Like-Blog
Presenting you the most interesting translation solutions
Why Like-Blog? Now, first of all, this blog is a blog that you should like (and read regularly) – at least, if you are interested in translation. Then, the topic discussed here is one in which the meaningful likeness between a text and its translation in the language pair English-German plays a key role. On this page, I will take a close look at some interesting translation solutions that I have come across in the course of my work as a translator and translation scholar.
A translation solution is only as good as the arguments that support it. This means that any translation criticism, whether positive or negative, needs to be justified. The quality of a translation solution shows only when we compare it to other possible translation solutions in a given translation situation. Therefore, a translation critic should not only say why a translation solution is bad, but also demonstrate what a better solution might look like. I will try to stick to these principles of translation criticism. So if you have any questions regarding my line of argument or if you disagree, please, let me know your opinion by phone at +49 4171 6086525 or by e-mail to bittner@businessenglish-hamburg.de. So much for the introduction. I hope you’ll enjoy reading this blog!
The idiomaticity trap (October 2022)
Idiomatic translation means writing the text in the target language in the same way as one would write an original text in that language. This is particularly true for covert translation. In my blog post of May 2020, I explain the difference between overt and covert translation.
The distinction between “overt” and “covert” translation – introduced by Juliane House – should have a decisive impact on how a translator translates. A so-called “overt translation” is a translation that is recognised as such by the reader: the reader reads the translation in order to be able to understand the corresponding original. Legal documents, certificates, and classic works of literature are typically translated “overtly”. By contrast, the translation of user manuals and journalistic articles tends to be “covert” since the reader of the translation either doesn’t know that he or she is reading a translation or is not at all interested in this fact. For the translator, this distinction means with regard to covert translation: if the source text is irrelevant to the reader of the target text, then the target text should be written in such a way that the reader does not notice that he or she is reading a translation.
This month, we are dealing with the translation of a sentence from “Sonia Sotomayor: A Justice Like No Other” (TIME, 28 May 2009) by Richard Lacayo: “In the third case, the court reversed a decision written by Sotomayor that said individuals have the right to sue a corporation working on behalf of the Federal Government for violations of their constitutional rights.”
Here is the translation: “Im dritten Fall hob das Gericht ein Urteil Sotomayors auf, das besagte, Einzelpersonen hätten das Recht, ein im Auftrag der Regierung arbeitendes Unternehmen auf Verletzung ihrer Grundrechte zu verklagen.” The sentence sounds all right; so where is the problem?
Well, the problem is that, here, a particularly idiomatic combination of words is wrong in terms of content. The temptation to use such a collocation in German has probably led the translator to neglect the precise meaning – which, in the German text, is just about the opposite of the meaning in the English text. We are talking about the expression “jemanden auf etwas verklagen”, which means to sue someone for something that, from the plaintiff’s perspective, generates a positive result, for example, damages or a specified amount of money. Violations of constitutional rights, however, constitute the reason why someone brings something up before a court. While, in the English phrase “to sue someone for something”, “something” can refer either to the hoped-for result of the lawsuit or to the reason why it was brought about in the first place, the German equivalent requires the preposition “auf” in the first case and the preposition “wegen” in the second. This is why, in the target text, the preposition “auf” in “auf Verletzung ihrer Grundrechte” should be replaced by “wegen”.
To recognise this idiomaticity trap is not easy: “jemanden auf etwas verklagen” seems to be more idiomatic than “jemanden wegen etwas verklagen”, because the meaning of the preposition “auf” (unlike that of the preposition “wegen”) becomes evident only in combination with the verb “verklagen”.
By the way, the idiomaticity trap is not a translation-specific problem. It is a general problem of text production. Native speakers and all others who have a good command of a language are particularly at risk of falling into this trap. For they know what their language sounds like. This knowledge of what their language sounds like gives some writers a deceptive confidence in how to formulate their texts. However, as the above example shows, an idiomatic formulation is not per se correct in terms of content and can lead to a content error being overlooked when proofreading the text.