Page 63 - Translation Journal July 2015
P. 63
agencies”, “municipalities”, “decision-making authorities”, and “national, regional and local governments” within China’s system
of administrative divisions, whose hierarchy is represented from the top to the bottom, by the national level “国家级” , the
provincial/ministerial level “省部级”, the municipal/departmental level (including bureaus)“地市级”, and the county/division level
“县处级”. If “national, regional and local governments” were translated literally as “国家、区域和地方政府”, the Chinese civil
servants would have missed the opportunity of learning Sweden’s executive divisions, where the regional level “郡级” and the
local level “地级” are respectively identical with the provincial level and the municipal level in China. Correspondingly, “次国家
级行政机构” for “sub-national agencies” is semantically correct but pragmatically inappropriate since it is not yet contextualized.
“地级行政机构”, which the author rendered the term as, was also inappropriate since the scope of the source phrase implies
much broader than the municipal level. It would be more proper, therefore, to translate it as “地方行政机构”, a collective concept
conventionally used in the Chinese context to refer to all those executive bodies that are not “中央行政机构”, meaning “the
national/central agencies”. Likewise, “decision-making authorities” includes not only “中央机构”, but also whoever are assigned
with power to make decisions at all different levels. Apart from referring to authorities and agencies, contextualization could also be
tricky when people associated with the authorities or agencies are involved. In Sweden, there is a clear divide between a politician,
who is elected as a man of visions to guide the nation towards a better future through manipulating his power and executing his
programme, and a civil servant, who is employed as a staff member to serve his community. In China, however, the relationship
between politicians and civil servants is apparently not as binary as that in Sweden. “政治家” for “politician” sounds more of a
conspiracy theorist who plays with politics, than of a national leader, which is more appropriately called in Chinese as “国家领
导人”. Another term that is used in Chinese to refer to leaders and officials at different levels, “官员”, has been increasingly
associated with a slightly derogative note in the public discourse, but is still applicable on formal occasions. What is commonly
expressed is the word “干部”, a decent and respectable term traditionally and historically favored by not only the leaders/
officials, but also civil servants as well. Therefore, it was problematic to translate “each official in each ministry” into “每个部的每名
员工”, and “elected officials, politicians” into “选举出来的政治家”.
To achieve register appropriateness therefore, is not mere a matter of choosing the right words for interpreting the subject, and
organizing the words together in a way that reflects the styles in the source language, but also a process of comparing and contrasting
vocabulary in the two different language systems, so as to enable mutual learning for both the speaker and the audience .
3.2 Intelligibility: getting the meaning across
The interpreter facilitates intergovernmental communication in another sense that she endeavors to translate words and expressions
that do not travel well from one language to another due to their culture-specific features, by paraphrasing, describing, keeping the
“untranslatable” word in the source language, or skipping the word. This is similar to the case scenario mentioned above regarding the
strategy of contextualizing unfamiliar terms of the source language within the target one, but this principle distinctly applies when simply
no “equivalent” alternatives are available for getting the meaning across.
Therefore, addressing these tricky situations following the principle of intelligibility requires the interpreter to bear in mind that the same
idea could find expressions in different ways from one culture to another. The following is quoted from James Nolan’s solution to the
problem (2011:58):
[Dealing with the problem of “untranslatable” utterances] involves asking questions like the following: What am I translating？A
word? An idea? The name of a concrete object or of an abstraction? The title of a person? The name of a cultural institution or
artifact? A technical term? A specialized use of an ordinary word? An archaic word? An idiomatic expression? The expression
of an emotion? An image? A figure of speech? A newly-coined term? Should I look for different parts of speech (e.g. A noun
rather than an adjective)? Is there anything in my culture which occupies roughly the same place or which plays roughly the
same role? Is there anything in my culture that is thought of or talked about in a comparable way? Is the target audience
expecting a complete translation? Does the context or the sub-text make clear the untranslatable implications?
Here are two cases in the assignment to illustrate how “untranslatable” words and expressions could be better dealt with so that they
would be comprehensible to the Chinese audience.
Source: The state may be less autonomous, but become increasingly “enmeshed”. “Enmeshed” meaning interwoven, woven into
various international and regional networks, among the European Union nations.
Target: 这种新的观点是，一个主权国家的自治权力，或者说，自治性减弱了，而更多情况呢，它会陷入这个国际网络当中去，所
以用了这个词，就是“enmeshed”这个词，“卷入，深深陷入”这个国际与地区联盟当中，比如说这个欧盟。
Source: So think about that picture that I showed to you about global governance, which is an incomplete picture, but in that web,
the national government was just one part, there are also “nodes”, all kinds of regional governments, municipalities are at work.
Target: 所以呢昨天给大家介绍全球治理这个话题，给大家的总体印象其实还是不全面的，在今天的这个讲解中，其实你们会了解
到，在全球治理中，国家政府只是一个方面，这个大网络还有很多节点，也就是国家各个层面，就是讲到这个自治市啊，地区政
Translation Journal - July 2015 | 63
of administrative divisions, whose hierarchy is represented from the top to the bottom, by the national level “国家级” , the
provincial/ministerial level “省部级”, the municipal/departmental level (including bureaus)“地市级”, and the county/division level
“县处级”. If “national, regional and local governments” were translated literally as “国家、区域和地方政府”, the Chinese civil
servants would have missed the opportunity of learning Sweden’s executive divisions, where the regional level “郡级” and the
local level “地级” are respectively identical with the provincial level and the municipal level in China. Correspondingly, “次国家
级行政机构” for “sub-national agencies” is semantically correct but pragmatically inappropriate since it is not yet contextualized.
“地级行政机构”, which the author rendered the term as, was also inappropriate since the scope of the source phrase implies
much broader than the municipal level. It would be more proper, therefore, to translate it as “地方行政机构”, a collective concept
conventionally used in the Chinese context to refer to all those executive bodies that are not “中央行政机构”, meaning “the
national/central agencies”. Likewise, “decision-making authorities” includes not only “中央机构”, but also whoever are assigned
with power to make decisions at all different levels. Apart from referring to authorities and agencies, contextualization could also be
tricky when people associated with the authorities or agencies are involved. In Sweden, there is a clear divide between a politician,
who is elected as a man of visions to guide the nation towards a better future through manipulating his power and executing his
programme, and a civil servant, who is employed as a staff member to serve his community. In China, however, the relationship
between politicians and civil servants is apparently not as binary as that in Sweden. “政治家” for “politician” sounds more of a
conspiracy theorist who plays with politics, than of a national leader, which is more appropriately called in Chinese as “国家领
导人”. Another term that is used in Chinese to refer to leaders and officials at different levels, “官员”, has been increasingly
associated with a slightly derogative note in the public discourse, but is still applicable on formal occasions. What is commonly
expressed is the word “干部”, a decent and respectable term traditionally and historically favored by not only the leaders/
officials, but also civil servants as well. Therefore, it was problematic to translate “each official in each ministry” into “每个部的每名
员工”, and “elected officials, politicians” into “选举出来的政治家”.
To achieve register appropriateness therefore, is not mere a matter of choosing the right words for interpreting the subject, and
organizing the words together in a way that reflects the styles in the source language, but also a process of comparing and contrasting
vocabulary in the two different language systems, so as to enable mutual learning for both the speaker and the audience .
3.2 Intelligibility: getting the meaning across
The interpreter facilitates intergovernmental communication in another sense that she endeavors to translate words and expressions
that do not travel well from one language to another due to their culture-specific features, by paraphrasing, describing, keeping the
“untranslatable” word in the source language, or skipping the word. This is similar to the case scenario mentioned above regarding the
strategy of contextualizing unfamiliar terms of the source language within the target one, but this principle distinctly applies when simply
no “equivalent” alternatives are available for getting the meaning across.
Therefore, addressing these tricky situations following the principle of intelligibility requires the interpreter to bear in mind that the same
idea could find expressions in different ways from one culture to another. The following is quoted from James Nolan’s solution to the
problem (2011:58):
[Dealing with the problem of “untranslatable” utterances] involves asking questions like the following: What am I translating？A
word? An idea? The name of a concrete object or of an abstraction? The title of a person? The name of a cultural institution or
artifact? A technical term? A specialized use of an ordinary word? An archaic word? An idiomatic expression? The expression
of an emotion? An image? A figure of speech? A newly-coined term? Should I look for different parts of speech (e.g. A noun
rather than an adjective)? Is there anything in my culture which occupies roughly the same place or which plays roughly the
same role? Is there anything in my culture that is thought of or talked about in a comparable way? Is the target audience
expecting a complete translation? Does the context or the sub-text make clear the untranslatable implications?
Here are two cases in the assignment to illustrate how “untranslatable” words and expressions could be better dealt with so that they
would be comprehensible to the Chinese audience.
Source: The state may be less autonomous, but become increasingly “enmeshed”. “Enmeshed” meaning interwoven, woven into
various international and regional networks, among the European Union nations.
Target: 这种新的观点是，一个主权国家的自治权力，或者说，自治性减弱了，而更多情况呢，它会陷入这个国际网络当中去，所
以用了这个词，就是“enmeshed”这个词，“卷入，深深陷入”这个国际与地区联盟当中，比如说这个欧盟。
Source: So think about that picture that I showed to you about global governance, which is an incomplete picture, but in that web,
the national government was just one part, there are also “nodes”, all kinds of regional governments, municipalities are at work.
Target: 所以呢昨天给大家介绍全球治理这个话题，给大家的总体印象其实还是不全面的，在今天的这个讲解中，其实你们会了解
到，在全球治理中，国家政府只是一个方面，这个大网络还有很多节点，也就是国家各个层面，就是讲到这个自治市啊，地区政
Translation Journal - July 2015 | 63
