offer a suitable alternative, or if omitting or adding the specifi-
cation creates a clash with the overall context of the ST or TT. Compare the
German text below—the first paragraph of a concise report—with the TT that
accompanied it:
 Meaning and translation 93

ST TT
Die Ultraschallprüfung von Walzmaterial The ultrasonic testing of rolled products is
auf Inhomogenitäten ist ein wichtiges an important request for the quality
Anliegen der qualitätsüberwachenden und assurance of steel producing and
der stahlerzeugenden und verarbeitenden manufacturing factories of the steel
Betriebe der Stahlindustrie. industry.
(ECSC—HOESCH 1987a: 507) (ECSC—HOESCH 1987b: 507)

Conspicuous though the anomalous ‘request’ may appear to be, the unwary trans-
lator can be led into making the wrong choice if relying on a bilingual dictionary
which simply lists possible equivalents. The Collins English-German Dictionary,
for instance, lists: ‘request; matter of concern’ for ‘Anliegen’ (1999); nor does the
current monolingual Duden Online Wörterbuch help: ‘Angelegenheit, die jemandem
am Herzen liegt; Wunsch, Bitte’. Carrying out a further back-check on ‘request’
would produce ‘Ersuchen’, not ‘Anliegen’, providing further evidence of the com-
plex web of meanings both within and between languages which dictionaries fail
to capture. A more accurate TT would be: ‘Ultrasonic testing of rolled products is
a major concern/priority for the quality assurance, production and manufacturing
branches of the steel industry’. (The TT’s silence with regard to ‘Inhomogenitäten’
is probably not an error but a generalising translation in line with industry practice.)
In a second example, the issue is whether particularisation should be avoided alto-
gether. A leaflet outlining 700 years of Düsseldorf church history for visitors required
strict economy of language combined with readability. Faced with the ST’s ‘Schließung
der meisten Klöster’, the translator has to choose between the fussy-sounding particu-
larising translation ‘monasteries and convents’ and a vaguer generalising rendering
such as ‘religious houses’—preferring the latter on balance, given the genre.
Hard to categorise is another type of semantic German-English contrast which
is subject to context. This is a case of English being more general than German.
For example, the verbs ‘liegen’ and ‘stehen’ have their dictionary equivalents,
their basic meanings being ‘to lie’ and ‘to stand’. But they can also occur with
the primary function of locating an object, as in ‘Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch’
and ‘Die Vase steht auf dem Tisch’. In English, the tendency in such cases is to
use the verb ‘to be’ as a locating verb, a semantically weaker and less specific
option: ‘The book is on the table’ and ‘The vase is on the table’. What is semanti-
cally important for the German, i.e. whether the object concerned is horizontal
(‘liegen’) or vertical (‘stehen’), is irrelevant in the English. Using ‘lie’ or ‘stand’
is not ruled out, but would result in a semantically marked construction: for exam-
ple, ‘the vase was lying on the table’ suggests an accident of some kind.

Of contexts, dictionaries and texts

From the previously-mentioned it should be clear that dictionaries are tools and
resources, but imperfect ones. One reason we spent time over these examples was
94 Formal properties of texts
to draw attention to the potential translation pitfalls even in apparently straight-
forward cases. Another was to encourage an attitude of constructive suspicion
towards all dictionaries, monolingual as well as bilingual. Dictionaries and other
lexical resources are indispensable in suggesting potential meanings, but caution
is advised in terms of how the context influences the actual meanings in particular
texts and formulations.
It is well known that monolingual dictionaries often disagree over basic mean-
ings. With abstract terms in particular, an element of subjectivity is often involved,
but the same applies to many concrete terms, such as ‘dish’ and ‘bowl’, ‘pond’
and ‘pool’. Bilingual dictionaries, too, often suggest very different TL possibili-
ties for given words or phrases. Thus, unlike the Collins, the Oxford-Duden gives
for ‘anticlimax’ not ‘Enttäuschung’ but two suggestions which—depending on
how you define ‘anticlimax’ in the first place—are either one-to-many or a partial
overlap in terms of equivalence: ‘Abstieg’ and ‘Abfall’. There is less disagreement
over technical terms; both these dictionaries give ‘Antiklimax’ for ‘anticlimax’ in
its specialised literary-rhetorical sense. Clearly, it is vital to remember that, except
in the case of some highly specific technical terms, no dictionary can cover all the
possibilities for translating a given word or expression, and even technical terms
evolve in meaning and usage. What all this means in practice is that translators
often need to check meanings in more than one source, including the Internet as a
huge resource of usage in context, and with friends, colleagues and experts—but
also that the final decision is the translator’s own responsibility (see Chapter 12
on Research and resources).
Let us conclude this section with an example which clearly illustrates how
familiar words can face translators with troublesome issues of basic meaning
that are not easy to schematise. As an example, take the apparently transparent
but potentially problematic term ‘Arbeitsplatz’. We start from a revision job (see
Chapter 16) on an unsatisfactory draft TT of a text from the Bundesverband der
deutschen Industrie, from which the following is an extract:

ST TT
Denn intelligente Kommunikationssysteme Intelligent communication systems
[. . .] führen zu einem Umbau der internen [. . .] change the internal and external
und externen Organisationsstrukturen der organisational structures of enterprises
Unternehmen und öffentlichen and public administration that makes it
5 Verwaltungen, durch den die Arbeitsplätze possible to structure workplaces more
produktiver gestaltet werden. productively.
(BDI 2004a: 56) (unpublished draft TT)

The draft is both wordy and dense; consequently, the apparently straightfor-
ward ‘Arbeitsplätze’ might not attract immediate attention, although its collocate
‘gestalten’ should alert the reviser to at least two possibilities: might the ST author
have been referring to the restructuring or redesign of people’s jobs, rather than of
the places where they work? The collocation ‘Arbeitsplätze schaffen’, for exam-
ple, should be (but is not always) translated as ‘create jobs’. A major bilingual
 Meaning and translation 95
specialist dictionary translates ‘Arbeitsplatz umgestalten’ as ‘to redesign a job’.
But very commonly too ‘Arbeitsplatz’ means literally the physical place where
people work (whether ‘workstation’ or ‘working environment’ more generally).
Online research for ‘Arbeitsplätze gestalten’ reveals examples illustrating ergo-
nomic issues, i.e. the literal sense of physical ‘workplaces’, as well as the more
abstract ‘jobs’. While these two senses—lexically distinguished in English—
seem sharply demarcated in their Duden definition, that does not preclude the
inclusion of both senses when the term is used in a text. In fact, it turns out that
neither ‘jobs’ nor ‘workplaces’ is entirely adequate: for the record, the published
TT included both terms.

Beyond denotative meaning

Denotative meaning is only one aspect of lexical meaning. Referential content
can, and more often than not is, accompanied by various associative meanings
such as emotional colouring, social and personal viewpoints, cultural assumptions
and so on. Intertextual references or echoes are particularly effective reminders
of the multilayered nature of texts because they specifically recall another read-
ing or listening experience. Finding words to convey the echoes and overtones of
words and expressions is often a crucial but challenging translation issue, as these
meanings can be unstable.
Such overtones have been variously categorised and labelled: we can think of
them as associations which, over and above the denotative meaning of a word or
expression, form part of its overall meaning. Here we distinguish five major types
of meaning beyond denotation (some of them adapted from Leech 1981).
The first type is connotation—probably the most general type—which is con-
cerned with emotional associations of various kinds. This type of meaning is
sometimes seen as more peripheral than the more stable, more context-dependent
and less open-ended denotative meaning (see, for instance, the German alterna-
tive designation for Konnotation: Nebenbedeutung). However, an inappropriate
choice of word for a particular context can lead to a serious breakdown in commu-
nication. Translators therefore have to tread carefully. For example, while ‘Visage’
and ‘Gesicht’ are denotatively equivalent to ‘face’, the former is clearly pejora-
tive, the latter neutral. We refer you back to Chapter 3 for more examples.
The second type is allusive meaning, often implicit and created when an expres-
sion evokes a saying, quotation, object, person or event based on the author’s
assumption that the intended readers will share the requisite knowledge or experi-
ence. So referring to a particular male friend as ‘ein wahrer Romeo’ would evoke
the familiar image of a keen romancer of women—alluding to Shakespeare’s
famous play—without actually saying this.
Once spotted and understood, an appropriate TC allusive meaning should ide-
ally be found, although in practice some form of compensation is often needed
as allusions can be highly cultural and less well known than our Romeo exam-
ple. A simple example can be found in an advertisement for a German electrical
firm, where the text contains the slogan ‘SEIN WISSEN IST IHR SANFTES
96 Formal properties of texts
RUHEKISSEN’, evidently based on an allusion to the proverbial saying ‘Ein
gutes Gewissen ist ein sanftes Ruhekissen’, indicating that: ‘This firm is so con-
scientious and reliable that the customer’s responsibility may be transferred to it
without a qualm’. The German proverb seems to have no well-known counterpart
in English; even if there were one, neatly weaving an allusion to it into an adver-
tising slogan would tax the translator’s ingenuity. The most practical approach
here would probably be to use compensation. Here are two possibilities: ‘SAFE
HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK’, and ‘RELAX! HE’S GOT A GOOD HEAD
FOR LIGHTS!’
For the ST author, allusion is a useful shorthand. It may be casual and inciden-
tal; it may be humorous. In Martin Walser’s Ein fliehendes Pferd, a bumptious
small-boat sailor becalmed on a leaden day curses the Bodensee (Lake Constance)
for its lack of challenge: ‘Das sei vielleicht was für Opas, in deren Wipfeln Ruh ist’
(Walser 1978: 106). The allusion is to Goethe’s famous lines ‘Über allen Gipfeln/
ist Ruh,/In allen Wipfeln/Spürest du/Kaum einen Hauch’—lines jumbled by Wal-
ser to underline the speaker’s savage mood. A published translation has recourse
to Cardinal Newman: ‘It might be all right for old fogies for whom the fever of
life is over’ (Walser 1980: 76, trans. Vennewitz).
Another type of associated meaning is attitudinal (sometimes also called
‘affective meaning’), the part of the overall meaning of an expression that consists
of some personal or widespread attitude to the referent. This type of meaning is
sometimes hard to distinguish from connotative meaning, as we may rely on the
connotations conventionally associated with particular word choices in order to
express our emotions. Leech calls this a ‘parasitic’ category (1981: 16). Attitudi-
nal connotations can be important when related to people, but can also be used to
refer to a system or practice or way of thinking. Take the following extract from a
historical account of the Nazis’ Aktion T4 euthanasia programme:

Die Angehörigen erhielten nach einem ausgeklügelten Geheimhaltungssys-

tem gefälschte Todesnachrichten, die sogenannten ‘Trostbriefe’, die eine
‘Erlösung’ der Kranken von ihrem Leid suggerierten. Dennoch kam es in-
nerhalb der Bevölkerung zu einer erheblichen Beunruhigung wegen der
Krankenmorde.
(Hohendorf et al.: unpublished)

The term ‘ausgeklügelt’ might be rendered by any of the following: ‘cleverly

worked out’, ‘carefully devised’, ‘ingenious’, ‘sophisticated’, ‘crafty’, ‘cunning’,
etc. How do we go about choosing the best of them in terms of attitudinal mean-
ing in this particular context where the well-chosen word signals calculated ruth-
lessness? The text as a whole has an underlying single line of argumentation, a
restrained but critical account of the euthanasia programme. As also in instances
of connotative meaning, context is crucial; the translator’s responsibility is to mir-
ror, as faithfully as possible, the attitudinal values implicit or expressed in the text
as a whole. The tone of the Hohendorf article on the Nazi T4 programme is pre-
dominantly factual and objective. The relatively restrained tone of the ST means
 Meaning and translation 97
the translator must not introduce explicitly strong attitudinal meanings, although
there is no case for introducing the weak positive attitudes implicit in the first
three options; and the last two, while not excessively pejorative are unsuitable,
‘crafty’ suggesting triviality and ‘cunning’ being potentially allusive (‘a cunning
plan’). ‘Sophisticated’ thus arguably represents the best option, in keeping with
the cool tone.
The fourth type of associated meaning is collocative meaning, whereby a word
acquires associations through its habitual co-occurrence with some other word;
for translation, it is important to remember that we cannot assume the same col-
locational pattern in the SL and the TL. For instance, whilst ‘traffic’ and ‘trans-
port’ might be considered synonyms by virtue of their occurrence as possible
equivalents of ‘Verkehr’, they are rarely, if ever, interchangeable. So ‘öffentlicher
Vekehr’ is ‘public transport’ (not ‘public traffic’) and ‘starker Verkehr’ is ‘heavy
traffic’ (not ‘heavy transport’) (Duden Online Wörterbuch). Collocative habit is
not easy to predict or analyse: You can ‘shut’ or ‘close’ a door in a literal sense,
but metaphorically only ‘close’ a chapter in your life, and where a German road-
sign reads ‘STRASSE GESPERRT’, the translation will normally be ‘ROAD
CLOSED’, not ‘ROAD SHUT’. It is easy for the unwary translator to slip into
translationese in such cases.
It often happens that an expression acquires a meaning over and above its
denotative meaning by the fact that its form calls to mind the sense of a poly-
seme, i.e. a closely related word with the same form but a different sense, often
metaphorically derived. This is usually called reflected meaning. An often-cited
example compares the connotative difference between the synonyms ‘Holy Spirit’
and ‘Holy Ghost’ (see Leech 1981: 16). The semantic link between ‘Holy Ghost’
and ‘ghost’ in the sense of ‘spook’ or ‘spectre’ means that that particular reflected
meaning is latent in the term ‘Holy Ghost’; likewise, the ‘spirit’ element in ‘Holy
Spirit’ may call to mind the use of ‘spirit’ to mean ‘distilled liquor’. It needs to
be emphasised, however, that reflected meanings, because they come from a dif-
ferent field, are normally latent—or dormant—associations, and are activated by
context, as in the first line of the well-known hymn: ‘Thine be the glory, risen,
conquering Son’. Even without the context of traditional Easter symbolism, the
reflected meaning of ‘sun’ latent in its homophone ‘Son’ is triggered by the word
‘risen’. Homophone pairs are unlikely to be reproduced in the other language, and
so compensation would be the most likely translation strategy.
While an awareness of the various types of associative meaning can be a poten-
tially useful analytical tool for the translator, they are not always easy to distin-
guish in practice. In fact, the academic literature on lexical semantics presents
many different categorisations. What is important when translating is to recognise
that certain lexical choices have meanings beyond what they denote or refer to.
Failing to recognise such a meaning in a ST—meant perhaps as an insult or as a
sign of approval—and thereby misrepresenting the intention of the author in the
TT can seriously damage the quality of a translation. Any translator therefore
needs to read as widely as possible in both languages and to develop a broad and
sound general knowledge, as well as good antennae in order to know when to
98 Formal properties of texts
research further. Codified resources such as dictionaries can help in this research,
but seeing how words work in running text is equally, if not more important.

Concluding remarks
This chapter has dealt with the slippery issue of lexical meaning, focusing on the
way in which words and expressions are used and translated. Some of the transla-
tion strategies discussed in earlier chapters—e.g. addition, compensation of vari-
ous kinds—have been discussed here and will crop up again as you work your
way through the practical assignments, as will the intralingual relations between
senses such as synonymy, hyponymy, polysemy and so on. What we hope to
have demonstrated is that words and expressions can be complex in the way they
map meanings, not only between languages but also within languages. There is
rarely, if ever, a straightforward one-to-one relation between meaning and form:
put simply, one form can have several meanings (homonymy/polysemy) and one
meaning can have several forms (synonymy). This can even be the case in the
vocabularies of Fachsprachen. This, and the differences in the ways in which
form-meaning relations map our understanding of the world—both abstract and
material—in each language (types of ‘equivalence’), are the norm, not the excep-
tion. Dictionaries can only capture some of this complexity, and as we have tried
to show, should be treated as a starting point in your meaning research, not as the
endpoint.

Further reading
Beaton, Kenneth Bruce 1996. A Practical Dictionary of German Synonyms. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Durrell, Martin 2000. Using German Synonyms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hatim, Basil and Munday, Jeremy 2004. Translation: An Advanced Resource Book.
London and New York: Routledge [See Unit 5: The analysis of meaning—Introduction;
Extension; Exploration.].
Leppihalme, Ritva 1997. Culture Bumps: An Empirical Approach to the Translation of
Allusions. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Practical 7

7.1 ONE-TO-MANY MEANINGS: THE CASE OF ‘SICHERHEIT’

Contextual information
The German word ‘Sicherheit’ has three obvious possible translations in
English: ‘certainty’, ‘safety’ and ‘security’. We are concerned here with the
‘safety’/‘security’ distinction: both are often included under a single sense
in dictionary entries. See, for instance, the entry for ‘Sicherheit’ in Collins
(accessible through the online dictionary resource Reverso). German native
 Meaning and translation 99
speakers often have difficulty seeing any distinction—as there is only one word in
German—but the two English words are not necessarily interchangeable: ‘secu-
rity services’ and ‘safety services’ are rather different. Many organisations advise
visitors or employees on various regulations accordingly: ‘For your safety and
security’.

Assignment
i Compile a definition (in English) for each English word to show a German
native speaker what it means (acknowledging your sources).
ii Find appropriate examples (a phrase, a clause or a short sentence) to illustrate
these meanings (acknowledging your sources).
iii Find examples of how ‘Sicherheit’ has been translated in texts (literary and/
or specialised) and to evaluate these translations.

In tackling your task, you may want to consult more German-English bilingual
dictionaries, monolingual dictionaries in each language, as well as online text cor-
pora or simply use a search engine to find texts—both German and English—in
which the words are used.
Useful websites to start your research include the following (more detailed infor-
mation can be found in Chapter 12; the URLs are included below in the References):

• British National Corpus

• COSMAS (Corpus Search, Management and Analysis System) at the Institut
für deutsche Sprache*
• Leo
• Linguee
• Reverso
• Sketch Engine (looking up translations in a corpus of texts and their
translations)**
* You will need to register for COSMAS: see the overview page for more
information at www.ids-mannheim.de/cosmas2/uebersicht.html
** You will need to register for Sketch Engine: a free 30-day trial is avail-
able at https://the.sketchengine.co.uk/register/trial

7.2 ANALYSING MEANING CHOICES: ART EXHIBITION

LEAFLET

Assignment
i Study the ST and published TT below and make a detailed analysis of examples
which could be the result of the translation strategies outlined in this chapter to
deal with various aspects of meaning. You are mainly concerned with lexical
meaning but some structural issues affecting meaning are also evident.
100 Formal properties of texts
ii Where possible, give a revised TT that is a better translation, and explain your
decisions.

Contextual information
The ST and accompanying TT come from a leaflet issued by the Bucerius Kunst
Forum in Hamburg announcing an art exhibition that ran there from 6 April to 13
July 2003 under the title Lucas Cranach. Glaube, Mythologie und Moderne. The
exhibition was one of a series entitled Alte Meister der europäischen Kunst.

ST TT
Alte Meister der europäischen Kunst Old Masters of European Art
Mit einer Ausstellung zum 450. Todestag This cycle continues with an exhibition
von Lucas Cranach d.Ä. wird dieser commemorating the 450th anniversary of
Zyklus fortgesetzt. Zu sehen sind etwa Lucas Cranach the Elder’s death. Around
5 100 Gemälde, Druckgraphiken und 100 paintings, prints and books of the
Bücher des großen deutschen Malers. great German master are on exhibit.
Ihnen sind Cranach-Paraphrasen von These are compared with Cranach
Künstlern des 20. Jahrhunderts interpretations of 20th century artists
gegenübergestellt, darunter Picasso, including Picasso, Kirchner and
10 Kirchner und Giacometti. In den Giacometti. In the near future, additional
kommenden Jahren werden weitere first-rate endeavors of old European art
erstrangige Leistungen alter europäischer will be on display including early
Kunst präsentiert: frühe Ikonen aus Novgorod icons, Spanish Baroque
Nowgorod, spanische Malerei des paintings and cloud paintings from the
15 Barock und Wolkenbilder des 19. 19th century.
Jahrhunderts. (Bucerius 2003: 2)
(Bucerius 2003: 2)

7.3 TRANSLATION: LEXICAL MEANING IN

A SPECIALISED TEXT

Assignment
i For publication in the English-speaking world, you are translating the policy
document from which the following ST extract is taken. Discuss any deci-
sions that you have to take before starting detailed translation of this text, and
outline and justify the method you adopt.
ii Translate the text into English.
iii Discuss the main decisions of detail you took, concentrating on noteworthy
issues relating to lexical choices from the point of view of any of the types of
meaning discussed in this chapter. Did you find any of the translation strate-
gies outlined in the chapter helpful?
iv Compare your TT with the published translation, which will be made avail-
able to you by your tutor.
 Meaning and translation 101
Contextual information
The ST comes from the telecommunications chapter (III.7) of Für ein attrak-
tives Deutschland. Freiheit wagen—Fesseln sprengen, published in 2004 by the
Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V. The document presented the Ger-
man employers’ comprehensive programme for national economic recovery. Sub-
section headings throughout have the same grammatical structure as the § 7.1
heading, i.e. injunctions using an infinitive verb. There is an obvious misprint in
the ST. The published text mentioned in (iv) is an excerpt from the BDI’s own
English version, For an Attractive Germany. Venturing Freedom—Casting Off
Shackles.

ST
7.1 Wettbewerb und Liberalisierungserfolge langfristig sichern
Der Mobilfunk ist das beste Beispiel dafür, dass sich leistungsfähige Informations- und
Kommunikationssysteme am schnellsten auf wettbewerblich organisierten Märkten für
Telekommunikations-Infrastruktur und bei einem wettbewerblich organisierten Angebot
5 entsprechender Dienste entwickeln. In diesem Bereich führt der bestehende Wettbewerb
(vier Infrastrukturwettbewerber und über 10 Service-Provider) zu einer marktgeleiteten
Preisbildung. Für die Wahrung dieses Wettbewerbs reicht die Ex-Post-Kontrolle des
allgemeinen Wettbewerbsrecht aus, um auftretenden Missbräuchen zu begegnen. Die
Regulierung auch nur eines einzigen Marktes im Mobilfunk hätte weitreichende Folgen
10 für die betroffenen Unternehmen und für die im Wettbewerb entstandene Marktstruktur.
Denn zusätzlich zum dafür erforderlichen Aufbau neuer Kostenrechnungssysteme und
der damit verbundenen Bürokratie würden erfolgreiche Geschäftsmodelle in Frage
gestellt. Im Hinblick auf Bestrebungen nach einer Preisregulierung im Mobilfunk gilt
die grundsätzliche Forderung, dass der deutsche Gesetzgeber gegenüber
15 Regulierungsbestrebungen seitens der Europäischen Union klar Position zugunsten
einer am Subsidiaritätsprinzip orientierten Ausgestaltung von Regulierungseingriffen
bezieht.
(BDI 2004a: 56)

7.4 LEXICAL MEANING IN THE TRANSLATION OF POETRY

Assignment
i Taking the expressions printed in bold, categorise and discuss their meaning
in the context, keeping in mind the types of lexical meaning discussed in this
chapter.
ii Translate lines 2–10 into English and compare with the translation which
your tutor will provide OR find a published version to critique.
iii How helpful did you find the translation strategies outlined in this chapter
for this particular genre? Do—or should—other strategies apply in poetry
because of the tensions between form and meaning?
102 Formal properties of texts
Contextual information
Paul Celan is the pseudonym of Paul Antschel, who was born in 1920 in Czernowitz,
Romania, and died in 1970. His homeland became part of the Soviet Union in 1940
and was then occupied by the Germans. His Jewish origins meant ghetto and forced
labour for him and disappearance to concentration camps for his parents. ‘Todes-
fuge’ was said by Siegbert Prawer to confound those who would divorce modern art
from actuality. Leonard Forster, in a 1971 edition, described ‘Todesfuge’ as probably
the most famous poem written in German since 1945. Many would still agree.

ST
TODESFUGE
Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken sie abends
wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts
wir trinken und trinken
5 wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt der schreibt wenn
es dunkelt nach Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er schreibt es und tritt vor das Haus und es blitzen die Sterne er pfeift eine Rüden herbei
er pfeift seine Juden hervor läßt schaufeln ein Grab in der Erde
10 er befiehlt uns spielt auf nun zum Tanz
Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich morgens und mittags wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
15 der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
Dein aschenes Haar Sulamith wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht
eng
Er ruft stecht tiefer ins Erdreich ihr einen ihr andern singet und spielt
er greift nach dem Eisen im Gurt er schwingts seine Augen sind blau
stecht tiefer die Spaten ihr einen ihr andern spielt weiter zum Tanz auf
20 Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags und morgens wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith er spielt mit den Schlangen
25 Er ruft spielt süßer den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
er ruft streicht dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Rauch in die Luft
dann habt ihr ein Grab in den Wolken da liegt man nicht eng
Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
30 wir trinken dich abends und morgens wir trinken und trinken
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blau
er trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er hetzt seine Rüden auf uns er schenkt uns ein Grab in der Luft
35 er spielt mit den Schlangen und träumet der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith
(Celan 2003: 65–6)
 Meaning and translation 103
7.5 TRANSLATION: LEXICAL MEANING IN A
JOURNALISTIC TEXT

Assignment
i You have been commissioned to translate a selection of articles from the
German press between 1990 and 2000 for inclusion in a textbook on poli-
tics during the period. The intention is to give the English-language reader
an idea of evolving reactions to the political scene as they were expressed
at the time. The articles are to be translated as if for a quality newspaper of
the relevant period. The ST here is taken from one of these articles. Dis-
cuss the decisions that you have to take about your overall approach before
starting detailed translation of this ST, and outline and justify the approach
you adopt.
ii Using the headlines as contextual information, translate the text into English.
You can then compare and evaluate your translation using the target text ver-
sion which will be provided by your tutor.
iii Discuss the main decisions of detail you took with respect to lexical choice,
paying particular attention to the aspects of meaning which contribute to the
tone of the article and comparing your decisions to those in the proposed TT
version.

Contextual information
The ST is the first half of an article that appeared in the Frankfurter Rundschau on
11 September 1998. The FR is a middlebrow daily that describes itself, fairly, as an
‘unabhängige, linksliberale und überregionale Qualitätszeitung’. The topic of the
article—right-wing parties targeting first-time voters—can therefore be expected
to be treated critically in tone and content. The Republikaner espoused a similar
anti-immigration ideology as today’s Alternative für Deutschland, although by
the late 90s, their limited electoral success was waning. The DVU is the Deutsche
Volksunion; the NPD is the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands. Kurt
Tucholsky (1890–1935) was a man of multiple talents, a notable satirist and an
anti-militarist writer, a left-wing democrat who attacked not only the ‘Dolchstoß’
legend but also the inadequacies of Weimar liberalism. He left Germany for good
in 1924, disaffected with political developments. Once they were in power, the
Nazis quickly deprived him of his citizenship.

ST
Selbst linke Querdenker werden umgarnt
MIT WELCHEN METHODEN DIE RECHTSEXTREMEN PARTEIEN UM
ERSTWÄHLER BUHLEN
Sie sind gegen Atomkraft und für Umweltschutz; sie umgarnen ‘sozial Engagierte’
5 und ‘linke Querdenker’; sie liebäugeln mit Volksabstimmungen und beklagen die
Verrentung der Bonner Polit-Kaste. Wer? Die Grünen? Von wegen. In diesem
Wahlkampf geben sich Deutschlands Rechtsaußen jugendlich. Clever, finden
Politologen—und gefährlich.
104 Formal properties of texts

ST
Das Blättchen ist hübsch anzusehen und liest sich flockig: ‘Wir sollten mit
10 gutem Beispiel vorangehen und ökologische Politik als nationale Herausforderung
begreifen’, empfiehlt blau auf weiß ein gewisser ‘Martin’. ‘Die Bonner Politik hat
aus Deutschland einen Rentnerstaat gemacht, in dem die Jungen nicht mehr viel zu
sagen haben’, schreibt ‘Michael’. Nebenan lächelt wohlgefällig eine Handvoll
Twens, selbst Kurt Tucholsky kommt zu Wort, und ganz hinten wird liebevoll
15 ‘unser Buvo’ porträtiert. Dessen Name: Rolf Schlierer, 43 Jahre alt,
Bundesvorsitzender der rechtsextremen Republikaner.
‘Sehr zufrieden’, sagt Parteisprecher Klaus-Dieter Motzke, sei man mit der
ersten Ausgabe von Junge Deutsche, die im Mai an ebensolche verteilt wurde. Mit
einer Auflage von 200 000 Stück ist soeben der Nachfolger erschienen. Auch er
20 werde an Stellen verteilt, wo man Jugendliche eben so trifft—etwa ‘in und vor
Schulen’. Es gelte, so Motzke zur FR, der Partei ‘ein anderes Gesicht zu geben’.
Mit dem Wunsch stehen die Republikaner nicht alleine da. Spätestens seit der
Wahl in Sachsen-Anhalt, als fast jeder vierte junge Mann der DVU seine Stimme
gab, wittern die Rechtsextremen wieder Morgenluft. Anders als früher sind
25 folgerichtig nicht bornierte Rentner und Ewiggestrige Adressaten der rechten
Lockrufe, sondern junge und Erstwähler. Und so tummeln sich NPD-Aktivisten
schon mal in Technotempeln, verzichtet die DVU wohlweislich auf NS-Symbolik
und postieren die Republikaner Jeans- und Sonnenbrillenträger unter kessen
Sprüchen wie ‘Deutschland für alle—nee für uns’.
(Schindler 1998)

References

Primary
BDI (Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie) 2004a. Für ein attraktives Deutschland.
Berlin: Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie e.V.
Bucerius c.2003. Bucerius Kunst Forum. Vorschau 2003/04. Hamburg: Bucerius Kunst
Forum GmbH.
Celan, Paul 2003. Der Sand aus den Urnen. Mohn und Gedächtnis. Historisch-Kritische
Ausgabe, 2./3. Band, 1. Teil. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
ECSC—HOESCH Hüttenwerke (BR Deutschland) 1987a. ‘Ultraschallprüfung von Walz-
material unter Verwendung elektrodynamischer Wandler’, in Euroabstracts Section II.
Vol. 13/8. Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities.
ECSC—HOESCH Hüttenwerke (BR Deutschland) 1987b. ‘Ultrasonic examination of
rolled products using electrodynamic transducers’, in Euroabstracts Section II. Vol.
13/8. Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities.
Hohendorf, G., Rotzoll, M., Richter, P., Eckart, W. and Mundt, C. 2003. ‘The victims of
the national socialist “T4” euthanasia programme’, Futura, 18(1), pp. 23–34 [Only pub-
lished in English; German ST remains unpublished.].
Schindler, J. 1998. ‘Selbst linke Querdenker werden umgarnt’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 11
September.
Walser, M. 1978. Ein fliehendes Pferd. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Walser, M. 1980. Runaway Horse. Translated by Vennewitz, Leila. London: Martin
Secker & Warburg.
 Meaning and translation 105
Secondary
Leech, Geoffrey 1981. Semantics: The Study of Meaning. 2nd edn. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Lyons, John 1977. Semantics. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lexical and related sources

British National Corpus n.d. Available at: www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/; https://corpus.byu.edu/
bnc/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018) [Provides access to 100m words of written and spoken
English and to other corpora of English such as the extensive Brigham Young BYU/
BNC corpus.].
Collins German Dictionary 1999. 4th edn. Glasgow: Collins.
Duden Online Wörterbuch n.d. Available at: www.duden.de/suchen/dudenonline
(Accessed: 1 March 2018).
Institut für deutsche Sprache n.d. COSMAS II. Available at: www.ids-mannheim.de/cos
mas2/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Corpus of German texts; full online access to the
collection can be obtained by registering at https://cosmas2.ids-mannheim.de/cosmas2-
web/. Using the Anmeldung button, you will be asked to enter your details as well as a
username [Kennung] and a password [Kennwort]. For background on Projekt Korpus-
recherchesystem see http://www1.ids-mannheim.de/direktion/kl/projekte/recherchesys-
tem.html.].
Leo n.d. Available at: www.leo.org/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides a range of equiva-
lents in bilingual lists with some information on subject field and the possibility of an
interactive discussion list for queries.].
Linguee n.d. Available at: www.linguee.com/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides parallel
contextualised examples from existing translations.].
Reverso n.d. Available at: www.reverso.net (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides parallel
contextualised examples of equivalents.].
Sketch Engine n.d. Available at: www.sketchengine.co.uk/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018)
[Includes ready-made text corpora in German and English at www.sketchengine.co.uk/
documentation/tenten-corpora/ and text-analysis tools; see also www.sketchengine.co.uk/
user-guide/user-manual/concordance-introduction/parallel-bilingual-concordance/.].
8 Text-related issues in
translation

We began this book by underlining that translation is fundamentally about textual

interpretation and production, a point we elaborated in Chapter 4 on genres, which
looked at specific text forms. In this chapter we explore in more detail issues to
do with the way in which texts are constructed, irrespective of genre, something
which has been called ‘textuality’. Consider the following excerpt from Theodor
Fontane’s Unwiederbringlich (1892), and the new translation by Helen Chambers
and Hugh Rorrison (2010):

ST TT
Das Zimmer war dasselbe, darin er, gleich The room was the one where he had had
am Tage nach seiner Ankunft, seine erste his first audience with the Princess after
Audienz bei der Prinzessin gehabt hatte. Da his arrival. The same large picture of King
hing noch das große Bild König Christians Christian VII still hung there, and directly
VIII. und gerade gegenüber das des opposite, the deceased Landgrave, the crêpe
verstorbenen Landgrafen, der Flor um den over the frame even greyer and dustier than
Rahmen noch grauer und verstaubter als before.
damals. (Fontane 2010: 194–5, trans.
(Fontane 1962: IV/2/770) Chambers & Rorrison)

The most significant change in this translation is the replacement of the Ger-
man ‘König Christian VIII’. with ‘King Christian VII’. This is not a translation
mistake. Rather the translators discovered an inconsistency in their ST. Near
the beginning of the novel, the main character, Holk, sees a painting of King
Christian VII of Denmark. Near the end, the narrator tells us that Holk sees
the same picture, only this time we are told it is Christian VIII. The translators
took the decision that this was an error, partly because the narrator refers back
to the painting so explicitly, but partly because the figure in the painting is
symbolically significant: Christian VII signifies the immorality and decadence
of the Danish court; Holk has just committed adultery while at court, and is
about to leave his wife to start what he (falsely) believes will be a new life.
The painting functions thus as part of an ironic commentary on the delusions of
the main character. In this instance then, the translators’ problem here was not
the individual words in question, which were straightforward (‘König Christian
 Text-related issues in translation 107
VIII’.), but rather the significance of those words within the text as a whole;
and, more importantly, the translation decision was based primarily on their
understanding of how the whole text worked as a structure of meaning—what
‘Christian VIII’. ‘meant’ was determined by both by the immediate context
(the narrator’s comments ‘the same large picture’) and knowledge of the text’s
deeper, associative structure.
In this chapter, then, we are concerned with exploring translation decisions
informed by analysis of the ST at a textual level, that is at a level beyond the
individual sentence. As we have seen in the previous example, that can involve
a translation decision about a single noun phrase, but it can also involve shaping
a whole sentence, or working on the whole text. This area of Translation Stud-
ies draws on a number of related branches of enquiry, namely text linguistics,
discourse analysis, and functional grammar, but, importantly, is also related to
critical analysis as it is more traditionally practised in literary and philological
studies.
For most of the twentieth century, linguistic analysis was conducted at the sen-
tence level. From the standpoint of text linguistics and discourse analysis which
began to emerge in the 1960s but gained real ground in the 1970s and 1980s, this
is inadequate, given that language use occurs in broader linguistic contexts. The
premise of text linguistics and discourse analysis is that (a) a text as a larger unit
influences the forms of individual sentences or utterances and that (b) a text is
governed by underlying principles which can be analysed as an object of linguis-
tic enquiry.
It goes perhaps without saying that literary and textual studies of a more tradi-
tional sort and text linguistics overlap, with the important difference that (a) text
linguistics has sought to provide models for texts in general, while traditional
scholarship has typically focused on literary texts and (b) text linguistics is often
informed by an understanding of a text as or within an act of communication. It is,
however, worth noting that the influential linguist Eugenio Coseriu takes literary
texts as his point of departure because in his view, they are the most complex of
all textual forms. We should underline that text linguistics and translation models
based on text types develop together.

Patterns of textual structure and creation of textual meaning

It is a common enough experience when translating that we start sentence by
sentence and then go back and adapt our initial draft because our understanding
of the textual argument has evolved. As teachers of translation, it is also a com-
mon experience for us to read students’ work in which individual word choices
do not make sense in context. Here we are encountering textuality—that sense
of collective and cumulative significance and relevance which is difficult to
define but which differentiates a text from a series of unrelated sentences. The
forms which texts take vary considerably, ranging from a single word (e.g. in a
notice) to thousands of words (e.g. a novel) or even hundreds of thousands of
words (e.g. an installation manual for highly complex nuclear plant) and many
108 Formal properties of texts
texts incorporate non-verbal content such as images and graphics (see Chapter 4
on multimodal texts).
What we seek to do in this chapter is improve our translation practice and our
translation analysis by highlighting some of the ways texts work and how that is
relevant for translation. Essentially, we are concerned with two distinct but inter-
related issues: (a) the significance that the structure of a text has for meaning, both
for the choice of individual words within sentences, but also textual meaning, i.e.
the meaning created by a text as the sum of its parts; (b) textual structure as an
object of translation in itself (i.e. not just the words of a text but the sense of the
argument as an object of translation).
Let us begin our analysis of textual structure by introducing two concepts
of central importance for text linguistics and which have been productively
adopted by translation scholars: cohesion and textual coherence (Halliday and
Hasan 1976; Neubert and Shreve 1992). Cohesion may be defined as the trans-
parent linking of sentences (and larger sections of text), for example by explicit
discourse connectors like ‘then’, ‘so’, ‘however’, subordinating conjunctions
such as ‘when’ or ‘because’ and coreferential links such as personal pronouns
and deictics such as ‘this’ or ‘that’. These act as signposts pointing out the
thread of discourse running through the text. To use Blum-Kulka’s formulation,
cohesion is ‘an overt relationship holding between parts of the text expressed
by language specific markers’ (Blum-Kulka 1986/2004: 291). Coherence is a
more difficult matter than cohesion, because, by definition, it is not explicitly
marked in a text: it is a tacit, but discernible, thematic or emotional develop-
ment running through the text. Coherence is what makes a series of utterances
into a meaningful unit. If the translator fails to understand a central theme in the
ST—as was the case for UK students translating a journalistic German text on
the culturally unfamiliar concept of ‘Kirchensteuer’—the result is one of cogni-
tive dissonance. In other words the TT makes no sense, even if it is linguistically
fluent (see Rogers 2005).
It goes without saying that textual coherence is a relative concept and may
assume many forms: a text’s coherence may be the result of a progressing argu-
ment (in a scientific paper) or a narrative (in a novel), but it may also be created
by extended metaphor, or by the text’s diction, its drawing on words belonging
to similar or related semantic fields. Coherence denotes the underlying structure
of the text, cohesion the marking of that structure; the concepts coherence and
cohesion describe a range of textual features which can range from intersenten-
tial relations (moving from one sentence to another) to charting the ways whole
texts constitute coherent units, such as the symbolic patterns in Unwiederbring-
lich. As we shall see in our first example below, the knowledge that the reader
brings to the text is an important factor influencing degrees of coherence and
in some cases, the interpretation of cohesive ties, particularly anaphora such as
pronouns (see also the discussion of ‘cognitive environment’ in Chapter 3 on
equivalence).
Before we go on to think about the specific translation issues that text-level
analysis raises, let’s consider two examples which demonstrate different tex-
tual strategies of coherence and cohesion. The following two texts are the first
 Text-related issues in translation 109
paragraphs of introductions to German and Viennese Modernism, the first written
for undergraduates, the second both for students and scholars:
I
Kaum ein Begriff ist derart diffus und umstritten wie ‘die Moderne’—einschließlich
seiner Verwandten: die Modernen, das Moderne, modern, Modernismus, Modernität.
Das hat verschiedene Gründe. Zum einen wird der Moderne-Begriff in den
verschiedenen Disziplinen, so in Philosophie, Sozial-, Geschichts-, Kunst- und
5 Literaturwissenschaft, unterschiedlich definiert. Zum andern ist der Moderne-Begriff
sowohl eine historische Kategorie zur Bezeichnung einer Epoche als auch eine
systematische Kategorie zur Charakterisierung bestimmter Inhalte, Postulate,
Ideologeme dessen, was als ‘Moderne’ erscheint oder sich als solche deklariert.
(Fähnders 2010: 1)

II
Was bedeutet eigentlich der Terminus Wiener Moderne? Hätte sich dieser Begriff nicht
längst als allgemein üblicher Terminus in den Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften
eingebürgert, so geriete man angesichts dieser Frage unweigerlich in eine ähnliche Lage
wie der bedauernswerte Lord Chandos des ‘Wiener Modernen’ Hugo von
5 Hofmannsthal, dem die ‘mit schlafwandelnder Sicherheit’ geäußerten Begriffe und
Urteile seiner Umgebung plötzlich ‘so unbeweisbar, so lügenhaft, so löcherig wie nur
möglich’ erschienen [. . .]. ‘Löcherig’ allemal ist die Bestimmung des Gegenstandes, den
dieser Band behandelt.
(Lorenz 2007: 1)

Both of these examples are from academic publications, which we can expect
to make clear arguments, but they work in different ways. The first is clearly more
cohesively marked: it employs conjunctive ties (‘zum einen’, ‘zum andern’); more-
over, these conjunctive ties function as pairs, strengthening the text’s sense of trans-
parent progression (‘sowohl . . . als auch’). Not least, the first example is notable for
its repetition (‘Moderne-Begriff ’ and ‘Kategorie’) and coreference, referring back
or forward with a pronoun: ‘Das hat verschiedene Gründe’. The second text, while
it has comparable content, achieves its sense of coherence differently: here the
looser sense of progression is in part the result of the more varied lexis, the use of
related but different words (‘Terminus’, ‘Begriff ’, ‘Urteil’), but stems principally
from the external reference: the second text not only refers back to itself rather more
obliquely, its coherence is the product of an intertextual reference; it refers outside
itself, quoting Hofmannsthal, drawing on the reader’s presumed knowledge. While
part of this difference is surely down to individual style, the first text is primarily
aimed at students, the second is also written for researchers, so that the target read-
ership plays a significant role in determining the textual strategies employed.
The next example shows how thinking about the way sentences relate to each
other within the text as a larger structure of meaning is important even in texts
with simple syntactic forms. In the following advertisement a colour photograph
shows a wide field with a Renault Mégane superimposed, driving round the tight
110 Formal properties of texts
curves of an appropriately magnified Scalextric track. The headline text reads:
‘Schon als Kinder wussten wir, dass nur die Straßenlage zählt’. On the facing
page, under the car name and in smaller print, the text continues:

Wir wussten zwar nicht, was das bedeutet. Aber wir kannten den Effekt: Den meisten
Spaß machen die Wagen, die förmlich an der Fahrbahn kleben. Und die schnell und
zuverlässig jede Kurve nehmen. Mit dem neuen Renault Mégane können Sie diesen
Effekt jetzt auf der Straße täglich erleben. Reservieren Sie noch heute Ihre Probefahrt
5 und überzeugen Sie sich vom Mégane-Effekt.

The colon after ‘wir kannten den Effekt’ has a cohesive function, doing
duty for either a relative clause (e.g. ‘Effekt, der darin besteht, dass . . . ’) or
a sentence break plus the explicit cohesion marker ‘nämlich’. It also marks
for emphasis the short sentence with the advertisement’s key message about
road-holding. Then, with ‘Und die schnell . . . Kurve nehmen’, a similar effect
is achieved in a different way. Parallel relative clauses in German always
bind conspicuously together because of the verb placing. And the message is
brought home by the structural separation of this relative clause into a separate
‘sentence’: the punchy placement of a subordinate clause rather than a main
clause between two full stops adds further emphasis to the message. The text’s
cohesion is achieved through grammatical anaphora, repeating grammatical
structures, and repetition of individual words (‘Effekt’ binds the beginning
and the end of the paragraph). The coherence of the text is the product of the
image the advertisement draws on and the ellipsis which highlights and knits
together the two relative clauses that contain the text’s central message.
A 2003 Skoda advertisement features an unusually wide variety of cohesion
types. Above a picture of the car, it has three separate headlines, of which the first
is in two lines, as indicated, and prominent:

Edel und stark,

Hilfreich und gut.
Der Škoda Octavia COLLECTION, sportlich sparen, komfortabel fahren.
Škoda. Ganz schön clever.

The main text (omitting only the contact details) reads:

Einspruch! Sportlichkeit und Komfort sind keine Gegensätze. Das Sondermodell

Škoda Octavia COLLECTION ist der Kronzeuge. Die Beweislage ist bestechend, egal
ob Combi oder Limousine: Xenonlicht, Climatronic, Bordcomputer, Alu-Felgen und
vieles mehr. Sie sparen eine Menge Tagessätze, nämlich bis zu 1.700 Euro. Bleibt nur
5 noch eine Frage offen: welche Motorisierung? Dazu sollten Sie mit sich ins Gericht
gehen, denn dieses Urteil müssen Sie selbst fällen. Im Namen des Gesetzes: Ganz schön
clever. Sie haben ihn angefasst, jetzt müssen Sie ihn auch Probe fahren.
(Škoda)
 Text-related issues in translation 111
Here the main body of the text relies heavily on a binding metaphor, signaled by
the insistent use of law-court terminology—‘Einspruch’, ‘Kronzeuge’, ‘Beweis-
lage’, ‘Tagessätze’, etc. The translation difficulty here, then, is less the result of
grammatical transpositions, as in the Mégane example, and more the product
of the different ranges of words and idioms available in German and English.
Where in other contexts the verb phrase in the second sentence, ‘mit jemandem
ins Gericht gehen’ might be rendered metaphorically with ‘give someone a talk-
ing to’, here our translation choices are determined by the need to maintain the
legal metaphor. The additional difficulty involves avoiding terms that are appro-
priately legal, but have negative connotations, such as ‘sentence’, and maybe even
‘judgement’. In order to capture the legal metaphor in the English translation,
any formal equivalence has to give way to tone and meaning. A translation might
thus read, ‘take time to consider the evidence, you’re the judge in this case’. In
other words, our translation choice at the level of individual words is determined
primarily by their immediate function within the text as a structure of meaning.
From the previous examples it should be clear that there is a range of ways
in which texts both function as coherent units and signal that coherence through
cohesive markers. In the previous two examples, reproducing the patterns of cohe-
sion presented a challenge, but both structurally (in the Mégane advertisement)
and lexically (in the Skoda advertisement), using equivalent structures and vocab-
ulary was usually achievable. The following descriptive passage from Heimito
von Doderer’s 1951 novel, Die Strudlhofstiege presents a more complex case:

Freilich, man wußte so halb und halb, worin man lebte, ganz beiläufig, aus dem
Augenwinkel gesehen: in Umgebungen, die, an Schweigsamkeit nicht zu überbieten,
sich dennoch unaufhörlich mit Übergewalt aussprachen. In den Schluchten und Rissen
nah an den Wänden des Bergs, in diesen Wunden des Walds, die jeder Frühling wieder
5 mit dumpf trommelnden Wassermassen neu aufriß, lag jetzt, da sie sommerlich grün
zum Teil wieder heilten, der verlassene und trockene feine Sand in den großen Becken
zwischen glattgewaschenen Blöcken. Längst hatten Gebüsch und Geäst von beiden
Seiten das leere Bachbett neuerlich überwölbt.
(Doderer 1995: 228)

The first challenge here stems from the cataphoric (forward-referring) ‘worin’—
here word-for-word renderings (in which/the place in which) are more cumbrous
than the more natural ‘where’, but choosing ‘where’ has obvious repercussions
for the rest of the text that the repeated preposition ‘in’ holds together. In the first
sentence, the phrase ‘in Umgebungen, die . . .’ clearly completes the announced
‘worin’, and the two prepositional phrases that begin the next sentence, ‘in den
Schluchten . . . ’ create a sense of continuity. Yet in fact the text ‘flows’ in the oppo-
site direction in this second sentence—‘in den Schluchten’ does indeed recall the
first sentence, but is grammatically independent of it, being the obligatory adverbial
complement of the verb ‘liegen’. The syntactic complexity of this second sentence
poses further problems: this sentence binds the extract’s first sentence about violent
112 Formal properties of texts
surroundings and the following description of an empty brook because the appear-
ance of the subject (‘der verlassene . . . Sand . . . Blöcken’) is teasingly delayed
until the end of the sentence; the sentence-initial pre-verbal slot is occupied by the
two adverbial complements of ‘lag’ (‘in den Schluchten’, ‘in diesen Wunden des
Walds’)—a word order which is typical in German—and each is expanded. This
sentence will certainly need transposing in English. In translating this passage then,
it is likely that the problematic cohesive structure afforded by the repeated preposi-
tion will need to be abandoned, and its effect created with other means. One solution
for the first sentence might be to use a demonstrative: ‘Obviously we had some idea
of where we lived, seen out of the corner of the eye as it was and in passing—these
were surroundings that expressed themselves always with great violence, despite
their incomparable silence’.
Considering translation at a textual level thus prioritises the production of a TT
which functions as a text and seeks to minimise or manage incoherence and shifts
in cohesion which are the products of the translation process. Further, it considers
the translation of the ST’s ‘textuality’ as something which has to be translated,
i.e. reproduced, as Albrecht Neubert and Gregory Shreve (1992: 93) have argued:

Text-based translation attempts to re-establish in the target text a coherence

which is functionally parallel to that of the source text. A translator cannot
usually re-establish coherence using literal sentence-for-sentence renderings.
L2 coherence must be recreated using the translator’s own understanding of
the coherence structure of the original to direct modifications in the L2 tex-
tual surface.

The phrase ‘functionally parallel’ is key here for, as we have seen, texts function
in different ways in part according to their purpose, genre and text type: the den-
sity of a text, or its textuality, is a phenomenon which exists on a sliding scale,
with literature or closely argued expert-to-expert specialised texts at one end and
lists of independent items such as a parts list at the other, though other factors
such as the time constraints on the ST production and its situation also play a
significant role.
As for relations between larger units on the textual level (paragraphs, chap-
ters, etc.), these are generally less problematic than intersentential relations. As
usual, the translator must first ask what the function of such features is in the
ST, and what the norms are for representing these functions in the particular TL
genre: identifying so-called parallel texts i.e. original TL texts with the same
design features, is helpful here. Commercial considerations may also come into
play: for instance, a publisher may be afraid that a text full of long paragraphs
or unusually short ones would not sell in the target culture. Or, if the division
into paragraphs does have a thematic or emotive function, the translator should
hesitate before significantly altering it. In some genres, however, there can be
no question of the translator choosing whether or not to alter ST paragraphing:
in texts having the force of law, for instance, the ST structure generally has
to be observed, however inelegant or difficult this makes the text for a non-
specialist. Or in advertisements, the placing of words or phrases as headings
 Text-related issues in translation 113
or straplines is the result of marketing and design expertise and is not usually
changed.

Translating German cohesive markers

Let us now move on to examine one particular area in more detail, the translation
of cohesive markers. It is in general more common in German than in English for
texts to be explicitly structured with connectors (‘nun’, ‘also’, ‘zwar’, ‘nämlich’,
‘auch’, ‘so’ in the sense of ‘zum Beispiel’) that signpost the relationship between
sentences. An English TT using explicit connectors to reproduce all those found
in a German ST will often sound unidiomatic or pedantic. This also applies in
cases where German obligatorily requires some kind of extension to the verb—
often prepositional—which also anticipates a following clause, such as, ‘ . . . die
Deutschen denken ganz anders darüber: sie wollen . . . ’. Compare: ‘ . . . the Ger-
mans think quite differently about it: they want . . . ’ with ‘ . . . the Germans think
quite differently: they want . . . ’.
Our first point is a general one: the translator can be drawn into translating too
mechanically and repetitively. Even where ready equivalents are available, when
it matters to have the TT flow naturally, it is a good thing to vary the formula occa-
sionally by judicious restructuring of the sentence. Thus ‘folglich’ (etc.) can often
be rendered by e.g. ‘This means that . . . ’ or ‘It follows that . . . ’.
Our second point is that some frequently used German discourse connectors
lack ready idiomatic equivalents in English, and may tempt the translator into
unidiomatic TL usage. One commonly encountered example is ‘zwar’. Close in
meaning to ‘freilich’ and ‘allerdings’ in the sense of ‘admittedly’, ‘zwar’ routinely
occurs as an advance partner of a ‘jedoch’, ‘andererseits’ or commonly, ‘aber’ to
come: ‘Groß waren die vier Hunde zwar nicht, dafür bellten sie aber sehr häufig’.
In this role, ‘zwar’ more often than not would be too emphatic if rendered with
‘admittedly’ or ‘indeed’. Compare: ‘The four dogs were indeed not big, but they
certainly barked frequently’ and ‘While the four dogs were not big, they certainly
made up for it with their frequent barking’. Or, again, German ‘so’ corresponds
in literal meaning to the decidedly formal English ‘thus’ at the beginning of an
illustrative sentence. Yet, more often than not, ‘thus’ is ruled out in many genres
on grounds of register, and other variants (‘in this manner’ etc.) are often cum-
brous, so that it may be more appropriate in the TL to leave the link implicit, or
rephrase, as the translators of a set of instructions for an electric razor have done:
‘So halten Sie Ihren Rasierer in Bestform’ becomes ‘Keeping your shaver in top
shape’ (Gebrauchsanweisung Braun Series, 8; 12). A third example is ‘vielmehr’,
used almost mechanically in many German texts to introduce a positive statement
following a negative. The stock English equivalent, ‘rather’, is suitable in many
cases—so often, in fact, that it tends to be written down uncritically in TTs where
English actually requires a different connector, or none at all. Consider the fol-
lowing two sentences from an academic article about the French artist Boucher:

Das Ausbleiben kirchlicher Aufträge bedeutete also keineswegs, daß

damit seine Karriere als religiöser Maler beendet gewesen wäre. Vielmehr
114 Formal properties of texts
entstanden in den fünfziger Jahren eine Reihe privater Andachtsbilder, die in
der Pariser Kunstszene für Aufsehen sorgten.
(Schieder: unpublished)

To render ‘vielmehr’ by ‘rather’ in this TT—whether initially or elsewhere—would

yield a faintly but distinctly unidiomatic calque. The best TL connector here might
be ‘In fact . . . ’. Yet the logical relation between the two sentences is still perfectly
clear without any TL connector: ‘. . . did not by any means signify the end of his
career as a religious painter. In the 1750s he went on to produce . . . ’. Even in
academic argument, then, it is not mandatory for connectors in German STs to be
translated one-for-one in English.
The relatively more frequent provision of these connectors in German, at
least in narrative and analytical genres, is also well illustrated by the phrase
‘denn auch’. Essentially it marks an expectable consequence of an action or
event just reported. Unlike ‘vielmehr’, it has never acquired a stock English
translation. Close in function to the modal particle ‘auch’, which stresses the
reasons for something being the case or not being the case, ‘denn auch’ is used
quite freely in some older literary texts, in linking narrative. But it is also to
be found in more modern and less discursive contexts such as the Schieder
essay on French art history quoted earlier. Here is one of four occurrences in
16 pages:

ST TT
Seine Illustrierung der Heilsgeschichte in His presentation of the Christian story in
Form pittoresker Graphiken schien dem the form of picturesque visual images
Ort ihrer Publikation nicht angemessen— seemed inappropriate to the place of their
in den nachfolgenden Auflagen des publication—and in later editions of the
5 Breviariums tauchten sie denn auch nicht breviary they no longer appeared.
mehr auf. (Schieder 2006)
(Schieder: unpublished)

The cause-and-effect implication here is clear in the TT without any indica-

tion more explicit than the dash plus ‘and’. However, it is an indication of the
elusiveness of ‘denn auch’ in TL terms—in spite of its consistent meaning—
that the four occurrences in the Boucher article find four different translations.
In one case, the antecedent ‘cause’ consists of complex argument and a three-
line quotation. The ‘denn auch’, marking the upshot, therefore needs relatively
explicit translation:

ST TT
Die meisten von Bouchers It was only natural, then, that most of
alttestamentarischen Kabinettsbildern fanden Boucher’s Old Testament cabinet pictures
denn auch den Weg in angesehene should find their way into notable private
Privatsammlungen; [. . .] collections; [. . .]
(Schieder: unpublished) (Schieder 2006)
 Text-related issues in translation 115
As these examples show, the translator’s task with cohesive markers is not so
much to render the individual term as to read its function and provide TL linking
that is appropriate not only in terms of the argument (coherence) but also of the
TL’s linking conventions in the relevant genre and register.

Concluding remarks
Translation problems at the textual level can emerge when, as frequently occurs,
literal translation would affect the textual function of the TT negatively. If you are
new to translating, then very many of your first mistakes will have been the result
of ignoring the immediate context of the words you were translating, or choosing
the wrong register, or failing to use the overall argument of the text (i.e. its coher-
ence) to help you understand an obscure sentence or word; the way to overcome
these kinds of errors is to focus on how the ST functions as a text. The translation
of cohesive markers is a case in point: these are not words that can be translated
easily with the aid of a bilingual dictionary, which is better suited to the codifica-
tion of content words such as verbs, adjectives and nouns. The reason, as we have
seen, is that the function of cohesive markers or connectors is to bind the text
together. Their ‘meaning’ is therefore embedded in the text, not in any external
point of reference. Choosing appropriate means of establishing cohesion—maybe
dense in closely argued scholarly texts, maybe loose in poems—is one of the fac-
tors contributing to a translation which is communicatively successful, i.e. fit for
purpose. We should also recall that genre conventions vary between languages:
this is especially important for specialised texts. As a relation between the text
and its anticipated readers, coherence is, of course, interactive, depending on how
successfully the ST author or the TT translator meets the expectations of the read-
ers. Many factors play a role here, not least cultural knowledge and experience
(see Chapter 5).
As a translator, you need to ask not just ‘what does a word or a sentence say’,
but ‘what does it do’, what is its role within a text? Make sure you can trace
the overall argument of what you are translating and that you are attentive to
the points at which the direction changes. It is likely that, in fact, you will have
thought about many of these questions before but in different contexts; the pur-
pose of literary analysis, for example, is to explore patterns in literary texts which
are often subtle, being associative and implied. Even if you have not studied
literature, every time you have written an essay, you have reflected on the clarity
of an argument, made changes to avoid digression, made vocabulary choices to
ensure a consistent register without inelegant repetition. You need to use these
skills as a translator too. However, you are not seeking to impose an alien sense of
coherence on a text, but rather one which is an appropriate reflection of the ST’s
own nature and the TT’s purpose, according to the translation brief. For example,
is it striving to persuade through argumentation (with lots of clear marking) or is
it rather presenting statements without marking, as indisputable facts? If there is
ambiguity, should it be resolved by interpreting the overall purpose of the text,
or preserved? These are some of the issues you should consider in the following
exercises.
116 Formal properties of texts
Further reading
Asher, R.E. and Simpson, J.M.Y. (eds) 1994. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguis-
tics. Oxford: Pergamon [Entries ‘Text Linguistics’, ‘Text’ in Vol. 9.].
Baker, Mona 2011. In Other Words. London and New York: Routledge [Chapter 6 and
Chapter 7 on cohesion and coherence.].
Duden 4: Die Grammatik 2016. 9th edn. Edited by Wöllstein, Angelika. Berlin: Dudenver-
lag [Has a large section on text, including hypertext, pp. 1073–80.].
House, Juliane 2012. ‘Text linguistics and translation’, in Gambier, Y. and van Doorslaer,
L. (eds) Handbook of Translation Studies. Vol. 3. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, pp. 178–84.
House, Juliane 2015. ‘Global English, discourse and translation: Linking constructions in
English and German popular science texts’, Target, 27, pp. 370–86.
Steiner, Erich 2015. ‘Contrastive studies of cohesion and their impact on our knowledge of
translation (English-German)’, Target, 27, 351–69.
White, Michael 2015. ‘Herder and Fontane as translators of Percy’s Reliques of ancient
English poetry: The ballad “Edward, Edward” ’, in Robertson, R. and White, M. (eds)
Fontane and Cultural Mediation: Translation and Reception in Nineteenth-Century
German Literature. Germanic Literatures. Vol. 8. Oxford: Legenda, pp. 107–19 [Rel-
evant to the exercise below.].

Practical 8

8.1 COMPARISON: COHERENCE IN POETRY TRANSLATION

Assignment
i Compare Theodor Fontane’s (1852) translation of the first three verses of
the Scots ballad ‘Edward, Edward’ with the text as it is in Percy’s Reliques
of Ancient English Poetry (1765). Demonstrate how the translation creates a
closer sense of coherence and how that is marked.
ii What is the effect of these changes and why might they be problematic?

Note: the spelling is supposed to look historical: ‘Quhy’ = ‘Why’; ‘zour’ = ‘your’.

English Text Fontane’s Translation

Quhy dois zour brand sae drop wi’ bluid, Was blinket dein Schwert so rot von Blut,
Edward, Edward? Edward, Edward?
Quhy dois zour brand sae drop wi’ bluid? Was blinket dein Schwert so rot von Blut,
And quhy sae sad gang zee, O? Und macht so trübe dich schreiten?
5 O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid, ‚Ich hab‘ erwürgt meinen Falken gut‘
Mither, mither: Mutter, Mutter
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid: Ich hab erwürgt meinen Falken gut
And I hae nae mair bot hee, O. Und hatte doch keinen zweiten‘.
Zour haukis bluid was nevir sae reid, Deines Falken Blut war nimmer so rot,
10 Edward, Edward: Edward, Edward,
 Text-related issues in translation 117

English Text Fontane’s Translation

Zour haukis bluid was nevir sae reid, Deines Falken Blut war nimmer so rot,
My deir son I tell thee, O. Dein Schwert ist dünkler gerötet; -
O I hae killed my reid-roan steid, ‚Ich hab erstochen mein rotbraun Roß,
Mither, mither, Mutter, Mutter,
15 O I hae killed my reid-roan steid, Ich hab erstochen mein rotbraun Roß
That erst was sae fair and free, O. Im Zorne hab ich’s getötet‘.
Zour steid was auld, and ze hae gat mair, Dein Roß war alt, das kann es nicht sein,
Edward, Edward: Edward, Edward!
Zour steid was auld, and ze hae gat mair, Dein Roß war alt, das kann es nicht sein,
20 Sum other dule ye drie, O. Was tät deine Wang entfärben;
O, I hae killed my fadir, deir, Ich hab erschlagen den Vater mein,
Mither, mither: Mutter, Mutter,
O, I hae killed my fadir deir, Ich hab erschlagen den Vater mein,
Alas! and wae is mee, O! Und mir ist weh zum Sterben!
(Percy 1910: I, 101–2.) (Fontane 1995: I, 370–1.)

8.2 TRANSLATION: COHESION AND COHERENCE IN AN ESSAY

Assignment
You are translating the following text for an anthology of texts by critical intellec-
tuals in German society from 1900–1945. The text will appear as an extract, with
an introductory page about the author and the text. The book will have a glossary,
but other notes should be avoided. The book is aimed at students on university
comparative literature programmes, programmes in European studies, historians
and general readers.

i Discuss the decisions that you have to take about your general approach,
given the genre and the translation brief, before starting detailed translation
of this ST, and outline and justify the approach you adopt. While not ignoring
other issues, indicate in particular what you see as the main issues of cohesion
and coherence that you will have to tackle.
ii Translate the text, including the title, into English.
iii Explain the main decisions of detail that you took.
iv Compare your TT with a sample translation, which will be given to you by
your tutor.

Contextual information
The ST is an extract from Heinrich Mann’s essay ‘Geist und Tat’ (January 1911).
In the essay, Mann contrasts the intellectual traditions of Germany and France. In
this excerpt, he refers to the failures of Germany’s Literate. One piece of advice—
read the text aloud, translate according to the sense and the flow of the text—do
118 Formal properties of texts
not let the sometimes unusual punctuation throw you off. Note: some of the spell-
ing is historical.

ST
Geist und Tat
Der Letzte aber, dem all diese Verirrung und Feigheit erlaubt wäre, der Mensch des
Geistes, der Literat: gerade er hat sie geweiht und verbreitet. Seine Natur: die Definition
der Welt, die helle Vollkommenheit des Wortes verpflichtet ihn zur Verachtung der
5 dumpfen, unsauberen Macht. Vom Geist ist ihm die Würde des Menschen auferlegt.
Sein ganzes Leben opfert der Wahrheit den Nutzen. Die Erscheinungen löst er auf,
vermag das Grosse klein zu sehen und im Kleinen das durch Menschlichkeit Grosse:
dergestalt, dass ihm Gleichheit zur letzten Forderung der Vernunft wird . . . Gerade aber
er wirkt in Deutschland seit Jahrzehnten für die Beschönigung des Ungeistigen, für die
10 sophistische Rechtfertigung des Ungerechten, für seinen Todfeind, die Macht. Welche
seltsame Verderbnis brachte ihn dahin? Was erklärt diesen Nietzsche, der dem Typus
sein Genie geliehen hat, und alle die, die ihm nachgetreten sind? Ist es der
überwältigende Erfolg der Macht, den diese Zeit und dies Land sahen? Die
Hoffnungslosigkeit, die eigene Natur durchzusetzen, heute und hier? Der Drang zu
15 wirken, sei es gegen sich selbst: durch Steigerung und Verklärung des Feindes, als
bewunderter Anwalt des Bösen? Ist es die perverse Abdankung des allzu Wissenden,
der sich im schlechten, unbewussten Leben wältzt wie ein entflohener Sträfling? Vom
tragischen Ehrgeiz bis zu elender Eitelkeit, von der albernen Sucht, besonders zu sein
bis zum panischen Schrecken der Vereinsamung und dem Ekel am Nihilismus: die
20 abtrünnigen Literaten haben viele Entschuldigungen. Sie haben vor allem eine in der
ungeheuerlich angewachsenen Entfernung, die, nach so langer Unwirksamkeit, die
deutschen Geister vom Volk trennt. Aber was taten sie, um sie zu verringern? Sie haben
das Leben des Volkes nur als Symbol genommen für die eigenen hohen Erlebnisse. Sie
haben der Welt eine Statistenrolle zugeteilt, ihre schöne Leidenschaft nie in die Kämpfe
25 dort unten eingemischt, haben die Demokratie nicht gekannt und haben sie verachtet.
Sie verachten das parlamentarische Regime, bevor es erreicht ist, die öffentliche
Meinung, bevor sie anerkannt ist. Sie tun als hätten sie hinter sich, wofür nur die andern
geblutet haben, und maasen sich die Miene der Uebersättigung an, obwohl sie niemals
weder kämpften noch genossen.
(Mann 2012: 117–18)

8.3 TRANSLATION: CD BOOKLET

Assignment
i You are translating the following ST for a bilingual CD booklet. Discuss the
overall approach that you want to take before starting detailed translation
of this ST, and outline and justify the approach you adopt. As always, con-
sider the genre and the brief. Pay special attention to text-level issues, but do
not neglect other significant features. (Remember to look for textual features
within sentences as well as between sentences.)
ii Translate the text into English.
iii Explain your overall approach and decisions of detail you took.
iv Compare your TT with the published one, which will be given to you by your
tutor. Texts tend to expand in translation. The TT is four lines longer than the
 Text-related issues in translation 119
ST: can you identify any reasons for this? How long is your own translation?
(Note: word counts are unreliable when comparing the length of English and
German texts).

Contextual information
The ST is taken from the booklet provided with a CD of Glenn Gould playing
Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The omitted material concerns earlier recordings of
the work. The ‘Aufnahme’ referred to in line 15 is Gould’s first-ever recording.

ST
Der 22jährige Glenn Gould war in seiner Heimat Kanada bereits eine Berühmtheit, als
er am 2. Januar 1955 in der Phillips Gallery in Washington (und neun Tage später in der
New Yorker Town Hall) sein USA-Debüt gab. Dennoch war zu den beiden Klavier-
Recitals mit ihrem eigenwilligen Programm (eine Pavan des englischen Virginalisten
5 Orlando Gibbons, die Fantasia cromatica von Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, fünf
dreistimmige Sinfonien und die fünfte Partita von Bach, Anton Weberns Variationen op.
27, Beethovens E-Dur-Sonate op. 109 und zum Abschluß die Sonate von Alban Berg)
kaum die ‘erste Garde’ der nordamerikanischen Musikszene erschienen—
glücklicherweise nicht, muß man im Nachhinein wohl sagen: Denn so hatte David
10 Oppenheim—Klassik-Manager der ‘Columbia’, der auch eher zufällig in das Konzert
geraten war, um sich (auf den Rat eines Freundes hin) diesen jungen Mann anzuhören,
‘der leider ein wenig crazy sei, aber von geradezu hypnotischer Ausstrahlung am
Klavier’—das große Glück, Gould stante pede und exklusiv für seine Firma unter
Vertrag zu nehmen. [. . .]
15 Über das Wunder dieser Aufnahme ist viel geschrieben worden: Über ihr
Temperament, über das faszinierende Non-legato-Spiel fast ohne Pedal, über ihren
‘Swing’. Über ihren beinahe respektlosen Umgang mit einem sakrosankten Heroen der
Musikgeschichte (was manche Kritiker zu dem Bonmot ‘Gouldberg-Variationen’
animierte). Über ihre atemberaubende Virtuosität, über ihre Innigkeit und Tiefe, über
20 ihr ‘Kalkül’ und ihre ‘Ekstase’—zwei Attribute, die Gould für sich selbst in Anspruch
nahm—über ihre Wirkung auf die internationale Musikwelt: Als habe jemand in einem
seit hundert oder mehr Jahren nicht mehr gelüfteten Raum plötzlich ein Fenster
aufgerissen und frische Morgenluft hereingelassen. Aber Goulds Triumph war nicht nur
ein musikalischer: Der 22jährige entsprach auf frappante und ideale Weise dem
25 Zeitgeist. Ein ‘Junger Wilder’ der Musik, ein angry young man, wie ihn John Osborne
1956 mit der Figur des Jimmy Porter in seinem Schauspiel Look Back in Anger (‘Blick
zurück im Zorn’) auf die Bühne brachte, eine Inkarnation des Holden Caulfield aus
Jerome D. Salingers 1951 erschienenem Erfolgsroman The Catcher in the Rye (‘Der
Fänger im Roggen’).
(Stegemann 1992a: 12–14)

References

Primary
Doderer, Heimito von 1995. Die Strudlhofstiege. Munich: Beck.
Fähnders, Walter 2010. Avantgarde und Moderne 1890–1933: Lehrbuch Germanistik.
Stuttgart: Metzler.
120 Formal properties of texts
Fontane, Theodor 1962–1997. Werke, Schriften und Briefe [originally Sämtliche Werke].
Edited by Keitel, Walter and Nürnberger, Helmuth. 21 Vols. in 4 Sections. Munich:
Hanser.
Fontane, Theodor 1995. Gedichte. Großer Brandeburger Ausgabe. Edited by Joachim
Krueger and Anita Golz. Berlin: Aufbau.
Fontane, Theodor 2010. No Way Back. Translated by Chambers, Helen and Rorrison,
Hugh. London: Angel Books.
Lorenz, Dagmar 2007. Wiener Moderne. Sammlung Metzler. Vol. 290. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Mann, Heinrich 2012/1911. ‘Geist und Tat’, in Hahn, M., Fierl, A. and Klein, W. (eds)
Band 2. Essays und Publizistik. Bielefeld: Aisthesis, pp. 113–9, 117–8.
Percy, Thomas 1910. Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 2 Vols. London: Dent.
Schieder, M. 2006. ‘Between grâce and volupté: Boucher and religious painting’, in Hyde,
M. and Ledbury, M. (eds) Rethinking Boucher. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute
[Only published in English; German ST remains unpublished].
Stegemann, M. 1992a. ‘Der Marlon Brando des Klaviers’ [CD notes]. The Glenn Gould
Edition. J.S. Bach, Goldberg Variations etc. Sony (SMK 52 594).

Secondary
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana 1986/2004. ‘Shifts of cohesion and coherence in translation’,
in Venuti, L. (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader. 2nd edn. London: Routledge,
pp. 290–305.
Halliday, Michael A. K. and Hasan, Ruqaiya 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Long-
man English Language Series.
Neubert, Albrecht and Shreve, Gregory 1992. Translation as Text. Kent, OH and London:
The Kent State University Press.
Rogers, Margaret 2005. ‘Native versus non-native speaker competence in German-English
translation’, in Anderman, G. and Rogers, M. (eds) In and Out of English: For Better, for
Worse? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 256–74.
9 Sentential issues in translation

In the previous chapter, we examined the translation issues that can arise at the
level of textual structure, in particular, aspects of textual coherence and cohe-
sion. From these insights from the field of text linguistics we now move to a
related set of problems and translation strategies, this time within the individual
sentence. Here we are concerned with two principal decisions, when to maintain
the information order of a sentence, and when to amend the information order of
a sentence.

Information structure
One factor in the construction of textual cohesion, and contributing to the overall
coherence of the text, is the distribution of information at the sentence level. As
a rule of thumb, each sentence in a text will build on the information of the pre-
vious sentence, typically by first linking in some way with the previously given
information and then adding newer information afterwards, so that the sentence
can be analysed in terms of the ‘theme’ or given information, and ‘rheme’, the
comment or new information. The theme/rheme structure can clearly be observed
in the first two sentences of Immanuel Kant’s famous answer to the question ‘Was
ist Aufklärung?’ His first sentence picks up the principal term of the question and
elaborates on it, and then the second sentence again reprises the final term of the
first sentence and, in turn, develops the argument:

Was ist Aufklärung?

Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten
Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes
ohne Leitung eines andern zu bedienen.
(Kant 2002: 9 [Our italics, MR/MW])

It goes perhaps without saying that the structure of most sentences cannot
be so readily analysed as these, and that ‘given’ and ‘new’ information are
broad categories indeed. Their refinement need not concern us here. Rather, for
122 Formal properties of texts
present purposes it is sufficient to note that the pragmatic or communicatively
governed ordering of a sentence can play a significant role in the creation of
textual cohesion, and thus in the overall functional success of the text, and
that the text’s information structure itself may merit becoming an object of
translation.
The different principles governing German and English word order often con-
front the translator with a choice: maintain the pragmatically or communicatively
determined order of ideas, or maintain the syntax of the source text. We can see
this clearly in the excerpt from Doderer’s Strudlhofstiege that we considered in
the previous chapter:

Freilich, man wußte so halb und halb, worin man lebte, ganz beiläufig, aus
dem Augenwinkel gesehen: in Umgebungen, die, an Schweigsamkeit nicht
zu überbieten, sich dennoch unaufhörlich mit Übergewalt aussprachen. In
den Schluchten und Rissen nah an den Wänden des Bergs, in diesen Wunden
des Walds, die jeder Frühling wieder mit dumpf trommelnden Wassermassen
neu aufriß, lag jetzt, da sie sommerlich grün zum Teil wieder heilten, der
verlassene und trockene feine Sand in den großen Becken zwischen glatt-
gewaschenen Blöcken.
(Doderer 1995: 228)

The first part of the highlighted sentence (‘In den Schluchten’) relates to the previ-
ous sentence’s announcement of the violent surroundings; the second part of the
sentence and indeed the subject of the sentence ‘der verlassene . . . Sand’ relates
to what comes next, the overgrown stream bed. If we wish to maintain the order
of ideas we need to make some amendments to the grammatical structure of the
source text. Here the prepositional phrases in the initial position are promoted to
become the sentence-initial subject of a main clause by introducing the verb ‘to
be’, making this clause independent of the verb ‘to lie’:

The ravines and crevices near the mountain were wounds in the forest that
each spring tore open with torrents of low beating water, and, now that they
had begun to heal to a summer green, the fine sand lay there, dry and aban-
doned in the large hollows between rocks washed smooth.

Our principal problem when putting this sentence into English is that this infor-
mation sequence is made grammatically possible in the ST because German can
both readily place the subject after the finite verb in main clauses and have an
extended element first in the sentence (here two prepositional phrases in apposi-
tion, the second qualified by a relative clause). This is because the underlying
structure of modern German sentences is based on the fixed placement of the
verb, around which other elements can be moved with relative flexibility. In an
earlier chapter (Chapter 2) we drew attention to the fact that the verbal idea is
split in a typical German sentence between the second position and the final posi-
tion, creating a ‘bracket’ structure (Satzklammer), as we can see in the following
examples:
 Sentential issues in translation 123

Initial element (‘Vorfeld’) Opening bracket Central elements (‘Mittelfeld’) Closing

bracket

Wir sind extra seinetwegen nach Rom gefahren.

In seiner Antwort wich er meinen Fragen aus
Der Donnerstag war trüb und neblig

As the grammatical subject in German is not associated so closely as in English

with the sentence-initial position, the subject in German can often be the ‘rheme’,
newer information, with some other element occupying the ‘theme’ position in the
Vorfeld, as the following example from a study of adhesive layers in metal-plastic
hybrid materials shows. In both these sentences, the post-verbal subject is ‘newer’
information than the information in the Vorfeld, a structure which, as is clear here,
functions to promote textual cohesion:

Als Adhäsionsschicht [i.e. in the layering of the material] kommt ein im Insti-
tut entwickelter Niedertemperatur-Uretdionpulverlack in unterschiedlichen
Aushärtungsstufen zum Einsatz. Im Rahmen der Entwicklung dieser Pul-
verlacksysteme wurde von Lehman für den Fall der Anwesenheit spezieller
Katalysatoren ein bis dahin unbekannter Reaktionsmechanismus gefunden.
(Bräuer et al. 2012: 535)

Additionally, provided the verbal bracket is in place, the Vorfeld can be consider-
ably extended either for stylistic reasons, as in our Doderer text, or for organisa-
tional communicative purposes as in the following example from the metal-plastic
hybrid text in which a long noun phrase which is the accusative object occupies
the first position:

Einen Überblick zu aktuellen Trends, Möglichkeiten, Besonderheiten und

Grenzen sowie über realisierbare Funktionsintegrationen bei der Herstellung
von Metall-Kunststoff-Verbunden mittels Spritzgießen geben Heinle, Ridder,
Amacio-Fihlo und Michaeli.
(Bräuer et al. 2012: 535)

While German word order is thus in large measure the product of pragmatic concerns
(with the exception of the verb which remains largely fixed), word order in English
has a more significant grammatical function, which limits the extent to which it can
be manipulated to meet communicative or pragmatic ends, especially in standard
English written texts. In English the subject must precede the verb in statements and
the order of subsequent elements indicates their function as direct or indirect objects.
The translator who wishes to preserve the information structure of a German ST thus
often needs to introduce some level of syntactic change which will allow the order of
information to fit into natural English sentence patterns, as in the following examples:

• Active to passive/accusative object to subject: Diesen Roman hat Gunter

Grass geschrieben/This novel was written by Gunter Grass
124 Formal properties of texts
• Active to passive with change of verb: Dieses Produkt trägt eines der oben
gezeigten Recycling-Symbole/The product is marked with one of the above
recycling symbols
• Part of main clause to subordinate clause: Schon der Name signalisiert
ein sorgfältig durchdachtes Qualitätsprogramm/As its name suggests, this
is a painstakingly devised quality programme (example from Chesterman
2000: 97)
• Many rewritings conflate a number of changes: Für diese Zubereitungs-
weise eignen sich besonders kleine Fleischstücke (unter 1 kg) und solche
mit derber Fleischfaser/Braising is an excellent method for cooking small
joints of less than 2½ lb (1 kg), as well as for the tougher cuts of meat

The exact strategy will be determined by context, but also genre, which can itself
determine word order: perhaps the most common example here are closing for-
mulae for letters, where German frequently uses a placeholder ‘es’ or similar, as a
way of ending with the subject: ‘es grüßt Euch ganz herzlich, XX ’.
It is by no means the case that all information structures need to be main-
tained, and in practice the choice between information structure and grammatical
equivalence is not straightforward. This is partly because English can of course
tolerate some adverbials before the subject (tomorrow, I will go shopping), also
subordinate clauses, etc. In particular, because pronoun subjects are unlikely to
be an object of special focus or have ‘communicative value’ (Lühr 1986/2000:
283), sentences with pronominal subjects in German often retain them in English
translation, with the resulting, but insignificant, change of information structure
(Rogers 2006: 50).

Focus, information distribution, directionality

Now we move on to a related but slightly different issue, the effects that the dif-
ferent structures of English and German sentences have beyond the theme/rheme
ordering outlined. Not only do German and English differ in that German has a
pragmatic word order and English a grammatical word order, but also in the direc-
tionality of their sentence structures: in English sentences or clauses, the verb occurs
relatively early, with development to the right, i.e. English is ‘right-branching’;
in German sentences, this is essentially the other way around, i.e. German is ‘left-
branching’. We can get a sense of this difference in simple infinitive structures:
‘jede Woche schwimmen gehen’/‘go swimming every week’, in main clauses: ‘er
wollte jede Woche mit seinen Freunden ins Schwimmbad gehen’/‘he wanted to
go to the swimming pool with his friends every week’, or in subordinate clauses:
‘ . . . weil er jede Woche mit seinen Freunden ins Schwimmbad gehen wollte’/‘ . . .
because he wanted to go to the swimming pool with his friends every week’.
Furthermore, the German bracket structure in main clauses creates an initial point
of focus around the end of the Vorfeld and near the first part of the verbal idea
(in second position) and another at the end, creating a kind of ‘tension’ which
 Sentential issues in translation 125
presents significant problems for simultaneous interpreters, for instance, as do
also subordinate clauses with their verb-final structure.
A great many sentences in German are marked by an announcement and com-
pletion pattern, whether that means reading a finite form of ‘haben’ or ‘sein’
that points to a past participle or infinitive to come, a modal verb that points to
an infinitive or a Funktionsverb that points to its complement at the end. The
same logic applies when the reader encounters a conjunction such as ‘wenn’ or
‘dass’, or a relative pronoun. There is a certain tautness in the syntactic structure,
a stretched line that is quite alien to most forms of English. We can see this prin-
ciple in action in the following sentence written by a native speaker of German
writing in English: ‘She cites as the reason she includes all ten plays in her analy-
sis their common theme’. In general the ‘heavier’ elements of the Mittelfeld,
those complements most closely related to the verb will often come nearest the
final position: ‘Uwe ist gestern mit der neuen Maschine leider zu tief geflogen’/
‘Unfortunately, Uwe flew too low yesterday in the new plane’. In a comparative
paper on German and English focus, Doherty (2005) suggests a typical informa-
tion distribution pattern of ‘2–3–1’ in German, with English closer to ‘3–2–1’, in
which 1 is the newest, 3 the most ‘given’ information (in German, often a subject
pronoun tucked in after the finite verb), giving concise expression to the relative
importance of the Vorfeld and the latter part of the Mittelfeld.
But the ends of sentences often follow different patterns too. Whereas the Ger-
man sentence is marked often by a sense of completion, by a closing bracket,
English typically not only requires information after the verb phrase, but in fact
typically orders both more important information here (end-focus) and, sig-
nificantly, more complex syntactic structures too (end-weight). The following
German example (the relevant part highlighted) has an extended subject in the
Mittelfeld, and we feel the focus in the sentence just before the final verb which
then completes the sentence; the communicatively weakest element—'dazu’—
appears in this case in the Vorfeld:

Die Schweiz—amtlich heißt sie Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft—ist

eines der führenden Reiseländer der Erde. Dazu haben ihre günstige geog-
raphische Lage im Herzen Europas, die sprichwortliche Gastfreundchaft
der Bewohner, die sich schon früh auf den Fremdenverkehr eingestellt
hatten, und der besondere Reiz ihrer landwirtschaftlichen Schönheiten
beigetragen.
(Example from Snell-Hornby 1985: 22)

If we kept the very extended subject in English, we might end up with:

Its favourable geographical position in the heart of Europe, the proverbial

hospitality of its inhabitants, who soon adapted to tourism, and the special
charm of its scenic attractions, have contributed to this.
(Example from Snell-Hornby 1985: 22)
126 Formal properties of texts
The weakness of this translation, the unidiomatic ending, is the product
both of placing the given information at the end, and, at the same time,
having the complex subject come first. A more idiomatic rendering might
be:

This is mainly due to its favourable geographical position at the heart of

Europe, the proverbial hospitality of its inhabitants who soon adapted to
tourism, and the special charm of its scenic attractions.
(Example from Snell-Hornby 1985: 23)

In short, dealing with the distribution of information at a sentence level involves

being aware that German and English sentences typically have different patterns
of grammatical focus which constrain the translator’s freedom to accommodate
theme/rheme patterns between sentences.

Concluding remarks
In this chapter we have examined a number of related issues that arise in transla-
tion between German and English at the level of the sentence and which often
require syntactic shifts. We have differentiated between information structure
broadly (including issues of what could be called the textual flow between sen-
tences), and the related issue of focus in the sentence governed by the different
directionalities of German and English syntax. The first step for the translator
into English is often simply to accept that syntactic transpositions will be inevi-
table in many cases. A worthwhile way to explore these sorts of issues is, as so
often, to read specifically for them: read looking for sentence structure, thinking
first about information structure, then about other, more stylistic or communi-
cative emphasis. Often enough, recognising just how frequently German texts
vary word order is enough to help us realise that transferring those structures
into English will require thought and a variety of approaches. It is also a good
idea to read a range of genres for this; look also at translations critically, and
English texts too.

Further reading
Doherty, Monika 2005. ‘Topic-worthiness in German and English’, Linguistics, 43(1),
pp. 181–206.
Durrell, Martin 1992. Using German. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [Chap-
ter 5.1, pp. 228–39.].
Johnson, Sally and Braber, Natalie 2008. Exploring the German Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press [Chapter 7 gives a clear exposition of the basics of German
sentence structure.].
 Sentential issues in translation 127
Practical 9

9.1 RESEARCH EXERCISE

Assignment
The aim of the assignment is to help you get some sense of the scope of the issue
by exploring German texts and reading attentively for the types of sentences that
have been discussed here. You can use a text corpus of your choosing, preferably
mixing a range of genres and registers:

i Find sentences with elements in the Vorfeld other than the subject—how can
you analyse these? How do they function in the textual structure? Which ones
offer potential problems of translation?
ii Find sentences that exemplify focal points of German. Do these present simi-
lar or different problems of translation to the first set of sentences?
iii Find sentences with a relatively weak end bracket. Attempting a rough trans-
lation of these, can you find anywhere it is useful to consider the principle of
‘end-weight’?

9.2 TRANSLATION: LITERARY HISTORY

Assignment
The following extract is from: Johannes Hösle, Kleine Geschichte der italienis-
chen Literatur. It is a brief history of Italian literature, which aims to provide an
overview for students and the general reader; it is a small paperback, and each
author is afforded only a few pages. This section is about Federigo Tozzi.

i Analyse the sentence into its constituent parts.

ii Translate into English.

ST
Federigo Tozzi
Während in Frankreich in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts mit Léon Bloy, Paul
Claudel und verschiedenen anderen eine gegen die im Zeichen des Agnostizismus
stehende Literatur des positivistischen Zeitalters gerichtete katholische
5 Erneuerungsbewegung (renouveau catholique) die spirituellen Werte von Christentum
und Kirche neu entdeckte, war die römische Kurie darauf bedacht, wenigstens in Italien
jeden Autonomieanspruch der Intellektuellen bereits im Keim zu ersticken, wie bereits
das Beispiel Antonio Fogazzaro zeigte.
(Hösle 1995: 180–2)
128 Formal properties of texts
9.3 TRANSLATION: TOURIST GUIDE

Assignment
i You have been commissioned to produce English text for some of the popular
mid-market HB Bildatlas series of illustrated regional guides, in this case the
one entitled Südlicher Schwarzwald—Hochrhein—Kaiserstuhl, from which
the ST has been taken. Discuss the decisions that you have to take before
starting detailed translation of this ST, and outline and justify the approach
that you adopt.
ii Translate the ST into English.
iii Explain the main decisions of detail you took in connection with grammar.
iv Compare your TT with a sample one, which will be given to you by your
tutor.

Contextual information
The book is in A4 format and includes maps; however, most double-page spreads,
including that with the ST, have a 7 cm-wide column, far right, containing about
220 words of text, and about six good-quality colour photographs of various sizes
arranged on the remaining area; the terraced vineyards feature prominently.

ST
Mit neuem Gesicht:
der vulkanische Kaiserstuhl
Egal, aus welcher Richtung man sich dem Kaiserstuhl nähert: Schon von weitem ist
diese mitten in der Oberrheinebene aufgebuckelte Erhebung zwischen Vogesen und
5 Schwarzwald zu erkennen. Die bis zu 557 Meter hoch aufragende Hügelgruppe macht
ihrem monumental klingenden Namen alle Ehre, denn die durch längst erloschene
Vulkantätigkeiten entstandenen Bergkuppen sind in der Form eines großen, nach
Südwesten geöffneten Hufeisens angeordnet. Das Ganze sieht aus wie ein riesiger
Lehnstuhl, der einem sonnenhungrigen Fabelriesen bequem Platz bieten würde.
10 Daß die Sonne in dieser Gegend eine überragende Rolle spielt, läßt sich nicht
übersehen. Die überall in großem Maßstab neu angelegten Rebterrassen weisen
darauf hin. Sie haben dem Kaiserstuhl in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten ein
völlig neues Gesicht verliehen, sehr zum Leidwesen der Naturschützer. Im kleinen
verraten aber noch immer zahlreiche aus mittelmeerischen Gefilden stammenden
15 Pflanzen am Wegesrand, daß im Kaiserstuhl südländische Klimaeinflüsse
vorherrschen.
Es gibt übrigens ganz in der Nähe ‘unbearbeitete’ Natur: das Altrheingebiet
Taubergießen.
Neue Terrassen, alte Hohlwege
20 Den schönsten Blick auf die Kaiserstuhllandschaft gewährt der Badberg. Man erreicht
diese kahle, von Trockenrasen bedeckte Buckelwelt am besten vom Schelinger Paß
aus, wo ein von langen Tischen und Bänken umgebener Kiosk zur zünftigen Vesper
einlädt. Links erhebt sich das Totenkopfmassiv, leicht zu erkennen an seinem
Sendemast, und im Hintergrund, Richtung Rhein, erkennt man die wie von
Zyklopenhand hingeklotzten, treppenförmig ansteigenden Rebterrassen der
‘Oberbergener Mondhalde’, eine der bekannten Kaiserstühler Weinlagen.
(Klugmann 1989: 21)
 Sentential issues in translation 129
References

Primary
Bräuer, M., Edelmann, M., Häußler, L. and Kühnert, I. 2012. ‘Metall-Kunsttoff-Verbunde:
Untersuchungen zur Wirkungsweise einer Adhäsionsschicht aus Uretdionpulverlacksys-
temen’, Materialwissenschaft und Werkstofftechnik, 43, pp. 535–43.
Doderer, Heimito von 1995. Die Strudlhofstiege. Munich: Beck.
Hösle, Johannes 1995. Kleine Geschichte der italienischen Literatur. Munich: Beck.
Kant, Immanuel 2002. Was ist Aufklärung? Edited by Bahr, Ehrhard. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Klugmann, U. (ed.) 1989. HB Bildatlas Südlicher Schwarzwald. Hamburg: HB Verlags-
und Vertriebs-Gesellschaft mbH.

Secondary
Chesterman, Andrew 2000. Memes of Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
Lühr, Rosemarie 1986/2000. Neuhochdeutsch: eine Einführung in die Sprachwissenschaft.
6th edn. Munich: Fink.
Rogers, Margaret 2006. ‘Structuring information in English: A specialist translation per-
spective on sentence beginnings’, The Translator, 12(1), pp. 29–64.
Snell-Hornby, Mary 1985. ‘Translation as a means of integrating language teaching and
linguistics’, in Titford, C. and Hieke, A. E. (eds) Translation in Foreign Language
Teaching and Testing. Tübingen: Narr, pp. 21–8.
10 Grammatical issues in
translation

In this chapter we continue our focus on translation problems that arise from the
formal properties of texts. In the previous chapter we considered shifts at the
sentential level; in this chapter we discuss what we have called ‘grammatical’
changes, i.e. those changes that necessarily occur in translation at the level of the
word and phrase because the available structural patterns and habits of expression
in the two languages are different.

Grammatical shifts
One way of viewing translation is to see it as a series of changes, ‘shifts’ or ‘trans-
positions’, which occur even in literal or close translation. When we move from ‘all­
abendlich’ to ‘every evening’ we can analyse that shift as a move from one word class
to another, from an adverb to a noun phrase, but also from a compound to a qualified
noun. We make these changes without the need for special comment, indeed these
pairings are often listed as equivalents in the dictionary, but it is important to be
able to analyse what changes have occurred, even in literal translation, to account
for, and thus seek to manage, change in meaning or suitability. In this discussion we
are interested both in the types of obligatory translation changes that occur when a
close translation is impossible owing to formal differences between the source and
the target language, but also in optional changes where a direct translation would be
inappropriate for pragmatic reasons. We can see how quickly problems of this kind
arise in the following well-known passage about the German language:

Französisch ist ein edler Park, Italienisch ein großer, heller bunter Wald. Aber
Deutsch ist beinahe noch wie ein Urwald, so dicht und geheimnisvoll, so
ohne großen Durchgang, und doch tausendpfadig. Im Park kann man sich
nicht verirren, in der italienischen Waldhelle nicht so leicht und gefährlich;
aber im Deutsch kann einer in vier, fünf Minuten im Dickicht verschwinden.
Darum, weil der Weg so schwierig scheint, suchen die meisten möglichst gra-
dlinig hindurchzumarschieren, was eigentlich gegen die Natur dieser Sprache
ist. Sie will gewiß eine Hauptrichtung, aber ladet durch hundert Pfade und
Pfädchen nach links und rechts bald aus ihr heraus, bald wieder in sie hinein.
(Federer 1928: 188f.)
 Grammatical issues in translation 131
It is obvious that our approach to the first and second sentences must be differ-
ent. In the first sentence, word-for-word translation is structurally possible. In
the second sentence, we encounter ‘Urwald’ and ‘tausendpfadig’ for which there
are no direct equivalents in English, but which might each be rendered as ‘pri-
maeval forest’, and ‘crossed by a thousand paths’. Analysing these transpositions
involves being aware of changes in the distribution of meaning between the Ger-
man original and any English translation. The prefix ‘Ur-’ becomes an adjective
(‘primaeval’) in our English version, which collocates well with ‘forest’. But the
adjectival suffix ‘-ig’ (‘tausend-pfad-ig’) which indicates the condition of some-
thing, presents more problems. Established words such as ‘schläfrig’ or ‘klebrig’
have ‘-y’ suffixes in English: ‘sleepy’, ‘sticky’, but ‘thousand-path-y’ does not
work, so the meaning of that component has to be represented in a more creative
way. Our suggestion is to transpose the suffix into an adjectival phrase, ‘crossed
by . . . ’.
Translation scholars have charted typical shifts or transpositions and classify
them according to type as a way of analysing the translation process. One of
the pioneers of Translation Studies, the Scottish linguist J.C. Catford, for exam-
ple, distinguishes between level shifts and category shifts (Catford 1965; see
pp. 73–82 for ‘translation shifts’). Level shifts involve the replacement of one
level of language with another: the translation ‘Ur-’ > ‘primaeval’ can be analysed
as a level shift (morphology > lexis). All other kinds of other changes in form,
such as change in basic word order (structural shift), change from a phrase to a
clause (unit or rank shift), change from a noun to a verb (class shift) and a change
within a particular part of the language system such as voice, e.g. active to passive
(inter-term shift) Catford groups under ‘category shifts’.
A similar, but slightly different approach was adopted by two other early trans-
lation scholars, the French-Canadian scholars Jean Paul Vinay and Paul Darbelnet
(Vinay and Darbelnet 1958/1995). Apparently prompted by (poor) translations
of road-signs in Canada, they proposed a framework through which translation
could be systematised. They distinguish inter alia between ‘transpositions’, simi-
lar to Catford’s ‘shifts’, and ‘modulations’, changes which make the TT more idi-
omatic, such as a change in perspective, often a change in verb. Their work, dating
back nearly 60 years, has understandably been the subject of some criticism, as
has Catford’s. One of the main points which translation scholars have made is that
their examples are not authentic i.e. not taken from actual translations or ‘ideal-
ised’ and that they are purely linguistic with the sentence being the highest level of
analysis, i.e. decontextualised (Munday 2016: 97). In other words, there is little if
any consideration of translation as communication. Nevertheless, Vinay and Dar-
belnet’s model in particular, as well as Catford’s, has been popular in translator
training through the decades. We would like to present the ‘shifts’ discussed here
in the spirit of linguistic arpeggios: not yet a full performance but useful practice
in developing technique. The names of these shifts are not too important; indeed,
translation scholars do not agree on them, and they often overlap or are difficult to
apply in practice. But these early contributions are useful to our present purpose
as this linguistic approach facilitates formal analysis within the boundary of a
132 Formal properties of texts
sentence. For you what is important is being able to trace translation changes, thus
accounting for potential changes in meaning.

Problem areas between German and English

Affixation and compounding

It should be clear from the previous discussion that it is not possible, nor espe-
cially useful to enumerate all possible grammatical changes that occur in transla-
tion. We can, however, survey some particular types of difficulty, beginning with
small issues, morphemes. There are a number of prefixes and suffixes in German
for which we have no direct equivalent in English and which need either partial
translation, expansion, or omission, depending on the case. We have already seen the
prefix ‘ur-’, which we translated with a rank shift (morpheme > word). Now consider
the following example. It is the title of an exhibition at the Munich Pinakothek: Neue
Nachbarschaften II ‘New Neighbours II’. Presented as a word-for-word translation
(the English printed directly below the German), the English arguably leaves the
German suffix ‘-schaft’ untranslated. While ‘die Nachbarschaft’ can indeed mean
‘the neighbours’, the sense of the German is arguably ‘new neighbourhoods’ or in
this specific case ‘the fact of being new neighbours’ as paintings in the museum
which would not normally be exhibited together were displayed together because of
renovation; here the German word puts as much emphasis on the relationship of the
paintings as on the paintings themselves. Another common example is the translation
of ‘-tum’, in ‘Bürgertum’ or ‘Beamtentum’—here a more concrete alternative may be
needed, e.g. ‘Es ist nicht nur Schöpfung des ökonomischen Mittels, wie das Beamten-
tum überhaupt, sondern . . .’/‘Not only is this a creation of the economic means, as
were the officials themselves, but . . .’ (example from Linguee).
Problems involving verbal derivation are perhaps more complex because ver-
bal prefixes can convey shades of meaning, often expressing Aktionsart: ‘er-’, for
example, can express an ingressive aspect (‘erblühen’, ‘erklingen’, ‘erkranken’,
‘erwachen’), ‘ab-’ can be mutative (‘abnehmen’, ‘abtragen’) or terminative
(‘abwarten’, ‘abbrennen’). Neat progressions such as ‘erblühen’, ‘blühen’, ‘ver-
blühen’ are transparently systematic in German, but often lexicalised and less clear
in English (‘come into bloom’/‘bloom’, ‘bloom’, ‘wither’). Other kinds of mean-
ing can be expressed similarly: ‘anblicken’, ‘ansehen’, ‘anlächeln’, ‘anlachen’,
‘anfahren’, ‘anbrüllen’, ‘anfauchen’, ‘anschnauzen’ correspond to English verbs
expressing person-to-person contact, for example, and can be contrasted with,
say, ‘lachen über’.
One of the most obvious difficulties posed by the Federer example are its
various compounds and derivatives: ‘Waldhelle’, ‘Hauptrichtung’, ‘Urwald’,
‘tausendpfadig’, ‘Pfädchen’. Compounding in German is very often parallel with
English, but more prolific: English has no compact noun match for e.g. ‘Fundort’
or ‘Hausrat’. Most compounds are nevertheless unproblematic: even ‘Aschaf-
fenburger Ungeziefervertilgungsanstalt’ (incised over a doorway in that town)
is imposing rather than impossible. Elsewhere they can be markers of style: in
 Grammatical issues in translation 133
Schiller’s Maria Stuart, for example, ‘frischblütend’, ‘leichtbedeckt’ and ‘rache-
fodernd’, occur in close proximity. The difficulties of the compounds and deriva-
tives in our initial example are in part the result of their evocative nature, in part
their role in maintaining a taut style. Some are relatively straightforward (‘Wald-
helle’ might give ‘woodland brightness’; ‘Urwald’ > ‘primaeval forest’); others
are trickier: ‘tausendpfadig’ is an example both of German’s capacity to create
neologisms through compounding and derivation and of a tendency in German
for adjectives and adverbs to have a significance we more easily see in verbs and
nouns in English. ‘Pfädchen’ only really presents a problem because it has been
preceded by ‘Pfade’: ‘paths and little paths’ is an unacceptable repetition. ‘Paths
and byways’ might be one solution which is rhythmically close and works within
the text’s semantic field of roads (‘Weg’, ‘Durchgang’, ‘pfadig’).

Phrases and clauses

A second point emerging from the Federer example concerns the relative semantic
import of prepositions in German: ‘ohne großen Durchgang’ might, as we have
suggested, be rendered ‘lacking a great thoroughfare’. What this highlights in
German is that a prepositional phrase can express a meaning we might consider
verbal in English. In ‘er eilte über den Platz’ the verb conveys a sense of pace,
while motion and direction are implied and conveyed by the preposition. We can
do this in English too, ‘he hurried across the square’ but the tendency is stronger in
German: ‘Der Aufruhr im Breidenbacher Hof war groß. Das Grand Hotel befand
sich im Ausnahmezustand. Da mußte man durch’ (Pleschinski 2015: 11). Here we
would have to supply a verb (expansion): ‘you had to get through’.
Dealing with German prepositional phrases by substituting a verb in English,
often a participle, is perhaps one of the most common transpositions. Indeed,
prepositions rarely constitute a unit of translation themselves; they are rarely
translated in a word-for-word sense. ‘Bei’, for example, may stand for ‘near’, ‘in
circumstances of’, ‘in the event of’, ‘with’, occasionally ‘by’, and even ‘in spite
of’. But it is only in a technical or formal context that ‘in the event of’ will be used
in English. Otherwise, when ‘bei’ is used in that precise sense, most translators
will turn to grammatical rearrangement. For instance, in a text about translation
problems in the EU, a sentence begins: ‘Selbst bei einer Erweiterung der EU
um lediglich fünf Länder . . . ’. It is not beyond the resources of English to ren-
der this idea through roughly equivalent grammatical structures, but (as so often
with ‘bei’) an idiomatic English version can more adequately be produced by
replacing preposition + noun with an if-clause (‘Even if the EU is/were enlarged
by . . . ’), in other words through a unit or rank shift from a phrase to a clause.
Newmark (1988: 85) notes a similar transposition: although the prepositional
phrase ‘Bei jeder sich bietenden Gelegenheit . . . ’ has its phrasal equivalents in
English—‘At every opportunity that occurs’, ‘At every available opportunity’—it
also goes quite naturally into a clause: ‘Whenever the opportunity occurs’.
Making morphological or syntactic changes is often a question of style as
much as necessity. For instance, German relative clauses almost always can
134 Formal properties of texts
be rendered with a closely matching English relative clause; and as a conse-
quence, they too often are so rendered. The result is not by any means always
an unidiomatic calque: examples (1) to (3) that follow could just as well use
a TL relative. But English has a range of other ways of handling information
contained in a ST relative clause. Participial constructions are perhaps the solu-
tion most often overlooked by translators, but, as the examples show, there are
other possibilities. The examples show two types of relative clause: those which
modify a preceding noun phrase (examples (1) and (5)), and ‘wer’ as a relative
(examples (2), (3) and (4)) which can be understood as ‘the one who’ although
‘the one’ is not specified. The ‘wer’-type can be more problematic to translate
closely.

1a Kunden, die auf sofortiger Erstattung bestehen, werden an Schalter 10

verwiesen.
1b Customers insisting on immediate refunds are referred to Desk 10. (Rank
shift, clause > phrase)

2a Wer auf den Ausflug lieber verzichtet, meldet sich bitte bei meiner Kollegin.
2b Anyone preferring not to take the excursion should see my colleague. (Rank
shift, clause > phrase)

3a Wer sich von so was beleidigt fühlt, möge einfach wegbleiben.

3b Those offended by such things should just stay away. (Rank shift, clause >
noun phrase)

4a Wer in [der Politik] Machtpositionen behauptet, ausbauen oder erringen will,

wer nur die eigenen Zwecke verfolgt, [. . .]. Wer dagegen Politik auch als
Aufgabe versteht, [. . .].
4b If I use politics to assert, consolidate or win power, if I pursue my own aims
exclusively [. . .]. If on the other hand I see politics as involving a task that is
given to me [. . .]. (Modulation, relative clause > conditional clause)

5a [From a swimwear blurb] Das Badethema ‘Magische Zauberwelten’ hat

Felina in vier faszinierende Farbgruppen aufgeteilt, die Sie je nach Anlass
und Stimmung durch die Sonne begleiten.
5b [. . .] four fascinating colour tonalities to suit your mood and the occasion all
summer long. (Modulation, relative clause > infinitive phrase)

The need to think sensitively and flexibly about possible solutions that use the
full resources of English is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in dealing with
the extended attributive phrase. This one is representative of the many difficult
and complicated cases which test the ingenuity of the translator. The source is an
account of Robert Koch’s bacteriological research. It may take a little thought to
produce an accurate, reasonably idiomatic English rendering of the clause begin-
ning at ‘Dem—’ in the following text:
 Grammatical issues in translation 135
Selbst die berühmten Postulate entpuppen sich bei näherem Hinsehen als
historiographisches Konstrukt der Schüler Kochs: Dem—wie erwähnt—von
Loeffler geprägten Begriff der Postulate standen von Fall zu Fall variierende
Nachweiskriterien bakterieller Ätiologien bei Koch selbst gegenüber.
(Gradmann: unpublished)

As often happens with this construction, there is no obvious best translation. In

the TT extract reproduced below for discussion, the relative clause that is prob-
ably the nearest thing to a conventional solution has been avoided in dealing with
the first of the two problems (Dem—wie erwähnt—von Loeffler geprägten Begriff
der Postulate) and adopted—after a fashion—in the second (von Fall zu Fall vari-
ierende Nachweiskriterien bakterieller Ätiologien bei Koch selbst):

Having become a recognized concept thanks to Loeffler, as already men-

tioned, they nonetheless must be seen in the context of criteria set up by Koch
himself for demonstrating bacterial aetiology—criteria which vary from case
to case.
(Gradmann 2003: 87)

The essential issue here is recognising the function of the structure in the original:
encapsulation is typical of German academic prose, a characteristic thus of a par-
ticular register. English academic prose generally conforms to slightly different
norms (it is less dominated by noun phrases, for example), so that the syntactic
structure becomes less important in itself, and indeed needs to be replaced with
target-language appropriate forms.

German adverbial constructions

Now we move on to explore in more detail one area where word-for-word transla-
tions are often possible, but where an optional grammatical transposition may lead
to a more idiomatic, more ‘natural’ text (Newmark 1988: 24ff.), namely thinking
about the frequent correspondence between German verb + adverb constructions
and English verb + verb constructions. Consider the following, in which two pos-
sible translations are offered:

6a [. . .] bis allmählich die Liebenden [. . .] aus den Seidengründen dämmerten.

6b [. . .] until the lovers [. . .] gradually became visible in the silken depths.
6c [. . .] until the lovers [. . .] began to materialise out of the silken depths.

7a Seine Besuche wurden allmählich seltener und hörten zuletzt ganz auf.
7b His visits gradually grew less frequent and eventually stopped altogether.
7c His visits began to grow fewer, and eventually stopped altogether.

While the TTs marked (b), taken individually, are not particularly ‘strange’
in English, and are not mistranslations, they do not take up an option that is
136 Formal properties of texts
in spontaneous English used readily and often: the double-verb construction.
That is to say, the STs’ ‘allmählich’ + finite verb combination might have been
replaced by ‘begin’ + infinitive, as in the (c) translations. Are the (c) versions
less good? Or just less likely to be suggested by the ST’s syntactic structure?
The decision here is whether to stick to the German construction, which is pos-
sible in English, or whether to favour a more typically English formulation.
While in the previously mentioned cases the adverbs were certainly an option,
let’s consider some of the drawbacks of using the verb + adverb construction
elsewhere.
To remain with the pair ‘allmählich’/‘begin’, literal translation of ‘allmählich’
as ‘gradually’ may limit the scope for translating surrounding text because of
the collocations available. In the following sentence, for instance, the ST verb
‘sich abzeichnen’ offers the translator a choice of renderings. Some, for instance
‘emerge’, are a collocative match for the adverb ‘gradually’; others are not. Should
this adverb be allowed to determine the choice of TL verb for ‘sich abzeichnen’?
Why limit the choice? TT (c) shows an alternative way:

8a Eine neue Gefahr zeichnete sich allmählich ab.

8b A fresh danger became/was becoming gradually apparent.
8c A fresh danger began/was beginning to loom.

The constraints arising from the use of ‘gradually’ in this example indicate how
the translator cannot treat words in isolation. For example, a reason for avoiding
‘begin’ in translating ‘allmählich’ may be euphony (‘begin to become’), or it may
be unconscious retention of ST structures by a translator working quickly—at the
expense of TT alternatives.
That there is indeed a disparity between the two languages, with English favour-
ing many more two-verb structures, is sharply apparent to translators working into
German. Here, certain frequently used English structures, such as the pseudo-cleft
structure in example (9a), do not travel well into German. The solution here is a
rank shift from clause > adverb:

9a But that wasn’t how he went about it. What he did was to write to Mr Smith
asking for more time.
9b Diesen Weg hat er jedoch nicht gewählt. Er schrieb vielmehr an Herrn Smith
und bat um mehr Zeit.

The following example poses difficulties over the verb combination ‘come to
appreciate’. The most straightforward solution is to report, not the completed
‘journey’ (‘has come’), but the new position arrived at (‘now appreciates’) with the
sense of a change in attitude being expressed through the adverb + verb structure
in German, an example of a ‘reversal of terms’ modulation (Vinay and Darbelnet):

10a He has come to appreciate that money alone is not the answer to his problems.
10b Er sieht inzwischen ein, dass seinen Problemen nicht mit Geld allein beizu-
kommen ist.
 Grammatical issues in translation 137
This solution points to the significant potential of adverbs of time; some, such as
‘früher’ have a role in German that tenses might have in English (er hat früher viel
geschrieben > he used to write a lot); some such as: ‘schon’, ‘noch’, ‘nicht mehr’,
convey ideas of change, continuation and cessation often covered in English by
verbs such as ‘begin’, ‘go on’, ‘give up’.
The next example presents major problems which cannot be easily handled
with a literal translation:

11a There, without bothering to light the lamp that stood ready with its box of
matches, I tried one key after another in the door until I had found the right one.
11b Dort, ohne die samt Streichholzschachtel bereitstehende Lampe erst
anzuzünden, probierte ich . . .

The English sentence is complex (containing five clauses, including two non-
finite ones), and translations involving ‘sich die Mühe geben’ are unwieldy and
implausible here: they miss the point that ‘without bothering to’ is a stock for-
mulation that modalises the negative much as a German modal particle (‘erst’)
might. And the use of the extended attribute allows the same information order to
be retained in the German while actually reducing the number of clauses.
Our final example in this group presents two separate verb-on-verb combina-
tions, ‘continued . . . to see’ and ‘came no nearer to deciding’. The first finds a
grammatical counterpart in German in ‘fuhr fort . . . zu sehen’, and thus could
tempt the translator towards a stylistically infelicitous TT. The second is patently
resistant to literal translation, and thus may guide the translator, usefully, to the
underlying principle: namely that in German this is adverb territory. A solution
covering both problems might be:

12a Meanwhile, I continued occasionally to see something of Quiggin, though I came

no nearer to deciding which of the various views held about him were true.
12b Ich hatte auch weiterhin noch gelegentlichen Kontakt zu Quiggin, nur stand
ich so ratlos wie eh und je vor der Frage, welche der verschiedenen Ansichten
über ihn denn eigentlich zuträfen.

Concluding remarks
The aim of this chapter has been in the first instance to explore some common
difficulties that arise in translating between certain German and English words
and phrases, that is to consider how German constructs meanings at a level
below the sentence in ways that often cannot satisfactorily be done in English
in the same way. The translation strategies that we have introduced, the way
of thinking about and improving our translation procedures have been those of
comparative stylistics, that is considering systematically the function of paral-
lel sets of structures in German and English and the series of small grammati-
cal changes that moving between two different structural patterns imposes. The
danger is that in so doing we look for a list of ready-made solutions; really
138 Formal properties of texts
what the student of translation can take away from this approach is the very
empowering ability to be able to create their own sets of observations, their
own categories, and to use those observations to inform and support their own
translation decisions.

Further reading
Baker, Mona 2011. In Other Words. 2nd edn. London: Routledge [Chapter 4 ‘Grammatical
equivalence’, pp. 92–130.].
Grabski, Michael and Stede, Manfred 2006. ‘Bei: Intraclausal coherence relations illus-
trated with a German preposition’, Discourse Processes, 41(2), pp. 195–219.
Hansen, Sandra and Hansen-Schirra, Silvia 2012. ‘Grammatical shifts in English-German
noun phrases’, in Steiner, E., Hansen-Schirra, S. and Neumann, S. (eds) Cross-Linguistic
Corpora for the Study of Translations: Insights from the Language Pair English-
German. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 133–45.
Munday, Jeremy 2016. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. 4th
edn. London and New York: Routledge [See Sections 4.1, Vinay and Darbelnet’s model,
pp. 88–95, and 4.2 Catford’s translation ‘shifts’, pp. 95–7.].

Practical 10

10.1 TEXT FOR DISCUSSION: POEM

Assignment
Read the following poem, ‘Der Werwolf’ by Christian Morgenstern. What transla-
tion difficulties does the text raise that are relevant to our discussion? What solu-
tions might you propose?

ST
Ein Werwolf eines Nachts entwich
von Weib und Kind, und sich begab
an eines Dorfschullehrers Grab
und bat ihn: Bitte, beuge mich!

5 Der Dorfschulmeister stieg hinauf

auf seines Blechschilds Messingknauf
und sprach zum Wolf, der seine Pfoten
geduldig kreuzte vor dem Toten:

‘Der Werwolf’,—sprach der gute Mann,

10 ‘des Weswolfs’—Genitiv sodann,
‘dem Wemwolf’—Dativ, wie man’s nennt,
‘den Wenwolf’—damit hat’s ein End’.

Dem Werwolf schmeichelten die Fälle,

er rollte seine Augenbälle.
15 Indessen, bat er, füge doch
zur Einzahl auch die Mehrzahl noch!
 Grammatical issues in translation 139

ST
Der Dorfschulmeister aber mußte
gestehn, daß er von ihr nichts wußte.
Zwar Wölfe gäb’s in großer Schar,
20 doch ‘Wer’ gäb’s nur im Singular.

Der Wolf erhob sich tränenblind—

er hatte ja doch Weib und Kind!
Doch da er kein Gelehrter eben,
so schied er dankend und ergeben.
(Morgenstern 1990: 87–8)

10.2 TRANSLATION COMPARISON: INTERNATIONAL

AGREEMENT

Contextual information
The following text extracts are taken from a European Council decision in late
2002 on international co-operation against terrorism. It is not clear which of the
texts, if either, is the ST.

Assignment
Analyse the language of the two texts contrastively, focusing on grammatical dif-
ferences at word- and phrase-level.

DER RAT DER EUROPÄISCHEN UNION—

[. . .]
BESCHLIESST:
Artikel 1
5 Schaffung des Mechanismus für die Begutachtung:
(1) Es wird ein Mechanismus geschaffen, mit dem im Rahmen der internationalen
Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Mitgliedstaaten die einzelstaatlichen Vorkehrungen zur
Terrorismusbekämpfung gegenseitig begutachtet werden sollen; die Einzelheiten sind
nachstehend geregelt.
10 (2) Die Mitgliedstaaten verpflichten sich zur engen Zusammenarbeit ihrer
jeweiligen Behörden mit den Gutachterausschüssen, die im Rahmen dieses
Beschlusses im Hinblick auf dessen Anwendung eingesetzt werden; hierbei sind die
einzelstaatlichen Rechts- und Standesvorschriften zu beachten.
Artikel 2
15 Gegenstand der Begutachtung
(1) Für jede Begutachtungsrunde werden der genaue Gegenstand der Begutachtung
sowie die Reihenfolge der zu begutachtenden Mitgliedstaaten auf Vorschlag des
Vorsitzes vom Ausschuss ‘Artikel 36’ festgelegt.
Ferner legt der Ausschuss ‘Artikel 36’ je nach dem genauen Gegenstand, der
20 für die Begutachtung ausgewählt worden ist, fest, welche dem Ausschuss ‘Artikel 36’

(Continued)
140 Formal properties of texts
(Continued)
nachgeordnete Arbeitsgruppe des Rates die Begutachtung durchführen soll oder ob er
diese selbst durchführt.
Der Ausschuss „Artikel 36“ legt darüber hinaus für jede Begutachtungsrunde die
Häufigkeit fest.
(Europäische Gemeinschaften 2002: L 349/1)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

[. . .]
HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS:
Article 1
5 Establishment of the evaluation mechanism
1. A mechanism for peer evaluation of the national arrangements in the fight
against terrorism within the framework of international cooperation between
Member States shall be established in accordance with the detailed rules set
out below.
10 2. Each Member State shall undertake to ensure that its national authorities
cooperate closely with the evaluation teams set up under this Decision with a view
to its implementation, with due regard for the rules of law and ethics applicable at
national level.
Article 2
15 Evaluation subjects
1. For each evaluation exercise, the specific subject of the evaluation as well as the
order in which Member States are to be evaluated shall be defined by the Article 36
Committee, on a proposal from the Presidency.
Depending on the specific subject chosen for the evaluation, the Article 36
20 Committee shall also decide whether to designate a Council Working Party
subordinate to it to carry out the evaluation or to carry it out itself.
In addition, the Article 36 Committee shall decide the frequency of each
evaluation exercise.
(European Communities 2002: L 349/1)

10.3 TRANSLATION: ESSAY

Contextual information
The following excerpt is from an essay by Joachim Fest, ‘Die Intellektuellen
und die totalitäre Epoche. Gedanken zu einer Geschichte der Täuschungen und
Enttäuschungen’, republished in a collection of Fest’s essays in 2007. In this
excerpt, Fest seeks to trace the intellectual background of totalitarianism in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Assignment
i Translate the text into English.
ii As you are working through the text, make notes on the grammatical changes
you are making, and, especially perhaps when revising the text, make notes
on any optional modulations you make for pragmatic reasons.
 Grammatical issues in translation 141

ST
Auch eine kursorische, nur die gröberen Linien nachzeichnende Betrachtung muß bis
ins 18. Jahrhundert zurückgehen. Im weiteren Sinne war die Aufklärung nichts anderes
als die Machtergreifung des Gedankens, der sein Vorrecht gegenüber den bis dahin
geltenden, auf bloßer Herkunft [. . .] beruhenden Herrschaftsverhältnissen behauptete
5 und schließlich durchsetzte. [. . .] Das hat der Epoche den großen, überschwenglichen
Aufbruchston verschafft, dessen Nachhall bis ins unsere Tage reicht. [. . .]
Das gesamte 19. Jahrhundert tut sich groß im Erdenken immer neuer Entwürfe für eine
nach den Prinzipien der Vernunft geordnete Welt: die Philosophen gaben sich diesen
Planspielen ebenso hin wie die Dichter und die Schreibenden überhaupt, und die
10 Leidenschaft dafür erfaßte selbst die Künstler mit den Träumen einer endlichen
Versöhnung von Kunst und Leben. Unversehens verwandelte sich die Welt in ein
Labor abgemachter Zwecke und mit Menschen, die ein beliebig formbares, auf die
reine gesellschaftliche Funktion reduziertes Material abgaben. In den Marschsäulen der
totalitären Systeme, drei oder vier Menschenalter später, ist dieser Sachverhalt noch
15 symbolisch ausgedrückt, in den opferreichen Arbeitseinsätzen und den
Umsiedlungsaktionen bis hin zu den Massenausrottungen dann mit allen
Konsequenzen des realen Vollzugs.
Es ist das eigentümlich experimentelle Verhältnis zur Welt, das den radikalen Bruch zur
voraufgegangenen Zeit ausmacht. Weder gewachsene Ordnungen noch die Ansprüche
20 auf Leben, Recht und Glück des einzelnen hemmen die großen Kalküle, die sich in
zusehends kühneren Konzepten sei es der Neuordnung, sei es der Erlösung der Welt
über dergleichen hinwegdenken.
(Fest 2007: 164–5)

References

Primary
Europäische Gemeinschaften 2002. ‘Beschluss des Rates vom 28. November 2002’, Amts-
blatt der europäischen Gemeinschaften No. L 349, 24 December. Brussels: Commission
of the European Communities.
European Communities 2002. ‘Council Decision of 28 November 2002’, Official Journal
of the European Communities No. L 349, 24 December. Brussels: Commission of the
European Communities.
Federer, Heinrich 1928. Aus jungen Tagen. Berlin: Grote.
Fest, Joachim 2007. Bürgerlichkeit als Lebensform: Späte Essays. Reinbeck Bei Hamburg:
Rowohlt.
Gradmann, C. 2003. ‘Experimental life and experimental disease: The role of animal
experiments in Robert Koch’s medical bacteriology’, Futura, 18(2), pp. 80–8 [Only
published in English; German ST remains unpublished.].
Morgenstern, Christian 1990. ‘Der Werwolf’, in Band III: Christian Morgenstern Werke
und Briefe. Kommentierte Ausgabe. Humoristische Lyrik. Stuttgart: Urachhaus, pp. 87–8.
Pleschinski, Hans 2015. Königsallee. Roman. Munich: DTV.

Secondary
Catford, J.C. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford University Press.
Newmark, Peter 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York: Prentice Hall.
142 Formal properties of texts
Vinay, J-P. and Darbelnet, J. 1958/1995. Comparative Stylistics of French and English:
A Methodology for Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins [Trans-
lated and edited by Sager, Juan and Hamel, Marie-Jo from Vinay, J.-P. and Darbelnet,
J. 1958. Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais: Méthode de traduction. Paris:
Didier.].

Lexical and related resources

Linguee n.d. Available at: www.linguee.com/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides parallel
contextualised examples from existing translations].
11 Phonological issues in
translation

As you have worked through this book you will probably have considered transla-
tion and your translated texts from the point of view of phonology as a matter of
course: we may decide one translation ‘sounds’ better than another, often as an
intuitive means of justifying a decision which we are unable to justify in another
way. In this chapter we will address the significance of phonology for translation,
the meaning that sound patterns can have in the source texts and our translations,
and how an awareness of that meaning can influence our translation decisions.

Phonology and text production

Perhaps the first thing we need to think about is the need to reflect on sound at all.
In the standard Handbuch Translation, Dieter Huber summarises:

Innerhalb der Translationswissenschaft nehmen phonologische Fragestellun-

gen naturgemäß eine vergleichsweise untergeordnete Stellung ein; übersetzt
beziehungsweise verdolmetscht werden letztlich nicht einzelne Laute oder
prosodische Merkmale, sondern Texte, Inhalte, Äußerungen.
(Huber 1999: 47)

One early translation theorist, J.C. Catford, goes so far as to exclude phonology
from the realm of ‘what is usually meant by translation’ (1965: 22). Catford’s
model distinguishes between objects which stand in a relationship of sameness,
which are grammar and lexis, and objects which stand in a relationship of nec-
essary difference created by the act of translating, which are graphology and
phonology. We replace ‘meaning’, we replace words and grammatical forms
with equivalents, but we do not aim to do this at the level of phonology, i.e. the
sounds of what we are translating. We can therefore talk about the translation
of words, ‘Luft’ is ‘air’, phrases ‘kalte Luft’ (‘cold air’) and clauses ‘Die Luft
ist kalt’ (‘the air is cold’), but in no helpful sense can we say that /e/ (the British
English pronunciation of the first vowel of ‘air’) is a ‘translation’ of /l/. When
we translate ‘Luft’ into English ‘air’, it is indeed obvious that we will lose the
sounds of the German word in translation, which is not problematic in most cir-
cumstances. Catford does foresee moments when a TL form might be replaced by
144 Formal properties of texts
a phonologically equivalent or near equivalent expression in the SL (e.g. ‘Gram-
matik’ > ‘grammar’), but this he sees as accidental, or a special case (in the trans-
lation of poetry). Phonological translation, in Catford’s model can exist as a kind
of restricted translation—such as a German actor speaking German with an Eng-
lish accent (i.e. English phonology).
Theoretically, it is not possible to divide speech and writing this neatly. Psy-
cholinguists investigating the processes of reading and writing suggest that when
we read, we ‘hear’ what we are reading (in our inner voice), something we also do
when we are writing, in short, that we deal with written information in a text at a
phonological level. This may be because our memories which we use to process,
plan and produce language are predisposed to phonological data because we learn
to speak or understand spoken language before we learn to read and write (Wolf,
Velluntino and Berko Gleason 1998: 429). In one sense then, this means that all
texts need to be considered at the level of phonology, because phonological form
may play a constituent role in all textual production and reception. What is more,
because the inner voice supports comprehension, the argument has been made that
the phonological representation of written material is more relevant for difficult
texts (such as scientific articles) than for easier ones (such as a light novel) (ibid.:
441f.). For translators, this is potentially significant, because it means that it is not
only poetry, drama or other obviously oral forms that need to be considered when
thinking about the role of sound in translation; readers attend to the phonological
representation of texts in which, normally, we might assume the sound patterns to
be unremarkable or neutral.
Essentially, the heart of the problem and cause of vagueness in the discussion
surrounding the significance of the phonological level is the complex and opaque
relationship between speech and writing. On the one hand, it is obvious that both
speech and writing are different types of discourse, regulated by different sets of
conventions, often fulfilling different roles, and governed to a large extent by what
the physical and other circumstances of their production allow. At the same time,
in literate societies, the importance of literacy in the education process means that
the two modes influence each other. Certainly, many of the structural patterns
which characterise formal writing such as anaphora, have their roots in oratory,
and there is broader evidence that intonation patterns influence syntactic decisions
in writing (Chafe 1992). As such, when we talk about ‘style’ we are often enough
talking primarily about creating textual patterns that appeal to our auditory sense
as readers—both to create an attractive piece of writing, to persuade, or merely to
make ourselves understood.
Whatever the theoretical explanations, most writers know that thinking about
the sound of what they are writing plays some role in the composition process—
and that goes from writing a PhD thesis in Biology to writing a poem—albeit at
very different stages of importance and meaning. For us as translators, we have
then two questions to ask: firstly, am I dealing with a text in which the sound pat-
terns are meaningful enough to warrant specific attention? Secondly, even if the
answer to question one is no, has the act of translating caused interference, caused
me either to punctuate a text in a way which is unclear (rules for commas are
 Phonological issues in translation 145
grammatically governed in German, usually prosodically in English), or wrought
a rather ridiculous series of redundant repetitions? These are questions of style.
Before going on to think about the relative importance of these questions, we’ll
proceed to analyse the different sound patterns our texts may create.

Types of sound patterns: phonemic and prosodic patterns

Let us approach the discussion of what kinds of structures are relevant at the pho-
nological level by considering a translation into German of a famous advertising
jingle:

Washing machines live longer with Calgon!

Waschmaschinen leben länger mit Calgon!

This jingle is, in English and in German, characterised by repetition of sounds

at the beginning of words (live longer/leben länger), i.e. alliteration; perhaps
more striking is its assonance, or the repetition of sounds within words (washing
machines/Waschmaschinen: /ʃ/). This translation is one example of where it is
easy to achieve almost identical patterning at the level of individual sound seg-
ments, or phonemes, though obviously there are still differences—the alliterated
‘w’ (/w/) in ‘washing’ and ‘with’ is lost, but a correspondence is established in
terms of assonance in the German between (‘Waschmaschinen’, /a/ /a/) which is
not the case in English (‘washing machine’, /ɒ/ /ə/). The brand name ‘Calgon’
itself is an interesting example of phonological translation in Catford’s sense, as
not only is the term pronounced with a long ‘o’ (/oː/) in the second syllable in Ger-
man, it of course loses its meaning (calcium gone). A similar example, only this
time lost in the move from German to English, is provided by the German range
of domestic cleaning products, ‘Vileda’, the brand name originally suggesting a
similarity of function between its synthetic cleaning cloth and (chamois) leather.
Anyone who has heard, or even just read the Calgon advertising jingles will
know, the tunes are different, both in the television advertisements and in terms
of the natural melody of the language. This is because even though the individ-
ual sound patterns correspond closely, sentences are different in terms of their
prosody, or suprasegmental structures. Both English and German have a tonic
accent, which means in individual words and across sentences some syllables are
stressed, and some have a weaker stress: thus one says David, Margaret, gin and
tonic, whiskey and soda, translate this into idiomatic German. There are other
models for representing stress and intonation in Linguistics (in tree diagrams for
example). In Literary Studies, these patterns are traditionally analysed in terms
of metre, and because these patterns are relevant to the analysis of poetry, this is
what we shall present here.
The difference between our two Calgon sentences is that the distribution of
stress is different. The English has a pattern which involves a stressed syllable
being followed by two unstressed, or weaker ones, then one stressed syllable and
one unstressed, or weaker one (Washing machines live longer with Calgon), which
146 Formal properties of texts
we can represent as follows, with ‘-’ indicating a stressed, and ‘v’ an unstressed
syllable:

—v v—v—v v—v

The German one scans differently; in it, a stressed syllable is followed each time
by just one unstressed syllable (Waschmaschinen leben länger mit Calgon), which
we can represent like this:

—v—v—v—v—v—

The best way to scan a piece of writing (such as a poem) for its underlying metri-
cal pattern is to read it unemotionally and blandly, this is because there is a dif-
ference between rhythm and metre which we will come onto shortly. The stress
patterns of a piece of writing can be divided into sections, or feet, and commonly
occurring feet and metrical patterns have specific names. The most common ones
are perhaps the iamb (v - = Es schlug mein Herz, geschwind, zu Pferde!), the
trochee (- v = Kleine Blumen, kleine Blätter, streuen mir mit leichter Hand), the
dactyl (- v v = Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis) and the anapaest (v v -
= Und es wallet, und siedet, und brauset und zischt). Dactyls and anapaests are
often interspersed with the shorter iambs and trochees without that affecting the
overall metrical pattern of the line. Thus, in our initial example, the difference
is that the English line is dactylic, while the German line is trochaic. In a sense,
the names are not important; what is important is being able to identify, trace and
account for the different prosodic patterns in the two sentences.
Metre is a formal, conventional and external way of tracing basic stress pat-
terns, and really is most important in the analysis of verse where poems meet
conventional forms (such as the sonnet). We have said basic stress patterns,
because it is important to distinguish between metre and rhythm. Metre is, in
a sense, the framework; rhythm is the natural property of language, and arises
both from the intonation patterns of sentences (and thus syntax), but also from
other considerations, such as the length of vowels, and indeed the meaning of
the words themselves. While we might normally expect, say, a line of iam-
bic pentameter to have a pacy, forward-moving rhythm, as in ‘Willkommen
und Abschied’ by Goethe (‘Es schlug mein Herz, geschwind zu Pferde!’) it can
have a slow rhythm, as in Eichendorff’s ‘Der Einsiedler’ (‘Komm Trost der
Welt, du stille Nacht’). Here the line is slowed by the long vowel in ‘Trost’ but
also because the initial imperative ‘Komm’ is syntactically important and thus
receives emphasis (compare the unstressed ‘dummy’ subject, ‘es’). In other
words, there is a tension between the overall metrical pattern, and the rhythm
of the line. Similarly, when we read for rhythm, we find that not all words are
accented equally in a sentence—here ‘Trost’ and ‘Nacht’ have a greater promi-
nence than ‘Welt’, for example.
In general, verse (with the exception of free verse) is written to match (or
engage with) established patterns which are measured and analysed metrically;
within this framework the rhythm of the text has an expressive function. Prose is
 Phonological issues in translation 147
not governed by a metrical pattern, but it still has a rhythmical quality, which can
be expressive—it can be fast, or slow, periodic and ceremonial, or broken and tur-
bulent. Consider the following aphorism by Nietzsche, and note how especially in
the final two sentences, Nietzsche modulates the pace of the text, slowing us down
at the end to make the contrastive ending all the more emphatic:

Der langsame Pfeil der Schönheit.—Die edelste Art der Schönheit ist die,
welche nicht auf einmal hinreißt, welche nicht stürmische und berauschende
Angriffe macht (eine solche erweckt leicht Ekel), sondern jene langsam ein-
sickernde, welche man fast unbemerkt mit sich fortträgt und die Einem im
Traum einmal wiederbegegnet, endlich aber, nachdem sie lange mit Beschei-
denheit an unserm Herzen gelegen, von uns ganz Besitz nimmt, unser Auge
mit Tränen, unser Herz mit Sehnsucht füllt.—Wonach sehnen wir uns beim
Anblick der Schönheit? Darnach, schön zu sein: wir wähnen, es müsse viel
Glück damit verbunden sein.—Aber das ist ein Irrtum.
(Nietzsche 1967: 316f.)

Nietzsche is of course a rather unusual case, but a sense of balance, a sense of an

ending is often created in similar ways in more general prose. Martin Swales ends
the introduction to a newly published translation of Goethe’s Iphigenia in a way
which is not dissimilar to Nietzsche’s measured periods:

Although one hesitates to claim immediate contemporary relevance for a lit-

erary text that is over two hundred years old, it is hard to resist venturing
that few works can have such purchase on our contemporary concerns as
Goethe’s Iphigenia. The Tantalid curse, the endless bloodletting of the play’s
prehistory, the desperate cycle of outrage followed by acts of retribution that
fuel the flames; above all, the play’s understanding of the notion of sacrifice
that conjoins the sacred and the violent into a poisonous brew—all these pre-
occupations speak with incomparable urgency to us today. The times have
caught up with, indeed perhaps they have never lost contact with, Goethe’s
Iphigenia.
(Swales 2014: 29)

Finally, it is useful to distinguish rhythm in the sense we have used it here (which
is stylistic) from intonation. In linguistic studies of prosody, the term intonation is
used more specifically to refer to variations in vowel pitch and voice modulation
that make up typical sentence patterns and which distinguish ‘you’re not coming
in?’ posed as a question, from ‘you’re not coming in’ intended as an instruction.
Intonation can have a cohesive function in a text, and as such the relationship
between intonation and syntax is an object of text-linguistic analysis (Halliday
and Hasan 1976: 271); furthermore, intonation is specifically important to us as
translators into English because English is a language in which ‘a heavy semantic
load is carried by rhythm and intonation’ (Halliday 1985: 271). Having made a
survey of some of the ways we can think about the sounds of a text, we can now
discuss the conditions in which they become significant for translation.
148 Formal properties of texts
Stylistic choices and genre issues
In order to decide (a) whether to translate individual sounds or patterns and (b)
how much attention we need to pay to the sound of our translation, we need to dif-
ferentiate the degree and type of significance that the phonological level has for a
text, and the relative freedom that a writer and translator has to attend to this level.
Consider the following sentence from a Biology article about angiogenesis.
Here, the initial alliterative pairs could be described as negligible and probably
accidental: ‘Die Bildung neuer Blutgefäße ist bei einer Vielzahl von Vorgängen,
wie zum Beispiel der Embryogenese, dem weiblichen Reproduktionszyklus, der
Wundheilung, dem Tumorwachstum und der Neovaskularisation ischämischer
Gewebe, von Bedeutung’ (Kalka et al. 2000). Certainly, the patterns here can-
not be said to have any intrinsic meaning: they neither symbolise anything, nor
are they part of a rhetorical strategy. A scientific or academic article arguably
works by presenting evidence that needs to be perceived as fact, not argument,
and as such scientific articles adopt a neutral tone, usually eschewing affective
rhetoric. In other, more obviously persuasive or affective texts or parts of texts,
such as speeches, the closing paragraphs of essays, newspaper articles etc., rhe-
torical strategies which create prosodic effects (climax through postponement,
groups of three, structural repetition etc.) are clearly important, and thus war-
rant the translator’s attention. That is not to mention genres such as advertising
slogans, jokes, or parts of texts which seek to attract attention, such as book
or film titles. There is a distinction to be made between rhetorical strategies
and expressive ones: if we end an essay, for example, with a short, memorable
phrase, we do that for reasons of argumentation; an advertisement, however,
may wish to evoke a mood, create an association. Finally, in literature, we
might distinguish between say, a realist novel, a ballad, and a symbolist poem:
in the latter, individual sounds may be symbolically significant and need pres-
ervation; a ballad is a relatively loose form of verse which allows irregularities
of rhythm and rhyme; in a realist novel it is likely to be the overall tone which
is important.
These generalisations can, as always, mask important nuances, however unu-
sual. The norm is for a writer to think, at least in some way, about the way a text
sounds, whether in a scientific article, or a set of instructions, or a text which
is to be read aloud such as a sermon. We have already suggested in a previous
chapter that one might avoid ‘begin to become’ for euphonic reasons. Similarly,
we may guard against unnecessary repetitions of the same word, we might avoid
writing ‘of’ too frequently in essays, or we may wish to check that the intonation
pattern of an utterance is going to be clear from the context or whether we need
to restructure a sentence to avoid ambiguity. These considerations can even enter
into the translation of terminology in certain circumstances. In the glossary to
their 1967 translation of Schiller’s Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen
in einer Reihe von Briefen, Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby con-
clude a lengthy note under ‘Trieb’ as follows: ‘Where Trieb is used in Schiller’s
own technical sense, we have usually translated by “drive”—though in the case of
“Trieb des Lebens” [. . .] euphony forbade it’ (Schiller 1982: 332).
 Phonological issues in translation 149
We close our discussion by looking at three examples. Broadcast in the 1970s
and 1980s, the American TV series Hart to Hart is about a successful husband and
wife, Mr and Mrs Hart, who fight crime together while maintaining a romantic
marriage. The title is alliterative to be catchy, but it works also through associa-
tion, recalling the phrase ‘heart to heart’, and as such characterising the whole
show, which concentrates on the love between the glamorous couple. The German
translation, Hart, aber herzlich, contains translation strictly at the phonological
level (the name Hart), but then has to deal with the consequences of the meaning
of ‘hart’ in German, which creates a sense of antagonism between the immutable
name ‘Hart’ and the quality of the two characters. The solution here, which is very
good, is to include ‘aber’ which validates the semantic import of ‘hart’ (presum-
ably their crime fighting) and to spell out some sense of what is implied by the
English title using the alliterative ‘herzlich’.
That these sorts of difficulties need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis is
exemplified by the following text, seemingly very similar to our previous exam-
ple. The politics section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung ran the
following headline and by-line in an article about the CDU politician Wolfgang
Schäuble:

HÄSSLICH
HERZLOS,
HERRISCH

Die Grünen schimpfen auf Schäuble. Ihr Held heißt Helmut Kohl. Ernsthaft? Na ja.

Certainly, the headline works both alliteratively and through the prosodic cor-
respondence of each of its terms (they all have the same number of syllables with
the same stress pattern). The layout, in which the final word ‘hässlich’ is much
larger than the others, underlines too the rhetorical importance of the tricolon
(group of three). An initial translation, say for the European page of a quality
English newspaper, might thus try to keep this alliteration, at the expense of the
precise meanings of the words (‘heartless, haughty, hideous’). As we read on in
the article, however, this solution becomes problematic, because in fact these are
terms taken from a statement made by a politician about Schäuble. While that
statement, too, certainly played on the alliteration of the three terms, translating
the statement of such a politician requires clarity about his precise meaning, and
the translator cannot afford to put words in his mouth. One solution here would be
to translate the quotation closely, and use those words in the headline, but enclos-
ing them in quotation marks. The translator would have much more freedom in
the by-line, and arguably preserving the alliterative effect here would give some
indication of the source text’s tone.
What should be becoming clear, then, is that in part what is at issue is the free-
dom of the translator (and writer) to attend to the sound of what they are writing.
In a scientific article, the writer has to use specific terms, whether that creates
alliterative patterns or not, whether that means conspicuous repetition or not. The
translator in the previous example is faced with similar constraints.
150 Formal properties of texts
The previous two examples were alliterative. Spotting the function of pros-
ody is often more difficult. In the following description of the ‘Baiersbron-
ner Himmelsweg’ from a tourist website about the Black Forest, the writer
seeks to evoke a mysterious atmosphere. This is especially present in the last
section marked, again by alliteration and assonance, but also by a series of
polysyllabic noun phrases with frequent anapaests that create a sense of gentle
movement:

Abseits von Autos und Straßenverkehr hinein mitten in den tiefsten Nord-
schwarzwald führt diese Wanderung zum sagenumwobenen Huzenbacher
See. Eine Wanderung, welche die ganze Schönheit der Region beinhaltet:
entlang plätschender Bäche, an mystisch anmutenden Baumriesen vorbei zu
einem eiszeitlichen Karsee mit abschließendem Ausblick auf Schwarzenberg
und Schönmünzach.
(Schwarzwald-Tourismus n.d.)

The lower part of the page is the factual description of the journey and is related
in more down-to-earth prose. The challenge for the translator in tackling the more
lyrical passage—say, for an English-language version of the website—would be
to retain the sense of a peaceful and relaxing place far from the jarring noise of
cars and traffic. One way of doing this would clearly be to replicate as far as pos-
sible both the segmental and suprasegmental features of the ST passage, even if
this means restructuring or rewriting the original text.

Concluding remarks
The main purposes of this chapter have been to draw your attention to the sig-
nificance of the phonological level in the composition and effects of texts, and
to give you some tools for the analysis of sound patterns, primarily derived
from and relevant to the analysis of verse. As we have seen, being attentive
to the function and relative importance of sound patterns in texts is, however,
relevant to a wide range of genres. The following practicals focus on verse
translation, because that is obviously one of the forms in which sound pat-
terns contribute to the meaning of the text most significantly. However, it is
worthwhile reflecting on some of the practicals you have done already and
thinking about texts or sections of texts where sound and your awareness of
the sound patterning in the text influenced or guided your translation deci-
sions: the practicals in the chapter on cultural issues, for example, contain
many such examples.

Further reading
Fox, Anthony 2005. The Structure of German. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press
[Chapter 2 ‘Phonology’, pp. 22–100.].
 Phonological issues in translation 151
Huber, Dieter 1996. ‘Prosodic transfer: Non-verbal language in intercultural communica-
tion’, in Drescher, H. W. and Hagemann, S. (eds) Scotland to Slovenia: European Iden-
tities and Transcultural Communication. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, pp. 259–77.
Kayser, Wolfgang 1975. Kleine deutsche Versschule. Berne: Francke.
Wagenknecht, Christian 2005. Deutsche Metrik: Eine historische Einführung. Munich:
Beck.

Practical 11

11.1  TRANSLATION AND DISCUSSION: VERSE

Assignment
Translate the first verse of Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Jabberwocky’ into German. What
changes do you make and what motivates those changes? Do all of the sounds
have the same effects in German?

ST
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
(Carroll 2012: 208)

11.2 ANALYSIS AND TRANSLATION: VERSE

Assignment
i Analyse the function of sound patterns in Theodor Storm’s ‘Abseits’ (1847),
paying attention to the mood evoked by the poem.
ii Translate the final stanza. Your translation must rhyme and be formally and
metrically comparable to the original.

ST
Abseits

Es ist so still; die Heide liegt

Im warmen Mittagssonnenstrahle,
Ein rosenroter Schimmer fliegt
5 Um ihre alten Gräbermale;
Die Kräuter blühn; der Heideduft
Steigt in die blaue Sommerluft.

Laufkäfer hasten durchs Gesträuch

In ihren goldnen Panzerröckchen.
152 Formal properties of texts

ST
10 Die Bienen hängen Zweig um Zweig
Sich an der Edelheide Glöckchen,
Die Vögel schwirren aus dem Kraut —
Die Luft ist voller Lerchenlaut.

Ein halbverfallen, niedrig Haus

15 Steht einsam hier und sonnbeschienen,
Der Kätner lehnt zur Tür hinaus,
Behaglich blinzelnd nach den Bienen;
Sein Junge auf dem Stein davor
Schnitzt Pfeifen sich aus Kälberrohr.

20 Kaum zittert durch die Mittagsruh

Ein Schlag der Dorfuhr, der entfernten;
Dem Alten fällt die Wimper zu,
Er träumt von seinen Honigernten.
—Kein Klang der aufgeregten Zeit
25 Drang noch in diese Einsamkeit.
(Storm 1978: I/110)

11.3  TRANSLATION: VERSE

Assignment
Translate Klopstock’s ‘Die frühen Gräber’ (1764). Which of the features of the
poem are most important for you to maintain in your translation?

ST
Die frühen Gräber

Willkommen, o silberner Mond,

Schöner, stiller Gefährt der Nacht!
Du entfliehst? Eile nicht, bleib, Gedankenfreund!
5 Sehet, er bleibt, das Gewölk wallte nur hin.

Des Maies Erwachen ist nur

Schöner noch, wie die Sommernacht,
Wenn ihm Tau, hell wie Licht, aus der Locke träuft,
Und zu dem Hügel herauf rötlich er kömmt.

10 Ihr Edleren, ach es bewächst

Eure Male* schon ernstes Moos!
O wie war glücklich ich, als ich noch mit euch
Sahe sich röten den Tag, schimmern die Nacht.

*Male—graves
(Klopstock 1962: 108)
 Phonological issues in translation 153
References

Primary
Carroll, Lewis 2012. ‘Jabberwocky’, in Beer, G. (ed.) Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense.
London: Penguin, pp. 208–9.
Kalka, C., Asahara, T., Krone, W. and Isner, J. M. 2000. ‘Angiogenese und Vaskulogenese.
Therapeutische Strategien zur Stimulation der postnatalen Neovaskularisation’, Herz,
25(6), pp. 611–22.
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb 1962. ‘Die frühen Gräber’, in Klopstock, F.G. Ausgewählte
Werke. Edited by Jünger, Friedrich G. Munich: Hanser, p. 108.
Nietzsche, Friedrich 1967. Werke. Edited by Frenzel, Ivo. 2 Vols. Munich: Hanser.
Schiller, Friedrich 1982. On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters, English
and German Facing. Translated and edited by Wilkinson, Elizabeth M. and Willoughby,
L.A. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Schwarzwald Toursimus n.d. Available at: www.schwarzwald-tourismus.info/10-Tipps-
fuer/romantische-Stunden/Baiersbronner-Himmelsweg-Romantik-Tour (Accessed: 30
July 2015).
Storm, Theodor 1978. ‘Abseits’, in Storm, T. Sämtliche Werke. Edited by Goldammer,
Peter. 4 Vols. Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau, I, p. 110.

Secondary
Catford, J.C. 1965. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford University Press.
Chafe, Wallace 1992. ‘Writing vs. speech’, in Bright, W. (ed.) Oxford International Ency-
clopedia of Linguistics. Vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 257–9.
Halliday, Michael A.K. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
Halliday, Michael A.K. and Hasan, Ruqaiya 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman
English Language Series.
Huber, Dieter 1999. ‘Phonologie’, in Snell-Hornby, M., Hönig, H., Kuβmaul, P. and
Schmitt, P.A. (eds) Handbuch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, pp. 47–8.
Swales, Martin 2014. ‘Introduction’, in Goethe, J.W. von Iphigenie in Tauris. Translated by
Pascal, R. London: Angel Classics, pp. 1–29.
Wolf, Maryanne, Velluntino, Frank and Berko Gleason, Jean 1998. ‘A psycholinguistic
account of reading’, in Berko Gleason, J. and Bernstein Ratner, N. (eds) Psycholinguis-
tics. 2nd edn. Fort Worth, TX: Harncourt Brace, pp. 409–51.
Section D

The translation process and

translation specialisms

Throughout this book, we have included practical examples and exercises in the
belief that engagement with actual translation problems is essential if new transla-
tors are to develop a systematic understanding of how to set about any translation
task. In the current section, the perspective shifts to particular fields of translation,
but starts with preparation for translation and finishes with final checks.
The opening chapter presents some of the preparatory research which the trans-
lator needs to carry out in terms of subject matter, background and language,
detailing a range of available resources—online and paper—using worked exam-
ples (Chapter 12). At the end of the translation process comes the stage where
final checks are carried out (Chapter 16). Here we distinguish between ‘revision’,
‘review’ and ‘proofing’, terms that are often confused. The three middle chapters
deal specifically with particular subject areas of translation. The selected areas are
exemplars, covering what we hope are a wide range of problems with accompa-
nying analysis and possible solutions. These central chapters focus on translating
consumer-oriented texts (Chapter 13), scientific-technical texts (Chapter 14) and
literary texts (Chapter 15). Depending on students’ own experience and interests,
these chapters may open up new opportunities for development. However, what
we aim to show here is that despite differences in subject matter, all translation
requires analysis, imagination and perseverance.
12 Research and resources
for translation

In this chapter we survey another technique in translation that, at first glance,

may not seem like ‘translation’ at all—research. Most translation projects require
research of some kind, as we have already seen in the discussion of genres (Chap-
ter 4) or cultural issues (Chapter 5), for example. The purpose of the following
discussion is twofold. Firstly, we explore the importance of research in relevant sub-
ject areas and the availability and optimal use of resources. Secondly, we map out
the ground for the following chapters which present, very broadly, the challenges
and particularities of different topic areas of translation, namely the translation of
consumer-oriented texts, scientific/technical texts and literary texts. Two case stud-
ies are presented, illustrating some techniques for using online and print resources to
solve terminological problems in both scientific and literary translation.

The importance of research

Many students are surprised when they undertake their first translation assign-
ments how much of their time is taken up by vocabulary research. There are many
estimates of how much time is devoted to research—much but not all of which
is concerned with terminology, including in some literary translation—but two
empirically based sets of figures are worth noting. A recent survey conducted with
over 500 professional translators in many different countries revealed that the
time spent on research in familiar subject fields was estimated to be over 20% of
the time spent on a job; for unfamiliar subject fields, the figure was understand-
ably higher, at just over 40% (Gough 2011). A later observational study of profes-
sional translators (Gough 2017) based on a much smaller sample concluded that
30% of time is spent on research in familiar subject fields, and 36% in unfamiliar
subject fields. For trainees or novitiates, these figures are, of course, likely to
be higher. The best advice to student translators therefore is to understand that
research is a necessary part of the job: conducting effective and targeted research
is a part of translator competence.

Resources for translation

The next question is, of course, what is ‘effective’ research? Apart from ‘diction-
aries’ (to which we return below), useful sources of subject-related information
158 The translation process and specialisms
include text books (first-year university level books often give useful subject
overviews, including a chapter-by-chapter mind map), abstracting and indexing
journals, periodicals, yearbooks, encyclopaedias, standards and trade literature,
subject-specific literature, previous translations, and occasionally theses and dis-
sertations. Many of these—particularly in English—are now available online,
but good browsing skills are essential. More recently, other resources have been
added to the translator’s portfolio of research materials, such as corpora (under-
stood here as digital collections of texts) and tools such as concordancers (for
analysing digital texts), more of which below.
For specific projects, it is important to find and to familiarise yourself with SL
and TL material of a similar TC genre dealing with similar subject matter, or by
the same author, and, depending on the purpose of the translation, written con-
temporaneously. Such sources serve both as a key source of information and as a
stylistic model. For instance, a professional translator tackling the technical text in
Practical 14.1 (‘Tunnelauskleidung’) would regard it as essential to refer in detail
to at least one of the following resources: (a) a TL description of an actual tunnel
or project under construction (Internet or paper), i.e. a ‘parallel text’; (b) a special-
ist publication of the Institution of Civil Engineers or the British Tunnelling Soci-
ety and/or (c) a subject expert. The Internet, including both email and www, is an
essential tool for fast access to up-to-date information. Major firms and organisa-
tions often maintain their own glossaries or termbases, containing centrally agreed
translations of relevant expressions. Two examples can be mentioned here.
The European Union’s multilingual terminology database—IATE (InterActive
Terminology for Europe since 2004)—incorporates all previous EU terminology
resources, including the most well known, the Commission’s Eurodicautom, and
has been publicly available since 2007. One of the advantages of online resources
is that they can be regularly updated, a feature which is especially important in
subject fields which undergo rapid developments, and as decisions are made about
company or organisation preferences for equivalent terms sometimes even as a
translation project proceeds.
Our second example of a major terminology database is the United Nations
Multilingual Terminology Database, now ‘UNTERM’ (United Nations Terminol-
ogy Database). As with IATE, UNTERM brings together several local terminol-
ogy collections of the UN. Although German is not an official UN language, some
German entries are available. The subjects covered include Science and Technol-
ogy, as well as Disarmament, Human Rights, Shipping and Transportation.
The inventory of online resources which are now available—often without
cost—to translators is growing rapidly. But the increase in quantity is accompa-
nied by other, qualitative changes as the distinction between ‘tools’ and ‘resources’
becomes blurred. For example, some so-called ‘Translation Memory’ tools now
incorporate terminology databases, and some dictionary-type tools incorporate
search engines linked to large bilingual corpora of texts.
‘Translation Memory’ (TM) is a type of ‘computer-assisted’ or ‘computer-aided
translation’ (CAT) software tool which facilitates the consistent use of terms and
repetitive phrases by storing translations for re-use. It is typically used for genres
such as manuals which need to be regularly updated. TM is a database—there
 Research and resources for translation 159
are a number on the market—which can store previously translated STs and their
translations, usually segmented into sentence-size chunks. The ‘memory’ can be
created as the translator works their way through a new translation, or an existing
ST-TT pair of texts can be loaded into the database and ‘aligned’ so that ST and
TT segments correspond. The translator—or a team of translators working on
different parts of the same document—can access a termbase directly through the
memory tool in order to improve consistency of terminology, and accept or edit
segments proposed by the system as it matches an updated version of a ST to a
previously translated ST-TT pair stored in the memory. Various help mechanisms
are also available to help convert dates, currency, decimal markers and so on (see
also Chapter 14). To describe the current state of the art in Translation Memory
would go beyond the scope of this book, and any comments would rapidly date.
Suffice it to say that employment as a professional translator in technical fields
and genres more often than not requires training in TM systems, and most Mas-
ter’s programmes now offer such training, including evaluative as well as opera-
tional skills. For more on Translation Memory, see Byrne 2012: 133–4; Olohan
2016: 42–5.
In addition to the resource of ‘heritage’ translation data for technical trans-
lation, online resources are often freely available. A recent stock-take of online
resources for translators (Gough 2017) includes:

• dictionaries and glossaries

• terminology databases (term banks or termbases)
• corpora
• thesauri (dictionaries of related meanings)
• concordancers
• knowledge-based resources (encyclopaedia; wiki media, allowing users to
collaborate in creating a resource)
• discussion forums
• search engines (allowing the www to be used as a giant ‘corpus’)
• web pages as parallel texts and subject-related documents
• Translation Memories and Machine Translation

As with paper resources, of course, caution is recommended when choosing par-

ticular solutions from the rather bewildering array of possibilities generated from
the www (not ‘by’ the www: it is the user who marshals the resources and shapes
the search). This means checking and double-checking e.g. between bilingual and
monolingual terminology resources, between terminology resources and texts,
and between dictionaries/glossaries and encyclopaedia or wikis.

Subject knowledge: avoiding conceptual translation errors

A factor which is inherent in the very project of acquiring expertise in many areas
of specialised knowledge concerns underlying conceptual problems. Getting to
grips with a new subject field, or updating current expertise, means understand-
ing not only what the words ‘say’, but how the subject works. ‘Non-literary’
160 The translation process and specialisms
translators in particular have even been described as ‘personal knowledge man-
agers’ (Kastberg 2009: 97–8); and as we point out below, literary translators can
be even more challenged as many literary works engage—often unpredictably—
with external worlds ranging from bird watching to the law.
Any knowledge gaps may concern the facts known and taken for granted—and
so never spelt out—by specialists in a given discipline. Or they may be to do with
the discipline’s logic, its way of working, in particular the relationships between
concepts; this too tends to be simply taken for granted, a part of the culture, only
coming to the surface if a dispute arises.
To take the ‘facts’ gap first: we have already seen in Chapter 7 how the ‘testing
of steel for homogeneity’—explicit in the German ST—could become simply
‘testing of steel’ in the English TT, because the industry practice in the UK is to
take the purpose for granted when referring to this process.
To illustrate the importance for the translator of understanding how the con-
cepts of a discipline relate to one another, we can use the abstract of an article
published in a German-language medical journal. As is the normal convention
for learned journals, the abstract appears at the head of the article, alongside
its English translation that we print below. Spellings are as found. We omit
the headings:

ST
Das Ginkgo-biloba-Extrakt wird aus grünen Blättern des Ginkgobiloba-Baumes
gewonnen. Präparate mit diesem Wirkstoff werden u. a. zur Behandlung von
Hirnleistungsstörungen und arteriosklerotischen Erkrankungen genutzt. In In-vitro-
und In-vivo-Studien wurden Radical Scavenger- und PAF (platelet activating factor)-
5 antagonistische Wirkungen beschrieben. In dieser Arbeit konnte eine
konzentrationsabhängige Superoxiddismutasenaktivität des Ginkgo-biloba-Extraktes
rökan-flüssig nachgewiesen werden.
Code: Gingko biloba—Superoxiddismutasenaktivität—freie Sauerstoffradikale

TT
The Ginkgo biloba extract is obtained from green leaves of the Ginkgo biloba tree.
Preparations with this active substance are among others used for the treatment of
disturbances of the cerebral function and arteriosclerotic diseases. In in-vitro- and in-
vivo studies antagonistic effects of radical scavenger and PAF (platelet activating
5 factor) were described. In this study a concentration-depending superoxide dismutase
activity of the Gingko biloba extract rökan® liquid could be made evident. Code:
Ginkgo biloba—superoxide dismutase activity—free oxygen radical
(Diwok, Kuklinski and Ernst 1992: 308)

Apart from errors in handling u.a. (‘among others’, incorrectly indicating that
the Ginkgo biloba extract is one of several preparations that can be used to treat
the condition rather than that the said preparations can be used for other purposes)
and ‘konnte . . . nachgewiesen werden’ (‘could be made evident’ instead of ‘was
 Research and resources for translation 161
demonstrated’), the TT goes seriously wrong on the crucial issue of the research
results (in the sentence beginning ‘In In-vitro . . . ’, ST lines 3–5). The problem
has arisen in the compounding of terms. While the hyphenation—always a key
indicator in German texts—in the ST makes clear (at least to a subject expert)
the relationship of the phrase ‘Radical Scavenger-’ to the head noun ‘Wirkun-
gen’, confusion may arise for the unwary reader in so far as the adjectival phrase
referencing one of the two named types of effect, i.e. ‘PAF (platelet activating
factor)-antagonistische’, itself contains a hyphen. It is easy to see how a translator
without any subject knowledge could imagine ‘antagonistische’ to mean ‘directed
against radical scavengers and PAF’, even though this adjective is in fact attached
to ‘PAF’ and its parenthetical explanatory English equivalent, but this reading
lacks subject-field coherence. The TT sentence (lines 3–5) should read: ‘A num-
ber of in-vitro and in-vivo studies have described free radical scavenger and PAF-
antagonist effects’.
It should be clear then that the attempt to translate unfamiliar specialised mate-
rial even into the mother tongue, and even with the current array of terminological
reference help, can take the translator onto thin ice. Yet linguists from a non-
scientific background do, of course, develop into fully proficient sci-tech transla-
tors. Acknowledging the importance of subject knowledge, as well as knowledge
concerning core resources, some Master’s programmes offering specialised trans-
lation provide introductory courses into the basic concepts of, say, Science and
Technology, or Economics and Finance. Reading around the subject matter in
both languages is very important, as is the nurturing of links with subject experts
wherever possible. Interpersonal skills are clearly essential here. Literary transla-
tors may dip in and out of specialised subject areas according to need but still need
to undertake research.

The translator’s profile

Initiatives such as the European Commission’s European Master’s in Translation
(EMT) Network bear witness to the increasing co-operation between European
universities on language matters and an awareness of what constitutes high-quality
translator training. Programmes gaining entry to the Network need to demonstrate
a proven track record in delivering a number of ‘competences’ for their graduates.
These competences—‘the combination of aptitudes, knowledge, behaviour and
knowhow necessary to carry out a given task under given conditions’ (Gambier
2009: 1)—comprise Language and Culture; Translation (strategic, methodologi-
cal and thematic competence); Technology (tools and applications); Personal and
Interpersonal; Service Provision (EMT Board 2017). Of immediate relevance to
this chapter are the following three skills; the first two belong to the set of Transla-
tion competence skills, the third to Technology (sometimes known as ‘informa-
tion mining’). Students should know how to:

• Evaluate the relevance and reliability of information sources with regard to

translation needs
162 The translation process and specialisms
• Acquire, develop and use thematic and domain-specific knowledge relevant
to translation needs (mastering systems of concepts, methods of reasoning,
presentation standards, terminology and phraseology, specialised sources
etc.)
• Make effective use of search engines, corpus-based tools, text analysis tools
and CAT tools

Clearly, for students new to the task of translation as a text-creation activity rather
than as a language-learning device, these skills are aspirational. Nevertheless,
they provide a useful initial orientation point and a sense of direction.

Beyond the dictionary?

A particular problem which faces translators of specialised texts—and translators
of any texts which include specialist terms—concerns the identification of terms
which need to be researched. Words and expressions which are unfamiliar e.g.
‘labellum’ (Botany), can be assumed, at least in the first instance, to be terms. But
there are many terms whose ordinary uses are familiar to the translator but which
are used in some other subject-specific specialised way in the ST e.g. ‘work’ (Phys-
ics), ‘negligence’ (English Law). These forms have been described as doing ‘dou-
ble duty’ (Sager 1990: 19). For example, the apparently ordinary word ‘platform’
has a variety of meanings—i.e. it is polysemous (see Chapter 3)—with which most
of us would be familiar; both literal and figurative meanings are derived from the
original sixteenth-century French borrowing: ‘A surface or area on which some-
thing may stand, esp. a raised level surface’ (OED). Modern meanings include: the
place where you stand to catch a train or to give a speech, and figuratively, a set of
beliefs indicating allegiance to a particular political group. But, through another
extension of its meaning, ‘platform’ is also used in specialised subject fields such
as Information Technology (‘hardware platform’, ‘software platform’), the oil
industry (‘drilling platform’), as well as in Construction, the Military and Geology
(see, for instance, www.dictionary.com for definitions). While the basic meaning
is shared and extended in this way in English, we cannot assume that German will
mirror this distribution of form and meanings, as we saw in Chapter 3. In German
therefore we have a range of forms, with the influence of English particularly
evident in (c) to (e): (a) ‘Bahnsteig’ or ‘Gleis’; (b) ‘Podium’; (c) ‘Plattform’; (d)
‘Hardwareplattform’; ‘Softwareplattform’; (e) ‘Bohrplattform’.
A bilingual dictionary or online terminology database is usually a good start-
ing point in such cases, but this preliminary research will need to be followed up
using more specialised TL resources in order to check that the equivalent/s given
for the relevant domain is/are in current use i.e. they are not ‘dictionary words’,
and to check how they are used in context. You therefore need to think beyond the
use of dictionaries, or even online termbases.
The use of the electronic medium to create and store texts (often referred to
as a combination of ‘format’ and ‘content’ in the IT world) has changed the way
 Research and resources for translation 163
translators—and many others—work over the last 40 years. Digital text is widely
available on the www, meaning that we can search for information both widely and
quickly. While some languages are more fully represented than others, resources in
lesser used languages are becoming more common. As a translator, you will need to
develop your ‘info mining competence’—as outlined previously—in order to iden-
tify relevant textual resources which will tell you ‘something about the terminology
and phraseology of that genre’ as well as the ‘patterns of language usage, frequen-
cies of use and information about likely co-occurrence of words, terms and phrases’
(Olohan 2016: 28). As you would expect, now that what is called ‘corpus-based’
analysis has moved from the research lab to the commercial market, tools are read-
ily available to execute the task, including, for example, Sketch Engine, Wordsmith
and AntConc. (see Lexical and related resources for all URLs). AntConc is freeware,
Sketch Engine and Wordsmith are licensed, although free trials are often available.
These tools allow you to create a corpus, which is simply a collection of texts which
you have identified and selected as appropriate to your purpose, e.g. in a certain sub-
ject field and genre for a given language. The corpus—which has the advantage of
size over individual texts—can then be processed in a number of ways. The principal
outputs are:

• word lists (sorted alphabetically or by frequency)

• Key Word in Context (KWIC); i.e. concordance, a technique which goes
back to medieval analyses of the Bible to list all words in alphabetical order
in their immediate context

Table 12.1 shows an example of what a concordance might look like, based on
texts in the British National Corpus (BNC), an existing but early online resource
consisting of 100 million words of ‘written and spoken language from a wide range
of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of British English, both
spoken and written, from the late twentieth century’(BNC, n.d.). The corpus—
now a little dated (1980s–1993)—contains ‘extracts from regional and national
newspapers, specialist periodicals and journals for all ages and interests, aca-
demic books and popular fiction, published and unpublished letters and memo-
randa, school and university essays, among many other kinds of text’ (ibid.).

Table 12.1 A concordance of ‘platform’ based on a ‘simple search’ using the BNC con-
cordance function (‘BNC Source’ shows the text identifier)
Context to the left Keyword Context to the right BNC
Source

1 the fire on the Piper Alpha oil platform the spillage from the Exxon Valdez ABH
2 on a range of hardware platforms while others, such as Microsoft, CBX
3 Kinnock takes time away from the platform limelight by MALCOLM PITHERS A3G
4 as well as on an Intel/MS-DOS platform depending on intensity of use CTD
5 basinwards of the marginal platform in deeper marine, slope and base of B2J
164 The translation process and specialisms
This small sample provides contextual examples of the search or ‘key’ word
in Economics/Finance, Accounting, Politics, Computing and Geology. The
BNC website provides a link from each text source directly to the full text. In
Table 12.1 the concordance is randomly ordered, but most concordancers allow
the user to sort alphabetically to the left or to the right, so that recurring patterns
can be identified e.g. multiple occurrences of ‘hardware platform’ or ‘platform
limelight’ respectively. Other more up-to-date ready-made accessible corpora
of English include the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA:
560 million words, 1990–2017, last update) and the enTenTen (20 billion
words of US and UK English available through Sketch Engine). Mark Davies
of Brigham Young University has an excellent webpage presenting up-to-date
information on corpus-based resources, some running into billions of words.
Turning to German documentary resources, a wide array of texts has been
assembled and made digitally available by the Institut für Deutsche Sprache
(IDS)—‘die zentrale außeruniversitäre Einrichtung zur Erforschung und Doku-
mentation der deutschen Sprache in ihrem gegenwärtigen Gebrauch und in ihrer
neueren Geschichte’—in a large collection entitled COSMAS II (IdS n.d.). In
total, the collection contains over 44.5 billion words organised in 366 different
corpora including historical, literary, LSP (Fachsprache), newspaper and other
texts. Concordance results can be presented as KWIC and/or as full text versions.
Sketch Engine also includes a large German corpus (deTenTen). Another use-
ful and easy-to-use website is the DWDS (Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen
Sprache). Here you can find a number of monolingual dictionaries of different
types, easy access to a range of corpora (contemporary and historical) as well as
statistical information on word frequency and collocative patterns.
A detailed, very useful account of how to create and process your own corpus
for terminological research, covering both the ST and the TT, can be found in
Olohan 2016: 27–41. A number of readily available online corpora are also listed
there, to add to the BNC, COSMAS II and those in DWDS, all of which could be
equally useful for specialised and literary translation.
We go on here to illustrate in two case studies the use of selected online and paper
resources. We leave you to explore the exciting opportunities offered by others.

CASE STUDY 1: Literary translation as

detective work

Because literary texts, but particularly novels and plays, represent a

world, they often include a great deal of what we might term factual
information, although the extent to which it corresponds to reality, or is
 Research and resources for translation 165

accurate, varies. Uwe Tellkamp’s Der Turm (2008), a novel set in East
Germany, is a good example of a literary text in which the inclusion of
factual material functions to create the realistic experience of a whole
world, and exists in the novel alongside a huge range of culturally spe-
cific terms and discourses to recreate lived experience: difficulties for
translators here include everything from Saxon dialect to the terminol-
ogy of paper production. But, of course, the range of worlds repre-
sented in novels is vast and constantly evolving. The Europäisches
Übersetzer-Kollegium, a specialist library for literary and specialised
translators, describes the problem of providing resources for literary
translators succinctly:

Literarische Übersetzer bilden eine spezifische Benutzergruppe

in Bibliotheken. Anders als die meisten Benutzer interessieren sie
sich nicht für ein klar definiertes Fachgebiet oder einen bestimm­
ten Themenkreis. Ihre Recherchen decken fast den gesamten
Wissenskosmos ab: je nach der im Roman abgebildeten—oder
konstituierten—Wirklichkeit müssen sie sich in verschiedenste
Fachsprachen einarbeiten. [. . .] (www.euk-straelen.de/deutsch/das-
kollegium/die-bibliothek/, 30 July 2018)

As a result, students translating literary texts also need to be adept

researchers, and almost more importantly, able to evaluate how much
research is necessary to solve a particular problem within the scope of
their translation project. Like all literary scholars—and all translators—
they need to be able to chase up clues. Thinking in this vein, we may
take as a simple example some of the research that could be involved in
translating a historical crime novel such as Volker Kutscher’s Der nasse
Fisch (2016), set in 1920s Berlin. One difficulty the translator has to deal
with here are terms specific to the police at the time, notably the names
for officers and officials (‘Wachtmeister ’, ‘Kriminalassistent ’, ‘Kriminal-
sekretär ’, ‘Oberkommisar ’, ‘Regierungsdirektor ’).
The first decision to be made is whether to translate these terms or
not, and here looking at other translations and TL texts provides guid-
ance. Michael Hofman’s translation of Hans Fallada’s Jeder stirbt für
sich allein does translate them (‘Kommisar ’ > ‘Inspector’, ‘Kriminalas-
sistent ’ > ‘Deputy Inspector’), though it retains short forms of address
such as ‘Herr ’ and ‘Frau’ in German and German names for titles in
166 The translation process and specialisms

institutions clearly part of the Nazi state lacking English equivalents,

such as the ‘SS Obergruppenführer ’ (Fallada 2009: 172). Interest-
ingly, Philip Kerr’s English-language novels set in Berlin in the Nazi
period, however, use borrowings such as ‘Kripo’ and ‘Kriminalinspek-
tor ’ (Kerr 2012). In Kutscher’s text, the novel creates, even for its Ger-
man readers a world which is unfamiliar, and we note that some terms
are glossed, especially where knowledge about the rank of the person
and their experience is relevant to the reader’s understanding of the
plot: ‘ein einfacher Kriminalassistent, seit wenigen Wochen erst das
Abschlusszeugnis der Polizeischule in der Tasche, hatte diese Num-
mer wie selbstverständlich in seinem Notizbuch stehen’ (Kutscher 2016:
387). This suggests we could proceed in a similar way in our translation,
and for present purposes we will suggest that these job titles will be bor-
rowed. But finding out more precisely what these officers’ roles were is
still important because it informs their personal relationships and their
characterisation.
Let us take one of these terms which seems innocuous, ‘Kriminalsekretär ’,
as our example. Our initial reaction might be to try an Internet search:

Table 12.2 Online resource Google U.K. search engine: results for search
term ‘Kriminalsekretär ’

Resource Outcome Evaluation

Google using Discussion forum on Proz.com: How dependable? No overview

search term suggests ‘detective sergeant’ to place term in context
Google using Wikipedia entry on the Needs to be double checked,
search term ‘Ordnungspolizei ’, giving useful not least because it describes
indication of different ranks’ police roles after 1933,
relations to each other whereas novel set in 1929
Google using Google Books: Foundations of More dependable but
search term the Nazi Police State: The comparison is to U.S. Army
Formation of Sipo and SD ranks (pp. 250–1); much of
(Browder 1990) incl. appendix the book unavailable online—
of police titles definitions of roles hard to find

At this point we become aware that more systematic library research

may be required, and indeed may shed light on other aspects of the text.
We begin our search this time with a search in a Brockhaus encyclopae-
dia and other dictionaries with some encyclopaedic entries, including a
reference work published at around the time the novel was set:
 Research and resources for translation 167

Table 12.3 Brockhaus and related results for search term ‘Kriminalsekretär’

Resource Outcome Evaluation

Brockhaus No individual entry, but entry Could be enough to solve

Encyklopädie for ‘Kriminalpolizei ’ includes immediate problem, but
1970 reference to ‘Kriminalbeamter ’ worth further exploration
with a very useful hierarchy of
terms depending on training:
‘Kriminal(ober)assistenten,
Kriminal(ober)-sekretäre,
Kriminal(ober)inspektoren; in dem
leitenden kriminalpolizistischen
Vollzugsdienst: Kriminalkomissare,
Kriminalräte, (Ober-)Regierungs-und
Kriminalräte und Regierungs-und
Kriminaldirektoren’
Brockhaus Entry for ‘Kriminalpolizei ’: hierarchy Historical information
online 2014 of posts omitted; no entry for removed from later
‘Kriminalbeamter ’ edition
Wahrig 1984 No relevant entries Ordinary general-purpose
Duden Großes No relevant entries dictionaries not
Wörterbuch specialised enough
1994
Brockhaus Entry for ‘Kriminalbeamter ’: describes Where possible,
Encyklopädie duties incl. two career paths, contemporaneous
1928–1935 confirms plain clothes. Establishes sources optimal
that terms vary regionally

Knowing now that a ‘Kriminalsekretär ’ is a second-rank position allows

us a rough comparison with U.K. police ranks, which seems to confirm
that ‘(detective) sergeant’ would be an equivalent if we decided to trans-
late these titles. Establishing the fact that these are plain clothes police-
men is important as this is an issue which emerges in the first chapter
of the novel, but perhaps more so also are the details on the two career
paths, ‘Kriminalsekretär ’ belonging to the lower one, implying a difference
in background between the ‘Kriminalsekretär ’ and the main character, the
‘Kommisar ’. To make this research more useful in the longer term, we
may also use the 1928–1935 Brockhaus to research contemporaneous
reference books on policing: the entry ‘Kriminalpolizei ’ lists several vol-
umes that would be useful background for anyone translating this series
of crime novels. More academic sources can be sourced in the standard
Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Cordes et al. 2004.).
168 The translation process and specialisms

It is worth noting that the first Brockhaus search was by far the most
efficient: one of the most important skills as a researcher is being
able to choose where you are going to research a term, and get a feel
quickly for whether a certain resource is going to help you quickly or
not. Encyclopaedias and authoritative reference works are often inval-
uable aids for translators and literary scholars as they give overviews
of terms and topics, are written by specialists, and, perhaps most
importantly, often provide short but useful bibliographies that allow us
to continue our research if necessary. Obviously, the amount of time a
translator (or a scholar) can spend on this kind of research depends
on the task in hand, the time available (not to mention remuneration),
the amount of research that has already been done in the field and
that is readily available, and the requirements of the particular transla-
tion problem.

CASE STUDY 2: Online resources

and medical science

The expression which will serve as the basis of our next case study is
the medical term Hirnleistungsstörung from the Ginkgo biloba text. The
purpose is to show you some of the possibilities of online research, not
to prescribe definitive procedures. In any particular case, the number,
sequence and combination of searches will vary, according to the nature
of the translation problem and—not to be underestimated—the predis-
position of the user, i.e. you, as, for instance, an ‘economical’ researcher
or an ‘explorer’ (Gough 2017).
The online resources which are illustrated below are the dictionary
websites Lexicool, Leo, Linguee and Reverso Context, all of which have
additional functionality of various kinds. The search engine Google is
also used, in its ordinary monolingual mode, but also as a bilingual
resource, 2Lingual.
Lexicool provides access to hundreds of bilingual dictionaries across a
range of language pairs and directions, as a kind of ‘metadictionary’. For
the direction German>English, there is a choice of six dictionaries. The
results for our chosen ST term from two well-known German<>English
dictionaries are shown in Table 12.4:
 Research and resources for translation 169

Table 12.4 Online resource Lexicool: results for query term ‘Hirnleistungsstörung’

Resource Gloss of function/s Outcome

Lexicool Online dictionaries in multiple Collins:

www.lexicool.com/ language pairs and direction. No results. Search term
Offers the user a range of too specialised.
possible dictionaries once Offers related words e.g.
the language pair/direction is ‘Leistungsstörungen’
selected (includes access to (‘defective
Leo and Linguee) performance’)
PONS:
As for Collins

This shows us that bilingual general-purpose dictionaries—Collins

and PONS have been among the favourite bookshelf items of German-
language students for many decades—are unsurprisingly not able to
cover the wealth of specialised vocabulary necessary for many areas of
translation. We therefore need to look for more specialised resources.
Leo is a popular dictionary resource with the added functionality of a
discussion forum, where translators describe their problem (usually ter-
minological but also concerned with word combinations such as which
verb goes with which noun) and invite responses. From Leo, the follow-
ing rather straightforward picture emerges:

Table 12.5 Online resource Leo: results for search on the query term
‘Hirnleistungsstörung’

Resource Gloss of function/s Outcome

Leo Online dictionaries in multiple language

www.leo.org/ pairs; bidirectional in each pair.
Offers: ‘brain deficiency’ [med.]
- dictionary equivalents; ‘brain disorder’ [med.]
- discussion forum: users can post
questions about translation problems No questions posted
related to a particular word, phrasing or
term

As both English equivalents given by Leo are labelled as specialised

medical terms and therefore potentially usable, one simple way of pro-
ceeding is to use a search engine to check which seems to be more
170 The translation process and specialisms

frequent: ‘brain disorder’ turns out to be nearly 80 times as frequent

as ‘brain deficiency’, but, whilst indicative, this is a crude measure for
a number of reasons. Useful information to check further at this point
would be definitions (to confirm the meaning: are the terms really synon-
ymous?) and examples of how the terms are used in texts (and in which
text genres). As most bilingual dictionaries include neither definitions nor
contextual examples, we must look elsewhere.
Ideally, to confirm equivalence of meaning, we need to compare
authoritative definitions of the German ST term and of the suggested
English dictionary equivalent/s. In the present case, this proved fruitless:
although both the German and the English terms were found in many
medical or medical-related texts, no useful definitions were found, as
Table 12.6 records:

Table 12.6 Online resource Google: results of search for German and English
definitions of English dictionary equivalents and of German ST term

Resource Search technique Outcome

Google Search terms:

www.google.co.uk/ ‘medical dictionary’ Wikipedia provides links to free
online medical dictionaries and
encyclopaedia but no definitions
were found.
‘brain disorder’ Many occurrences of ‘brain disorder’
definition in hits, including many types of
‘brain deficiency’ brain disorder, but no definition
definition except a circular one: ‘any disorder
or disease of the brain’
Google Deutschland Search terms:
www.google.de/ ‘medizinisches Some free online medical dictionaries
Wörterbuch’ identified but no definition found.
Hirnleistungsstörung Many occurrences of
Definition ‘Hirnleistungsstörung ’ in hits,
including many types, but no
definition except a circular
one: ‘Störungen der geistigen
Leistungsfähigkeit ’

If no definitions can be found, contextual examples can sometimes be

helpful with respect to meaning, as well as usage. The next resource,
Linguee, provided no dictionary equivalents for the ST search term,
but did identify a number of German and English texts in which the
 Research and resources for translation 171

ST term and potential TT equivalents appear. One example is shown in

Table 12.7:

Table 12.7 Online resource Linguee: results of search for the query term
‘Hirnleistungsstörung’ showing contextual examples of ST search
term and English equivalents

Resource Gloss of function/s Outcome

Linguee Online dictionaries

www.linguee.com/ in multiple
language pairs;
bidirectional in
each pair.
Offers:
- dictionary - No result for the compound.
equivalents;
- examples of - Bilingual parallel contextual examples:
word/term in
[. . .] eine gezielte, [. . .] points for a
context from
ursächliche Be- targeted, causative
bilingual corpus
handlung der treatment of this
of parallel texts;
schweren Hirnleis- severe brain disorder
- gives link to
tungsstörung, an which affects millions
fuller version of
der weltweit Millionen of people worldwide,
the contextual
von Menschen as reported [. . .]
examples
erkrankt [. . .] Full clickable version:
Full clickable [not shown here]
version:
[not shown here]

Nine further bilingual contextual examples

[not shown] are given, yielding the English
terms (sometimes plural):
‘degenerative disorder of the brain’
‘cerebral disturbances’
‘cognitive brain dysfunctions’
‘brain disorders’
‘brain disorder’
‘brain fog’
[term omitted in English]
‘cerebral disorders’
‘cerebral disorder’

The dictionary equivalent ‘brain disorder’ has more than one con-
firmation in the translations identified by Linguee of German texts in
which ‘Hirnleistungsstörung’ occurs, whereas ‘brain deficiency’ does not,
172 The translation process and specialisms

providing support for its relative rarity, as in the earlier Google frequency
search. We could at this point decide to opt for ‘brain disorder’, but in
order to expand the range of resources illustrated in this case study, let’s
continue with our exploration, turning first to another resource—Reverso
context (Table 12.8)—which, as Linguee, produces ‘parallel’ contextual
examples, i.e. an extract from a German text and its English version.
Immediately we see that the number of possible translation equivalents
for our ST term has increased.

Table 12.8 Online resource Reverso context: results for search on the query
term ‘Hirnleistungsstörungen’

Resource Gloss of function/s Outcome

Reverso Customisable for

context many language
http:// pairs/directions.
context Offers:
.reverso. - word/term in [ . . .] Verwendung von Use of substituted
net/ context in two substituierten Aminen amines for the
columns from a zur Behandlung von treatment of cerebral
range of textual Hirnleistungsstörungen insufficiencies.
sources, incl.
‘official’ documents;
- gives link to Full clickable version: Full clickable version:
fuller version of [not shown here] [not shown here]
the contextual
examples from
parallel texts
Seven further bilingual contextual examples
[not shown] are given, yielding the English terms
(sometimes plural):
‘cerebral insufficiency disorders’
‘cerebral insufficiency disorder’
‘cerebral disorders’
‘mental disorders’
‘mental disorder’
‘disturbances of brain function’
‘brain deficiencies’

It is worth noting that although both Linguee and Reverso contexts

produce texts which are related by translation, we don’t necessarily
know whether the German or the English text is the original ST. Pairs of
translated texts are clearly very useful in identifying possible equivalents
 Research and resources for translation 173

but confirmation from an original authoritative source can strengthen the

case for a particular choice.
The bilingual search engine 2Lingual operates in the same way as the
monolingual Google, but produces hits in two specified languages based
on a query term or expression in one of these languages. The English
texts produced as hits alongside the German hits for the German search
term are not translations of the German: we can assume that in the
majority of cases they are texts originally written in English. This search
produces one more term: ‘brain failure’, as in Table 12.9:

Table 12.9 Online resource 2Lingual: results of search on the query term

‘Hirnleistungsstörung’

Resource Gloss of function/s Outcome

2Lingual Bilingual Google search Search on ‘Hirnleistungsstörung’

www.2lingual. engine. produces many websites for the
com/ Presents—in two columns— German term and a range of terms
the results of a Google in English, including ‘brain failure’
search in each specified
language

The 2Lingual search alerts us to a particular danger when using

Google: it operates on character strings and ‘knows’ nothing about the
content of what it is retrieving. It turns out that only some of the hits for
‘brain failure’ are medically related; the others are referencing a Chinese
punk band called ‘Brain Failure’.
So, to take stock, the consolidated list of English terms resulting from
our various searches (excluding repetitions) is as follows:

‘brain deficiency’/‘brain deficiencies’

‘brain disorder’/‘brain disorders’
‘brain failure’
‘brain fog’
‘cerebral disorder’/‘cerebral disorders’
‘cerebral disturbances’
‘cerebral insufficiencies’
‘cerebral insufficiency disorder’/‘cerebral insufficiency disorders’
‘cognitive brain dysfunctions’
‘degenerative disorder of the brain’
‘disturbances of brain function’
‘mental disorder’/‘mental disorders’
174 The translation process and specialisms

In addition to ‘brain disorder’, our original lead term so far, and the less
likely ‘brain deficiency’, there are two other possible English terms with
‘brain’ as the modifier (‘brain failure’ and ‘brain fog’). We have also identi-
fied four terms with the modifier ‘cerebral’ and one with ‘mental’. Finally,
we have ‘cognitive brain dysfunction’, ‘degenerative disorder of the brain’
and ‘disturbance of brain function’. The preferred head clearly seems
to be ‘disorder’, followed by ‘deficiency’/‘insufficiency’. All together then,
there are 12 terms (if we conflate singulars and plurals), demonstrating
that the range of terms used in texts can be much wider than the solu-
tions offered in dictionaries, especially where compounds and multiword
terms are concerned. This has both advantages and disadvantages for
the translator. On the one hand, the translator enjoys the possibility of
nuancing the choice of terms according to register e.g. ‘cerebral insuf-
ficiency disorder’ versus the intuitively informal ‘brain fog’. On the other
hand, this kind of research is time-consuming and ultimately, potentially
confusing. Choosing between an array of apparent synonyms is a com-
mon problem for translators. In the case here, we can probably rule out
‘mental disorder’ as this seems to be a broader term incorporating psy-
chological as well as neurological disorders. Let us also rule out the
three terms which occur only once in the Linguee search and bear lit-
tle formal resemblance to the other candidate terms (‘cognitive brain
dysfunctions’, ‘degenerative disorder of the brain’, ‘disturbances of brain
function’) as well as ‘brain deficiency’, which seems rare.
If we focus on ‘brain disorder’ and ‘cerebral disorder’, a further Google
search in English (looking at the first 20 hits) indicates that the former
(alongside ‘mental disorder’) tends to appear more in news items and
texts for the general public on health, whereas the latter appears in
more specialised texts such as journal articles. As our ST is part of
a learned article for specialists, compounds with ‘cerebral’ look more
promising. That leaves us with four candidates: ‘cerebral disorder’, ‘cer-
ebral disturbance’, ‘cerebral insufficiency’ and ‘cerebral insufficiency
disorder’.
At this point, having narrowed down our selection on the basis of
genre, it is time to consider the subject matter of the ST, to see if any
of our four candidate terms occurs in English-language texts which are
concerned with the medicinal herb Ginkgo biloba. A Google search on
each of the four terms together with ‘Gingko biloba’ produces the follow-
ing results in Table 12.10:
 Research and resources for translation 175

Table 12.10 Online resource Google U.K. search engine: results for four can-
didate English terms with ‘cerebral’ as modifier for the ST term
‘Hirnleistungsstörung’

Resource Search Technique Outcome

Google Search terms: Relevant hits/hits per

www.google. (One page of hits for each search term page
co.uk/ analysed to identify learned papers
with a focus on Ginkgo biloba as a
medicinal herb)
“cerebral disorder” “Ginkgo biloba” 3/16 hits
“cerebral disturbance” “Ginkgo biloba” 0/11 hits
“cerebral insufficiency” “Ginkgo biloba” 8/13 hits
“cerebral insufficiency disorder” “Ginkgo 0/13 hits
biloba” (most overlapped with
‘cerebral insufficiency’)

Based on the frequency of relevant hits, the term ‘cerebral insuffi-

ciency’ is the best fit in this context. Two of these hits—both learned
articles—actually use the term in their title: ‘Ginkgo biloba for cerebral
insufficiency’ and ‘Efficacy of Ginkgo biloba in 90 outpatients with cer-
ebral insufficiency caused by old age’ published in the British Journal of
Clinical Pharmacology and in Phytomedicine respectively (Kleijnen and
Knipschild 1992; Vesper and Hänsgen 1994).
That is not to say that the term in the published translation of the
1992 abstract—‘disturbances of the cerebral function’—is incorrect. The
many possibilities revealed by our exploration using online resources
has simply demonstrated that even in Medical Science, ways have to be
developed to deal with rich displays of synonymy, a phenomenon which
is not exclusive to literary translation but for which a different basis has to
be established for decision-making. If in the end you decide to test your
choice with a subject expert, you need to be well prepared with specific
questions and a limited range of choices: they are busy people.

Concluding remarks
We hope to have shown in this chapter how important good research tech-
niques are in order to solve certain translation problems, whether they occur
in literary or specialised texts. You may start out with a lexical problem in
mind, but it should soon become apparent that what lies behind the words—as
well as how they are used in context—is equally important in interpreting
176 The translation process and specialisms
and evaluating the information gleaned from both online and paper resources.
Dictionaries—even specialised ones—are rarely adequate in this respect. In
setting out our two illustrative stories of long searches for possible equivalents
of German terms, there is no intention to imply that such intensive searches
are always necessary or even desirable. However, it is hoped that the details
of the case studies will stimulate your interest in developing research tech-
niques using some of the resources described here. The following chapters—
on translating consumer-oriented and sci-tech texts—illustrate some further
techniques.

Further reading
Chan, Sin-wai 2004. A Dictionary of Translation Technology. Hong Kong: The Chinese
University Press.

Practical 12

12.1 COMPARING RESOURCES

Assignment
The aims of this exercise are: to familiarise you with some of the resources dis-
cussed in the chapter; to help you judge their value; and to understand the different
types of information you can glean to best solve particular problems in the future.

i Choose a compound German term e.g. from one of the texts set in a previous
practical or from a relevant website such as BASF: any subject field will do.
ii Follow the procedures—at least some of them—outlined in the chapter to
see which of the searches, or which combination of searches, leads you to a
satisfactory result.

12.2 RESEARCHING TERMINOLOGY FOR TRANSLATION

Assignment
As demonstrated in this chapter, one of the decisions facing translators is having to
choose between an array of apparent synonyms when trying to find an equivalent for
a term in the SL in a particular subject field. Dictionaries, termbases and so on often
do not go beyond a broad subject label, providing little information on contextual use,
with all that implies for readership and degree of specialisation. The terms listed below
all belong to the field of Automotive Engineering dealing with catalytic converter tech-
nology. Using as many resources as you can, try to respond to the following points:

i Gather as much further information as possible in order to narrow down (a

precise alignment is probably not possible) the genres in which the following
terms are found.
 Research and resources for translation 177
ii Find as many examples as you can of how each term is used in context (these
‘contextual examples’ can consist of a phrase, a clause or a sentence showing
a typical use such as which verbs the term combines with, which adjectives
modify it, etc.).
iii Establish:
a whether any definitions you can find agree on the main characteristics
(as they should for denotative synonyms) and what to do if they don’t;
b whether any of the terms are used in other subject fields and if so, whether
the sense differs;
c which terms are the most frequent e.g. across a range of genres, and
therefore have a potentially wide distribution;
d whether any of the terms seem to be company-specific;
e whether any of the terms are specific to a particular variety of English
(e.g. UK English or US English);
f whether any of the terms are no longer in use (‘deprecated’).
iv And discuss:
a how best to store the information and make it retrievable for future use
(advantages/disadvantages of Word table? Excel spreadsheet? Terminol-
ogy Management System*?).

catalytic converter
automotive catalyst
automotive catalytic converter
exhaust catalyst
exhaust catalytic converter
catalytic exhaust converter
catalysor
catalyst
exhaust gas catalytic converter
cat

*Note: Terminology Management Systems—customised databases—are com-

mercially available but some companies offer demo versions. If you google
‘Terminology Management Systems’, you can learn more about what is an
essential tool for professional sci-tech translators (and Language Service Pro-
viders, as well as service and manufacturing companies) for creating their own
termbases. You could try creating a couple of entries for the data which you
have gathered.

References

Primary
Browder, George C. 1990 Foundations of the Nazi Police State: The Formation of Sipo and
SD. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.
178 The translation process and specialisms
Diwok, M., Kuklinski, B. and Ernst, B. 1992. ‘Superoxiddismutasenaktivität von
Ginkgo-biloba-Extrakt’, Zeitschrift gesamte Inn. Medizin, 47, pp. 310–3.
European Commission’s European Master’s (EMT) in Translation Network n.d. Avail-
able at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/resources-partners/european-masters-translation-emt/
european-masters-translation-emt-explained_en (Accessed: 22 March 2018).
Fallada, Hans 2009. Alone in Berlin. Translated by Hofmann, Michael. London:
Penguin.
Kerr, Philip 2012. Berlin Noir. London: Penguin.
Kleijnen, J. and Knipschild, P. 1992. ‘Ginkgo biloba for cerebral insufficiency’, British
Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 34(4), pp. 352–8.
Kutscher, Volker 2016. Der nasse Fisch. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Tellkamp, Uwe 2008/2010. Der Turm: Geschichte aus einem versunkenen Land. Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp.
Vesper, J. and Hänsgen, K-D. 1994. ‘Efficacy of Ginkgo biloba in 90 outpatients with
cerebral insufficiency caused by old age: Results of a placebo-controlled double-blind
trial’, Phytomedicine, 1(1), pp. 9–16.

Secondary
Byrne, Jody 2012. Scientific and Technical Translation Explained: A Nuts and Bolts Guide
for Beginners. London and New York: Routledge.
Cordes, Albrecht et al. (eds) 2004. Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte. Ber-
lin: Schmidt.
EMT Board 2017. EMT Competence Framework 2017 [Online]. Available at: https://
ec.europa.eu/info/resources-partners/european-masters-translation-emt/european-
masters-translation-emt-explained_en#documents (Accessed: 13 February 2018).
Gambier, Yves 2009. Competences for Professional Translators, Experts in Multilingual
and Multimedia Communication. Brussels: DGT, European Commission.
Gough, Joanna 2011. ‘An empirical study of professional translators’ attitudes, use and
awareness of web 2.0 technologies, and implications for the adoption of emerging tech-
nologies and trends’, Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series—Themes in Translation
Studies (LANS—TTS), 10, pp. 195–217 [Online]. Available at: https://lans-tts.uantwerpen
.be/index.php/LANS-TTS/issue/view/14 (Accessed: 13 February 2018).
Gough, Joanna 2017. The Patterns of Interaction Between Professional Translators and
Online Resources. PhD Thesis. University of Surrey, UK [Online]. Available at: www.
surrey.ac.uk/library/ (Accessed: 13 February 2018).
Kastberg, Peter 2009. ‘Personal knowledge management in the training of non-literary
translators’, JoSTrans, Issue 11/January 2009, pp. 88–102 [Online]. Available at: www.
jostrans.org/issue11/art_kastberg.pdf (Accessed: 13 February 2018).
Olohan, Maeve 2016. Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York:
Routledge.
Sager, Juan 1990. A Practical Course in Terminology Processing. Amsterdam and Phila-
delphia: John Benjamins.

Lexical and related resources

2Lingual n.d. Available at: www.2lingual.com/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018).
AntConc n.d. Available at: www.laurenceanthony.net/software.html (Accessed: 1 March 2018)
[Tools for concordancing and text analysis.].
 Research and resources for translation 179
British National Corpus n.d. Available at: www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018)
[Provides access to 100m words of written and spoken English and to other corpora of
English such as the extensive Brigham Young BYU/BNC corpus.].
Brockhaus Encyklopädie 1970. Wiesbaden: Brockhaus.
Brockhaus-Enzyklopädie-Online 2013. Munich: Brockhaus.
Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) n.d. Available at: http://corpus.byu.
edu/coca/ [‘[T]he largest freely available corpus of English’.].
Der Große Brockhaus 1928–1934. Leipzig: Brockhaus.
Dictionary.com n.d. Available at: www.dictionary.com (Accessed: 1 March 2018) [Includes
definitions and synonyms in English.].
Duden: Das groβe Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache 1994. Mannheim: Bibliographisches
Institut.
DWDS (Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache) n.d. Available at: www.dwds.de/
(Accessed: 1 March 2018) [Very useful options to consult monolingual dictionaries,
corpora and information on patterns of word behaviour.].
Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium (EÜK) n.d. Available at: http://euk-straelen.de/
deutsch/das-kollegium/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018).
Google n.d. Available at: www.google.co.uk (Accessed: 22 March 2018).
Google Deutschland n.d. Available at: www.google.de (Accessed: 22 March 2018).
IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe) n.d. Available at: http://iate.europa.eu/
(Accessed: 2 March 2018) [European Union term bank.].
Institut für deutsche Sprache (IdS) n.d. COSMAS II. Available at: www.ids-mannheim.de/
cosmas2/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Corpus of German texts; full online access to the
collection can be obtained by registering at https://cosmas2.ids-mannheim.de/cosmas2-
web/. Using the Anmeldung button, you will be asked to enter your details as well as
a username [Kennung] and a password [Kennwort]. For background on Projekt Kor-
pusrecherchesystem see http://www1.ids-mannheim.de/direktion/kl/projekte/recherche
system.html.].
Leo n.d. Available at: www.leo.org/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides a range of equiva-
lents in bilingual lists with some information on subject field and the possibility of an
interactive discussion list for queries.].
Lexicool n.d. Available at: www.lexicool.com/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Claims to offer
‘a directory of “all” the online bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries
freely available on the Internet’.].
Linguee n.d. Available at: www.linguee.com/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides parallel
contextualised examples from existing translations.].
Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Available at: http://public.oed.com/about/free-oed/
(Accessed: 2 March 2018) [‘offers many tasters and routes into the dictionary’s
600,000 words and 3 million quotations’: accessible through local or university
libraries.].
ProZ n.d. Available at: http//www.proz.com/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Claims to pro-
vide ‘tools and opportunities that translators, translation companies, and others in the
language industry’ can use to network and to improve their work. For terminology
resources see www.proz.com/about/overview/terminology/.].
Reverso n.d. Available at: www.reverso.net (Accessed: 2 March 2018) [Provides parallel
contextualised examples of equivalents.].
Sketch Engine n.d. Available at: www.sketchengine.co.uk/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018)
[Includes ready-made text corpora in German and English at www.sketchengine.co.uk/
documentation/tenten-corpora/ and text-analysis tools.].
180 The translation process and specialisms
UNTERM n.d. Available at: https://unterm.un.org/UNTERM/portal/welcome (Accessed:
2 March 2018) [United Nations Terminology Database: includes some entries for
German.].
Wahrig, Gerhard et al. 1984. Deutsches Wörterbuch. Munich: Mosaik.
Wordsmith n.d. Available at: www.lexically.net/wordsmith/version6/index.html (Accessed:
2 March 2018) [Includes text-analysis tools for several languages.].
13 Translating consumer-
oriented texts

Most texts, including translations, are produced for a specific purpose. The pur-
pose, as we have seen, is a major factor in deciding how to approach the trans-
lation. Translating consumer-oriented texts makes the importance of purpose
especially clear, as the intended readership plays a dominant role in the transla-
tion decisions taken. This, together with the fact that many translators earn their
living with these sorts of text, is why we are giving them a chapter to themselves.

Scope of the chapter

‘Consumer-oriented texts’ in our understanding for this chapter include acts
of communication that try to persuade the public to buy something, whether a
product or a service, but also extend to other texts of a non-commercial nature
which are in the public domain and aim to influence or guide behaviour. They
can be functionally categorised as what we have called—after Reiβ (Chapter 2)—
operative or persuasive texts. As these texts are reader-focused, the translator has
to keep criteria such as readability in mind, even in texts that have some techni-
cal content: compare, for example, the concise and straightforward subject-verb
‘if’-clause ‘If your battery goes flat’ with the wordier and more nominal ‘In the
unlikely event of your battery going flat’.
This chapter, like others, emphasises that part of the translator’s preparation
must be to study examples of appropriate TL texts so as to become familiar with
the requirements of the genre in the target culture. It is just as important, however,
to be aware that there is considerable scope in many consumer-oriented genres
for stylistic variation reminiscent of literary writers. Compare, for instance, the
rather didactic style of Delia Smith’s cookery books with Jamie Oliver’s matey
tone (see Chapter 4). The language of contracts and other legal texts—also aiming
to regulate human behaviour—is by contrast highly conventionalised and will not
be discussed here.
We have pointed out earlier in this book that text classifications serve the
purpose of allowing certain generalisations, which can in turn help to set priori-
ties for the translator in making translation decisions in a relatively systematic
way. But all classifications are a kind of abstraction: in practice, we are faced
not only with hybridity but also with a range of possibilities within any category.
In what we have called ‘consumer-oriented texts’, given the dominant textual
182 The translation process and specialisms
function of influencing or guiding behaviour, and hence the usually dominant
influence of the target reader/recipient, there is considerable scope for variation
in content, form and tone depending on age, education, social group and so on.
If the readership is very broad, e.g. as in party-political election leaflets, the task
is challenging.
It would be impossible to deal with the whole range of genres which have an
operative function and so we are focusing here on a selection. In the first half of
the chapter we deal predominantly with advertising and promotional texts of vari-
ous kinds. In the second half of the chapter, we present two case studies which
extend the notion of ‘consumer’ to the readers of a set of instructions on accept-
able behaviour in swimming pools and of a promotional tourist brochure for a
well-known Schloss.

Translating advertisements
Translating adverts is often as much a question of creating or ‘rewriting’ copy as
of ‘translation’ in the conventional sense, a niche part of the translation market
now often referred to as ‘transcreation’, a kind of admixture of translation and
copywriting. One way for international companies and organisations to deal with
the cultural specificities of their local target markets is for marketeers to start with
a relatively neutral brief, a process known as ‘glocalisation’ as the basis for ‘inter-
nationalisation’, often through translation (see Adab 2000: 224). But translators
are also asked to translate ‘unglocalised’ advertisements, and intra-trade publicity
is commonly translated. Many multinationals, keen to ensure a distinctive brand
image worldwide, commission all their translations from one translation company
with which they work closely through their marketing department in ensuring
presentational brand norms of all kinds. But translators beware: marketing pro-
fessionals, especially those who consider themselves to be proficient in the TL
(as is often the case for English in German-speaking areas) do not always easily
defer to the expertise of translators, sometimes taking a fairly literal view of the
translation task. For our needs in this course, translating advertising material is
certainly a good way of focusing attention on the dimension of purpose in textual
genre. If you did not do Practical 6.1, we recommend that you at least look at this
for this chapter.
Translating advertising material also obliges the translator to consider care-
fully the central question of cultural differences between SL public and TL public:
probably no other genre makes it so brutally clear how intercultural differences
can make a too-close translation unwelcome, even where it is possible. For exam-
ple, a French bath product for men was labelled ‘bain moussant relaxant’ in
French, but adjusted to ‘foaming muscle soak’ in English, suggesting a functional
post-exercise necessity rather than an indulgent sensual experience. While the
manufacturer of the bath foam demonstrated a rather refined cultural awareness,
this is not the case for an English-language print advert in an in-flight magazine
for investing in Bavaria. The text praises the ‘Bavarian way of life’, whether it
is ‘in the state’s architecture, culture or economy’. For Bavarians, ‘der Staat’ is
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 183
for historical reasons likely to be the federal state of Bavaria, not the country,
Germany. But an English-speaking readership is unlikely to know this, leading to
possible confusion, not to mention the alienating effect of the awkward use of the
possessive ‘the state’s architecture. . . ’.
A particular feature of advertisements—whether in print, on the www or on
the street—is their multimodality: the integration of verbal and non-verbal text
means that in any translation or transcreation, the functioning of the text as
a whole needs to be considered alongside the cultural specificities of the tar-
get locale. Colours are powerful indicators of certain emotions, but may vary
between languages and cultures. Yellow is, for instance, associated with envy
(cf. ‘gelb vor Neid’) and cowardice in German but only with cowardice in Eng-
lish (cf. ‘green with envy’). The actual use of a particular colour in a text can
therefore symbolise different emotions in different cultures. Animals too can
symbolise very different characteristics: in the western world, owls are wise,
but elsewhere, they can be associated with death. A web-based project, say
in a metropolitan UK locale, to promote adult education evening classes in a
multicultural community might therefore give out entirely the wrong message
if ‘branded’ with an owl, which might be linked thematically and linguisti-
cally with verbal content such as ‘night owl’. Caution also needs to be exer-
cised when assuming that certain social values, such as cleanliness (see Torresi
2004), are universal.
Different cultures value different things, have different taboos and stereotype
consumers differently. These sorts of differences are just as important in consumer
handbooks as in advertisements. As noted earlier, texts are rarely of a ‘pure’ type.
Many handbooks, for example, whose primary function is to give users instruc-
tions for use also have an important publicity function as well, flattering purchas-
ers and trying to cement their loyalty to the brand (‘Congratulations! Now that
you are the proud owner of . . . ’, etc.). Linguistic and cultural mistakes, mistakes,
that is, in terms of target audience norms, threaten that loyalty.

Style and appeal

Apart from such cultural factors as religion, race, diet, attitudes to sex, and so on,
it is also vital to choose the right style. For instance, while the language of con-
sumerism is relatively relaxed today in the West, the degree of formality observed
between customers and traders varies from country to country. While serious
comparisons are difficult without large-scale sampling, translators should not
assume that the relaxed style now predominant in American and British consumer
texts is universal. It is always worth checking the intended tone with the client:
a fairly faithful translation into English might come across as over-careful or too
ornate, while a similar approach in translation out of English might alienate TL
customers by an appearance of flippancy. Humour does not, for instance, always
travel well. But it is worth remembering that differences within market sectors in a
particular locale, such as that between different age groups, might be greater than
those which operate interculturally. In today’s digitally connected world, young
184 The translation process and specialisms
people in the UK and in Germany might have more in common with each other
in terms of social attitudes and experience than they do with the post-war baby-
boomer generation in their own country.
The appropriate language for selling upmarket shoes or downmarket sofas
is conditioned by a combination of social and broad cultural expectations spe-
cific to the product range on offer and its target market. As with sci-tech texts
(see next chapter), therefore, the translator needs to have made close compari-
sons of the language used by at least a representative sample of SL and TL
product literature. If significant changes to wording and/or to images are, in the
translator’s judgement, necessary for cultural—and ultimately commercial—
reasons, then the client needs to be advised accordingly. As we point out in Chap-
ter 14, it is rare for the cost of image replacement to be covered, but the translator
still has a responsibility to point out possible consequences, as failure to make
adjustments could have a strong counter-productive effect of which the client is
not aware (see Tercedor et al. 2009 for some relevant examples of verbal text-
image relations in French and Spanish in a translation context).
Beyond the issues of potentially inappropriate style, the appeal of a
consumer-focused text can be seriously endangered by translation errors, such
as those which can be unwittingly made by non-native speakers of the TL. An
example is provided by the front page of a leaflet promoting the Deutsches
Pferdemuseum in Verden, featuring laughing young people on an antique rock-
ing horse, under the words, in enormous print: ‘Hold yourself tight . . . ’. While
translation errors—especially those which evoke double entendres—can dam-
age the serious communicative purpose of any text, they are especially dam-
aging for reader-focused texts where the text’s authors are reaching out to the
target readers. In cases where the wording of the text is creative as opposed to
fairly routine, the translation is best left to a trained translator for whom the
TL is the language of habitual use. And yet this is no guarantee of a successful
translation. It is often clear in advertising copy and product or services litera-
ture that the translator has been constrained—whether through inexperience or
haste or by the client’s insistence on ‘accuracy’—to import foreign linguistic
structures or cultural assumptions from the source material. If such foreign fea-
tures are not to be seriously counter-productive, there are only two ways of pro-
ceeding. Either they must be avoided altogether, so that the copy reads as truly
‘domesticated’; or else they must be consciously and skilfully designed—by
translators and copywriters conversant with the target culture—to appeal to that
culture’s perceptions of desirable/interesting foreignness (perhaps with a lacing
of humour and irony, depending on market segment and locale). The following
section begins with some examples of advertising slogans which aim to appeal
to their potential market—not always successfully—through the use of German
in English texts and English in German texts: the ultimate ‘foreignisation’.

To translate or not to translate?

It may seem counterintuitive in a coursebook on translation to advise you not
to translate on occasion. But there are cases such as certain advertising slogans
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 185
where this is required. For example, in the automotive industry, Audi’s ‘Vorsprung
durch Technik’ marketing campaign in Britain, attempting to appeal to the posi-
tive perception of German technology as of high quality, as also the ‘Das Auto’
campaign of the Volkswagen brand, are well known. More than just a slogan,
these phrases are integral to the overall branding of the company: a recently pub-
lished Volkswagen Group public-facing document—Drive—also switches lan-
guages to include particular expressions. The document has the form of a report
(A4 40-page booklet available in both German and English and printed on high-
quality paper) but clearly has a promotional purpose, as evidenced, for instance,
by its use of superlatives: ‘Volkswagen hat sich das Ziel gesetzt, bis 2018 der
innovativste und nachhaltigste Volumenhersteller der Automobilwelt zu werden’.
The German version includes a reference to an environmental initiative named in
English: ‘die Initiative “Think Blue” ’: the English is intended to distinguish VW
from its competition, becoming a Unique Selling Point according to Volkswagen
(personal communication), although other companies such as Daimler use ‘Blue’
in a similar way. The English slogan is also used in the French and Spanish ver-
sions of the website, as well as in many others. So not everything needs to be
translated: ‘The car’ and ‘blau denken’ would be serious errors here.
While we must leave it to the marketeers to decide whether these particular mar-
keting slogans are successful, other cases have been reported which are clearly
not successful, as the ability of the broader German public to understand English
has been misjudged, resulting in some consumers feeling excluded from the mar-
ket. One example reported in the Spiegel Online (2008)—which could have been
flagged up by a competent translator—concerns the Vodaphone slogan ‘Make the
Most of Now’: hard to fathom for many Germans who might associate the English
‘most’ with the German ‘Most’ (a kind of grape juice). Another more damaging
example is German television station Sat1’s catchphrase ‘Powered by Emotion’.
Spiegel Online reports that this ‘was taken by many to be a modern version of
“Kraft durch Freude,” the Nazi party’s leisure organisation, often translated into
English as “strength through joy” ’ (2008: online). Again, a competent translator
might have been able to anticipate this unfortunate allusion. In such cases, then, the
translator can act as expert consultant on the implications of using foreign slogans.
Checkpoint Charlie is a well-known tourist spot in Berlin. Flyers are available
in both English and German promoting an on-site exhibition. The front page of
the two-sided text (about one third of an A4 sheet) is shown in monochrome for-
mat in Figure 13.1 (German) and Figure 13.2 (English) (source: Berliner Forum
für Geschichte und Gegenwart e.V. n.d.).
As can be seen, the main heading ‘COLD WAR’ is displayed in large font in
both language versions under an image of a soldier leaning on a tank and look-
ing into the distance through binoculars. ‘COLD’ is printed in white, ‘WAR’ in a
larger font underneath in red (not reproduced here). But two lines below the head-
ing, the German changes to ‘Kalter Krieg’, where the English sticks, of course, to
‘Cold War’. Three possible reasons might account for the use of English as a main
heading in a German-language text. Firstly, the English has fewer characters, so
the font for the main heading would have to be reduced in size if in German (‘Cold
war’ has eight characters including the space, ‘Kalter Krieg’, 12) in order to fit
186 The translation process and specialisms

Figure 13.1 Front of two-sided flyer advertising the Ausstellung BlackBox Kalter Krieg at
Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin-Mitte (German version). The full colour figure is
available at www.routledge.com/9781138920989.

the space available, producing a less striking effect. Secondly, the producers of
the flyer may have wanted to have a ‘look-alike’ feel to the flyers, regardless of
language. And thirdly, English is a global lingua franca.
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 187

Figure 13.2 Front of two-sided flyer advertising the Exhibition BlackBox Cold War at
Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin-Mitte (English version). The full colour figure is
available at www.routledge.com/9781138920989.

In the case of the Checkpoint-Charlie flyer, we can safely assume that a con-
sidered decision was made not to translate the header. There are cases, however,
in which text must not be translated, but rather modified. Brochures of various
188 The translation process and specialisms
types often contain information relating to versions available in other languages,
e.g. ‘auch im Engli­schen erhältlich’. Clearly, it would be nonsense to include
this in the English version: what is needed instead is ‘also available in German’.
A similar example is evident in a bilingual tourist leaflet advertising an exhibition
concerning the Berlin wall. The German and the English information concerning
admission charges and special events are presented side by side. The German lists
a German-language guided tour on Saturdays. In the English-language column,
‘Samstag’ becomes ‘Thursday’. But this is not an error, as the English-language
tour takes place on Thursdays, not Saturdays. Although these examples are not
‘translations’ in the traditional sense, handling them in an appropriate way clearly
belongs to translation competence.
Byrne (2012: 138–42) details some other interesting cases of when not to trans-
late, for example, when an official translation already exists (and must be used) or
when certain proper nouns are used.

CASE STUDY 1: Public information notice

Controversy concerning the alleged behaviour of some young male

migrants in public places in certain European countries hit the headlines
early in 2016. One German city authority responded to local complaints
by producing a multimodal public information leaflet on ‘Baderegeln’
in German, English (‘Pool Rules’) and French (‘Règles de comporte-
ment en piscine’) (A4, double-sided, folded in three, see SWM 2015).
More versions are available in Arabic and other languages. The leaflet is
arranged as a series of 13 coloured cartoon-type pictures, each with a
caption in all the chosen languages supporting the message about what
is considered acceptable behaviour in swimming pools. Two have been
selected for discussion as they highlight certain issues about a suitable
register for this type of public information leaflet, as well as sensitive
intercultural issues concerning not only the content but also the leaflet
itself. A third example has been chosen as it illustrates what is perhaps
a more subtle point about perspective. The following discussion is based
on the assumption that the various injunctions are aimed at children and
young adults.
The first caption—shown below in Figure 13.3 with its English transla-
tion as printed beneath the image—concerns what to wear at the pool.
The image [not shown here] shows two young boys, one in bathing
trunks, one in underwear. The male pool attendant (we assume) is say-
ing ‘YES’ (in English!) to the former, and ‘NO’ to the latter. The expres-
sions on the boys’ faces (smile, puzzlement) resonate with approval and
prohibition.
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 189

Keine Alltagskleidung im Schwimmbad.

Badehose, Badeanzug oder Bikini aus
schwimmtauglichen Materialien sind Pflicht!

No street clothes are allowed in the pool area.

Proper swim attire is mandatory.

Figure 13.3 German caption with English translation for image showing
appropriate and inappropriate clothing to wear in the pool.

The elliptical ‘Keine Alltagskleidung im Schwimmbad ’ is very direct

and bossy, but we could also ask why ‘Alltagskleidung’ has been used
when the point concerns underwear. Instead of adjusting this rather
odd choice in the TT, the ST’s ambiguity is made worse in the trans-
lation: given the image of the boy in his underpants, ‘street clothes’,
instead of something like ‘everyday wear’ or even ‘ordinary clothes’,
implies that people walk on the street in their undergarments. The
German continues in a very specific way, listing different types of
swimwear, emphasising the particular material they should be made
from, just to make sure. The concise English translation ignores all the
detail—which seems rather explicit and legalistic for this genre in any
case—but then opts for an inappropriately high register through the
choice of ‘attire’ and ‘mandatory’. An alternative would be: ‘You must
wear proper swimwear’.
The second example concerns advice on how to treat women, regard-
less of their mode of swimwear: the image [not shown here] shows three
young women, one in a bikini, one in a swimsuit and one in a burkini.
The German starts informally (‘Egal ’) but concludes quite formally with
a passive infinitive construction embedded in a main clause. The pas-
sive avoids a direct approach to the reader, although the structure is still
functionally a command, and has the effect of being impersonal i.e. has
a bureaucratic tone.

Egal, welche Badekleidung eine Frau trägt, sie

ist zu achten und zu respektieren!

Regardless of the swim attire of a female patron

she has to be treated with respect and dignity.

Figure 13.4 German caption with English translation for image requiring
respect for women.
190 The translation process and specialisms

The English starts in a neutral register but then shifts to high-register

vocabulary: ‘swim attire’ and ‘female patron’. The translator has missed
a chance here to improve on the original (given its purpose) by address-
ing the public directly and simply: ‘No matter what swimwear a woman is
wearing, treat her with respect and dignity’.
The third example illustrates the need to research carefully in the TL
to establish the relevant conventions in parallel situations. The image
[not shown here] shows a boy dive-bombing into the pool with his
knees pulled up to his chest, with another boy standing by cheering
him on. A female pool assistant is shown in an insert holding up her
left hand with the forefinger extended, saying ‘NO!’. In the following, the
English reads rather awkwardly, starting with the gerund ‘diving’.

Nur ins Wasser springen, wenn es tief genug

ist!

Diving only at the deep end.

Figure 13.5 German caption with English translation for image aimed at pro-
hibiting jumping in the shallow end.

The reason the English formulation is so odd is because such warn-

ings tend to be expressed negatively in English: ‘No diving’, which then
requires mention of the shallow end, not the deep end. Hence, a much
more natural translation would read: ‘No diving in the shallow end’, except,
of course, that ‘springen’ is different from ‘diving’, meaning that the English
command is not consistent with the image (lack of coherence).

CASE STUDY 2: Tourist brochure

The purpose of the text in this second case study is to attract visi-
tors to a well-known Schloss in Bonn: Schloss Augustusburg. The
text is overtly persuasive through its use of well-chosen vocabulary
(‘Bravourstück’, ‘eine hinreißende Schöpfung’, ‘von höchstem Rang’,
and so on), but also informative, giving lots of historical background,
attractive in itself to many visitors. The text comes in both German and
English versions. The readership can be assumed to be relatively well-
educated adults with an interest in culture. As a case study, this text
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 191

illustrates an issue of coherence in so far as there are evident tensions

between the specialised knowledge—and hence terms—surrounding
the principal subject matter and readers’ general knowledge: how can
they be reconciled in a text which is aiming to attract a wide range of
tourists?
The English TT printed below is taken from an old well-illustrated bro-
chure, comprising the middle third of the text. The German text is still
available on the official website, but the English web version of the text
is a little different from the print version shown below (items in bold are
for later discussion). We return to this second version in the Practicals at
the end of this chapter.

ST TT

Bis [. . .] [. . .] 1768 wirkten hier namhafte Famous artists known throughout Europe
Künstler von europäischem Ruf. worked on the palace until [. . .] 1768.
Beispielhaft sei Balthasar Neumann One of the most noteworthy of these was
genannt, der den Entwurf für das Balthasar Neumann, who designed the
5 Prunktreppenhaus anfertigte, ein ceremonial staircase. This exceptional
Bravourstück, eine hinreißende Schöpfung creation is both elegant and innovative.
voller Dynamik und Eleganz. By bringing together architecture,
Durch die Zusammenführung von ornamentation, painting and horticulture,
Architektur, Plastik, Malerei und a comprehensive work of art was
10 Gartenkunst entstand ein created which is a fine example of the
Gesamtkunstwerk des deutschen Rokoko German rococo period.
von höchstem Rang. This was taken into consideration
Die UNESCO würdigte dies 1984 durch by UNESCO in 1984. Since then
die Aufnahme des Schlosses Augustusburg Augustusburg, the Hunting Lodge
15 —zusammen mit Schloss Falkenlust and the palace gardens were
Falkenlust und den Brühler Gärten—in added to this organisation’s cultural
die Liste des Weltkulturerbes der world heritage list.
Menschheit. For many decades after 1949,
Ab 1949 wurde Schloss Augustusburg was used for
20 Augustusburg viele Jahrzehnte representational purposes by the Federal
lang als Repräsentationsschloss Republic of Germany.
des Bundespräsidenten und der
Bundesregierung genutzt.
(Schlösser Brühl n.d.)

The TT has its successes such as the free but idiomatic rendering of
the Balthasar Neumann reference, despite its rather strong interpreta-
tion of ‘Beispielhaft ’. But it also misleads at one point, and runs into dif-
ficulties of a type often met in texts about architecture which are targeted
192 The translation process and specialisms

at non-experts such as the tourists visiting the Schloss. In such cases,

the architectural features have to be described in terms that hover some-
where on the complex interface between specialised language (includ-
ing that of aesthetics) and consumer-oriented language addressed to
the visiting public. This is arguably more challenging for the translator
than dealing with specialised expert-to-expert texts where terms are
more likely—as labels for condensed shared knowledge—to be imme-
diately understood. The kind of discourse that has established itself in
German architectural descriptions—‘Dynamik ’, ‘Plastik ’, ‘Gesamtkunst-
werk ’, ‘Repräsentation-’—brings translators up against a cultural gap
less easily bridged than, for example, differences involving metrication.
Of these four ST terms, perhaps ‘Gesamtkunstwerk has least of the
faux ami about it; to use that German term in English as a loan word is
often (and in Music certainly) the best solution in more specialised texts.
Here, though, it is problematic, as not every likely TL tourist will make the
necessary extrapolation from Music; even then, it has a strong associative
meaning of ‘Wagnerian opera’. In this context, ‘total work of art’ is perhaps
the nearest to a conventionally accepted rendering. The special status of
the phrase could be indicated by using scare quotes in the TT. In this case,
and in many of the following points such as the use of Fine Art terms, the
role of UNESCO and the naming/history of Schloss Augustusburg, we
draw your attention to the need to conduct background research.
An alternative translation for ‘Dynamik ’ (‘innovative’) is ‘vibrant’, com-
monly used in promotional texts and creating euphony with ‘elegant’, a
welcome feature for the genre. The standard equivalent of ‘Plastik ’ in
this context is ‘sculpture’, alongside ‘Malerei ’ and ‘Architektur ’, all three
belonging to the Fine Arts; the choice of ‘ornamentation’ tends to trivial-
ise here rather than enhance. The translation of the UNESCO recogni-
tion of the site—‘cultural world heritage list’—captures the essence of
the ST phrasing but is rather clunky. Dropping ‘der Menschheit ’ avoids
making the phrase even heavier in English and the concept is easily
inferred. A more natural wording in English would be: ‘have been on the
UNESCO list of world heritage sites’, thereby also correcting the error in
the TT ‘were added to’ and moving ‘UNESCO’ to later in the paragraph,
while at the same time avoiding the rather clumsy use of ‘organisation’
to co-refer. Whether ‘cultural’ needs to be made explicit in a promotional
text of this kind is debatable: UNESCO recognises three types of site—
cultural, natural and mixed—but the point of visiting Augustusburg is self-
evidently cultural. The final phrase—‘for representational purposes’—is
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 193

particularly odd. Omitting mention of the German President and the fed-
eral government in favour of ‘the Federal Republic of Germany’ com-
pounds the opacity of the meaning in so far as a more natural—albeit
lengthier—translation such as ‘Augustusburg was used by the German
President and the government to host visiting dignitaries’ focuses on the
personal.
If asked to translate ‘Schloss’ out of context, dictionary favourites
such as ‘castle’ (or even ‘chateau’) come to mind, but seem inappro-
priate here, evoking images of medieval ramparts or French elegance;
the published TT choice of ‘palace’ (TT line 2)—an explicitation of ‘hier ’
(ST line 1)—is preferable, capturing some of the history and grandeur
of the building. Another possibility such as ‘country house’ (cf. the UK
Prime Minister’s residence Chequers) is not grand enough and ‘stately
home’ is embedded in British culture. The use of a truncated form in
the English, i.e. ‘Augustusburg’—for the full name in German: ‘Schloss
Augustusburg’—is a neat way of avoiding the issue.
A final point is to note the short paragraphs, consisting mostly of just
one sentence. As consumer-oriented texts, brochures of this kind—and
later web-based versions—need to be accessible and easily read.

Concluding remarks
All the issues covered in this chapter relating to a selection of consumer-oriented
text genres are part of the translator’s intercultural competence, one of the six com-
petences specified in the European Commission’s European Master’s in Translation
scheme (see Chapter 12): it is the translator’s responsibility to advise and act on
such matters, including: ‘Knowing how to identify the rules for interaction relating
to a specific community, including non-verbal elements [. . .]’ (Gambier 2009: 6).
In this chapter, we have tried to raise awareness of how crucial the target
readership is in shaping many translation decisions. Firstly, the importance of
language variation between social groups—also part of intercultural compe-
tence, according to Gambier—is of particular note for reader-focused genres (in
the present case, texts aimed at ‘consumers’ of various kinds), the function of
which is in many cases to influence behaviour, an aim which requires a nuanced
approach to linguistic, cultural and social issues. Secondly, the example of the
swimming pool instructions demonstrates how the verbal and non-verbal con-
tent of a text must be treated holistically in translation, also bearing in mind the
particular target readership, in this case groups of young people from different
linguacultures. And thirdly, the issue of register—also mentioned by Gambier—
has featured not only in the swimming pool text, but also in the tourist
194 The translation process and specialisms
brochure example, where judgements had to be made regarding the translation
of terms from specialised domains in the context of arguably different reader
expectations.

Further reading
Adab, Beverly and Valdés, Cristina (eds) 2004. The Translator. Vol. 10/2 (special issue Key
Debates in the Translation of Advertising Material).
Cruz García, Laura (ed.) 2016. Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específico. Vol. 22/2 (special
issue New Perspectives on the Translation of Advertising). Available at: https://ojsspdc.
ulpgc.es/ojs/index.php/LFE/issue/view/53. Articles mainly in English, also French and
Spanish.
Snell-Hornby, Mary 1999. ‘The “ultimate confort”: Word, text and the translation of tourist
brochures’, in Anderman, Gunilla and Rogers, Margaret (eds) Word, Text, Translation:
Liber Amicorum for Peter Newmark. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 95–103.
Torresi, Ira 2014. Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts. London and New York:
Routledge.

Practical 13

13.1 ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION: TOURIST

BROCHURE/WEBSITE

Assignment
i Through a local tourist office or website, identify a tourist brochure translated
into German promoting your local area (town, city or region)—German is
often one of the languages provided in the UK.
ii Using Internet research, identify an original text in German promoting a simi-
lar locale in a German-speaking area.
iii Select three criteria from this chapter as a basis for evaluating the translated
text, referring to the original German text as appropriate.
iv Discuss your analysis with your class or in a group.

13.2 TRANSLATION: IN-FLIGHT MAGAZINE

Assignment
i You are translating material for an in-flight magazine, including the ST here.
Discuss the approach that you decide to take before starting detailed transla-
tion of this ST, and outline and justify the method you adopt.
ii Translate the text into English.
iii Discuss the main detailed decisions you took.
iv Compare your TT with the published one, which will be given to you by your
tutor.
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 195
Contextual information
The ST appeared side by side with the official TT in the Lufthansa in-flight maga-
zine. They formed part of a promotion encouraging passengers to register for the
Lufthansa air miles scheme published in Lufthansa Magazin.

ST
AUTOS MIT STIL, PRESTIGE UND PRÄMIENMEILEN—DANK
MILES & MORE

Unterwegs Prämienmeilen sammeln—

Mit vier großen Mietwagenpartnern
5 Wo immer Lufthansa Sie hinfliegt—einer unserer Mietwagenpartner wartet bereits auf
Sie. Mit Avis, Europcar, Hertz und Sixt als Partner von Miles & More können Sie an
nahezu jedem Ort der Welt das Auto Ihrer Wünsche nicht nur am Flughafen mieten—
und kommen stets komfortabel, günstig und sicher an Ihr Ziel.
Aber Flexibilität und Mobilität sind nicht Ihre einzigen Vorteile. Bei allen vier
10 Mietwagenpartnern sammeln Sie bei der Anmietung eines Fahrzeugs Prämienmeilen—
im gesamten Netzwerk der Mietwagenpartner. Und besondere Aktionen ermöglichen
Ihnen darüber hinaus, in regelmäßigen Abständen ein Vielfaches der üblichen
Prämienmeilen zu sammeln. Die aktuellen Sonderaktionen finden Sie immer im
Internet unter www.miles-and-more.com
15 Prämienmeilen z.B. gegen automobile Träume tauschen
Sie können aber auch Ihre gesammelten Meilen bei Avis, Europcar, Hertz und Sixt
gegen das Auto Ihrer Träume eintauschen und mit ihm ein Wochenende oder sogar
den Urlaub genießen. Oder Sie lösen Ihre Prämienmeilen in attraktive Flug-, Reise-,
Erlebnis- oder Sachprämien ein. Sie sehen, die Teilnahme an Miles & More lohnt
20 sich!
Detaillierte Informationen zu den Miles & More Mietwagen- und allen weiteren
Partnern, Prämien und Privilegien erhalten sie unter www.miles-and-more.com
Meilen sammeln und Prämien genießen—Mit Miles & More
Miles & More ist das führende Vielfliegerprogramm in Europa. Dank über 30 Partner-
25 Airlines steht Ihnen ein weltumspannendes Netzwerk mit idealen Flugverbindungen
zur Verfügung, auf dem Sie Meilen sammeln können—in der Business Class sogar
doppelte und in der First Class dreifache Meilen. Außerdem lassen unsere Hotel- und
Mietwagen-Partner sowie zahlreiche weitere Partner am Boden Ihr Meilenkonto
wachsen. Die gesammelten Meilen können Sie dann in attraktive Flug-, Upgrade-,
30 Reise-, Erlebnis- oder Sachprämien eintauschen.
Mehr Informationen zu allen Partnern, Prämien und Privilegien von Miles & More
finden sie unter www.miles-and-more.com. Am besten gleich hier anmelden und
direkt Ihre ersten Meilen sammeln.
(Miles and More 2004: 70–1)

13.3 ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION: UNIVERSITY WEBSITE

Assignment
Universities in both the UK and Germany are keen to attract students. The
university website has therefore become an essential marketing tool. In this
196 The translation process and specialisms
assignment you should draw on your own knowledge and experience—as well as
other resources as appropriate—to evaluate the English translation of webpages
from a German university website aimed at prospective students. The task raises
challenging questions about the scope of translation and of the expertise of the
translator.
You can search for any suitable German university website for this assignment.
Most universities have an internationalisation policy, often meaning an English
version of selected information is available.

13.4 TRANSLATION: MARKETING SLOGAN

A German multinational company was celebrating its 100th anniversary. The mar-
keting department came up with the slogan: ‘Die Zukunft hat Geburtstag’. As part
of the celebrations, the CEO was scheduled to give a presentation in English at
which the slogan would be displayed on a large banner above the podium, also in
English. The translation department came up with a creative solution which they
considered fit for purpose (upbeat, constrained by the space available, accessible to
an audience for whom English was not their mother tongue, and conveying the mes-
sage of building the future on past achievements). Unbeknown to the translators, the
marketing colleagues intervened, changing the English translation to ‘The future has
a birthday’, as they considered the proposed solution not to be a ‘real translation’.
The marketeers’ English slogan was not a success and the translators were blamed.
How would you have translated the slogan to meet the promotional purpose
of the grand occasion? Brainstorming in a small group might be the best way to
release your creative thoughts.

13.5 COMPARISON AND EVALUATION: PROMOTIONAL

TEXT FOR VISITORS
For some reason which is not explained, the older brochure translation of the
Schloss Augustusburg text differs from the English version on the official website,
although the original German remains the same except for one explicitation (‘Die
UNESCO würdigte dies 1984 . . . ’ becomes ‘Die UNESCO würdigte die Geschichte
und Gegenwart der Barockschlösser 1984 . . . ’). Your task here is to compare and
evaluate the two translations, bearing in mind their readership and content.
Web version of the Schloss Augustusburg text extract:

TT
Until [. . .] 1768, numerous outstanding artists of European renown contributed to its
beauty. A prime example of the calibre of artists employed here is Balthasar Neumann,
who created the design for the magnificent staircase, an enchanting creation full of
dynamism and elegance.
5 The magical interplay of architecture, sculpture, painting and garden design made the
Brühl Palaces a masterpiece of German Rococo.
 Translating consumer-oriented texts 197

TT
UNESCO honoured history and present of the Rococo Palaces by inscribing
Augustusburg Palace—together with Falkenlust Palace and their extensive gardens—on
the World Heritage List in 1984.
10 From 1949 onwards, Augustusburg Palace was used for representative purposes by the
German Federal President and the Federal Government for many decades.
(Schlösser Brühl n.d.)

References

Primary
Berliner Forum für Geschichte und Gegenwart e.V. n.d. Cold War: Checkpoint Charlie
[Leaflets in German and in English obtained December 2015 in Berlin].
European Commission’s European Master’s (EMT) in Translation Network n.d. Avail-
able at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/resources-partners/european-masters-translation-emt/
european-masters-translation-emt-explained_en (Accessed: 22 March 2018).
Miles & More 2004. Lufthansa Magazin, March [Advertisement]. Hamburg: Lufthansa.
Schlösser Brühl n.d. Schloss Augustusburg [Online]. Available at: www.schlossbruehl.de/
Schloss_Augustusburg (Accessed: 23 March 2018).
SWM 2015. Baderegeln (M/Bäder). Available at: www.stadtwerke-buchen.de/images/bae
der/baderegeln-edb.pdf (Accessed: 23 March 2018).

Secondary
Adab, Beverley 2000. ‘Towards a more systematic approach to the translation of advertis-
ing texts’, in Beeby, A., Ensinger, D. and Presas, M. (eds) Investigating Translation.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 223–34.
Byrne, Jody 2012. Scientific and Technical Translation Explained: A Nuts and Bolts Guide
for Beginners. London and New York: Routledge.
Gambier, Yves 2009. Competences for Professional Translators, Experts in Multilingual
and Multimedia Communication. Brussels: DGT, European Commission.
Spiegel Online 2008. ‘ “Come in and find out”: How Germans really see English Ad slo-
gans’ [Online]. Available at: www.spiegel.de/international/germany/come-in-and-find-
out-how-germans-really-see-english-ad-slogans-a-596128.html (Accessed: 14 February
2018).
Tercedor, Maribel, Alarcón-Navío, Esperanza, Prieto-Velasco, Juan A. & López-
Rodríguez, Clara I. 2009. ‘Images as part of technical translation courses: implica-
tions and applications’, JoSTrans, Issue 11, January 2009, pp. 143-68.
Torresi, Ira 2004. ‘Women, water and cleaning agents’, The Translator, 10/2, pp. 269–89.
14 Translating scientific and
technical texts

Much professional translation today is concerned with what is variously

called ‘technical’ or ‘commercial’ or ‘specialised’ translation—as opposed to
literary or Bible translation—all umbrella terms which mask both similarities
and differences. ‘Specialised’ texts, or Fachtexte, encompass more than just
sci-tech texts, extending to legal, medical, financial, administrative, political,
economic and so on, as well as covering texts in the Arts and Humanities.
Estimates for the market share of specialised translations at the beginning of
the millennium were calculated at around 80%–90% of the world’s translations
(see Rogers 2015: 20 for a summary). The importance of sci-tech translation
in particular as a part of the growing languages service sector is evidenced by
the fact that ‘the sectors of industry that spend most on translation globally
include manufacturing, software and healthcare, alongside defence in the USA’
(Olohan 2016: 8; citing Kelly 2012). Many students reading this book will
have specialised outside Science and Technology: this is therefore an important
chapter for you to judge whether this area of translation is a potential area of
development, or not.

Sci-tech translation and specialised translation

What does specialised translation entail? Any specialist field has its own spe-
cial vocabulary, and communicative norms, whether in the world of Healthcare,
Construction, or Theoretical Linguistics; in this chapter we will concentrate on
scientific and technological texts because these are unfamiliar for many language
students and as such illustrate very well some important points in the translation
of all specialised texts. Firstly, the translator must be—or become—familiar with
salient aspects of the subject field as an area of knowledge which is mapped out
by its own terminology, as well as learning how to research further information
effectively using linguistic, encyclopaedic and other resources (see Chapter 12).
Secondly, many of the problems met in translating specialised texts are the same
as those met in translating any text, including decisions relating to communicative
purpose, audience, genre conventions, closeness of the translation, equivalence,
and so on. For instance, the number of different genres which sci-tech transla-
tion covers is vast, from technical reports through safety instructions to academic
 Translating scientific and technical texts 199
research articles, each genre being closely associated with a particular communi-
cative purpose and linguistic register.
While many sci-tech or any other specialised texts are relatively inaccessible
to non-specialist readers (e.g. a patent application, instructions for repairing a
photocopier, a technical data sheet), ultimately this inaccessibility is conceptual
in nature: the expert in any scientific or technical subject has, over a period of
years, absorbed a mass of knowledge that has become part of the background
and so does not become explicit in texts. Judging the level of knowledge of the
new readers, i.e. of the TT, is therefore a crucial aspect of establishing coher-
ence when translating. But not all sci-tech texts are written by and for experts. It
is not only the authors of sci-tech documents—including, for instance, journal-
ists and technical writers—that vary in the degree and type of knowledge they
bring to their understanding of such texts, so do the readers of such texts. One
writer on ‘technical communication’, when considering who might read sci-tech
texts, distinguishes between the ‘expert’, ‘the ‘technician’, the ‘manager’ and the
‘general reader’ (Markel 2004). Some texts need to be accessible to experts only
(e.g. a presentation at an academic conference to describe new knowledge) or to
‘techies’ only (e.g. a manual for an HGV mechanic to repair lorries), both fairly
well-defined groups with relatively clear communicative purposes. Writing for
managers (e.g. a report outlining recommendations on operational issues of a
technical or financial nature as the basis of future policy), or for the general reader
(e.g. an encyclopaedia entry or a feature article in a quality newspaper) is in some
respects more challenging, as judgements have to be made by the author concern-
ing readers’ knowledge of the subject field. Communication between profession-
als, for whom the language of the text is often a lingua franca, typically, English,
is usually conducted by the experts themselves (e.g. scientists, engineers), some-
times writing in a second or third language, sometimes writing for later transla-
tion. Other levels of communication are nowadays often dealt with by technical
authors. Translators can be called in to translate at any of these levels. Given the
wide variety of text genres, as well as subject fields and levels of communication,
it is not surprising that such texts can sometimes be poorly written, thus posing
interesting challenges for the translator. Procedures differ here from those usually
applied in literary translation: the translator has a duty to spot factual inaccuracies
or other problems in the ST and, ideally in consultation with the commissioner
of the translation (who may or may not be the author of the document), to try
to resolve those problems in a way which is appropriate to the communicative
purpose.

Terminology
Terms, which together make up the terminology of a particular subject field or
domain, are items of specialised vocabulary which, if they are to be used appro-
priately, usually require some kind of familiarity with the subject field in question,
either through formal training or experience. They have different formal properties
depending on the features of the language concerned. A large number of nominal
200 The translation process and specialisms
terms in English consist of at least two words; in German, compounds are, of course,
usually written as a single word: e.g. ‘auto-immune disorder’/‘Autoimmunkrank-
heit’ (Medicine). Adjectives can also occasionally be terms e.g. ‘acute’/‘akut’;
‘chronic’/‘chronisch’ (Medicine), and even more rarely, adverbs (formally identi-
cal to adjectives in German) e.g. ‘therapeutically’/‘therapeutisch’) (Medicine) and
verbs e.g. ‘to download’/‘herunterladen’ (Information Technology). Any special-
ised text is likely to carry a great deal of information in the noun phrases; the more
specialised the text, the denser it becomes.
In what follows we look at some lexical problems arising from the use of spe-
cialised terms. In illustrating these, we shall refer to two rather different texts,
one scientific, one technical: an extract from an ornithologist’s research paper on
birdsong, and the ST of Practical 14.1 here (‘Tunnelauskleidung’, a specification
of works). These are two quite different genres but each contains terminological
problems to solve. We’ll start with the research paper:

Hinweise auf Funktionstrennung bei Parus-Arten ergeben sich wie folgt:

1) Bei Territorialgesang: Bestimmte Strophentypen wurden besonders bei
Auseinandersetzungen (bei Anlockung mit Klangattrappen), jedoch nicht so oft
spontan gesungen (z.B. Smith 1972; Martens 1975; Ficken et al. 1978). Hier liegt
5 also eine Funktionstrennung im Sinne von Revierverteidigung im Gegensatz zu
Revierproklamation vor.
2) ♀-bezogene Strophentypen: Eine Trennung des Repertoires in ♀-bezogene und
revierverteidigungsbezogene Strophentypen ist nachzuweisen (vgl. z.B. Romanowski
1978; Schroeder and Wiley 1983b; Gaddis 1983).
(Goller 1987: 306)

In looking at lexical issues, we can start with the obvious problem of terms
not used in everyday, ordinary language (‘Language for General Purposes’ or
Gemeinsprache), and consequently unfamiliar to the layperson. In the birdsong
text, a term such as ‘Klangattrappen’ stands out at once as belonging only to a
specialised scientific context. Without any research the translator will have almost
no chance of coming up with the appropriate TL rendering (‘playbacks’). The
birdsong extract also highlights the issue of how terms relate to each other, ideally
in a systematic way both within and between languages. So ‘Revierverteidigung’
(‘territory defence’) is contrasted with ‘Revierproklamation’ (‘territory proclama-
tion’). While a close translation of the German terms would in this case produce
the correct English terms, we cannot rely on that.
The second problem concerns so-called double-duty terms (see Chapter 12):
these can be the most dangerous sort of case for the translator, especially if new
to the field, as you may fail to recognise the word as a term, and instead trans-
late its ordinary sense. For example, ‘Auseinandersetzung’ has many equiva-
lents, according to its use in general language or in a number of specialised
languages. The European Union terminology database IATE (see Chapter 12)
lists the general senses ‘discussion’ and ‘examination’, but also gives equiv-
alents in four subject fields: Defence, Civil Law, Family Law and Finance
 Translating scientific and technical texts 201
(but not Ornithology) (IATE n.d.). In a well-structured entry with appropriate
indicators and subject-field labels, the old faithful Oxford-Duden (1999) also
gives a range of possible equivalents: ‘examination’; ‘debate’, ‘discussion’;
‘argument’, ‘dispute’; ‘clash’; ‘partition’. The label attached to ‘dispute’ links it
to Industrial Relations but in fact, it is also the correct specialised equivalent in
Animal Behaviour.
But how would you be able to make that link without specialised knowledge
or access to an ornithologist? One way is for the translator to be rather imagina-
tive. In these kinds of situations, it is often helpful to hypothesise about the most
likely equivalent of the available possibilities, in the present case, for instance,
choosing among those listed in the Oxford-Duden: ‘clash’ or ‘dispute’ seem the
most likely for the discourse of ornithology. As the ST concerns territoriality,
two online searches were made using the candidate search terms: (a) “Animal
Behaviour” “territory clash” and (b) “Animal Behaviour” “territory dispute”. The
former produced several hits but these were not from scholarly articles, whereas
the latter brought to light several learned articles dealing with the behaviour of a
range of animals, including fish, squirrels and birds, as well as a Wikipedia article
on ‘Territory (animal)’. This all supports hypothesis (b).
Our second example, the ‘Tunnelauskleidung’ technical text below, also shows
how the translator has, as always, to look beyond bilingual and monolingual
dictionaries: the term ‘Röhre’ tempts us towards ‘pipe’ or ‘tube’. But Oxford-
Duden gives explicit advice on ‘bore’ as the appropriate equivalent under the
subject label ‘Tunnel ̴ ’. Subject labels are essential to distinguish between the
array of apparent synonyms offered as equivalents; the online dictionary Leo (see
Chapter 12) offers English equivalents for four subject fields including Construc-
tion, but does not include ‘bore’ relating specifically to tunnel construction. The
term ‘Ausbau’ is also not used here in its commonest semi-technical sense of
‘extension’/‘development’, but rather to mean ‘construction’. The technically ori-
ented Leo does come up with the correct term, namely, ‘construction’, although
many other terms are also offered, also with the subject label ‘Bauwesen’. So even
subject labels do not always indicate a unique choice. One possibility here would
be to post a query on the Leo Diskussionsforum linked to the entry for ‘Ausbau’.
Researching a third term, ‘Angriffspunkt’, even in a specialised online dictionary
of Civil Engineering (E&S Dictionary (online)) is translated as ‘point of appli-
cation’, but what the professional translator finds in TL specialist literature is
‘break(ing)-out point’ or ‘cutting-out point’.
On such specific items, generalist bilingual dictionaries cannot be expected to
offer comprehensive solutions; nor, in some cases, do specialised terminology
resources. However, they can offer a starting point indicating the beginning of
a research trail for the translator to pursue, taking into account the huge num-
ber of terms in each field, and the fact that scientific and technological fields
and their terminologies are constantly developing. As shown in the examples dis-
cussed in this and the earlier chapter on research and resources, reference material
does not always give a single unambiguous equivalent for a particular scientific
or technical term. Translators often have to make an informed choice between
202 The translation process and specialisms
alternatives. They can only do this if they have a firm grasp of both the textual
context and the wider subject-related context, and are also able wherever possible
to check the relevant literature and/or to consult an expert in the field.
So far in our discussion of terminology, we have been ignoring the issue of how
specialised the text is and who the intended readers are. One issue associated with
different author-reader relations concerns the use of alternative terms or, in a sense,
synonyms i.e. terms which refer to the same thing but with different linguistic
expressions, depending on whether the communication is, say, expert-to-expert, or
expert-to-layperson/layperson-to-expert. It is well known, for instance, that com-
mon medical terms often have two variants: a specialised term and a popular term.
Examples include: ‘myocardial infarction’/‘heart attack’, ‘hypertension’/‘high
blood pressure’. There are even websites to train doctors in the use of popular
terms in order to improve their communication with patients. Doctor-patient com-
munication in German also exhibits similar problems to those in English (see, for
example: DocCheck News 2012). Many German medical terms are also based on
classical languages e.g. ‘Appendizitis’, although German equivalents exist as in
the etymologically more transparent and popular variant ‘Blinddarmentzündung’.
Translators therefore need to distinguish in their choice of TL terms between com-
munications directed at patients and those directed at doctors, or more generally,
between those targeting laypeople and those aimed at experts.
Having so far outlined some terminological considerations, we will now look at
a few practical points specific to sci-tech translation, before going on to consider
different approaches to training and skills development, the treatment of errors
and of numbers.

Priorities in sci-tech translation

In the previous section we discussed a scientific text and a technical text. The
distinction can be an important one. Some useful generalisations about the ways
in which these different subject matters are handled in discourse suggest that the
primary function of technical texts, whose readers actually want to do something
else, is informative, whereas science-based texts ‘discuss, analyze and synthesize
information with a view to explaining ideas, proposing new theories or evaluating
methods’ (Byrne 2012: 2, emphasis in the original). The readers of these texts
are also interested in information but from a quite different perspective. Techni-
cal information or instructions are unlikely to include any persuasive elements,
whereas the authors of scientific texts may seek to demonstrate that their argu-
ments are convincing and significant. Scientific texts such as journal papers or
even popular science books and articles usually have named authors whereas
technical texts such as technical data sheets, manuals of various kinds and instruc-
tions for use are usually anonymous. Scientific texts share their lack of anonymity
with literary texts, even to the point where some authors may be well known, at
least within their discourse community. The inference to be drawn here is that the
style of the ST, i.e. the style of the author/s, is more important in shaping transla-
tion decisions for scientific texts than for technical texts.
 Translating scientific and technical texts 203
Nevertheless, scientific and technical texts do share some special characteristics
that need to be actively considered by students whose first- and second-language
experience has been general and/or literary. Scientific and technical language,
particularly if between experts, tends to be precise and compact. Accuracy and
clarity, and therefore consistency, are clearly important.
Consistency is a more important requirement than literary translators might
imagine if schooled in the importance of lexical variation for stylistic reasons.
As clarity and precision are priorities in sci-tech communication, synonyms can
be problematic: how does the reader know that the same object is being referred
to in all cases? Is ‘catalytic converter’ the same as ‘automotive catalyst’? Is
‘Autoabgaskatalysator’ the same as ‘Kraftfahrzeugkatalysator’? And which
term is preferred by the client? One technological development which helps to
address the issue of consistency and is now extensively used in the translation
industry is the Translation Memory tool mentioned in Chapter 12.
TM is best suited to the translation of technical texts, notably technical instruc-
tions, as they are routinely updated when new versions of products are released
onto the market. Manufacturers and developers worldwide are constantly updat-
ing their documentation, so there has to be a parallel process of updating the oper-
ating instructions, descriptive literature, and so on in all relevant languages (as a
legal requirement). This implies that features in a 2018 model that are not new
must be described using the same terminology and set expressions that were used
in 2017. Technical translation in particular can in fact often be repetitive, usually
for reasons of clarity.
While technology in the form of tools and resources is playing an increasingly
prominent role in the world of the twenty-first-century professional translator, it
remains the responsibility of the translator to produce a translation which is fit for
purpose. Both sci-tech and literary translators are, of course, seeking to build or
guard their reputation and are held responsible for their work. But more than this,
the implications of mistranslation where a simple error can cause financial loss
and even endanger structures or lives, must be borne in mind. Literary transla-
tors on the other hand may have to deal with problems such as risky ideological,
religious or political issues, depending on the material they are working with and
where they are working or being published.

Getting started
Making a start on sci-tech translation without a scientific or technical background
is challenging, often involving intensive study of a single aspect within a broader
discipline. While translators can build their reputation—as in any other business—
by specialising in a particular subject field, few sci-tech translators can afford to
offer their services over a spectrum narrower than, say, Medicine, Construction
Engineering or Information Technology. Some Master’s programmes in transla-
tion offer a starting point in different specialisms, and many modern-language
students now choose to undertake further training before entering the professional
translation market. Unfortunately, the career option for graduate translators—still
204 The translation process and specialisms
trainees in most professionally related respects—to work in-house as a member of
a supervised translation team is no longer widely available: the business model of
delivering translation services has changed considerably over the last two decades
or so. Many manufacturing or service-based companies have closed their in-house
translation departments, and even so-called ‘Language Service Providers’ (LSPs)
i.e. dedicated translation companies, now employ very few in-house translators.
Instead, they build extensive networks of freelance translators to whom they
outsource the work according to need. From the LSP’s perspective, this allows
greater flexibility with regard to subject field, translation pair and direction,
availability for fast turnaround, and so on. The translators usually have access to
resources such as termbases, previous translations (usually in the form of Transla-
tion Memories) and some consultation e.g. in case of errors in the ST, issues of
comprehensibility or doubts about specific terminology use for the client.
Freelancers also have functioning networks that provide peer advice, either
through mentoring schemes or training courses (often accredited as part of ‘Con-
tinuing Professional Development’) run by professional associations such as the
Institute of Translation and Interpreting in the UK, or through translation-related
websites such as ProZ (ProZ n.d.). No sci-tech translator, in-house or freelance,
can afford to ignore the golden rule, which is in truth a good one for all transla-
tors: never be too proud or embarrassed to ask for help or advice. More detailed
advice and information—including many weblinks—are given in the Postscript
to this course.
Many of the points dealt with in the following sections on errors and units of
measurement are not, of course, exclusive to sci-tech texts.

Dealing with errors in the source text

Supplying a text on which people will rely for operating machinery or for pre-
scribing medicines involves responsibility for ensuring accuracy. In a literary text,
the translator may be accustomed to a certain trade-off between literal accuracy
and other qualities such as mellifluousness or an associative echo; even in the
special language of Business and Finance, or in some consumer-oriented texts, the
importance of subjective factors may warrant a flourish of rhetoric (cf. Practical
6.1), but exact Science and Technology allow less latitude. In taking every pre-
caution to ensure the accuracy of the TT, it might be necessary for the translator
to consult the client—directly or indirectly through their LSP—in cases where:

i the meaning of the ST is unclear, e.g. where the text is poorly expressed as in
cases where it is not clear which noun a pronoun is linked to;
ii a factual error is suspected but is not immediately checkable;
iii a factual error is identified e.g. an incorrect date or measurement.

In cases (i) and (ii) the translator will have to wait for the client’s response—the
client is often not the author—in order to proceed. Where a factual error is defi-
nitely detected (case iii), the translator should still notify the client that a correc-
tion has been made. These are all cases in which the translator somehow improves
 Translating scientific and technical texts 205
on the ST, a move that would usually be considered inappropriate in most literary
translation, although editors can and do intervene. Advice on dealing with errors
in STs which are technical in nature can be found in Byrne (2012: 161–2) and in
Mossop (2014: 84–8).
Using an interesting scale of decreasing saliency, translation scholar Peter A.
Schmitt (1999a: 148) describes the most typical errors—often produced under
pressure of time and without any quality checks—as follows: formal errors (e.g.
repetition or omission of a section of the ST), incorrect figures and measurements,
typographical errors, lack of correspondence between graphics and verbal text,
discrepancy between text and reality, errors of expression (e.g. incorrect terminol-
ogy), and lack of comprehensibility across all text levels. Genres which, accord-
ing to Schmitt, are the least likely to contain errors are those which are subject to
rigorous quality checks, often for legal reasons, such as standards (Normen) and
patent specifications (Patentschriften).
The level of quality checks in a professional context—according to what is
agreed by the translator and the client—should be included in the specifications
for the job in order to avoid later misunderstandings. These typically include pro-
vision for revision by another suitably qualified or experienced translator, and a
further check, this time of the TT, by a person qualified to judge the appropriacy
of the register, terminology, genre conventions and so on for the stated commu-
nicative purpose in the relevant subject field/s. This is called a ‘review’; no refer-
ence is made to the ST. In both cases—revision and review (see Chapter 16)—the
translator is responsible for implementing any recommendations for correction.
Proofing is usually the final stage. Further details of the complete professional
requirements for handling translation services can be found in the British Stand-
ards Institute (BSI) document BS EN ISO 117100:2015 (Translation Services—
Requirements for translation services). Another relevant standard—Translation
Projects—General guidelines—consists of a comprehensive professional-level
checklist for items which should be considered when a translation job is con-
tracted, including: ST profile, subject-field specification and terminology require-
ments, TL information, layout, permissions, delivery and payment details (BSI:
PD ISO/TS 11669: 2012). We mention these standards as a way of indicating that
professional translation has moved from the kitchen table to an industry. But even
if you are just beginning to learn about translation as a profession, it is useful to
be aware that misunderstandings with clients about the translation brief need to
be avoided, regardless of the area of translation. A truncated and accessible set of
ten points to specify in the translation ‘brief’ (see also Chapter 2) can be found in
Olohan (2016: 19).
Trainee translators might be surprised by the frequency of errors as, for instance,
described by Schmitt, in technical texts. Indeed, we are reminded of a pithy aph-
orism by another well-known German scholar, Hans Hönig, that ‘Defekte’ are
a normal characteristic of living texts (as reported in Schmitt 1999a: 147). For
reasons mentioned earlier (e.g. density of information), small ST errors can have
significant effects. If plausible, they can pass unnoticed into the TT. In other cases,
they can make a ST perplexing for an inexperienced translator—who nevertheless
has to guard against the ready assumption that ‘the ST must be wrong’ in all cases.
206 The translation process and specialisms
In some cases, however, it might not even be appropriate to correct an error. Imag-
ine, for instance, a translation of a journalistic article on a hot scientific topic which is
commissioned by the scientist on whose work it is based but who does not understand
the language in which the article is written. The reason for requesting the translation
is to follow up on rumours that the journalist has misunderstood and therefore mis-
represented the scientist’s work. In such a case, the translator has a duty to provide a
TT which truly follows the meaning of the ST, including any errors. This is why it is
always important for the translator to establish the purpose of the translation.
One type of error that we haven’t yet discussed is that introduced into the TT
by the translator, raising the spectre of legal liability. A wise precaution taken by
many professional translators is to invest in Professional Indemnity Insurance, as
advised by professional associations (see, for instance, ITI n.d.).

Translating units of measurement

A common but not exclusive feature of sci-tech texts is the use of numbers. At first
glance, ‘translating’ numbers of various kinds might seem straightforward. After
all, they are factual and objective, are they not? Well, up to a point. In fact, num-
bers must be treated with caution and are often subject to cultural and contextual
factors, especially dates, telephone numbers and currency, as well as the presenta-
tion of decimal figures. Contextual factors notably include genre and text type.
It is the translator’s job to decide whether to convert the numbers in some way
(e.g. from metric to imperial), to approximate them (is precision a priority?),
or simply to transfer them. Numbers in literary texts are, according to Schmitt
(1999b: 298), usually converted unless a different system of measurement would
clash with the local situation e.g. converting imperial to metric in a Sherlock
Holmes story would not ring true. In texts which are predominantly informa-
tive, however, the tendency is for numbers to be converted, especially in texts
intended for use by customers e.g. in instructions for use and manuals, although
Schmitt points out that this could result in a lack of coherence between the verbal
text and the graphics, as diagrams, tables and so on, are rarely changed (1999b:
299). In such cases the translator needs to check with the client whether to con-
vert or not.
Times are also often converted, regardless of the genre or text type. Persua-
sive texts such as tourist brochures often include opening times, for example. The
24-hour German clock is normally expressed as a.m. and p.m. in English: ‘9 bis
12 Uhr’ becomes ‘9 a.m. to 12 p.m.’. The 24-hour clock is still used in English
for information purposes—to avoid ambiguity—in airports and stations for depar-
ture/arrival times, and in military and medical language. In a literary text, such
usage would probably not be converted if the context were military or medical,
although other cases such as a description of when something happened, or when
to meet for coffee, or when to leave for the airport would be.
Texts which deal with technical matters in everyday language tend to reflect
more popular usage, as Schmitt (1999b: 298) points out, often lagging behind
official policy on units of measurement. In some cases, mixed usage (metric
 Translating scientific and technical texts 207
and imperial) is permitted e.g. a ‘pint’ of beer in the now largely metric UK and
‘Pfund’ for a half-kilo loaf (see Olohan 2016: 86–7 for more examples).
In the UK almost all metric data can be left in metric form, especially in expert-
to-expert texts. Some cases are more complex: in technical texts for consumers,
for example, ‘litres per 100 km’ needs to be converted to ‘mpg’, but as Schmitt
notes (1999b: 298), the German system for measuring fuel economy is based on
the fuel consumption in relation to the distance driven, the UK system reverses
this, being based on the distance driven in relation to the fuel consumption.
Therefore, when in German the fuel consumption rises (‘höherer Verbrauch’),
the measurement of mpg goes down (‘lower mileage’ per gallon). This is simply
another example to highlight the need to think through the logic of what is being
translated in terms of both numbers and words.
The use of commas and full stops to support the structuring of verbal text is very
familiar. Certainly in English, there is considerable discretion in their use. Not so
with numbers, as English and German practices differ. In the presentation of deci-
mal markers, for example, German numerical expressions use a comma where the
Anglophone countries use a point, e.g. 32,3% versus 32.2%. The point can also
be used as a thousands separator (e.g. 1.075), but not in the Anglophone tradition
where the comma is usually used: 1,075. Confusing the use of commas and points
in an English TT could therefore lead to serious miscalculations. Indeed, in order to
avoid confusion between, say, 1.075 as one thousand and seventy-five, and as one
point zero seven five, the international system of units (SI: Système International
d’Unités) recommends using a space as a thousands separator: 1 075. A detailed list
of ‘Maßeinheiten und Umrechnungsfaktoren’ can be found in the Handbuch Transla-
tion (Snell-Hornby et al. 1999: 401–16). Translators should also follow international
standards for the unit of measurement e.g. kilometres per hour ‘km/h’, kilogram ‘kg’,
second ‘s’ (see the EU Bureau International des Poids et Mesures n.d.).
Another potential error facing trainee translators concerns the use of large num-
bers: in German a Milliarde and a Billion are a thousand million (109) and a mil-
lion million (1012)—i.e. a ‘billion’ and a ‘trillion’—respectively. The American
understanding of ‘billion’ as 109 has been in use (although not uniformly) in UK
English for around 50 years now: previously a ‘billion’ was 1012. These corre-
spondences can be summarised and extended as follows:

Table 14.1 Large numbers in German, UK English and US English

Numerical value German UK English US English

106 Million million million

109 Milliarde billion billion
1012 Billion trillion trillion
1015 Billiarde quadrillion quadrillion
1018 Trillion quintillian quintillian
1021 Trilliarde sextillion sextillion
208 The translation process and specialisms
Mistaking a ‘Milliarde’ for a ‘million’, not recognising an earlier UK use of
‘billion’, or translating Billion (1012) as a ‘billion’ could fatally affect calculations
for Science (e.g. space travel, particle accelerators in Physics) or for Economics
(e.g. volume of oil production, the securities market) if readers are relying on an
English translation for their information. Discussions on translators’ forums or
dictionary sites such as Leo still bear witness to the many possible confusions,
most of which threaten to have serious consequences. It might also even be the
case that the translator’s close engagement with the ST highlights a numerical
error for the first time.
What is less serious, but needs judgement, is when to be approximate and when
to be precise in translating numbers. We pointed out in Chapter 3 when discussing
the translation of a poem, that neither accuracy nor cultural issues are always a pri-
ority in the translation of numbers, depending on the genre of the source text and
the purpose in translating it. Let’s take another example, a headline in an online
news publication about the dwarf planet Pluto. The headline reads: ‘Raumfahrt:
5 Milliarden Kilometer. Pluto bekommt erstmals Besuch von der Erde’ which we
could translate as: ‘Space Travel: 5 Billion Kilometres. Pluto receives its first visit
from Earth’. Whilst we can quickly establish that Milliarde is a ‘billion’, if the
house-style rules of our client—who is publishing an English version online—
require a conversion from kilometres to miles, we are immediately faced with
a problem: a quick calculation shows that 5 billion kilometres is 3,106,855,960
miles, clearly inappropriate in terms of genre conventions for a magazine head-
line: too long and too much detail. A more acceptable translation would be: ‘Space
Travel: over 3 Billion Miles . . . ’.
When we think of ‘text’, we are likely to think of words rather than numbers. But
in informative texts in particular, numbers might be the most important component
of the text. In a translation exercise, students were asked to translate from German
into English an A4 information sheet to be distributed by Lufthansa at Frankfurt
Airport on how to deal with an impending public-service strike. The top half of
the text consisted of a heading (‘Lufthansa aktuell’) and a subheading (‘Der Streik
trifft uns alle. Wir sind für Sie da’.) and a large box containing contact helpline
telephone numbers for a range of German cities printed in large bold font. The
bottom half consisted of three columns printed in small font which aimed to assure
customers of Lufthansa’s assistance in coping with travel problems, followed by the
company logo. This part of the text had a persuasive flavour. The relative impor-
tance of the two parts of the text was clearly signalled by the layout, and yet, some
students omitted all the cities and telephone numbers from the translation, presum-
ably assuming that the information could simply be transferred and so was not part
of their translation assignment. Even if the information had been transferable in its
ST form, it should still have been included in the assignment as a crucial part of the
text. In fact, the numbers were not transferable in their ST form as many readers of
the English version of the text—not just US and UK travellers—would not have
German mobile phones. For instance, the number for Berlin in the German ST is
‘(030) 88 75 88’, but if this number were to be dialled from a non-German mobile
phone, as is likely in an international airport, the international code would need to
 Translating scientific and technical texts 209
be added: ‘+49 (0)30 88 75 88’. The alphabetical order of the cities would also need
to be changed as ‘Köln’ becomes ‘Cologne’. And the spelling of some cities changes
from German to English e.g. ‘Hannover’ > ‘Hanover’, ‘Nürnberg’ > ‘Nuremberg’.

Concluding remarks
In this chapter we have aimed to give you some practical information on recom-
mended research and translation procedures, as well as on some common pitfalls.
We have also drawn attention to some of the differences between scientific and
technical texts with implications for their conventional functions. Sci-tech texts
are likely to be perceived as the biggest challenge to traditional modern-language
students, but as with any other kind of text, the translator needs to carry out back-
ground and terminological research (albeit perhaps more in these subject areas),
interpret the ST, make decisions according to the translation brief, and compare
genre conventions for possible differences.

Further reading
Bowker, Lynne 2016. ‘The need for speed! Experimenting with “speed training” in the
scientific/technical translation classroom’, in Vandaele, S. and Boulanger, P-P. (eds) Sci-
ences en traduction [Special Issue], META, 61, pp. 22–36 [Online]. Available at: www.
erudit.org/en/journals/meta/2016-v61-meta02902/ (Accessed: 26 March 2018).
Byrne, Jody 2007. ‘Caveat translator: Understanding the legal consequences of errors in
professional translation’, JoSTrans, Issue 07/January 2007, pp. 2–24 [Online]. Available
at: www.jostrans.org/issue07/issue07_toc.php (Accessed: 26 March 2018).

Practical 14

14.1 TRANSLATION: TECHNICAL TEXT (SPECIFICATION

OF WORKS)

Assignment
i The ST here is from a specification of works issued by a government agency
for trunk road construction and aimed at prospective contractors. For a study
visit by British planners and engineers, you are asked to provide an English
translation. Bearing in mind the information supplied in this chapter with
reference to the ST, discuss the decisions that you have to take before starting
detailed translation of this ST, and outline and justify the approach you adopt.
ii Translate the text into English.
iii What were the main problems which you encountered? Structural? Termino-
logical? Judging the audience’s level of specialist knowledge?
iv Which terminology sources did you find most helpful and why?
v Compare your translation with the professionally prepared TT that will be
made available to you by your tutor.
210 The translation process and specialisms
Contextual information
The target audience, like the ST’s users, should be thought of as professionals
fully conversant with the technology and terminology of tunnelling. In addition
to guidance given in the body of Chapter 14, the following terminology should
be noted: ‘Schalwagen’—‘jumbo’; ‘Zuluftstollen’—‘air intake adit’; ‘Abluft-
kamin’—‘ventilation shaft’.

ST
Tunnelauskleidung
Die Herstellung der Abdichtung und der Innenschale erfolgt abschnittsweise zwischen
den jeweiligen Angriffspunkten Nordportal—Kehltal—Flößgraben—Südportal. Mit
dem Ausbau der Innengewölbe der zweiten Röhre wird umgehend nach dem
5 Durchschlag des jeweiligen Abschnittes begonnen. Nach Betonierung der 2. Röhre wird
der Baustellenverkehr umgelegt und die 1. Röhre betoniert.
Mit dem Einsatz von 2 Schalwagen wird eine Betonierleistung von rund 500 m/Mo
erreicht, sodaß die Innenschale der beiden Röhren in den Abschnitten Nordportal—
Kehltal und Kehltal—Flößgraben nacheinander betoniert werden kann. Im Abschnitt
10 Flößgraben—Südportal werden die Innenschalen der beiden Röhren gleichzeitig
betoniert.
Gleichzeitig mit dem Betonieren der Innenschale erfolgt der Ausbau der Kaverne
Kehltal und anschliessend der Kaverne Flößgraben mit den zugehörigen Zuluftstollen,
Zuluftbauwerken und der rund 20 m hohen Abluftkamine, des Hochbehälters im Kehltal
15 sowie der Betriebsgebäude am Nord- und Südportal einschließlich Portalbauwerke.
(DEGES 1998)

14.2 TRANSLATION: SCIENTIFIC TEXT (EXPERT

JOURNALISTIC ARTICLE)

Assignment
i The ST comes from an article published online by Die Welt. The brief
is to translate it for an equivalent-quality English-language newspaper.
Discuss how the readership for this text differs from that of the previ-
ous text and its translation. What implications might this have for your
translation?
ii Translate the text into English.
iii Explain the main decisions that you took.

Contextual information
The article’s opening section explains that malaria is on the increase worldwide,
and that for over 30 years scientists have been struggling in vain to find an effec-
tive vaccine. The extract is reproduced as it was printed.
 Translating scientific and technical texts 211

ST
Jetzt will eine kolumbianisch-schweizerische Forschergruppe um den
Immunologen Manuel E. Patorroyo einen viel versprechenden Ansatz entdeckt
haben. Ausgangspunkt für den neuen Impfstoff war die Beobachtung, dass die
Parasiten eine Art molekulare Achillesferse haben. Um in die roten Blutkörperchen
5 einzudringen, in denen sie sich vermehren, benötigen die Einzeller ein MSP-1
genanntes Eiweiß, dass sie wie ein Schlüssel auf ihrer Oberfläche tragen. Dieser
öffnet das zugehörige ‘Schloss’ in der Membran der roten Blutkörperchen, so dass
der Parasit eindringen kann.
Den Forschern ist es gelungen das MSP-1-Proteinmolekül im Reagenzglas
10 nachzubauen und die so genannte Bindungsstelle—also den alles entscheidenden
‘Schlüsselbart’—so zu modifizieren, dass ein ringförmiges Peptid entstanden ist.
Ein solch zyklisches Molekül hat eine bestimmte räumliche Struktur und wird von
Eiweiß abbauenden Enzymen nur sehr langsam verdaut. Beides Merkmale, die für
die Wirksamkeit eines Impfstoffs ausgesprochen günstig sind. Tatsächlich ließ sich
15 im Tierversuch zeigen, dass das künstliche dreidimensionale Peptid Antikörper in
hoher Konzentration erzeugt, die sich an die MSP-1-Moleküle heften und somit den
Eintrittsschlüssel wirkungslos machen. Ob sich aus diesem Ansatz einmal ein
Impfstoff herstellen lässt, bleibt abzuwarten.
(Feldmeier 2001)

References

Primary
DEGES 1998. Tunnelauskleidung (Rennsteigtunnel). Berlin: Deutsche Einheit Fern-
straßenplanungs- und -bau GmbH.
European Commission’s European Master’s (EMT) in Translation Network n.d. Avail-
able at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/resources-partners/european-masters-translation-emt/
european-masters-translation-emt-explained_en (Accessed: 22 March 2018).
Feldmeier, Hermann 2001. ‘Neuer Impfstoff bremst Vermehrung von Malaria-Erregern’, Die
Welt, 16 July [Online]. Available at: www.welt.de/print-welt/article463340/Neuer-Impf-
stoff-bremst-Vermehrung-von-Malaria-Erregern.html (Accessed: 15 February 2018).
Goller, F. 1987. ‘Der Gesang der Tannenmeise (Parus ater): Beschreibung und kommuni-
kative Funktion’, Journal für Ornithologie, 128, pp. 291–310.
Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) n.d. Available at: www.iti.org.uk/ (Accessed:
26 March 2018).

Secondary
Byrne, Jody 2012. Scientific and Technical Translation Explained: A Nuts and Bolts Guide
for Beginners. London and New York: Routledge.
Markel, Mike 2004. Technical Communication. 7th edn. Boston and New York: Bedford
St. Martin’s.
Mossop, Brian 2014. Revising and Editing for Translators. 3rd edn. London and New
York: Routledge.
212 The translation process and specialisms
Olohan, Maeve 2016. Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York: Routledge.
Rogers, Margaret 2015. Specialised Translation. Shedding the “Non-Literary” Tag. Bas-
ingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schmitt, Peter A. 1999a. ‘Defekte im Ausgangstext’, in Snell-Hornby et al., pp. 147–51.
Schmitt, Peter A. 1999b. ‘Maßeinheiten’, in Snell-Hornby et al., pp. 298–300.
Snell-Hornby, Mary, Hönig, Hans, Kuβmaul, Paul and Schmitt, Peter A. (eds) 1999. Hand-
buch Translation. 2nd edn. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.

Lexical and related resources

British Standards Institute (BSI) 2012. PD ISO/TS 11669: Translation Projects—General
Guidelines. London: British Standards Institute.
British Standards Institute (BSI) 2015. BS EN ISO 117100: Translation Services—
Requirements for Translation Services. London: British Standards Institute.
Bureau International des Poids et Mesures n.d. Measurement Units: The SI. Available at:
www.bipm.org/en/measurement-units/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018).
DocCheck News 2012. ‘Medizinische terminologie: Sprich oder stirb’, 21 November.
Available at: http://news.doccheck.com/de/223/medizinische-terminologie-sprich-oder-
stirb/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018).
E&S Dictionary n.d. Available at: www.ernst-und-sohn.de/es-dictionary (Accessed: 1
March 2018).
IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe) n.d. Available at: http://iate.europa.eu/
(Accessed: 2 March 2018).
Leo n.d. Available at: www.leo.org/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018).
Oxford-Duden German Dictionary 1999. 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ProZ n.d. Available at: http//www.proz.com/ (Accessed: 2 March 2018).
15 Translating literary texts

Wo man am meisten fühlt, weiß man nicht viel zu sagen.

Annette von Droste-Hülshoff

In this chapter on literature and translation we have a number of aims. For stu-
dents who do not have much experience in analysing literary texts, we wish to
offer an introduction to thinking about the ways that literary texts function, and
the issues that ‘literariness’ raises for translation. We also discuss the kinds of
research that translating literature can entail, including some basic bibliographi-
cal orientation for background research into German authors, literary history and
literary scholarship. At the same time, we hope that this discussion will also be of
interest to those for whom literature forms the main channel of their engagement
with German, in that we will ask how thinking about translation from the point of
view of literature can raise questions about some accounts of translation.

What is at stake in literary translation?

The texts here are from Faust I, the 1987 translation by David Luke, and the 1999
translation by John Williams. The excerpts are from the ‘Abend’ scene: Faust steals
into Margarete’s house shortly after having met her and looks around the room. Read
both translations and analyse them comparatively, before reading them alongside the
German, which you should be able to find easily, and before reading our commentary
here. Try to think about a range of issues, such as the scene that is represented, the
syntax, and the rhythm. Line numbers refer to the lines in the play.

1987 David Luke 1999 John Williams

FAUST [gazing up and about him] FAUST [gazing around him]
Welcome, sweet twilight, shining dim all through The gentle light of evening falls
This sanctuary! Now let love’s sweet pain Into this sanctuary. Within these walls
That lives on hope’s refreshing dew Love’s pangs clutch at your heart, but you
2690 Seize and consume my heart again! Must still your cravings with hope’s meagre dew.
214 The translation process and specialisms

1987 David Luke 1999 John Williams

How this whole place breathes deep content This peaceful homestead seems to breathe
And order and tranquillity! A sense of order and content.
What riches in this poverty, Such poverty is wealth indeed,
What happiness in this imprisonment! And there is bliss in such imprisonment.
[He sinks into the leather armchair by the bed.] He throws himself into the leather chair by the bed.

2695 Oh let me rest here: long ago, among How many generations has this seat
Their joys and sorrows, others sat on you, Borne through all the years of joy and care!
Embraced and welcomed! Ah, how often too Her forebears sat upon this very chair,
Round this, their grandsire’s throne, the children A throng of children playing at their feet.
clung!
My love herself, at Christmas time, a young Perhaps my love, when Christmastime was near,
2700 Rosy-cheeked child, glad at some gift, knelt here With pious thanks and childish cheeks so sweet
Perhaps, and kissed his wrinkled hand so dear. Would kiss the feeble hand that rested here.
What order, what completeness I am made Dear child, I sense your presence all around me,
To sense in these surroundings! It is yours, Integrity and order everywhere.
Dear girl, your native spirit that ensures The traces of your daily tasks surround me;
2705 Maternal daily care, the table neatly laid, The table that you set with loving care,
The crisp white sand strewn on the floors! The sand you scattered on the flagstones there.
Oh godlike hand, by whose dear skill and love One touch of your dear hand, and in a trice
This little hut matches the heavens above! This humble dwelling is a paradise.
And here! And here! [he raises the curtain round the bed]
[He draws aside a curtain from the bed.]
What fierce joy seizes me! I could Ah, what a shiver of delight!
2710 Stand gazing here for ever! Nature, you Here I could sit for hours and dwell
Worked this sweet wonder, here the inborn angel On dreaming nature’s magic spell
grew
Through gentle dreams to womanhood. That fashioned that angelic sight.
Here the child lay, her tender heart As she lay here, the glowing surge
Full of warm life, here the pure love Of life pulsed in her gentle breast,
2715 Of God’s creative forces wove And here a pure creative urge
His likeness by their sacred art! God’s image on the child impressed.

And I? What purpose brings me? What And you! What brought you to her door?
Profound emotion stirs me! What did I What do you want? Why is your heart so sore?
Come here to do? Why do I sigh? What feelings hold you in their sway?
2720 Poor wretch! Am I Faust or not? Ah Faust, poor fool, I fear you’ve lost your way.

Is there some magic hovering round me here? Is there some magic spell around me?
I was resolved, my lust brooked no delay— I lusted for her, and I find
And now in dreams of love I wilt and melt away! A dream of love comes to confound me.
Are we mere playthings of the atmosphere? Are we the playthings of a breath of wind?

2725 If she came in this instant, ah, my sweet, And what if she should come while you are here?
How she would punish me! How small You’d answer for your recklessness, and all
The great Don Juan would feel, how he would fall Your bold bravado would just disappear—
In tears of languor at her feet! Abject and sighing at her feet you’d fall.
(Goethe 1998: 84–5, trans. Luke) (Goethe 1999: 84–5, trans. Williams)

In these two translations, a number of seemingly small changes work together

to give the reader different impressions of who the character Faust is, and what
has gone on in his mind during the scene. There are perhaps two major differences
 Translating literary texts 215
that strike us. Firstly, the two texts have quite different rhythms: Luke’s transla-
tion is overall faster, and, from the beginning is marked by a sense of restlessness;
Williams’s translation is calmer at the beginning, more hesitant, and in general
gives the impression of greater control. Secondly, the object of address is differ-
ent. In Luke’s text, Faust addresses the twilight and objects in the room (the chair)
in the second person. In Williams’ translation, Faust reports as he observes and
reflects, the ‘address’ becoming situational and implied.
The first line sets the pace in both texts: Luke’s first line is divided, it begins
with an affirmative ‘welcome’, and the two unstressed syllables in ‘welcome,
sweet twilight’(-vv-v), create a sense of movement. Williams’s first line, a state-
ment rather than an exclamation and one stress shorter, creates a different feel,
not only because of its regularity, but also because of the longer first noun phrase
‘the gentle light of evening’. We sense this same difference in line 2691, where
Williams’s translation favours, as in the first line, disyllabics with falling rhythms
(peaceful (-v), homestead (-v)), where Luke’s exclamation employs a line of mon-
osyllabics. Notably, Luke’s anaphoric ‘what riches . . . what happiness’ contrasts
with Williams’s chiasmus, or ‘crossed’ pattern. Both rhetorical figures underscore
parallel sets of relationships, but with his chiasmus (again, a declarative sentence
rather than an exclamation), Williams’s Faust pronounces a composed maxim;
Luke’s makes an enthusiastic outburst. This observation leads us to another point
which has significant rhythmical implications: Luke’s translation (as he states in
his foreword) frequently avoids end-stopped lines; it has frequent enjambment.
This is especially notable from 2695 onwards. There is a breathlessness, a sense of
tumult about this writing. Williams, too, certainly evokes Faust’s sense of wonder
at Margarete’s house, but the word order is more straightforward, the relationship
between the lines and the syntactic units is stronger, and the lines work as couplets
more frequently (e.g. 2717–20). A reader unfamiliar with the original is meeting
two rather different Fausts here: Luke’s perhaps more immature, more ‘poetic’ in
a conventionally romantic sense, Williams’s more ‘classical’, more intellectual,
more composed. In short, Williams’s Faust seems like an older man, or at least
it becomes difficult to imagine Williams’s Faust exclaiming ‘ah, my sweet’ as
Luke’s does at the end of the monologue. These are not criticisms: both these
translations are good, and written by translators who knew the texts, the author
and the period extremely well. Both translations are also relatively close; but these
Fausts do not speak the same language, and are not the same man because of it.
Not only that, but these two translations present different scenes: in Luke’s
translation, Faust addresses the twilight in the manner of Klopstock’s poem
‘Die frühen Gräber’ (1764): ‘Willkommen, o silberner Mond’. Williams’s Faust
describes, articulating what he observes; his is closer to the interior monologue
of a novel. It is the place—within these walls—that causes Williams’s Faust to
experience the pangs and clutches of love, a love that endures despite hope’s mea-
gre sustenance. Luke’s Faust invites the pain of love, a pain that endures because
of hope. Perhaps inevitably then, there is a greater change of pace in Williams’s
version when his Faust begins to perceive Margarete’s presence more directly.
216 The translation process and specialisms
A further significant difference which stems from this distinction in setting or
object of address occurs near the end: in Williams’s version, as in fact in the initial
monologue, Faust addresses himself in the second person (as in Goethe). On the
one hand this is a natural manner of speaking—one can say ‘what have you done’
to oneself—on the other it underscores Faust’s sense of self-alienation. Luke’s
Faust’s questions turn around his ego, the ‘and I’ of course contrasts with the
earlier addresses to objects (‘Oh godlike hand!’) but also gives Faust’s question
a different sense of direction, and conclusion: where Williams’s Faust, bitterly
half laughing surely, says ‘I fear you’ve lost your way’, Luke’s Faust seems more
alarmed, assertive almost, in his essential question about his identity: ‘Am I Faust
now or not?’ Again, the reader comes away from these two texts not only with two
Fausts but also with rather different impressions of what has gone on: Williams’s
Faust is ‘confounded’ by the experience he has undergone, where Luke’s Faust
‘wilts and melts away’.
Faust is a useful example to begin with when we think about what is ‘at stake’
in translating literature, simply because it is so famous and belongs, rightly, to
what we can call world literature. Faust has been seen as embodying the Ger-
man spirit, Goethe’s Faust has been adapted and translated countless times; these
are texts even readers relatively unfamiliar with German literature are likely to
have heard of. It is very clear that it does make a difference what the Faust we
read about is like as a person, and what the reading experience of Faust is like.
Because Faust has been translated, performed, adapted so many times, it is a
representative example of translation and retranslation as part of a broad and
continuous engagement with a text as part of that text’s reception history, even as
part of the way that text lives and dwells among us. But it is also useful to begin
with this translation comparison because these are both good translations. Both
are also ‘close’, and respect the formal characteristics of the text too—and yet the
differences that occur in them cumulatively have significant repercussions for the
meaning of the text. It will be the purpose of the next section to ask why this is so.

Language and literariness

We began this book by framing translation as text production, as a kind of writ-
ing which is different of course from ‘free’ or ‘original’ writing, but in which
nonetheless good writing skills, the ability to write with and for a purpose, to
think critically about, edit and make decisions about your own text, are the
core skills, alongside, of course, being able to understand the source text. In
this sense, literary translation is not essentially different from other kinds of
translation in terms of the processes, problems or strategies of translation—you
have certainly translated lots of literature in each of the chapters where we have
focussed on specific problems of translation, many of which one might consider
to be more the concern of literary texts, but which, as we have seen, can affect
a whole range of writing: cultural problems, metaphor, prosody, genre conven-
tions, etc.
 Translating literary texts 217
One reason for this is that literary language is not inherently different from
non-literary language; certainly it is not the presence or absence of ‘poetic diction’
that makes a piece of writing into a linguistic work of art. When translating, say,
a novel, the reader and translator may encounter a kind of writing which is highly
stylised, but it is not that alone that makes it literature: the beginning of Thomas
Mann’s Joseph tetralogy is fearful in its syntactic complexity, but the same author
begins his equally impressive Zauberberg with a disarmingly simply statement:
‘Ein junger Mann reiste im Hochsommer von Hamburg, seiner Vaterstadt, nach
Davos Platz in Graubünden’ (Mann 1974: II, 7). If anything, literature is charac-
terised by its ability to imitate other forms of writing, that might include the lan-
guage of diplomacy in an historical novel, or scientific language as we see in the
following excerpt from Brecht’s Furcht und Elend des III. Reiches where Brecht
imitates the language of theoretical physics:

Für ruhende, inkohärente, nicht durch Spannungen aufeinander einwirkende

Materie ist T = μ, die einzige von 0 verschiedene Komponente der tensoriel-
len Energiedichte.
(Brecht 2005: I, 547)

The particular issues that arise in and as a result of literary translation are thus less
the product of a special kind of language; rather the problems of literary transla-
tion are to do with the way that language creates meaning in the text, a text’s
‘literariness’, that hard-to-define quality that makes a poem a poem, that makes
a poem like a novel and like a play, and unlike an essay, or an instruction, or a
speech, however well written or elegant they may be.
Literariness describes the special semantic density that is proper to literature
and which is the product of the way literary texts construct meaning and their
relationship to extra-textual reality. Every text, including a literary text, is a
historical document or event: Goethe sat down over a specific length of time
and wrote Iphigenie. As we have seen in Chapter 1 he rewrote it in Italy in dis-
cussion with others and under specific influences. Many authors may well have
particular aims in mind when they write. Literary works can, like other texts,
however, create meanings their authors did not foresee or intend: such is prob-
ably the case with Adalbert Stifter, who had a strong sense of Christian moral-
ity, but whose literary worlds can be seen as underlining the futility of man’s
attempts to pierce the mysteries of cold, indifferent nature. Literary texts can
also speak to us and have meanings well beyond the lifetimes of their authors
and intended readership: in the case of Stifter, he achieved moderate success in
his lifetime, only to be an ‘Entdeckung’ for the author and critic Hermann Bahr
following the First World War (Bahr 1919). What makes a text work as literature
is that for the reader it functions autonomously of its contexts and creates sym-
bolic meanings of its own. This is what makes great literature live beyond its
time, what allows us to engage with it, and what makes us return to it. It creates
those meanings by internal reference. We have already mentioned in Chapter 8
218 The translation process and specialisms
the painting of Christian VII in Unwiederbringlich. If Fontane had mentioned
that painting in a travelogue (which he also wrote), then what would interest
us would be the painting’s existence in reality: the words would point outside
the literary world and would gain meaning through reference to the empirical
world. In a literary text, what ‘Christian VII’ means as a sign is determined not
solely, but primarily by the relationship of that sign to other aspects of the liter-
ary work itself, such as the representation of Holk’s character.
Finally, literary works establish patterns of association so that everything
achieves meaning within the context of the rest of the text’s other features. If it can
be said that the fundamental property of language is to create and express meaning
through arbitrary signs which gain their significance as a result of their structural
relationship to each other rather than to reality, then literature can be seen as an
intensification of this process. Literary works are those which, when read with
attention to these patterns of internal association, reveal themselves as complex
but organically coherent structures of meaning. These meanings however, because
they are created by association, are ambiguous, implicit and often unresolved.
Interpreting literary texts involves a careful balancing act between our knowledge
of the text’s genesis and of the author, our awareness of our own circumstances as
readers, but above all an acknowledgement of the primacy of the meanings created
by the text on its own terms. This is important because it is tempting to associate
literary translation primarily with the imitation of style. Clearly, a challenge for a
translator of literature is indeed to imitate an author’s style rather than imposing
their own. But that is a challenge in many types of translation, and in translating the
many different types of text a single author might write; the reason stylistic choices
are important in literature is because they contribute to the creation of meaning in
a way that is more significant than in most other texts.
In closing this section, we need to qualify the foregoing remarks by under-
lining that many texts, and many kinds of translation require interpretation of
some kind (legal texts, Biblical texts, historical texts), and that most translation
involves deciding on meanings which are often implicit and unresolved even
in non-literary texts. What is more, as with any genre, the boundaries of what
constitutes ‘literature’ not only evolve over time and are different in different
cultures, but even in the West they are fluid: the extent to which a text may be
said to be literary varies, and of course the oeuvre of any given author may well
include not only literary texts but non-literary genres, such as essays, diaries,
letters, journalism, etc. Whether something is literature or not is, in the final
analysis, often as much part of a reader’s interpretation as the overall meaning
of the text.

Translations as meta-texts
One useful way of thinking about literary translation is to see it as a meta-textual
activity, translations as meta-texts, that is texts which are part of the engagement
with and around a literary work and through which the multifaceted meanings
 Translating literary texts 219
of that work are explored. James Holmes, in a 1970 paper on translation, placed
translations of poetry on a scale of such meta-texts which ranges from critical
essays to prose translations (paraphrase), verse translation, imitation, to poems
inspired by another poem. Translation in this sense is a way of engaging with
a text, part of a much broader activity of textual interpretation. This model is
appealing, not least because it bridges the gap between properly literary texts and
their translations, and other text forms which are variously discussed, analysed,
interpreted and transmitted.
The relationship between translation and other forms of cultural production
inspired by or that engage with a source text is a question that surfaces here.
Many classic texts are translated and retranslated, often because a translation
ages and a new translation is sought for a new generation of readers; more
often, perhaps, because translation is an attentive reading, a way of entering a
tradition. Translation is thus part of the ongoing reception history of a work,
as Rudolf Kloepfer writes: ‘Übersetzung ist eine Art der Progression. Für die
Übersetzung gilt, was für die Dichtung gesagt wurde, sie ist nie abgeschlossen’
(Kloepfer 1967: 126). One difficult question is the extent to which the transla-
tion can be said to have its own status as a literary work, after all, if it ‘works’,
it will function aesthetically itself. One important early scholar, Levý, argues
clearly that the aim of translation is to preserve and communicate the mean-
ing of the original but not to produce a new work, literary translation being
unproductive. Kloepfer, whom we have just cited, sees translation as a properly
literary activity, ‘nicht irgendeine Dichtung, nicht Umdichtung, sondern die
Dichtung der Dichtung’ (Kloepfer 1967: 126). Rather more polemically, Law-
rence Venuti has criticised the ‘invisibility’ of literary translators (Venuti 2005).
In reality, what a translation is, or should be, or how it is received depends on
the culture of translation at a given epoch, the person translating, and what the
translation means for them and their readers (see Albrecht 1998 for an historical
discussion).
In many, perhaps most cases, readers wish to have the feeling that they are
reading the author’s work. Translations themselves however, such as Schlegel’s
translations of Shakespeare in German, can become canonical in their own right.
Indeed, a modern German reader of Hamlet can choose between Schlegel’s ver-
sion, Erich Fried’s version or a number of others, a plurality which makes the
translator’s choices and individual style all the more evident and an object of criti-
cal enquiry in itself. Retranslation poses interesting questions for scholars, read-
ers and writers interested in translation, because previous translations, if they are
known to the translator, can enter into the composition process—promoting some
solutions, excluding others, so that translations of previously translated works
effectively have several STs (White 2015).
Translation of literature can thus be seen as something which is closely linked to
the engagement with and production of texts more broadly. Literary works, like all
texts, have sources, influences, sources of inspiration, antecedents and followers, and
the boundaries between ‘translation’, ‘imitation’ and ‘poetic response’ can be hard
220 The translation process and specialisms
to draw. But it is ultimately this varied engagement that makes literary texts live and
uncovers their rich and ever-changing meanings for us as communities of readers.

Specialism and literary translation: research and resources

We can usefully divide research in literary translation into two areas: the first
encompasses what we might call the ‘facts’ of the world that is represented in the
literary text: under this heading we might understand all sorts of objects or refer-
ences that can occur as part of the represented world, especially in novels, whether
that is the ‘Pferdebahn’ in a nineteenth-century Berlin novel, or the names of
illnesses and their treatments as they appear, say in Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg.
Here we can refer you back to the literary case study in Chapter 12. The second
area of knowledge that can require research is more properly covered by literary
studies itself: that is research on literary motifs and symbols, research on authors,
research on periods of literary history, genres, style, etc.
The amount of research in literary scholarship a translator is likely to need to
undertake will depend very heavily on the status of the TT and the purpose of
the ST: if the translation itself is almost a work of scholarship and will require
detailed notes, then obviously the translation needs to be informed by, and seen
as part of a broader scholarly reception; in most cases, a literary translator needs
both some general orientation and then punctual research to solve local prob-
lems. In any case, being able to find out what research and resources are avail-
able in an efficient way is essential. The following two overviews are very well
known and provide guidance on how to conduct bibliographical research, with
special reference to literary and language studies: Johannes Hansel and Lydia
Kaiser, Literaturrecherche für Germanisten (2003); Paul Raabe, Einführung in
die Bücherkunde für Germanisten (1994); and there are other similar ‘bibliogra-
phies of bibliographies’ on the market. Getting to know one of these books can
save you a lot of time, as they list for the most part valuable reference works
under classified headings. The first, Hansel/Kaiser also includes a valuable sec-
tion on online resources, in particular it lists catalogues of university libraries and
other specialist search engines, many of which now can provide access to digi-
talised materials. This can be particularly helpful for historical sources. Impor-
tantly, they also list reference works, including historical ones like those we used
previously, relating to topics as might be encountered in literature, such as the
Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte we mentioned in Chapter 12.
Before even embarking on a translation, however, a translator, as a specialist in
texts, has to consider the text on the page. The fundamental point of departure of
all literary interpretation is the text, and this thus needs to be dependable. In the
case of, say, a contemporary novel, there is likely to be (a) only one version and
(b) the possibility of contacting the author through the publisher should inconsist-
encies or problems arise. With older texts, this is not as straightforward. Michael
Hofman’s English translation of Hans Fallada’s Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Alone
in Berlin) is considerably shorter than the newly published German paperback in
 Translating literary texts 221
the Aufbau publishing house; the English text uses the text as it appeared in the late
1940s, but the recent success of the novel in new translations abroad created a new
internal market for the novel in Germany, and so the more recent German edition
prints Fallada’s novel without the cuts made by the publisher at the recommenda-
tion of initial reviewers (Giesecke 2014). With an author like Goethe, there may
be several versions of his texts, as he amended them throughout his life. In these
cases, we can decide whether we take the ‘Ausgabe letzter Hand’ (i.e. the last one
to have the author’s seal of approval) as definitive, or an earlier one, more repre-
sentative perhaps of the author and literature at an earlier period. While a transla-
tor is unlikely to need a critical historical edition (which lists all the amendments
made to a text in order to show how it developed into its final form), recourse to
a good ‘Leseausgabe’ or ‘Studienausgabe’ is important. An entry in the excellent
multivolume Kosch, Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon (1968) which lists entries by
author, will list scholarly editions in the bibliography, as will the Kindler Litera-
tur Lexikon (now in electronic format). Reference works of this kind inevitably
focus on canonical authors or authors from the past, and systematic presentations
of ‘Gegenwartsliteratur’ are harder to find. One resource worth mentioning here
is the Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur published by Edition
Text + Kritik since 1978, initially as a loose-leaf catalogue, and now in an online
version. It presents short biographies and bibliographical information.
Not least, using a good edition of the ST or having reference to one where pos-
sible is important because they often contain useful background and notes. While
this is obviously not the case for contemporary literature, it is the case for canoni-
cal texts. For volumes in the Reclam Universal-Bibliothek, the separate series of
green volumes Erläuterungen und Dokumente are cheap and invaluable sources
of ready information. Check these sorts of sources before spending time redoing
others’ work with your own research. Finally, we should note the New Books in
German magazine, published by the Goethe Institut in collaboration with a num-
ber of other partners; this lists recent publications and older ‘forgotten gems’ in
German and gives details of rights.

Concluding remarks: literary translation

in Translation Studies
What we hope to have shown throughout this book and certainly in these clos-
ing chapters is that although translating literary texts and other texts is different,
it is more productive and informative to see them as different facets of related
activities. This has not always been the case in scholarship on translation as
it has developed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The beginnings of
modern scholarship on translation saw in part a reaction against older accounts
of translation which had been dominated by thinking about literary texts, so
that literary texts were seen as lying outside what a linguistic theory of transla-
tion could accommodate. This division is arguably less antagonistic today, but
the perception remains that literary and linguistic approaches of translation are
222 The translation process and specialisms
poorly integrated (Tymoczko 2014: 11). The independent status of literary texts
does not fit easily into models of translation based on communicative models
where the idea of an intended message dominates, so that Mary Snell-Hornby,
who sought to present an ‘integrated approach’ in the 1980s, contrasts literary
texts with ‘pragmatic’ texts in terms of their autonomy: literary texts are rela-
tively autonomous of their background situations and their target readership, in
that the function of the translation is less definable (Snell-Hornby 1988: 119);
Jörn Albrecht similarly rejects Hans Vermeer’s purpose-focused Skopos theory
because it concentrates too acutely on an identifiable, intended message, with
the successful communicative purpose of the translation foregrounded (Albrecht
1998: 255–61). As translation began to become a greater object of scholarly
enquiry from the 1970s, a range of scholars interested in literary translation,
such as Jiří Levý, André Lefevere and Susan Bassnett, found the then linguistic
models inadequate for a description of literary translations and, simultaneously,
that the object of literary analysis in universities and in scholarship was too
narrowly defined as national literature, leaving the influence of translations as
texts and translating as an activity in accounts of literary history insufficiently
examined (see Bassnett 2014: 25 for a summary of this perspective). They pro-
posed that translation and translations could be studied descriptively, focusing
on the characteristics of translations as a kind of text, and the embeddedness of
translation in cultural systems of power, patronage, publishing, etc. In our view,
the study of translation and translations is inevitably multifaceted, in the same
way that language and textual study more broadly engenders a proliferation of
specialisms, from Goethe-Philologie to Dialektforschung. We remain optimistic
that these various branches of endeavour can remain mutually informing.

Further reading
Albrecht, Jörn 1998. Die literarische Übersetzung: Geschichte, Theorie, kulturelle
Wirkung. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft [Particularly useful for the
history of translation practice. Provocative and informative.].
Apel, Friedmar and Kopetzki, Annette 2003. Literarische Übersetzung. Stuttgart: Metz­
ler [This introduction to scholarship on literary translation contains an excellent
bibliography.].
Bassnett, Susan 2014. Translation. London: Routledge [See esp. Chapter 1, pp. 16–36. This
short introduction has a good bibliography particularly oriented to cultural approaches
and literary translation. It presents a historical overview of the discipline from a similar
perspective.].
Boase-Beier, Jean, Fisher, Lina and Furukawa, Hiroko (eds) 2018. The Palgrave Hand-
book of Literary Translation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Classe, Olive (ed.) 2000. The Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English. 2 Vols.
London and Chicago: Dearborn.
Horton, David 2013. Thomas Mann in English. London: Bloomsbury [Presents a study of
translations of Mann both historically and with chapters focusing on specific issues, such
as the translation of dialogue and terms of address.].
 Translating literary texts 223
Lefevere, André 1977. Translating Literature: The German Tradition from Luther to
Rosenzweig. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum.
Lefevere, André 1998. Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Lit-
erature Context. New York: MLA.
Peeters, Regina 2012. Eine Bibliothek für Babel: Maßstäbe einer Spezialbibliothek für literari-
sche Übersetzter. Berlin: Logos [A recent study of how literary translators use resources.].
Wagner, Jan and Lendle, Jo (eds) 2017. Nachdichten. Akzente, 64(2) [A special edition of
the literary journal with a focus on poetic imitation, including versions and drafts with
final versions and discussions.].

Practical 15

15.1 TRANSLATING POETRY

Assignment
Because so much depends in literary translation on a sense of the whole, we begin
here with two verse translations.

i For a translation workshop open to the general public at a theatre and cultural
centre, you have been asked to translate the following two texts. They are
canonical German poems, Eduard Mörike’s ‘Auf einer Lampe’ (1846) and
Georg Trakl’s ‘Verfall’ (1909).
ii Translate the poems into English.
iii Putting the originals to one side, analyse your translations along with others
in the class on their own terms. How do they work as poems in their own
right? What changes might you make to make your poems better poems?
What changes might you make to move your translation closer to the original,
in terms of individual lines or overall effect?
iv To what extent does the act of translating lead you to an understanding of how
the poems function as structures of meaning?

Auf einer Lampe

1 Noch unverrückt, o schöne Lampe, schmückest du,
An leichten Ketten zierlich aufgehangen hier,
Die Decke des nun fast vergeßnen Lustgemachs.
Auf deiner weißen Marmorschale, deren Rand
5 Der Efeukranz von goldengrünem Erz umflicht,
Schlingt fröhlich eine Kinderschar den Ringelreihn.
Wie reizend alles! lachend, und ein sanfter Geist
Des Ernstes doch ergossen um die ganze Form —
Ein Kunstgebild der echten Art. Wer achtet sein?
10 Was aber schön ist, selig scheint es in ihm selbst.
(Mörike 1964: 85)
224 The translation process and specialisms

Verfall
1 Am Abend, wenn die Glocken Frieden läuten,
Folg ich der Vögel wundervollen Flügen,
Die lang geschart, gleich frommen Pilgerzügen,
Entschwinden in den hersbtlich klaren Weiten.

5 Hinwandelnd durch den dämmervollen Garten

Träum ich nach ihren helleren Geschicken
Und fühl der Stunden Weiser kaum mehr rücken.
So folg ich über Wolken ihren Fahrten.

Da macht ein Hauch mich von Verfall erzittern.

10 Die Amsel klagt in den entlaubten Zweigen.
Es schwankt der rote Wein an rostigen Gittern,

Indes wie blasser Kinder Todesreigen

Um dunkle Brunnenränder, die verwittern,
Im Wind sich fröstelnd blaue Astern neigen.
(Trakl 1969: I/59)

15.2  TRANSLATING DIALOGUE

Assignment
Here is an excerpt from Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Der Schwierige (1920). You
have been asked to produce a dual-language version of the play with minimal
notes and a short introduction which can be used both in schools or university
programmes, but can also be read by an English-speaking readership without Ger-
man. Here is the first half of the opening scene. We are told it takes place in a
‘mittelgroßer Raum eines älteren Stadtpalais, als Arbeitszimmer des Hausherrn
eingerichtet’. Lukas is ‘erster Diener’ for Hans Karl Bühl, the main character,
Vinzenz is a new servant.

i Translate the extract into English, giving notes where you think absolutely
necessary.
ii Give an account of (a) your overall approach; (b) decisions of detail; (c) your
research which informed both your overall approach and your local decisions.
iii What aspects of this first scene would be relevant for your introduction in the
context of your reading on Hofmannsthal?

1 Lukas Hier ist das sogenannte Arbeitszimmer. Verwandtschaft und sehr gute
Freunde werden hier hereingeführt, oder nur wenn speziell gesagt wird, in
den grünen Salon.
Vinzenz (tritt ein) Was arbeitet er? Majoratsverwaltung? Oder was? Politische Sachen?
5 Lukas Durch diese Spaltetür kommt der Sekretär herein.
Vinzenz Privatsekretär hat er auch? Das sind doch Hungerleider! Verfehlte
Existenzen! Hat er bei ihm was zu sagen?
Lukas Hier geht’s durch ins Toilettezimmer. Dort werden wir jetzt hineingehen
und Smoking und Frack herrichten zur Auswahl je nachdem, weil nichts Spezielles
10 angeordnet ist.
 Translating literary texts 225

Vinzenz (schnüffelt an allen Möbeln herum) Also was? Sie wollen mir jetzt den
Dienst zeigen? Es hätte Zeit gehabt bis morgen früh, und wir hätten uns jetzt kollegial
unterhalten können. Was eine Herrenbedienung ist, das ist mir seit vielen Jahren zum
Bewußtsein gekommen, also beschränken Sie sich auf das Nötige; damit meine ich
15 die Besonderheiten. Also was? Fangen Sie schon an!
Lukas (richtet ein Bild, das nicht ganz gerade hängt) Er kann kein Bild und keinen
Spiegel schief hängen sehen. Wenn er anfängt, alle Laden aufzusperren oder einen
verlegten Schlüssel zu suchen, dann ist er sehr schlechter Laune.
Vinzenz Lassen Sie jetzt solche Lappalien. Sie haben mir doch gesagt, daß die
20 Schwester und der Neffe, die hier im Hause wohnen, auch jedesmal angemeldet
werden müssen.
Lukas (putzt mit dem Taschentuch an einem Spiegel) Genau wie jeder Besuch.
Darauf hält er sehr streng.
Vinzenz Was steckt da dahinter? Da will er sie sich vom Leibe halten. Warum läßt
25 er sie dann hier wohnen? Er wird doch mehrere Häuser haben? Das sind doch seine
Erben. Die wünschen doch seinen Tod.
Lukas Die Frau Gräfin Crescence und der Graf Stani? Ja, da sei Gott vor! Ich weiß
nicht, wie Sie mir vorkommen!
(Hofmannsthal 1966: 39–40)

References

Primary
Brecht, Bertolt 2005. Ausgewählte Werke in sechs Bänden. Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp.
Fallada, Hans 2009. Alone in Berlin. Translated by Hofmann, Michael. London:
Penguin.
Giesecke, Almut 2014. ‘Nachwort’, in Fallada, H. Jeder stirbt für sich allein. Berlin:
­Aufbau, pp. 687–97.
Goethe, J.W. von 1998. Faust Part One. Translated by Luke, David. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Goethe, J.W. von 1999. Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy. Translated by Williams, John
R. Ware: Wordsworth.
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 1966. Der Schwierige. Edited by Yates, W.E. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb 1962. ‘Die frühen Gräber’, in Klopstock, F.G. Ausgewählte
Werke. Edited by Jünger, Friedrich G. Munich: Hanser, p. 108.
Mann, Thomas 1974. Romane und Erzählungen. Berlin: Aufbau.
Mörike, Eduard 1964. Sämtliche Werke. Edited by Göpfert, Herbert G. Munich: Hanser.
Trakl, Georg 1969. Dichtungen und Briefe. Edited by Walter Killy and Hans Szklenar.
Salzburg: Müller.

Secondary
Albrecht, Jörn 1998. Die literarische Übersetzung: Geschichte, Theorie, kulturelle
Wirkung. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Arnold, Heinz Ludwig et al. (eds) 2009. Kindlers Literatur Lexikon. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Bahr, Hermann 1919. Adalbert Stifter: Eine Entdeckung. Zürich, Leipzig and Vienna:
Almathea.
226 The translation process and specialisms
Hansel, Johannes and Kaiser, Lydia 2003. Literaturrecherche für Germanisten. Berlin:
Schmidt.
Kloepfer, Rudolf 1967. Die Theorie der literarischen Übersetzung. Munich: Fink.
Korte, Hermann (ed.) 1978 ff. Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwarts­
literatur. Munich: text + kritik. Available at: nachschlage.net.
Kosch, Wilhelm et al. (eds) 1968. Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon. 3rd edn. Berne and
Munich: Francke.
Raabe, Paul 1994. Einführung in die Bücherkunde für Germanisten. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Snell-Hornby, Mary 1988. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam and
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Tymoczko, Maria 2014. ‘Why literary translation is a good model for translation theory
and practice’, in Boase-Beier, J., Wilson, P. and Fawcett, A. (eds) Literary Translation:
Redrawing the Boundaries. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11–31.
Venuti, Lawrence 2005. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. 2nd edn.
London and New York: Routledge.
White, Michael 2015. ‘Herder and Fontane as Translators of Percy’s Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry: The Ballad “Edward, Edward” ’, in Robertson, R. and White, M. (eds)
Fontane and Cultural Mediation: Translation and Reception in Nineteenth-Century
German Literature. Germanic Literatures. Vol. 8. Oxford: Legenda, pp. 107–19.
16 Revising, reviewing and
proofing TTs

Throughout this book, we have considered translation sometimes as a product

(such as the assessment of existing TTs in practicals), but more often as a pro-
cess in the form of rewriting. This chapter looks at what is usually regarded as
the final stage of translation as a process—the stage during which the proposed
TT is actually examined as a near-finished product. However, we will also be
analysing a range of checking tasks which occur during the translation process.
The procedures outlined here are neither new nor confined to certain genres.
We only need look to the history of the early seventeenth century King James
translation of the Bible to find reference to ‘every word pass[ing] through the
hands of the whole body of revisers’ (Bobrick 2001: 246). Nevertheless, proof-
ing errors were still reported—apparently one for every ten pages, including a
famous confusion of pronouns: ‘and he went into the city’ where ‘she’ is correct
(ibid.: 260).
Frequent reference will be made along the way to Revising and Editing for
Translators (2014) by Brian Mossop, a Canadian translation scholar and prac-
titioner. You are also referred back to the chapter on Research and resources
(Chapter 12), as research is part of the overall checking process, as also prac-
tised by the seventeenth-century teams of Bible translators who ‘consulted
every known text, commentary, and translation, ancient or modern’ (Bobrick
2001: 245–6).
As a first step, some of the key terms used in relation to ‘checking’ are clari-
fied, before we move on to two case studies intended to introduce you to the
kind of issues which arise in different types of TT checking. The second part of
the chapter goes into more detail on the actual procedures which you need to
carry out.

The terminology of ‘checking’

Many terms are used to describe the various types of checking task that are car-
ried out when producing a TT. We will deal with the most common ones in this
section in order to do two things. Firstly, we need to establish which terms we
228 The translation process and specialisms
will be using and how we will be using them in the rest of this chapter. Secondly,
in any dealings with clients (or your tutor) you need to know what is expected
of you in terms of the final product: so, for example, if you agree that the trans-
lation will be ‘proofed’, does this mean that you will also edit for ST content
errors? In order to contextualise the various checking tasks, we will adopt here the
three-phase model of the whole translation process set out in Mossop (2014: 182):
1. Pre-drafting (reading the ST, conducting research, noting ideas); 2. Drafting
(e.g. sentence by sentence); 3. Post-drafting (checking tasks). We will be deal-
ing with the third phase, but also with the second, particularly when considering
‘self-revision’.

‘Revision’/ ‘self-revision’, ‘review’

We have already mentioned in Chapter 14 on sci-tech translation that accord-
ing to published standards, ‘revision’ is usually understood as checking the TT
for errors against the ST, whereas ‘reviewing’ is checking without reference
to the ST. The former task is carried out by a second translator, the latter by a
subject expert. Alternative terms make explicit the differences: ‘comparative
re-reading’ for ‘revision’ and ‘unilingual re-reading’ for ‘review’ by a trans­
lator rather than a subject expert (see Mossop 2014: 222–9 for a glossary of
terms). Revision assumes a particular importance when, for example, there are
insufficient native speakers of the TL. In the former GDR, the state foreign
language service, Intertext, used German native speakers to translate into Eng-
lish, relying on rare English native speakers temporarily living in the GDR to
revise the texts.
While ‘revision’ and ‘reviewing’ occur at a late stage in the TT production and
involve a second translator or specialist reader, ‘self-revision’ can be integrated
in all three phases (Mossop 2014: 184). In fact, ‘self-revision’ will be key to this
chapter as it is the procedure which most closely characterises the classroom-
based situation. It can also be referred to as ‘checking’, defined as the transla-
tor’s ‘overall self-revision’ or responsibility to check for ‘possible semantic,
grammatical and spelling issues, and for omissions and other errors’ (BS EN ISO
17100:2015, Translation Services—Requirements for translation services). In this
book we will stick to ‘revision’ as specified in the relevant standards, but mostly
prefer the more transparent ‘self-revision’ rather than ‘checking’. For the review
process, we will use ‘review’ or ‘unilingual re-reading’ with no implied difference
of meaning.

‘Editing’, ‘mental editing’/‘transediting’ and ‘post-editing’

‘Editing’ is sometimes used as a synonym for both reviewing and revision.
However, it is not mentioned in the relevant translation standards because, as
Mossop points out (2014: 224), ‘editing’ is generally understood to be carried
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 229
out on a text that is not a translation. Nevertheless, derived terms incorporating
‘editing’ can and often do refer to translated texts. For example, our attention
is usefully drawn to a process that is called ‘mental editing’, i.e. ‘correcting or
improving the writing quality while translating it’ (Mossop 2014: 226). In this
book we will refer to this as ‘transediting’, a 1980s term coined in order to deal
with the ‘similarities and differences between editing and translating’, as pro-
fessional translators frequently need to ‘ “clean up” poorly expressed thoughts
and ideas’ (Stetting 1989: 371–2), usually in non-literary texts. Transediting is
an integral part of the translation process (including pre-drafting and drafting)
and hence an important part of ‘self-revision’. Our last ‘editing’ term—‘post-
editing’—refers rather confusingly to the process of revising Machine Transla-
tion output, sometimes aiming for a low not-for-publication level of quality,
in which case the finished product must be labelled ‘rapidly revised machine
translation’ for the client (see Mossop 2014: 199–201; Olohan 2016: 45–6 for
more details).

‘Proofing’/‘proofreading’
This is often designated as the final stage in the production process and can-
not be performed until all other post-drafting tasks have been carried out. It is
generally agreed to refer to final orthographical and layout corrections to the
post-drafting TT such as punctuation, spelling, capitalisation, numbering, head-
ing levels and so on, often using a ‘style guide’ setting out the client organisa-
tion’s ‘house style’ (for more details, see Byrne 2012: 142–3; Mossop 2014:
43–4). Failing that, other style guides can be called upon such as the Guardian
and Observer style guide (n.d.), The Economist Style Guide (Wroe 2018), the
Modern Humanities Research Association Handbook for Authors and Editors
(2013) or the European Commission Directorate-General for Translation’s Eng-
lish Style Guide (2016).

Moving on
Any form of post-drafting task is an operation carried out in writing on a pre-
existent text—on-screen or on paper, although error spotting is said to be more
efficient on paper (Mossop 2014: 107). But don’t forget that much can be done
to mitigate changes in the last phase by careful self-revision in the preparation
phase (e.g. good research on terminology, background and subject matter; mak-
ing sure you are familiar with the brief and your target audience) and the drafting
phase (e.g. following the relevant style guide as you translate; checking that no
sentences or negatives are omitted, although this is sometimes easier to spot dur-
ing re-reading when non-sequiturs or plain nonsense emerges). Revision in the
post-drafting phase is concerned with ensuring accuracy by eliminating remaining
errors and inconsistencies.
230 The translation process and specialisms
Errors of accuracy can be relatively minor, such as spelling mistakes or punctua-
tion (especially when meaning can be changed: watch out for defining versus non-
defining relative clauses, see paragraph 2.14 of the DGT English Style Guide 2016),
but they can also include ungrammatical or misleading constructions. And it is not
only the language of the TT that may be wrong or unfit for purpose: the concepts
themselves may have been distorted in transmission. In a professional situation, an
ethical decision would have to be made regarding your competence to accept and
carry out the job, as well as a commercial decision about whether the job would be
uneconomic if extensive research is required. In a classroom situation, however, the
trainee translator has a chance to research a new subject area and to learn from this
experience as well as from the tutor’s and classmates’ feedback.
In order to understand the scope of revision and of reviewing, two case studies
follow, before we set out the details of the procedures which you need to undertake.

CASE STUDY 1: Revision

Except in the case of clear factual errors, it is usually easier to correct

someone else’s work (given a certain level of competence) than your
own, but if you are revising someone else’s work, you need to focus
on identifying and correcting errors, not rewriting the text ‘so that it
looks like one of your translations’ (Byrne 2012: 147; see also Mossop
2014: 171–2). Nevertheless, some translations might be of such poor
quality that they are not worth revising. Mossop advises accordingly:
‘If a translation is full of unidiomatic word combinations, if the sen-
tence structures are so influenced by the source text that the result
is unreadable, and of course, if the translator has misunderstood
numerous passages of the original text, the solution is to retranslate,
not revise’ (2014: 27). One criterion for the assessment of translations
by trainees is that the translation will fail if the tutor concludes that
it would be quicker to retranslate than to revise the submitted work.
As a preliminary exercise, it will be useful to assess the quality of
the translation reproduced below and to point out where the faults
lie as a post-drafting exercise incorporating revision and proofing.
The ST and TT were issued in parallel by the German government-
supported Inter Nationes organisation as ‘Sonderthema’ information
leaflets before the organisation was amalgamated with the Goethe
Institut in 2000. The ST’s title is ‘Privatisierung und Deregulierung in
Deutschland: Der Fall Telekom’. We can assume that the English text
was intended to be of publishable quality as Inter Nationes was a
respected international organisation associated with the government.
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 231

The target audience is presumably readers who are well educated

with an interest in German culture and society but who do not under-
stand German, nor are they necessarily native speakers of English.
We print here an extract from early in the document:

ST

Die Privatisierung verschiedener deutscher Unternehmen, die sich

bisher im Besitz des Staates befanden, erfolgt aus prinzipiellen Gründen:
Die deutsche Bundesregierung will den Staat auf seine Kernaufgaben
zurückführen. Im Vordergrund stand und steht der ordnungspolitische Ansatz,
5 den Staat aus der Wirtschaft zurückzuziehen. Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl
hat diese Überzeugung in seiner Regierungserklärung so formuliert: ‘Eine
Wirtschaftsordnung ist um so erfolgreicher, je mehr sich der Staat zurückhält
und dem einzelnen seine Freiheit läßt. Wir wollen nicht mehr, sondern
weniger Staat’. Und Bundesfinanzminister Theo Waigel, in dessen Ressort
10 die Verwaltung und Privatisierung der Bundesunternehmen fällt, ergänzt:
‘Privatisierung bedeutet für uns Investition in Wettbewerb, Effizienz und
Innovation zur Sicherung des Wirtschaftsstandortes Deutschland’. Deshalb ist
nach den erfolgreichen Privatisierungen der fünfziger und sechziger Jahre, als
sich der Bund von einem Teil seines Aktienbesitzes an den Firmen VW, VEBA,
15 und Preussag trennte, in den achtziger Jahren eine neue Privatisierungswelle
eingeleitet worden. [. . .] Der genaue Preis für die T-Aktie wird in einem
Bieterverfahren erst kurz vor dem Börsenstart festgelegt. Zunächst wird
eine Preisspanne veröffentlicht. Interessenten können Angebote machen,
nach denen der Ausgabepreis ermittelt wird. Auch der Preisnachlaß für
20 Privatanleger wird erst kurz vor dem Verkauf festgelegt. Bislang haben sich
rund anderthalb Millionen Interessenten in einem eigens dafür eingerichteten
‘Aktien-Informations-Forum’ registrieren lassen.
(Zawadsky 1996a: 1–2)

The English of the published TT is conspicuously awkward and unidi-

omatic and also includes a number of mistranslations, even though the
ST is written in language distinctly more lucid and accessible to the
layperson than many German business texts. Figure 16.1 shows some
changes which a reviser might make. The reasons for these changes—
which you might like to think about yourself—can be discussed with your
tutor. You might disagree or have other changes to suggest.
The corrections to the TT in Figure 16.1 are so extensive that any
reviser would need to question whether retranslation would be a more
economic option. For obvious reasons, the examples we use in this
chapter tend to be translations that raise plenty of issues. However,
232 The translation process and specialisms

In his 1983 statement Chancellor

Helmut Kohl expressed this
reasons of have
conviction when he said…
principle been

The privatization of various German concerns which until now were in

to roll back
was and is State ownership, is occurring for principle reasons; the German the State

Government intends to take the State back to its core functions. In the

forefront firmly stands the political disposition, to roll the State back from

DELETE
the economy. The Federal Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, formulated this

conviction in his 1983 government statement so, ‘ An ordered e conomy is

all the more successful, the more the State holds itself back and allows

individuals their freedom. We want not more, but less State’. And the

on this point Federal Finance Minister, Theo Waigel, in whose portfolio the

administration and privatization of Federal business concerns lies, expands

What privatization
^, ‘Privatization means for us investment in competition, efficiency, and
means for us is … 50s and 60s
innovation, to safeguard Germany’s position as a major economic power’.

That is why, after the successful privatizations of the 50’s and 60’s, as the
when
Federal Government shed a part of its share ownership of the companies

stock market VW, VEBA, and Preussag, a new wave of privatizations has been initiated.
flotation was initiated in the
[. . .] The exact price of the Telekom shares will be fixed in a bid-process 1980s

shortly before opening on the stock exchange. To begin with, a price

margin will be made public. Interested parties can make offers after the on the basis of which the
price range issue price will be
issue price has been determined. The discount^ price for private investors determined

will also be determined shortly before the sale. Until now a round one and
discounted
a half million interested parties have registered with an especially set-up so far

‘Share Information forum’.

likewise not be determined until

shortly before the sale (Zawadsky 1996b: 1–2)

Figure 16.1 TT as published but showing suggested revision and proof-

ing changes. The full colour figure is available online at www.
routledge.com/9781138920989.

much revising and proofing work is done on high-quality TTs involving

complex subject matter and typography in which errors may well be rare
and unobtrusive. In sci-tech texts, of course, unobtrusive errors can be
major errors (see Chapter 14). Even in the post-drafting phase (after the
first translator’s self-revision) TT errors might still persist, and this is why
some translation companies require that the work of every translator is
passed to another team member for further revising and proofing with
fresh eyes. One well-known German translation company was known to
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 233

present their available levels of service—with associated price adjust-

ments and depending on the purpose of the translation—in terms of the
number of ‘eyes’ that would peruse the TT, starting from zero for ‘raw’,
i.e. unedited MT output.

CASE STUDY 2: Review

In our earlier text about telecommunications deregulation, it was hard to

tell whether the TT deficiencies lay in the command of English only, or
also in the subject knowledge. We now present an example of a text that
simply needs attention from a native speaker of English familiar with the
special language and genre conventions of recruitment advertisements:
in other words, a review or ‘unilingual re-reading’. The TT is shown in
Figure 16.2 with suggested changes and queries.

Dynamic, growing company

Sales Manager
Great BritainUK / German machine-tool manufacturing

Have you been selling machine tools successfully for several years now?, Oor are you a

5 consultant in the this product field of these products?, A field in which are our products

are distinguished by a great need for explanation?their outstanding quality. Did you obtain Commented [M1]: CHECK WITH CLIENT

the knowledge necessary for this via a well founded technical education Have you got all

the right technical background and qualifications – perhaps even in the field of chip cutting

– and could you, ideally, expand this knowledge into the commercial sector? Do you speak

10 German in addition to your national languageEnglish, and are you less than 45 years of Commented [M2]: CHECK WITH CLIENT

age? Are you now looking for a highly demanding and fascinating sales position with a Commented [M3]: ASK CLIENT TO CHECK LEGAL
SITUATION
major advisory role and a great deal of responsibility? Then read on: oOur company was

founded over 15 years ago. We are successful and recognised as people who solve

customer-specific problems. Furthermore, oOur customers appreciate us for really rate our

15 state-of-the-art products, which, on close inspection, offer great value for money. and

correspond with the state-of-the-art, as well as for our competent, high grade and We are

proud of offering advice which is tailored to individual customer needs. As a medium-sized

German company independent of any group, we can guarantee the necessary flexibility,

speed and punctuality. For this all these reasons, we are expanding at an above-average

20 ratea company on the move.

234 The translation process and specialisms

Whether the rather stilted draft TT is fit for purpose—i.e. would it still
recruit high-quality candidates—is a moot point. On balance, we think
that the need to sustain a successful corporate image outweighs any
relatively minor cost implications of revision. In the contemporary global
market, good English can help to signal success. As one guide to buying
translations points out with reference to what is called ‘accurate yet unpol-
ished work’, often referred to as ‘for-information’ translations (cheaper and
quicker): ‘if you’re trying to sell or persuade, or if image is important to you,
that probably won’t be enough’ (Durban/ITI 2014: 9). What is needed, it is
argued, is a ‘for-publication’ translation which is appropriately ‘polished’.
In what follows we elaborate on some of the problems with the pub-
lished TT, only one of which—the dangling adjective-phrase ‘high
grade’—is a formal error, aside from some minor punctuation issues.
A number of recommended changes e.g. shorter and/or simpler sen-
tences, reflect the way in which such texts are rapidly skimmed. The sec-
ond person mode of address is engaging and often regarded as good
practice in job advertisements.

line Comment on review of published TT

l.3 ‘Great Britain’ has for some years been less in use than ‘UK’, whereas
Großbritannien is still widely used in German-speaking countries.
ll.4–6 The opening sentence consists of three clauses: now changed to three
sentences as a punchier beginning. The relative clause at the end of the first
sentence, ‘which are distinguished . . . ’, is clumsy, especially as the ‘products’
are ‘distinguished’ not, as one might expect, by some special excellence
they possess, but by ‘a great need for explanation’. An alternative has been
proposed, referring to the quality of the products. As this is a potential change
of content, it is being referred back to the client for approval.
l.10 ‘your national language’ has been replaced by ‘English’; this is an
assumption and is therefore referred back. Also, ‘national language’ is not
the same as ‘first language or ‘mother tongue’.
ll.10–11 The reference to age has also been marked up for referral back as it might
contravene employment regulations, certainly in the UK.
l.12 English punctuation rules usually require a lower-case initial letter after a
colon, although this is changing in some circles.
l.14 The conjunction ‘Furthermore’ is formal and more suited to legal and
academic parlance; its use—particularly in isolation at the head of the
sentence—is not consistent with the conventions of the genre, as a check
of online templates for job adverts can easily demonstrate.
l.16 The hyphenated ‘state-of-the-art’ is certainly genre-appropriate, but only
when used adjectivally, not as a noun. The phrase has been incorporated
into a simplified version (see l.15) of the sentence originally beginning
‘Furthermore’.
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 235

line Comment on review of published TT

ll.14–17 The sentence in which ‘state-of-the-art’ appears is also structurally

complex. The sentence starts with a main clause, in the middle of which
is embedded a relative clause, itself consisting of two co-ordinated
components (‘which . . . offer value for money and correspond with . . . ’).
Easy for the skim-reader to lose track. Splitting the sentence into two,
maybe adding some intensifying words such as ‘really’ and ‘rate’ for
‘appreciate’ (schätzen?), removing ‘on close inspection’ (adds nothing),
‘competent’ (what else? the English reader might ask) and the dangling
adjective phrase ‘high grade’, are suggested.
l.19 ‘For this reason’ is not a dated expression, but its placing is faintly
unidiomatic. A less formal expression such as ‘That’s why . . . ’ or ‘And
so . . . ’ or even ‘For all these reasons’ would be better.
ll.19–20 The final clause of the piece—‘ . . . we are expanding at an above-average
rate’—is perfectly sound grammatically, but has the effect of a damp
squib, given that the genre requires an up-beat tone. The phrasing is
more reminiscent of an economic report intended for shareholders.
The proposed substitution (‘ . . . we are a company on the move’) aims
at a less formal tone designed to capture the attention of enterprising
applicants.

Procedures—‘how to . . . ’ or ‘how could I . . .? ’

Producing a translation of any kind is a complex cognitive activity. It is therefore
not surprising that there is no single way of achieving your goal, which is a fit-
for-purpose translation. Your translation journey can take various paths depending
on a number of factors. These include: the nature of the brief, the time available,
the length of the ST, your familiarity with the genre and subject matter, access to
resources (human, paper and online) and to tools (basically, technology, ranging
from word-processing functions such as spellcheckers to Translation Memory or
Machine Translation). But there is another important factor, and that is you, the
translator and how you prefer to work. There is no single way of checking (i.e.
self-revising) your translation or someone else’s: what we are aiming to do here is
to present you with some possible ways of working; we leave you to decide which
suits you best. In what follows, we are assuming that the translation is not sup-
ported by either TM or MT. The focus will be on self-revision, as this is applicable
to all translation work and is expected of any professional, whether or not the TT
is subsequently revised by another translator or reviewed by a subject expert.
We continue here with the three-phase model of the translation process outlined
earlier in the chapter and have already indicated that various types of checking can
take place at any time during the three phases. It is therefore useful on occasion
to distinguish between the checking tasks which need to be carried out and the
phases of production, as different translators will conduct these tasks at different
times in the production process (Mossop 2014: 183).
236 The translation process and specialisms
We already suggested in Chapter 12 that translators have different styles when
researching information: our examples were the ‘economical’ researcher or the
‘explorer’ (Gough 2017). Different ‘styles’ have also been suggested for how
translators approach the task of composing the TT. The different distributions of
tasks across the three phases of translation production result from what Mossop
calls ‘strategies’ for self-revision. Since the late 1980s, many attempts have been
made to characterise a range of styles in translation, often based, as here, on how
the translator’s time is distributed between the three phases. Mossop adopts and
adapts some of the labels developed to describe styles of writing (see Chandler
1993): some translators invest a lot of time in research in the pre-drafting phase
(‘architects’), others very little (‘steamrollers’). Some revise as they translate dur-
ing the drafting phase, layering revision upon revision (‘oil painters’), others do
most of their revision in the post-drafting phase (‘steamrollers’, by necessity).
There is, of course, some connection between the amount of pre-drafting planning
and post-drafting checking. The following table summarises and slightly adapts
Mossop’s approach (he only applies what we have called ‘styles’—‘architect’,
‘steamroller’ and ‘oil painter’—to the composition stage on a sentence-by-
sentence basis). This characterisation is not without its critics (e.g. Pym 2009) but
could help to give you some clues about your own style of producing a translation.

Table 16.1 A model of TT production (sentence by sentence) according to three proposed

‘styles’ after Mossop (2014)

Style Pre-drafting Drafting Post-drafting

Architect Detailed planning:

• Read through ST • Consider several TL possibilities Minimal
• Mark difficult before typing out residual
passages • Move immediately to next revision
• Do considerable sentence
conceptual research
• Note possible TL
wordings
Steamroller Little if any planning:
• Type out something straight Considerable
away: revision
o Leave gaps usually
o Note alternative translations needed,
o Guess solution and mark with including
question mark some
o May conduct some research composition
while composing
• Move immediately to next
sentence
Oil painter Some basic planning
e.g. quick glance at ST: • Type out something quickly— Minimal
often a fairly literal translation residual
• Immediately revise (possibly revision
several times)
• Move on to next sentence
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 237
Even if you turn out to be an architect or an oil painter, given sufficient time, it
is worth doing a thorough final check on your translation. The following section
deals with post-drafting checks, which could also be applied to another transla-
tor’s work if you are the reviser.

From style to mechanics

The translator (as part of self-revision) and the reviser both need to consider a
wide range of issues before delivering a finished translation. In this section, we
deal briefly with a ‘macro-level’ issue, namely the ‘style’ of the text, and then
with specific linguistic features usually covered by proofreading, or ‘mechan-
ics’ (Mossop 2014: 147–8). There is no rule book for choosing an appropriate
textual style, but there are many guides which are concerned with the so-called
‘mechanics’. These are confusingly called ‘style sheets’ or ‘style guides’, as
noted earlier.

Style
‘Style’ is a tricky issue when considering the properties of any text, as understand-
ings of ‘style’ vary considerably, from degrees of linguistic formality, to ‘personal’
style, to a value judgement of writing quality. In literary translation, the TT is a new
piece and in a sense the translator’s own—normally to be judged in terms of the
stylistic character of the original ST, whether it is a work of literary merit or pulp
fiction. Most commercial, legal, technical and other specialised texts are written
in a way which do not require attention to a personal style. As we have mentioned
earlier in this book, such texts sometimes—as indeed the current volume—
have multiple authors. For such texts, we have emphasised that it is important
for the translator to consider the genre conventions in the target culture. In most
cases, as long as the message is accurate, clear, and genre-compliant, a reviser or
a reviewer will as far as possible leave the ‘style’ to look after itself.
Completed translations are occasionally passed on to an editor before publi-
cation, with the translator or reviser being consulted about changes to the TT.
Treating the text as any other text for publication—not necessarily as a translated
text—an editor may wish to prune perceived irrelevancies, or to reduce the length
of the text due to typographical or pagination constraints. This is a common factor
in editing, as well as in translation for the print media.

Proofing
Reading is an activity which takes us years to learn. Our fluency and speed depend
on developing skills of anticipation in terms of both words and structures in an
attempt to construct meanings. It is therefore rather challenging to read a text for
other purposes, such as checking for errors in formal characteristics. Quite natu-
rally, we tend to gloss over such errors, focusing on meaning, and reading what
we think is there instead of what actually is, especially if we have written the text
ourselves. It is therefore useful to develop ways of countering this tendency. One
238 The translation process and specialisms
way, suggested by Mossop (2014: 180), is to read the text backwards, sentence
by sentence. Another way is to compile a list of items to check (e.g. ‘from’ versus
‘form’), possibly based on an analysis of your own past translation drafts. As an
example, we reproduce here part of a checklist of common error types caught at
the proofing stage from the Translation Bureau of the Canadian Public Works and
Government Services (n.d.):

• Misspelling
• Misprints
• Punctuation errors
• Incorrect capitalisation
• Erroneous compounding or word division
• Failure to ensure that, when first used, an abbreviation follows the full name
of the entity it represents, unless the abbreviation is well known
• Incorrect form of an abbreviation
• Inconsistency in presenting numbers (as numerals or words)
• Erroneous or inconsistent use of decimal point
• Inconsistency in presenting SI/metric symbols, including spacing between
symbols and figures [SI: Système International d’Unités, see Bureau Interna-
tional des Poids et Mesures n.d.]
• Inaccurate transcription of numbers from one draft to the next
• Arabic in place of Roman numerals, and vice versa
• Non-agreement of subject and verb and use of singular noun where plural is
required

For spelling/typo errors, always use the spell checker in your word-processing
package (both as you are drafting and in the post-drafting phase) but make sure
that you have set the tool to the relevant language and language variety. Be pre-
pared for spelling conventions—especially in English e.g. hyphenation, ‘-ise’ ver-
sus ‘-ize’, ‘History’ versus ‘history’—to differ from those in the relevant style
guide, so always double-check any automatic corrections. In our experience,
grammar checkers are of little help.

Concluding remarks
Regardless of whether you know your work is to be revised, reviewed or edited,
you still have a responsibility for ‘quality control’, tedious though you may find it.
But how you organise this, is—as we hope to have shown—up to you.

Further reading
Künzli, Alexander 2014. ‘Die Übersetzungsrevision—Begriffsklärungen, Forschungs-
stand, Forschungsdesiderate’, trans-kom, 7(1), pp. 1–29 [Online]. Available at: www.
trans-kom.eu/ihv_07_01_2014.html (Accessed: 27 March 2018) [Provides a more
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 239
recent view of research conducted into revision for translation than Mossop (2007),
dealing also with the related terminology in German.].
Landers, Clifford E. 2001. Literary Translation: A Practical Guide. Clevedon: Multilin-
gual Matters [See section on ‘The crucial role of revision’, pp. 159–61; concrete advice
from a practising literary translator.].
Maier, Carol (ed.) 2000. ‘Evaluation and translation’ [Special Issue]. The Transla-
tor, 6(2) [A collection of papers by well-known researchers on Translation Quality
Assessment.].
Mossop, Brian 2007. ‘Empirical studies of revision: What we know and need to know’, in
Brunette, L. (ed.) Revision and Technical Translation [Special Issue]. JoSTrans, Issue
08/July 2007, pp. 5–10 [Online]. Available at: www.jostrans.org/issue08/issue08_toc.
php (Accessed: 27 March 2018) [An early contribution to a growing topic, but the dis-
cussion of issues which might impact on the quality of revision is still useful. Other
articles in this Special Issue are also of interest.].

Practical 16

For all these exercises, we suggest that you adopt a style guide for proofreading.
Your university department may refer you to a standard style guide, such as the
MHRA (2013), or you can choose another available online such as the European
Commission’s English Style Guide (2016), mentioned previously: both are rather
long but you can focus on the sections on punctuation, spelling, capitalisa-
tion, names and titles, numbers, abbreviations/symbols/units of measurement,
and currencies.

16.1 REVISION (INCLUDING PROOFING): CRITICAL

ANALYSIS (INFORMATION LEAFLET—ECONOMICS)

Assignment
Your task here is to consider the proposed revisions of the published transla-
tion of the text extract in the main chapter: ‘Die Privatisierung verschiedener
deutscher Unternehmen . . . ’ from the Inter Nationes ‘Special Topic’ information
leaflet on Privatisierung und Deregulierung in Deutschland: Der Fall Telekom
(see ­Figure 16.1). The text from which the extract has been taken will appear
in a new edited collection of articles—to be published in English—tracking the
development of deregulation in the economies of the EU. The editors—political
­economists—will add a scholarly commentary in English to each contribution,
once the revised English translation is available. Please think about the follow-
ing—maybe together with a fellow student or as advised by your tutor.

i Can you reconstruct the reasons for the proposed changes resulting from the
revision process?
ii Do you agree with the proposed changes?
iii Would you propose any further changes?
240 The translation process and specialisms
iv How long do you think such revisions would take?
v Is time an important factor here? How would you set priorities for revision/
proofing given a tight deadline?

16.2 REVISION (INCLUDING PROOFING): INFORMATION

LEAFLET—ECONOMICS

Assignment
i You have now been asked to revise from scratch the following extract from
the same information leaflet mentioned in Assignment 16.1 and in the main
chapter. Discuss the main types of revision challenges the TT poses.
ii Revise the TT, or a part of it.
iii Report on your revisions, saying what criteria you adopted for assessment of
the TT, and explaining the main changes you made.

Contextual information
As for Assignment 16.1.

ST
1995 sind 15 Milliarden DM an Schulden getilgt worden; für 1996 ist ebenfalls eine
Verringerung in zweistelliger Milliardenhöhe geplant. Zusammen mit einem weiteren
Personalabbau bis zum Jahr 2000 von derzeit über 200.000 auf 170.000 Mitarbeiter
und dem Ende der hohen Investitionen in Ostdeutschland läßt diese Sanierung
5 steigende Gewinne erwarten.
Die Privatisierungspolitik ist auch für den Bund erfolgreich. Denn die
Bundesregierung hat über zehn Milliarden DM aus dem Verkauf des staatlichen
Unternehmensbesitzes eingenommen. Rund ein Drittel davon haben die VW-Stiftung
und die Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt erhalten. Über sechs Milliarden DM aus
10 dem Privatierungserlös sind in den Bundeshaushalt geflossen.
Hinter der Telekom wartet eine Reihe weiterer Privatisierungskandidaten des
Bundes. So wird über den Verkauf der Postbank bereits verhandelt; auch die
Deutsche Siedlungs- und Landesrentenbank soll verkauft werden. Die Tankstellen
und Rasthäuser an den Autobahnen will der Bund ebenso privatisieren wie die Brief-
15 und Paketpost, staatliche Wohnungsbaugesellschaften und Flughäfen sowie eine
Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft und das Regierungs-Gästehaus Petersberg bei Bonn.
Das Ziel ist der schlanke Staat, der sich auf das konzentriert, was durch private
Initiative nicht zu leisten ist. Indem der Staat nicht länger unternehmerisch tätig ist,
erweitert er die wirtschaftlichen Handlungsfelder für die Bürger, die als Unternehmer
20 in aller Regel dynamischer und erfolgreicher sind als der Staat. Damit ist die
Privatisierung aber nicht nur für die privaten Unternehmer und Investoren
von Vorteil, sondern sie ist wegen der privatwirtschaftlich zu erzielenden
Effizienzsteigerungen, Wettbewerbszunahmen und Innovationen für die
Volkswirtschaft insgesamt ein Gewinn.
(Zawadsky 1996a: 4–5)
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 241

TT
During 1995, fifteen thousand million DM’s of debt were repaid; for 1996 an eleven
figure debt reduction is also planned. With a further work force reduction from
presently over 200,000 down to 170,000 by the year 2000, together with the end of
the high investment levels in Eastern Germany, this restructuring will allow climbing
5 profits to be expected.
The privatization policy has also been a success for the Federal Government, as
the Federal Government has had takings of over ten thousand million DM’s out of
the sale of State company property. About one third of which has gone to the VW
Foundation and the German Federal Foundation for the Environment. More than six
10 thousand million DM’s of privatization proceeds have flowed into the coffers of the
Federal budget.
Behind Telekom further Federal privatization candidates are waiting in line.
Negotiations over the sale of Postbank are already in progress; the Deutsche
Siedlungs- und Landesrentenbank (German housing, credit, and finance, bank)
15 should also be sold. The Federal Government wants to privatize the petrol stations
and service stations on the motorways, as well as the letter and parcel post, State
housing-construction companies and airports, also an accounting company, and the
government’s Petersberg guest house near Bonn.
The objective is the slim State, which concentrates upon that which cannot be
20 managed through private enterprise. In so far as the State is no longer active in
business, it expands the business manœuvrability of the citizen, who as business
people are usually more dynamic and successful than the State. Privatization is not
just advantageous for private business people and investors, but rather, through the
increases in efficiency, competition and innovation, which can be achieved by
25 private business, it is a gain for the national economy as a whole.
(Zawadsky 1996b: 4–5)

16.3 REVISION (INCLUDING PROOFING) OR REVIEWING:

HOLIDAY COMPANY MAGAZINE

Assignment A (Revision)
i You have been asked to revise the following translation of the German ST
below. Discuss the main types of revision challenges it poses.
ii Revise the published TT, or a part of it.
iii Report on your revisions, saying what criteria you adopted for assessment of
the TT, and explaining the main changes you made.

OR

Assignment B (Reviewing)
i Ignoring the German ST, read through the TT below and start thinking about
its fitness for purpose in the context of a promotional text for an upmarket
holiday company. Make a note of some possible improvements. How would
you characterise these?
242 The translation process and specialisms
ii Compare the published English TT with the alternative version which will be
made available to you by your tutor.

Contextual information
The texts are from a summer issue of Holiday, the client magazine of the upmarket
Swiss timeshare company Hapimag, and are part of a long, illustrated feature on a
new Hapimag holiday village that opened that summer in the Algarve. The maga-
zine is published in German and English editions. As a company which aims for
higher-end clients, it values its image: hence the importance of a polished English
text. (At Hapimag’s request we edited out one minor (outdated) detail from ST and
TT. The German ST is presented first. The texts have been reproduced as published.)

ST
Wir spazieren auf einer ersten Besichtigungstour durch die Anlage. Wohnhäuser,
wohltuend niedrig, nur zweistöckig gehalten, verteilen sich auf dem 11 Hektar
grossen Gelände, das sich gegen das Meer und die Küste hin neigt: eine Reverenz an
die für viele Reisende schönste Küste unseres europäischen Kontinents. Locker
5 verteilt stehen die Wohnhäuser, die 9 bis 26 Wohnungen umfassen. Insgesamt sind
es 196 Partnerwohnungen, aufgeteilt auf 30 Studios, 137 Zwei- und 29 Dreizimmer-
Ferienwohnungen. Alles in allem teilen sich 13 Wohnhäuser und das Hauptgebäude
das grossflächige Grundstück: da bleibt für alle reichlich Platz. Der Resort Manager
begleitet uns. Ein kreisrunder Platz zu unserer Linken, erkennbar alt, irritiert.
10 Lachend klärt uns der Resort Manager auf: wir befinden uns auf einem ehemaligen
Landgut, die Fläche sei der damalige Dreschplatz und bleibe erhalten. Ebenso wie
eine Zisterne, aus ockerfarbenen Steinen gefügt. Knorrige, verwachsene
Feigenbäume wurden nicht gefällt, werden im Herbst, wohl zur Freude der Kinder,
ihre süsse Frucht tragen. Gegen die Tennisplätze hin fällt das Gelände steiler ab, ein
15 Olivenhain säumt die aus groben Steinen gemauerte Stützwand, vereinzelte
Mandelbäume stehen in Blüte, das Meer immer in Sichtweite.
(Hapimag 1995a: 7)

TT
We take a first tour of inspection through the village. Pleasantly low buildings, just
two storeys high, spread over the 27 acre1920 grounds that incline themselves to the sea
and coastline in reverence to a coast that by many travellers is considered the most
beautiful on our European continent. The buildings, consisting of 9 to 26 apartments,
5 are loosely scattered. In all there are 196 Member apartments, divided into 30
studios, 137 two-room and 29 three-room holiday apartments. All in all the extensive
grunds 2122are shared by 13 apartment buildings and the main building, so there’s
enough room for everyone. We are accompanied by the resort manager. To our left, a
circular patch, obviously old, sticks out conspicuously. The resort manager
10 laughingly explains we are on an old country estate and this is the former thrashing
spot which will remain intact, as will the ochre coloured 2324stone well. Gnarled, stunted
fig trees have not been felled, but left to bear their sweet fruit in autumn, to the
certain delight of the children. In the direction of the tennis courts the terrain slopes
more steeply, an olive grove lines a coarse stone retaining wall and the odd almond
15 tree is in blossom with the sea in the background.
(Hapimag 1995b: 7)
 Revising, reviewing and proofing TTs 243
16.4 POST-EDITING MT OUTPUT: UNIVERSITY WEBSITE
Choose a text (or text extract) of around 300 words about a German-speaking uni-
versity from its website which is not yet available in English. An English-speaking
Chinese friend of yours is interested in taking a beginners’ German course in the
summer but would like to know something about the university before making a
decision. Copy and paste the chosen text into an online MT system (e.g. Google
Translate or Babelfish) and then rapidly post-edit the raw MT output (on paper?
on screen?) so that your friend can get the gist of the ST. How comprehensible is
the raw output?

i What types of error did you identify?

ii Which errors did you choose to correct and why?
iii How long did the rapid post-editing take you and would you do anything dif-
ferently next time?

You could also try running the ST through two different online MT systems in
order to compare and evaluate the outputs.

16.5 REVISION (INCLUDING PROOFING): TRANSLATION BY

FELLOW STUDENT
Choose a translation which you and your fellow students have recently completed.
Swap paper or electronic copies of your translations with a classmate and revise the
translation. If you are working with an electronic copy, try using Microsoft Word
Comment and Track Changes (under the Review tab) to provide written feedback.
Return the revised translations to each other, digest the feedback and discuss.

i What did you learn about your own strengths and weaknesses as (a) a transla-
tor and (b) a reviser?
ii What is different about revising your own work and revising that of others?
Which do you find easier and why?
iii Did you manage to be tactful and diplomatic in the way you carried out any
revisions? Were you irritated or offended by any of the revisions proposed to
your translation? How can you develop your interpersonal skills in order to
get the job done without conflict?

References

Primary
Hapimag 1995a. Holiday, June.
Hapimag 1995b. Holiday, June.
Zawadsky, K. 1996a. Privatisierung und Deregulierung in Deutschland: Der Fall Telekom.
Bonn: Inter Nationes.
Zawadsky, K. 1996b. Privatization and Deregulation in Germany: The Telekom Case.
Bonn: Inter Nationes.
244 The translation process and specialisms
Secondary
Bobrick, Benson 2001. The Making of the English Bible. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
British Standards Institution 2015. BS EN ISO 117100:2015 Translation Services—
Requirements for Translation Services. London: British Standards Institution.
Byrne, Jody 2012. Scientific and Technical Translation Explained: A Nuts and Bolts Guide
for Beginners. London and New York: Routledge.
Chandler, Daniel 1993. ‘Writing strategies and writers’ tools’, English Today, 9(2),
pp. 32–8.
Durban, Chris/Institute for Translation and Interpreting (ITI) 2014. Translation: Getting
It Right: A Guide to Buying Translation [Online] Available at: www.iti.org.uk/attach
ments/article/242/English.pdf (Accessed: 12 May 2017).
Gough, Joanna 2017. The Patterns of Interaction Between Professional Translators and
Online Resources. PhD Thesis. University of Surrey, UK [Online]. Available at: www.
surrey.ac.uk/library/ (Accessed: 13 February 2018).
Mossop, Brian 2014. Revising and Editing for Translators. 3rd edn. London and New
York: Routledge.
Olohan, Maeve 2016. Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York:
Routledge.
Pym, Anthony 2009. ‘Using process studies in translator training: Self-discovery through
lousy experiments’, in Göpferich, S., Alves, F. and Mees, I.M. (eds) Methodology, Tech-
nology and Innovation in Translation Process Research. Copenhagen: Samfundslittera-
tur, pp. 135–56.
Stetting, Karen 1989. ‘Transediting—A new term for coping with the grey area between
editing and translating’, in Caie, G., Haastrup, K., Jakobsen, A. L., Nielsen, J. E.,
Sevaldsen, J., Specht, H. and Zettersten, A. (eds) Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic
Conference for English Studies. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, Department of
English, pp. 371–82.

Lexical and related resources

Bureau International des Poids et Mesures n.d. Measurement Units: The SI. Available at:
www.bipm.org/en/measurement-units/ (Accessed: 1 March 2018).
Directorate-General for Translation/European Commission January 2016. English Style
Guide: A Handbook for Authors and Translators in the European Commission. 8th edn.
(last updated January 2020). Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/style-
guide_english_dgt_en.pdf (Accessed: 2 February 2020).
Guardian and Observer Style Guide n.d. [Online]. Available at: www.theguardian.com/
guardian-observer-style-guide-a (Accessed: 12 February 2018).
Modern Humanities Research Association 2013. MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for
Authors and Editors. 3rd edn. London: Modern Humanities Research Association.
Available at: www.mhra.org.uk/style (Accessed: 27 March 2018).
Translation Bureau of the Canadian Public Works and Government Services n.d. The
Canadian Style (Section 16: Revision and Proofreading). Available at: www.btb.termi
umplus.gc.ca/tcdnstyl-chap?lang=eng&lettr=chapsect16&info0 = 16# (Accessed: 2
March 2018).
Wroe, Ann 2018. The Economist Style Guide. 12th edn. London: Profile Books.
Postscript
A career in translation?*

Having completed the course, you may feel you wish to know more about becom-
ing a translator. This final part of the book aims to provide some preliminary
information and advice for those seeking entry to the profession. We cannot cover
the situation across the globe, but the website of the FIT, the Fédération Inter-
nationale des Traducteurs/International Federation of Translators, has links to a
very wide range of professional associations, including those in English-speaking
and German-speaking areas. The FIT also publishes a newsletter on its website—
Translatio—with news about associations and events.
Translators are usually either ‘in-house’ or ‘freelance’. The in-house transla-
tor is employed by a business in a dedicated translation department or section
to provide translations in the workplace, on either a permanent or a fixed-term
basis. Over the last 20 years or so, the number of in-house opportunities of
this kind has reduced as companies have developed different business mod-
els to meet the requirements of a rapidly changing and sometimes unpredict-
able global language market, and as the possibilities to work remotely have
increased. More work is now outsourced to freelancers—sometimes ex in-house
staff—with fewer posts available as employees. In fact, most translators now
work as freelancers, which was not the case even 20 years ago (more on setting
up as a freelancer later). The advantage of being in-house for a newcomer to
the profession is the opportunity to gain experience quickly, in an environment
where mentoring and feedback are usually supplied. Another way of getting
access to mentoring and feedback is to work for what is now usually called a
Language Service Provider (LSP); the terms ‘translation company’ or ‘transla-
tion agency’ are less favoured in the modern market. The organisation delivers
translations (often in various media) and sometimes other services such as inter-
preting, multilingual web set-up and maintenance, and multilingual desktop

*Note: We are very grateful to Eyvor Fogarty, MA, FITI, LLCM, FRSA for her expert guidance and
advice on many issues covered in this Postscript. As an experienced translator, interpreter, teacher and
writer, she is a former Chairman of FIT Europe and a distinguished holder of the Pushkin Gold Medal
from the Russian Union of Translators and the John B. Sykes Prize for Excellence from the Institute of
Translation and Interpreting, UK. Any errors or oversights in the Postscript remain, of course, our own.
246 The translation process and specialisms
publishing. Project Management (PM) has become an additional career path
for some translators as LSPs often take on large-scale projects requiring trans-
lation of documentation into many languages on tight schedules. The project
manager’s job includes sourcing suitably qualified and experienced translators
and revisers, often from a network of suppliers, as well as marshalling resources
and ensuring the client’s requirements are met. Some Master’s programmes now
include training in PM.
A crucial role in the UK professional field is performed by two major players:
the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) and the Chartered Institute of
Linguists (CIoL). We enumerate later a few of the items which you can find on
their websites (please see list later on and on the course website at www.routledge.
com/9781138920989, but the best advice is to browse and see for yourself ).
The ITI was established in 1986, describing itself on its website as ‘the UK’s
only dedicated association for practising translation and interpreting profession-
als’. The CIoL has a longer history, starting in 1910, with a broader profile as ‘the
leading UK-based membership body for language professionals’, according to its
website. Neither the ITI nor the CIoL make explicit mention of literary transla-
tion. Instead, the Society of Authors, which describes itself online as ‘a trade
union for all types of writers, illustrators and literary translators’, has included the
Translators Association (TA) since 1958, in order to ‘provide literary translators
with an effective means of protecting their interests and sharing their concerns’.
Nevertheless, many of the issues which arise in the professional practice of trans-
lation will be shared, as we have tried to indicate throughout this course, whether
the assignment is literary or specialised.
The ITI and CIoL websites provide a wealth of information which is regularly
updated. The ITI, for instance, offers guidance on how to become a translator, and,
more specifically, on setting up as a freelancer, including an online course. The
CIoL also offers good advice on Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
strategies and opportunities, as well as publishing job adverts. Both organisations
publish professionally relevant magazines—The ITI Bulletin and The Linguist—
and promote networking to foster personal contact between translators at different
stages of their careers, including students as aspiring translators. A wide range
of membership categories is available in the ITI and in the CIoL, starting in both
cases with student membership or affiliation as one of the ‘Non-Qualified’ catego-
ries or the ‘Pre-professional grades’.
In the German-speaking area the largest organisation is the Bundesverband
der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer, covering the whole of Germany. In addition
to the many useful items on topics also covered by the ITI and the CIoL, there
is a useful short piece on the skills needed for translation as well as a profile
of the profession (see list of websites presented later). Here you will find argu-
ments to counter the assumptions made by some clients that an online machine-­
translation system is adequate for any job, based on the misconception that
translation is a straightforward word-substitution exercise rather than a pro-
fession which requires extensive knowledge, judgement and training, as well
as bilingual language competence. Unfortunately, such assumptions can be
used as an attempt to depress rates of pay.
 Postscript 247
Other professional associations in Germany can be accessed through the FIT
website, as also the Austrian and Swiss associations (see also list of websites
later). They differ in various ways, including geographical coverage and type of
specialism.
When working as a professional translator, you are likely to have questions
about what constitutes professional behaviour in many respects, including rela-
tions with clients and other translators, the rights of text authors, your own level of
competence to accept particular assignments, ethical issues regarding the nature
of some assignments, and so on. It is therefore important to be aware of and fol-
low such advice as is given in professional codes of conduct.
In the USA, every American state has its own translators/interpreters associa-
tion, affiliated to the American Translators Association (ATA). The ATA website
pages contain similar information to those of the ITI and the CIoL, as do those
of the main Canadian professional organisation, as well as the Australian and the
New Zealand associations (see list of websites). All are affiliated to the FIT.
With very few exceptions, there is no legal requirement for you to have a quali-
fication in order to be able to work as a ‘translator’: clearly not the case if you
want to work as a doctor or a lawyer, for instance. However, whatever the legal
situation, there are clearly competence-related and ethical reasons why a quali-
fication is advantageous: being competent in two languages is necessary but not
sufficient to be a competent translator. Relevant qualifications come in different
shapes and forms. As noted, some modern-language Bachelor’s degrees offer spe-
cialisms in translation, and possibly in introductory interpreting. However, even
with an undergraduate qualification, you might not be so successful in an increas-
ingly competitive international jobs market. The Institute of Linguists Educa-
tional Trust offers its own well-established Diploma in Translation or ‘DipTrans’,
a postgraduate-level qualification for which preparation is available at a number
of institutions around the world (see website). Since the 1980s, postgraduate pro-
grammes in translation offered by universities have grown in number to provide a
very wide choice to prospective students. The ITI provides a useful list of avail-
able programmes offered by ITI Corporate Members (which includes educational
institutions). You can narrow down the sometimes bewildering range according to
a number of filters, including:

• the translation pairs on offer, as well as the translation direction

• the breadth of the programme (generalist or focused on a particular specialism)
• a particular focus e.g. on specialised translation or on literary translation or
on audio-visual translation
• the availability and use of up-to-date professional-level translation technology
• the balance in the curriculum between translation practice and more discur-
sive modules
• the experience and qualifications of the programme tutors responsible for the
practice-based modules
• membership of the European Master’s in Translation Network of the Euro-
pean Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation (presupposing suc-
cessful post-Brexit negotiations)
248 The translation process and specialisms
• the research profiles of the academic staff
• the engagement of the department with professional translation organisations
and the availability of placements

Other ways in which you can improve your chances of succeeding in the transla-
tion profession include getting a ‘Europass’ to present your experience and quali-
fications for jobs in Europe. Another European organisation which can help is
ESCO, which aims to connect people and jobs online using ‘big data’. It specifies
skills and competences for nearly 3,000 occupations, including translation and
related professions, which are being increasingly recognised.
You can also do some background research into the profession by looking at
surveys conducted by authoritative bodies: these will help to map out the subject
areas and environment in which translators work; they provide an assessment of
the market and document trends and concerns. Two surveys are included in our
list of websites. Annual surveys of the language services market are also avail-
able online, produced by Common Sense Advisory, a US-based market research
company.
If you do decide that you want to make a career in translation, bear in mind
that you need not just enthusiasm, but the motivation and self-belief to carry you
through difficult patches. Freelancing, in particular, is not for the faint-hearted.
Although you will need to be in contact with other translators and informants—
as well as your clients—to solve translation problems, working freelance can be
rather isolating compared to working in a busy office. It is here that the profes-
sional network meetings and contact with local universities become particularly
important. Work flows can be erratic, at least until—having established your lan-
guage profile and your specialism/s—you become established and have several
work-providers. Most translators stick with a particular area of expertise e.g.
financial, sci-tech (or even narrower), medical, legal. If necessary, rather than
expand their range of specialisms, most translators prefer to expand their range
of languages, often to one in a cognate relation to their existing languages e.g.
adding Norwegian or Dutch to German. Some literary translators do, however,
cross over to non-literary topics, and vice versa, whether out of interest or finan-
cial necessity is unclear (see Rogers 2019: 162). If you can become successfully
established and acquire competence in your field, you are unlikely to want to
return to a routine job: there can be real interest in the endlessly varied real-life
or imaginative material that passes through your hands, and real delight in using
language to earn your living.

Websites

English-speaking translators’ associations

American Translators Association (ATA): www.atanet.org/
Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT): https://ausit.org/
Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIoL): www.ciol.org.uk/
Code of Professional Conduct: downloadable from https://www.ciol.org.uk/
 Postscript 249
Continuing Professional Development: https://www.ciol.org.uk/cpd
Jobs: https://www.ciol.org.uk/search/node/jobs
Membership categories: https://www.ciol.org.uk/grades
Networks (Translating Division): https://www.ciol.org.uk/td
Qualifications (the CIoL’s own): https://www.ciol.org.uk/ciol-diptrans
The Linguist: https://www.ciol.org.uk/the-linguist#ufh-c-1251-the-linguist-archive
Conseil des Traducteurs, Terminologues et Interprètes du Canada/Canadian Translators,
Terminologists and Interpreters Council (CTIC): www.cttic.org/mission.asp
Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI): www.iti.org.uk/
Code of Professional Conduct: downloadable from https://www.iti.org.uk/about-iti/
professional-standards
Continuing Professional Development: https://www.iti.org.uk/professional-devel­
opment/cpd
How to Become a Translator: https://www.iti.org.uk/professional-development/
career­-development/
ITI Bulletin: https://www.iti.org.uk/about-iti/iti-bulletin
Membership Categories: https://www.iti.org.uk/membership/categories
Networks: https://www.iti.org.uk/professional-development/networks-regional-groups
Qualifications (list of universities with Corporate ITI Membership offering postgradu-
ate or equivalent qualifications): https://www.iti.org.uk/professional-development/
career-development/universities-courses
Setting Up as a Freelancer: https://www.iti.org.uk/more/iti-blog/1114-the-recipe-for-a-
successful-start-to-a-freelance-translation-career
New Zealand Society of Translators and Interpreters/Te Rōpū Kaiwhakamāori ā-waha,
ā-tuhi o Aotearoa (NZSTI): www.nzsti.org/
Translators Association (a ‘Group’ within the Society of Authors): https://societyofauthors.
org/Groups/Translators

German-speaking translators’ associations

Association Suisse des Traducteurs, Terminologues et Interprètes (ASTTI): www.astti.ch/
Assoziierte Dolmetscher und Übersetzer in Norddeutschland e. V. (ADÜ Nord): https://
adue-nord.de/
Austrian Association of Literary and Scientific Translators/Interessengemeinschaft von
Übersetzerinnen und Übersetzern literarischer und wissenschaftlicher Werke (AALST):
www.literaturhaus.at/index.php?id=6540 (available through the Literaturhaus Wien
website).
Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Űbersetzer (BDŰ): https://bdue.de/der-bdue/
Was machen Űbersetzer und Dolmetscher eigentlich? https://bdue.de/aktuell/news-
detail/was-machen-uebersetzer-und-dolmetscher-eigentlich/
Berufsbild Űbersetzer: https://bdue.de/der-beruf/uebersetzer/
Deutscher Verband der freien Übersetzer und Dolmetscher e.V. (DVÜD): http://dvud.de
Verband der Übersetzer und Dolmetscher e.V. (VÜD): http:// www.literaturuebersetzer.de

Other
Common Sense Advisory. The Language Services Market: 2019. https://insights.csa-research.
com/reportaction/305013045/Marketing?SearchTerms=%22The%20Language%
20Services%20Market%3A%202019%22 (annual updates available)
250 The translation process and specialisms
European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO): https://ec.europa.
eu/esco/portal
Europass: http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/
European Master’s in Translation (EMT): https://ec.europa.eu/info/resources-partners/
european-masters-translation-emt_en
Expectations and Concerns of the European Language Industry 2019: https://ec.europa.eu/
info/sites/info/files/2019_language_industry_survey_report.pdf (annual updates available)
Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs/International Federation of Translators (FIT):
https://www.fit-ift.org/

Further reading
In addition to the websites listed previously, some print publications might also be of inter-
est. Publications in the area of professional practice very quickly go out of date in this age
of rapid change, so older items (anything over three years) need to be read with caution.
Practices in literary translation are less likely to change so rapidly.
Olohan, Maeve. 2016. Scientific and Technical Translation. London and New York:
Routledge.
Park, Catherine (ed.) 2018. Where Are We Headed? Trends in Translation and Interpret-
ing 2018. Institute of Translation and Interpreting. Available at: https://www.iti.org.uk/
more/news/1116-iti-trends-e-book-now-available
Rogers, Margaret 2019. ‘From binaries to borders: Literary and non-literary translation’, in
Dam, H.V., Korning Zethsen, K. and Nisbeth Jensen, Matilde (eds) Moving Boundaries
in Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 151–67.
Samuelsson-Brown, Geoffrey 2010. A Practical Guide for Translators. 5th edn. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters. [likely to be rather outdated by now but still worth dipping into]

Wright, Chantal 2016. Literary Translation. London and New York: Routledge.
Index

abbreviation 47, 238 Bell, A. 78 – 80

accuracy 184, 203, 204, 208, 229, 230 Bhatia, V.K. 43
adaptation 9, 20, 21, 34, 46, 67, 69, 71 Bible translation 30, 31, 45, 163, 198,
addition 13, 32, 33, 47, 65, 77, 79, 92; see 218, 227
also exegetic translation; expansion Biermann, W. 85 – 6
administrative terms/texts 33, 212 Blum-Kulka, S. 108
advertisements, advertising 44, 45, 48, 53, borrowing 5, 47, 166; see also cultural
78, 95 – 6, 109 – 12, 145, 148, 182 – 3, borrowing; loan word; transfer
184 – 8, 233 – 4; see also persuasive Brecht, B. 217
function; text type Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie
aesthetic texts 46, 50 – 3, 54, 219; see also (BDI) 94
formal-aesthetic equivalence business texts 45, 204, 231
Aktionsart 132 Buβmann/Bussmann, H. 46
Albrecht, J. 219, 222 Byrne, J. 78, 159, 188, 202, 205, 229, 230
alliteration 34, 45, 79, 145, 149, 150
allusion 11, 79, 95 – 6, 185; see also calque 41, 47, 68, 114, 134; see also loan
allusive meaning translation
allusive meaning 95 – 6 candidate term 174 – 5, 201
ambiguity 115, 148, 189, 206 Carroll, L. 151
American Translators Association Catford, J.C. 131, 143 – 4, 145
(ATA) 247 Celan, P. 102
anaphora 108, 110, 144 Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIoL) 246
Anderman, G.M. 21 checking 159, 183, 227 – 9, 235 – 6; see
approaches to translation 1, 5, 11, 19, also proofing; reviewing; revision
20, 22, 41, 66, 67 – 8, 70, 131, 221 – 2, Chesterman, A. 21, 124
236; see also cultural transplantation; clarity 10, 149, 203
exoticism; functionalist approaches to client 19, 183 – 4, 203 – 8, 228, 229, 233 – 4,
translation 246, 247
Arabic 67, 188 close translation 20 – 1, 68, 130, 182, 200
associated/associative meaning 95 – 8, 192 cognates 66, 79, 248
assonance 34, 52, 145, 150 cognitive environment 31 – 2, 108
attitudinal meaning 96 – 7 coherence 108 – 13, 115, 121, 161, 190,
audio-description see intermodal 191, 199, 206
translation cohesion 108 – 9, 110 – 15, 121 – 2, 123
audio-visual translation 54 collocation 81, 94, 97, 136; see also
collocative meaning
back translation 20 collocative meaning 97
Baker, M. 32, 43, 76 – 7 compensation 5, 13, 34, 41 – 2, 76 – 84
Bassnett, S. 222 complement 22, 53, 111 – 12, 125
252 Index
compound, compounding 31, 130, 132 – 3, exoticism 67, 68, 70; see also foreignising
161, 174, 200, 238 translation
computer-aided translation see computer- expansion 7, 10, 11; see also addition;
assisted translation exegetic translation
computer-assisted translation (CAT) 158, 162 explicitation 81, 193, 196
concordance, concordancer 158, 159, expressive function 19, 23, 54
163, 164 extended attribute 50, 137
connotation 69, 79 – 81, 83, 95, 96, 111;
see also connotative meaning Fachsprache 98, 164, 165; see also
connotative equivalence 28, 29 – 30 Language for Special Purposes (LSP)
connotative meaning 30, 96 – 7 faithful translation 5, 183
consistency 106, 159, 203, 238 Fallada, H. 220 – 1, 165 – 6
context see cognitive environment Fest, J. 140 – 1
contextual examples 92, 164, 170 – 2, 174 figures see numbers in translation
corpus, corpora 99, 158, 159, 162 – 4 Fontane, T. 68, 106, 218
corrections see errors foreignising translation 67, 70 – 1
couplet 5, 33, 52, 65, 69 formal-aesthetic equivalence 29, 31
cultural borrowing 41, 65, 69, 79 formal equivalence 31, 32, 111
cultural equivalent 29, 33, 68, 69 – 70 free translation 23, 191
cultural transplantation 67, 68, 69; see also freelance translation 204, 245, 246, 248
domesticating translation French 79, 162, 182, 184, 188
cultural transposition 64, 67 – 70 functionalist approaches to translation
22 – 3, 70 – 1
Darbelnet, J.P. 131, 136 functional equivalent 69, 70
database see termbase function of text see text type
definitions see dictionaries
denotative equivalence 28 – 9, 65, 68, 92 Gambier, Y. 161, 193
denotative meaning 79, 91 – 2 game localisation 54
density of text 94, 112, 200, 217 Gemeinsprache see Language for General
dialect 65, 68, 165 Purposes (LGP)
dictionaries 33, 68, 78, 91 – 3, 93 – 5, 115, generalising translation 53, 92, 93
159, 162, 201; online 168 – 72; see also genre 19, 22, 23, 30, 33, 54; conventions
termbase 21, 30, 70, 115, 198, 205, 208, 233;
direction of translation 204, 247 corpora 163; errors 205; legal texts 112;
domain see subject field issues literary texts 218; style 148 – 50, 181,
domesticating translation 64, 67, 70 237; see also advertisements; manuals;
drafting translations 228, 236 novel; Novelle; patent applications;
drama see plays plays; poems; reports
Dürrenmatt, F. 67 glocalisation 182
dynamic equivalence 30, 31 – 2 gloss 20, 65, 69 – 70, 166
glossary 24, 33, 70, 148, 158 – 9
editing 159, 228 – 9, 237 Goethe, J.W. von 8 – 9, 11, 96, 146, 147,
email 8, 43, 54 213 – 26, 221
encyclopaedia, encyclopedia 23, 46 – 8, 54, Gough, J. 157, 159, 168, 236
158, 159, 168, 199 grammatical object 22, 123
English as lingua franca 186, 199 grammatical subject 22, 112, 122, 123,
errors 203, 207, 229; in ST 106, 204, 206; 124, 125 – 6
in TT 206, 238 graphics 108, 205, 206
euphony 136, 148, 192 Grass, G. 59 – 60
European Master’s in Translation (EMT)
161, 247 Halliday, M.A.K. 108, 147
evaluation of translation 23 Harvey, K. 76 – 7, 83
exegetic translation 7, 10 – 11, 13, 65, 79, Hasan, R. 108, 147
82 – 3 Hatim, B. 48
 Index 253
Herder, J.G. von 9 Lefevere, A. 9, 22
Hervey, S. 83 legal jargon 82 – 3
Higgins, I. 83 legal texts 30, 43, 45, 70 – 1, 112, 181, 198,
Hofmann, M. 59 – 60 218; style 237
Hofmannsthal, H. von 109, 224 – 5 lexis see vocabulary
humour 29, 83, 184; genre 30; see also linguacultures 1, 55, 193
jokes; puns; wordplay literal meaning 34, 69, 77, 113
literal translation 20 – 1, 22, 32, 63, 67, 83,
idiom 77, 83 136; grammar 136
images 108, 110, 184 literariness 213, 216 – 18
implicitness in STs 11, 79, 81, 84, 95, loan translation 29, 41, 46 – 7; see also
96 – 7, 113, 218; multimodality 188 – 90 calque
improvements to ST 159, 190, 204 – 5, 229 loan word 29, 33, 65, 69, 192
inconsistency see consistency loyalty 67
information order 121, 137 Luke, D. 213 – 16
informative function 19, 23, 31, 46 – 8, Luther, M. 63 – 4, 67
190; culture 68; multimodality 54; lyrical features 49, 52, 150
numbers 206, 208; technical texts 202
Institute of Translation and Interpreting machine translation 1, 159, 229, 235, 246
(ITI) 204, 206 Mann, H. 117 – 18
Institut für deutsche Sprache 99, 164 Mann, T. 72 – 3, 217, 220
InterActive Terminology for Europe manuals 48, 71, 199, 202; computer-
(IATE) 158, 200 – 1 assisted translation 158 – 9; numbers 206
intercultural competence 193 Mason, I. 48
interlinear translation 20, 21 Master’s programmes 159, 161, 203,
intermodal translation 34 246, 247
Inter Nationes 230 measurements see numbers
interpersonal skills 161 media 54, 159; accessibility 54; print
Internet as a resource 94, 158 media 237; social media 43
intertextuality 22 medical texts 160 – 1, 168 – 75, 198; terms
intonation 144, 146, 147 – 8 33, 202
intralingual translation 65 metaphor 29, 92; coherence 108, 111;
irony 30, 31, 79, 81, 184 derivation of terms 97; science 44;
Italian 127 specialised texts 31, 78
method of translation 19 – 23; see also
Janeway, C.B. 81 – 2 approaches to translation
jokes 78, 148 metre 34, 52, 145, 146
journalistic texts 108, 218; errors 206; Mittelfeld 123, 125
scientific-technical 199 modal particle 114, 137
modal verb 21, 125
Kafka, F. 70 modulation 131, 134, 136
Kant, E. 121 Morgenstern, C. 138 – 9
Klopstock, F.G. 152, 215 Mörike, E. 223
knowledge management 159 – 60, 162; see Mossop, B. 205, 227, 228 – 9, 230,
also translator competence 235 – 7, 238
Koller, W. 28 – 32, 44, 66 MT see machine translation
multimodality 53 – 4, 188
Language for General Purposes (LGP) 200 Munday, J. 131
Language for Special Purposes (LSP) 164 Murdoch, B. 12, 25
Language Service Provider (LSP) 177, music 85, 192
204, 245, 246
language variety 238 names in translation 145, 149, 193
layout of text 44, 49, 205, 208, 229 naturalness in translation 21, 67, 111, 113,
Leech, G. 95, 96, 97 123, 133, 135, 190, 192 – 3, 216
254 Index
Neubert, A. 108, 112 quality in translation 97, 230 – 2, 238;
Newmark, P.P. 19, 20, 22; culture 33, checks 205; revision 229
70; compensation 76; genre 44;
naturalness 135 rapidly post-edited MT 229
Nida, E. 30, 31 reader, readership 1, 109, 182 – 3, 193;
Nietzsche, F. 147 breadth 181 – 2, 222; literary translation
non-literary translation see specialised 217; pragmatic equivalence 28
translation reception: dynamic equivalence
Nord, C. 67, 71 31; history 216, 219; scholarly
norms in translation: genre 112, 135; perspective 220
poetry 53; terms 66 reduction 7, 10
novel 43 reflected meaning 97
Novelle 43 register 113, 115, 189 – 90; academic
numbers in translation 206 – 9, 238 writing 135; poetry 53; sci-tech genres
198 – 9; terms 174
Olohan, M. 159, 163, 164, 198, 205, Reiβ, K. 23, 46, 70, 181
207, 229 Remarque, E.M. 11 – 12
omission 5, 53, 81, 132; as error 205 reported speech 82 – 3
online resources 3, 158 – 9; literary reports 19, 44, 92 – 3, 185, 198, 199, 235
translation 220; medical science resources 157 – 9; see also corpus,
168 – 75 corpora; dictionaries; online resources;
operative function see persuasive termbases
function restructuring 113, 150
retranslation: improving quality 231;
particularising translation 92, 93 literary 55, 216, 219
passive voice 21, 123 – 4, 189 review 205, 228, 233 – 5
patent applications 199, 205 revision 205, 228, 230 – 3, 236
Patriotische Europäer gegen (die) rewriting 1, 7, 124, 182; Goethe 9;
Islamisierung des Abendlandes revision 230
(Pegida) 32 rheme 121, 123, 124, 126
persuasive function 21, 23, 48, 54, 78, 148, rhetoric 54, 69, 77, 78, 94, 148, 149, 204;
181, 190, 208 Goethe 215
phases of translation 228, 235; style of rhyme 31, 34, 52, 148; compensation 84
translation 236 rhythm 22, 31, 133, 148; distinguish
plays 8, 9, 21, 144, 164 from metre and intonation 146, 147;
Pleschinski, H. 72 – 3, 133 Goethe 215
Poetry 34, 45, 52, 144, 145, 219 Rilke, R.M. 50 – 3
political texts: cognitive environment 32; Robertson, R. 70
readership 182; terms 33 Rogers, M.A. 108, 124, 198, 248
postgraduate qualification see Master’s
programmes Sager, J. 162
pragmatic equivalence 29 – 30 Satzklammer see verbal bracket
precision 34, 203, 206 Schiller, F. 133, 148
professional translation 157, 159, 198, Schlink, B. 81 – 2
206; joining the profession 245 – 50 Schmitt, P.A. 68, 205, 206 – 7
project management (PM) 246 scientific texts 43, 44, 45, 78, 202, 208;
proofing, proofreading 229, 232; authorship 8, 202
Bible 227 Sebald, W.G. 78 – 80
prosodic features 145 – 7, 148, 149, 150 self-revision see revision
proverbs in translation 68, 96 sense relations 95, 98, 200; homonymy
publishing 55, 67, 112, 220 – 1 98; hyperonymy 92; hyponymy 92;
punctuation 230; potential errors 234, 238 polysemy 88, 97, 162; synonymy 48, 66,
puns 77, 84 91, 97, 174, 175, 201 – 3
 Index 255
setting 19, 22, 50, 66, 67, 68, 70, 216 Textsorte see genre
Shakespeare, W. 9, 52, 95, 219 Texttyp see text type
shifts 21, 70, 112; grammatical shifts text type 22 – 3, 206; distinguish from
130 – 2; rank/unit shift 133, 134, 136; genre 54; see also expressive function;
see also restructuring; transpositions informative function; persuasive
Shreve, G. 108, 112 function; Reiβ, K.
skills of a translator see translator textuality 107, 112 – 13; see also
competence coherence; cohesion
Skopos see translation purpose theme 121 – 6
Snell-Hornby, M. 44 – 5, 125 – 6, 207, 222 Torresi, I. 183
software see translation tools tourism texts 125 – 6, 150, 206
source-oriented translation methods 20 – 1 training 131, 161, 203 – 4; Translation
Spanish 184, 185 Memory 159
specialised translation 31, 41, 44, 68, Trakl, G. 223 – 4
70, 77, 159 – 60. 217, 218, 229, 248; transediting 228 – 9
authorship 71; density 112; genre 115; transfer 5, 29, 33, 68 – 9, 70, 79
humour 78; terms 162, 198 – 9 translation brief 19 – 20, 22 – 3, 31, 56, 205,
spelling 209, 228, 229, 230, 238 229, 235
standards 68, 158, 162, 205, 207, 228 translation commission see translation
Stifter, A. 217 brief
Stolze, R. 66, 70 translation loss 76 – 7, 79, 81, 82 – 3,
Storm, T. 151 – 2 83 – 4
style 237, 109, 133 – 4, 144 – 5, 181; Translation Memory (TM) 158 – 9;
academic writing 30; aesthetic issues consistency 203
31; appeal 183 – 4; literary texts 218; translation procedure see translation
Schiller 132 – 3; sci-tech texts 202 strategy
style guide 46, 208, 229 – 30, 237, 238 translation purpose 5, 7, 8, 9, 19, 21, 23,
subject expert as source 161, 175, 32, 115, 181 – 2, 190, 206, 208, 222;
199, 202 errors threatening communicative
subject field issues 13, 155, 159 – 61, 162, prupose 184; functional approaches
198 – 9, 202 – 3, 230, 235, 248; culture 70 – 1; genre 43; literary translation 220;
71; genre 44; readership 199; research quality 232 – 3
157; review 205, 228 translation strategy 7; see also addition;
subjunctive 81 – 3 borrowing; compensation; couplet;
substitution 33, 34, 77 omission; reduction; substitution;
subtitling 54 transfer
Swales, M. 147 translation tools 1, 161 – 2, 203, 235;
syntax: academic writing 30; culture 66, distinguish from resources 158; see
70; intonation 146 – 7; word order 122 also computer-assisted translation;
concordance, concordancer; machine
target-oriented translation methods 21 – 2 translation; termbase; Translation
technical texts 202; errors 205 – 6; numbers Memory
207; Translation Memory 203 translator competence 161 – 2
term bank see termbase transpositions 22, 111, 131, 133, 135;
termbase 33, 158 – 9, 204 cultural 64, 67 – 70
terms 68, 162 – 3, 191 – 3, 199 – 202;
bilingual dictionaries 94; CAT 158; undergraduate translation programmes
cohesion 149; culture 33, 65, 66; 2, 247
educational and institutional 69 – 70; in
literary translation 45, 164 – 8; medical Venuti, L. 70, 71, 219
translation 168 – 75; metaphors 78 verbal bracket 21, 122 – 3
text-normative equivalence 28, 30 – 1; see Vermeer, H. 70, 222
also genre Vinay, J.P. 131, 136
256 Index
vocabulary 50, 111, 115; literary translation Williams, J. 213 – 16
53; research 157; sci-tech 198 word-for-word translation 20, 46, 111,
voice: authorial 23, 31, 45, 70; inner 144 131; contrastive problem areas 132,
Vorfeld 123, 124 – 5 133, 135; distinguish from literal
translation 21
Walser, M. 96 word order 21, 112, 122, 123 – 6, 131, 215
websites see online resources wordplay 78
White, M. 219 world wide web (www) see Internet