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!
Dangerous avoidance of word repetition (August 2023)
Bryan Walsh’s “The Tradegy of the Himalayas” (Time.com, 4 December 2009) is also about the relationship between the big neighbouring states of China, India, and Pakistan: “India does not allow Chinese researchers to visit its glaciers, China is sensitive because of concerns over Tibet, and India and Pakistan cooperate little on science or almost anything else.”
In a German translation, the sentence ran: “Indien verweigert chinesischen Forschern die Erkundung seiner Gletscher, China ist wiederum angesichts des Tibetproblems empfindlich und Indien sowie Pakistan arbeiten sowohl im Bereich der Forschung als auch auf fast allen anderen Gebieten kaum zusammen.”
This sentence contains an interesting example of how the desire to avoid word repetition can lead to other important aspects being ignored. Arguably, the conjunction “sowie” was chosen to avoid repetition of the “und” before “India”. Although such a substitution is possible in many cases, here it leads to a wrong meaning of the third main clause (“Indien sowie Pakistan arbeiten [...] kaum zusammen”): the actual meaning is that there is hardly any cooperation between India and Pakistan; however, what the clause says is that India hardly cooperates (with other countries) and so does Pakistan. The first meaning is unambiguously achieved only, if the conjunction “und” is used instead of “sowie”.
Other examples of contexts in which word repetition makes sense or is even required include: a term used for one and the same object or one and the same part of an object, for example, in user manuals; parallel sentence structures; the resumption of a noun from a previous sentence, especially, to avoid ambiguous pronominal references.