Dealing with Translation Problems
During the translation process, the translator will come across various situations that might be problematic. It should be mentioned that there is a difference between a translation difficulty, which relates to a difficulty encountered by an individual translator, due to a certain inability, and a translation problem, which is a universal prolem (i.e. it is a challenge for all the professionals translating in a certain language).
A bit of theory
Translation theory mentions four types of translation problems: linguistic, cultural, pragmatic and text specific problems. Linguistic problems arise from the differences between the source and the target language. It is well known that no two languages are alike. They have different grammatical structures, use different idiomatic expressions, employ different terms etc. The second category, i.e. cultural problems are mainly due to the contrast in expressing various ideas and approaching specific text genres. For instance, the English template for an instructions manual differs from the French one, or a culture may employ a specific typology for a species of animals (see example below) whereas another may not. Pragmatic problems refer to any issues relating to time, place and context. The best way to illustrate pragmatic problems is through national institutions whose names and organization vary from one culture to another (e.g. American State Departments vs. British Ministries). Finally, text specific problems are strictly related to a particular text. These could be various innovations made by the text author.
How can translation problems be solved?
Each translation problem can be solved. You just have to know where to find the solution. Linguistic problems can be solved by consulting dictionaries, terminology databases and other linguistic resources. Cultural problems can be solved by consulting parallel texts (e.g. if you have to translate a leasing contract, you should first seek a leasing contract model in your target language). To this end, it is advisable to build up a corpus of parallel texts for each project. Pragmatic problems can be solved by referring to the translation brief or by directly asking the client. And, finally, text specific problems can be solved by employing one’s creativity.
3 Examples of translation problems
1. ”Who is the President of the United States?”
2. How to translate ”tongs” into Romanian?
3. ”Starfish are not exactly fish”
1. The first example is a question in a questionnaire addressed to mental patients. Its aim is to test patients’ memory. Clearly, this question should be addressed to patients living in the United States. But what happens if the questionnaire needs to be translated in another language? I might disappoint you by offering this equivocal answer, but it depends on the context. Normally, such a questionnaire should be adapted to the target audience (i.e. non-American mental patients), so the translated version of the question should replace the US with the appropriate country. But what happens if the question should be translated in the subtitles of an interview videotaped for training purposes? Is the aforementioned solution still valid? Should US be again replaced with the patient’s country of residence? No, in this case the question should be translated as it is. And this is due to the fact that the target audience and the purpose of the question are different, but also to the medium used. In this case, the target audience is no longer made up of patients, but of health professionals who need to be trained in view of using this assessment tool. If, however, instead of subtitling, the client would choose to dub the video, it would be possible to replace again US with the audience’s country of residence, but this would entail further changes and the translator should be instructed to do so by the client.
This is a typical example of a pragmatic problem. You can see that here the solution depends on the purpose, target audience and medium of the target text. The client should provide all the necessary information to the translator in order for him/her to know which solution to adopt.
2. The second example, tongs (kitchen tool), was contained in the same questionnaire. It was used in a section which tested the patient’s ability to recognize various objects. The problem that the Romanian translator has in this case is both cultural and pragmatic. It is cultural because the object is not at all common in Romanian culture (even healthy individuals would have a problem naming it). It is pragmatic because the translation task requires a solution suited for this particular context (in a different context, for instance in an instructions manual, the name of the object should be equated). My suggestion here was to replace this object with another one which has a similar degree of iconicity and usage in the target culture. This solution would entail not only a change operated in the text, but also the replacing of the actual object shown to the patient.
3. I came across the third example in a text with facts about various species of animals. This sentence represents a problem for the Romanian translator because the Romanian equivalent for starfish does not contain the word fish, which means a Romanian native will know that the starfish is not exactly a species of fish and s/he doesn’t expect such a text to tell him/her that. Just like in the previous example, the problem cannot be placed into a single category. Here, we are dealing with both a linguistic problem (the incongruent equivalence) and a cultural problem (the inappropriate sentence in this context due to the Romanian equivalent). The solution, again, would require replacing this piece of information with another fact about starfish.
