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Mismatching of Lexical Systems Between Languages

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Mismatching of Lexical Systems Between Languages Mismatching of Lexical Systems between Languages Throughout the previous chapters, the mismatching between the lexical items of two languages has been mentioned repeatedly. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize this mismatch with more examples and discussion. It is this very mismatch which is the challenge for the translator who must find the best way to communicate the meaning of the source language in a receptor language which is often very different in its lexical inventory and different in how that inventory is grouped and divided. Mismatching of reference One important aspect of the meaning of a word is its reference—the THING, EVENT, or ATTRIBUTE the word refers to. Speakers of the language "know the meaning" of a word because of their interaction with the THING, EVENT, or ATTRIBUTE being referred to. Contrast between members of a semantic set cannot be studied without some means of discovering the contrast that exists in the referential world (the world which the members of the speech community are experiencing, doing things in, etc., and about which they are talking). We have already noted that componential analysis depends on nonlinguistic reference, knowing what is being referred to. Even though the same THINGS, EVENTS, and ATTRIBUTES may exist in the referential world, the systems of reference do not match one-to-one across languages. Languages arbitrarily divide the meaning differently. Notice in display 9.1 the contrast between English and Mbembe of Nigeria (Barnwell 1980:24). English uses three words to refer to the same area of color which Mbembe refers to with one word. The following example shows that for the one English word carry the Tzeltal language of Mexico has many specific terms. However, there is no general word for carry. jelup'in to carry across the shoulders nol to carry in the palm of the hand chup to carry in a pocket or pouch 100 chuy to carry in a bag lats' to carry under the arm pach to carry on the head toy to carry aloft yom to carry different items together lut' to carry with tongs pet to carry in the arms cats' to carry between one's teeth lup to carry on a spoon lat to carry in a container cuch to carry on the back English Mbembe Notice the additional examples (Barnwell 1980:25): English cloth Hausa Greek English wife/woman Greek English love Display 9.1 In translating from English into Tzeltal, the translator will have to choose from all the words for carry each time he is translating the one English word. The text will need to be studied carefully in order to 101 the correct word. However, when translating from Tzeltal into English there is only one word to choose from, the word carry. This will be used unless the manner in which the object is being carried is crucial to the focus or theme of the context. Then a descriptive phrase will need to be added in English to make clear the contrastive meaning components found in the Tzeltal words. For example, if pach occurs in the Tzeltal text, but how the object is carried is not focal, then carry would be sufficient in the English translation. However, if the manner in which the object is carried is important to the passage, the translator would add the contrastive meaning component, on the head. The Tlingit of Alaska have no general word for swim, but instead they have many specific words, depending on the kind of swimming involved, the participants involved, and their singularity or plurality. Note the following (data from Constance Naish): di-taach (sing.) (of human being) ka-doo-ya-taach (plu.) ya-x'aak (sing) ka-doo-ya-x'aak (plu.) (of large fish or sea mammal swimming under water) ya-heen (of shoal of fish swimming under water) ya-hoo (sing.) (of animal or human swimming ya-kwaan (plu.) on the surface) ji-di-hoo (sing.) ji-du-k (of animal or human swimming waan (plu.) on the surface aimlessly, in circles) si-hoo (sing.) (of bird on the surface) si-kwaan (plu.) ya-dzi-aa (sing.) (of bird or fish swimming under ya-si-xoon (plu.) water with head emerging) (of something swimming fast dli-tsees (sing.) and powerfully, especially sea ka-doo-ya-tsees (plu.) mammal) ya-ya-goo (sing.) (of porpoises swimming as a ya-si-goo (plu.) school) 102 In translating from English into Tlingit, the translator would need to be very careful to choose the lexical items which have the meaning components which match the information in the text being translated. A person translating into his own language would know instinctively which would be correct, but he would need to study the source language English text and situation to find the correct word to use in the translation. He cannot ignore these distinctions even though English has only one word for swim. Mismatching of semantic sets The lexical items of a language represent a great network of interrelated meanings often called a cognitive network. Different approaches to the analysis of this network will highlight different aspects of the semantic structure of the language. We have already looked at some of the ways in which one can look at part of the lexicon. Basic to all study of the lexicon is the principle that meaning can be discovered only in terms of semantic contrast. As translators study the meaning of words in either the source language or the receptor language, they are dealing with a system. Lexical items may be related to one another in various ways. They may have no meaning components in common, being related to one another simply in that they occur together when people are talking about a certain topic. The words are grouped together in the kinds of the members of the community using them, because the THINGS and EVENTS referred to are often associated with one another. For example, each language has a vocabulary which will be used when talking about the topic agriculture. The English words plow, plant, harvest, wheat, corn, hoe, binder, thrashing machine, etc., all belong to this topic. There will be subgroups when talking about specific kinds of agriculture. No two languages will have completely matching vocabularies which are used to talk about agriculture. There will be many more lexical items in one language than in another. The relationship between lexical items which are related in this way is rather loose. Nevertheless, this loose relationship is one of the elements of cohesion within a text. In addition to this rather loose relationship, there will be subgroups of vocabulary which are very closely related to one another and tied together by some overlap of meaning components. For example, a set of words which would occur when talking about machinery used in agriculture would include plow, harrow, tractor, combine, etc., in English. These words make up a subset under the broad topic, agriculture. When discussing agriculture, another subset would be words such as branch, trunk, root, seed, and fruit which all have a very close relationship to one another in that they are all part of a tree. There is a 103 part-whole relationship (see page 79 above) between each of these words and the word tree. But even a simple set of words referring to parts of a tree will not match exactly from one language to another. In Isnag (Philippines, data from Rudy Barlaan), the trunk of a tree is thought of as two parts, rather than only one as in English. The lower part is called pungut and the upper part arutang. In the Pangasinan language (Philippines), a bamboo plant is divided into three main parts—lamut 'roots', sigig 'trunk', and bwik 'hair'. The "hair" consists of bulawit 'branches' and bolurj 'leaves'. Some languages do not have as many specific words for ways of speaking others have. Often direct quotations are used and the form of the quotation carries the meaning rather than a more specific "speaking" word. In some Amerindian languages, there are no words for command, beg, beseech, ask, tell, proclaim, publish, question, discuss, marvel, deny, permit, desire, etc. Rather these are expressed by direct quotations. For example, in Waiwai (Guiana), as noted in chapter 2, "You promised to come," would need to be translated “I will certainly come,” you said. "He praised the canoe," would be translated '"It's a wonderful canoe, he said" (Hawkins 1962:164). The translator needs to match the system of one language against the system of the second language. Even when there seems to be a word which is equivalent, there may be some components of the word which are different from the components of equivalent words in the source language. For example, Nida (1975a:58-60) uses as an illustration the set whisper, babble, murmur, sing, and hum. He says that for whisper "there may be very low, scarcely audible whispers, in contrast with very loud whispers, but all the various degrees of loudness are subsumed under the designation of whisper." Hwang (1979:1) says: ...the most closely corresponding Korean term for whisper, soksakita, has as its most important component "minus loudness," in addition to other components given by Nida, "verbal," "nonmusical pitch," and "voiceless." Thus, soksakita implies that the speaker says something very softly, close to the hearer's ear, so that a third person would not hear what is being said. Likewise, the semantic components of babble and murmur in English are not equivalent to those of the Korean terms. Ongalkdlita 'babble' and jungФlkФlita 'murmur' may both be verbal and pseudo-verbal, combinations of consonants and vowels, but without meaning, while in English the former is pseudo-verbal and the latter verbal.
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