1. The verb to
cast (to throw something forcefully in a specified direction) appearing
in the ST opening sentence "Who cast
the first fateful tomato…" is rendered as:
TT1: lanzó
TT2: lanzó
TT3: tiro
The lexical unit lanzar is much more likely to have an equivalent effect in the target reader than tirar,
because it denotes more strength or violence applied to the action than the
broader and vaguer term tirar, which can also be to
get rid of, to ditch or to dump. Besides lanzó,
another popular equivalent in other translations was arrojó.
2. Determiner that
in “that first fateful tomato”:
TT1:
ese
TT2:
aquel
TT3:
el
The determiner that
is a category-one
type correspondence
because it matches up well with ese.
Both these units express in this case temporal distance. However, in Spanish we
can express further temporal distance with aquel. It is not a mistake per se
because both words convey almost the same meaning (I’m
being a bit picky here), but since that first
fateful tomato was cast over 70 years ago, I
believe aquel does a better job painting a
picture of how that situation developed or how long ago that situation took
place. As far as the TT3 translation el, it represents a word-class shift (from adjective to article), and it
fails to convey the semantic (temporal distance) that aquel or even ese
does.
3. “first fateful tomato”
TT1: fatídico primer tomate
TT2: primigenio y profético
tomate
TT3: primer tomate catastrófico
The TT1 translation is a faithful translation because it stays within the constraints of the ST and expresses the
exact same meaning intended by the author. The TT2 translation is a
free translation
because it focuses on the content rather than on the form.
As far as the TT3 is concerned, the syntactic arrangement
of words, or in more technical terms the immediate
constituents, is misleading to say the least.
The mistake in this translation can be explained citing the structuralist
or taxonimic grammar model.
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TT1: [fatídico] [[primer]
[tomate]]
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TT3: [[primer] [tomate]]
[catastrofico]
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The error in TT3 translation is that it implies that
that tomato was only the first of a series of fateful tomatoes. Much to my surprise, this was a mistake that more than 50% of professional translators committed.
Below are some examples:
·
primer venturoso tomate.
·
primer tomate fatídico.
·
primer tomate preñado de destino.
·
primer tomate crucial.
·
primer trascendental tomate.
4. “a carnival that got
out of hand”
TT1: un
carnaval del cual se perdió el control.
TT2: un festejo
que se volvió incontrolable.
TT3: un carnaval incontrolable.
Krzeszowski speaks about the universal semantic
inputs and the language specific
surface structure outputs his Contrastive Generative Grammar is based on. In other words, he
breaks down into five stages the linguistic process that operates
between the universal semantic inputs, and the language specific outputs. This is, of course, a model
designed to compare languages, but –if we think about
it– it makes a lot of sense for analyzing translations as well.
A few things can be said about the translations
of this phrase in the TT1 and TT2, but all things considered they
both get the job done as far as transferring
the meaning from the source into the target text. That is, they both convey –mind you, in different ways– the idea that the
carnival went from being peaceful, to being a mess. But once again, the TT3 translation has some issues that
keeps it from reaching that equivalent effect status. It makes
it out to be like the carnival was always out of control, and that is
far from what the original text says.
So back to Krzeszowski’s five stages, the TT3 translation only goes past the
three first stages: 1) conceptual input (It’s like
a framework with different slots: agent, patient, time, space); 2) framing the
semantics into categories (like unit, structure, etc.); 3) the syntactic level (minor lexicalizations). However,
the 4th stage concerns inserting dictionary words (major lexicalizations), and TT3 lacks that. It basically lack words like “se volvió,”
“se convirtió,” and what not.
5. “a giant paper maché
puppet parade”
TT1: un desfile
gigante de marionetas de papel maché.
TT2: un desfile
de gigantescos muñecos de papel maché.
TT3: desfile de
marionetas de papel maché.
This leads me to the question: Is the parade giant? Or is it the
maché puppets that actually are? From an immediate constituents analysis point of view, it appear as if the
parade was giant.
However, the TT2 translation as well as almost all of the other
translations from the contest totally missed
this, changed the syntax, and made it look in the Spanish version as if the
puppets were giant. Below are some
examples:
·
“un desfile de títeres gigantescos
hechos en papel maché”
·
“un desfile de enormes muñecos
fabricados con papel maché”
·
“un desfile de muñecos enormes de papel
maché”
·
“un desfile de figuras de gran tamaño
confeccionadas con papel maché”
·
“un desfile de marionetas gigantes de
papel maché”
·
“un desfile de monigotes gigantes de
papel maché”
Having said that, the puppets in La Tomatina festival are indeed
gigantic, so it might be that the error is actually in the source text.
6. “They happened upon a
vegetable cart nearby and started hurling ripe tomatoes.”
TT1: Al toparse
en las cercanías con la presencia de una carreta de vegetales, empezaron a
revolear tomates maduros.
TT2: Se toparon
con una carreta de vegetales que estaba por allí cerca y comenzaron a arrojar
tomates maduros.
TT3: Se
encontraron cerca de un carrito de vegetales y empezaron a tirar tomates
maduros.
Halliday suggests four fundamental categories
of grammar: unit, structure, class and system. He says that these categories are
universal, and that they're sufficient as a basis for the description of any
language. In the category of unit languages are broken down -from
largest to smallest- into ranks, which are sentence, clause, phrase, word and morpheme. The
larger ranks consist of the smaller ranks, and this implies a scale that is
called rank scale.
With that into consideration, Halliday holds
that in traditional linguistics any single sentence will always correspond on a
one-to-one basis with any single
sentence in another language –So was it really
necessary for me to modify the ST sentence so much? In the translation
of the source text sentence, this is a principle that the TT2 and TT3
translators did apply, as you can see in the diagram:
Both these translations correspond on a 1:1
basis the down to the sentence and clause rank with the ST. TT1, however,
disrupts the syntactic features of the original.
While TT2 and TT3 are faithful
translations
because they stay within the grammatical constraints of the ST, TT1 attempts to put more emphasis on
the naturalness than on the syntactic features, regardless of whether or not it
successfully does so.
7. “Innocent onlookers”
TT1:
Espectadores inocentes.
TT2: Los
inocentes espectadores.
TT3: Los inocentes espectadores.
So I’m going to bring up the ignorance hypothesis developed by Newmark and Reibel. It distinguishes an ignorance-without-interference –which is about structures that are not a problem for learners because they will
hardly ever use them– and an interference-without-ignorance, where learners stumble upon the
same errors time and time again even when they
know that a specific grammar structure is not correct
–the can’t help it but to use them. This ignorance hypothesis is generally
a theory used to describe the mistakes one makes in the L2 -however, it can
also be used to explain a mistake done in the L1 due to background
interference
form the L2.
That's why I made a mistake here. In my
translation I omitted the determining article, just like it is done in English. This error is considered to be interference
without ignorance
because no native speaker can be said to be ignorant of the central structures
of their own language –I do know it’s misguided to
omit the article in Spanish, but I did it nonetheless. I paid so much attention
to the source text that I neglected the target text–.
It’s also worth noting that this is an intralingual error and not an interlingual one. Part of the job
CA has in relation to language pedagogy is to predict mistakes –however,
there’s only so much CA can predict that it’s not possible to cover all the
variables. An Intralingual mistake is something CA does not predict.
Quick mention:
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Also, I wanted to quickly go over this
sentence: "repay the tomato vendors" in which I translated "repay"
as "pagarles." A doubt I had was about whether I should to
put "pagar a los vendedores" or "pagerles a los vendedores."
Most of the other translations used "pagar," but that
sounded a bit odd to me, so I researched and found out "pagarles"
with the object "les" attached to the verb is
optional in some countries, so to say just "pagar" is fine.
TT2 translation said "compensar,"
which I like it as a translation, and the TT3 translation is "reembolsar,"
which I think it's okay as a translation, but my only hang-up is that "reembolsar"
is a transitive verb, so if you say "reembolsar a
los vendedores" it kind makes you think they're gonna put the
vendors into a bag or something like that.
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Then, with clause "locals who defied the law"
I didn't make the same mistake and I put the determining article "los
lugareños que desafiariaron la ley." So did TT2 with the
determiner "algunos" in "algunos veciones que no acataron la ley..."
but I don't like that one because it conveys the idea that they were a few,
but we don't really know about that.
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Also, here, I made a shameful mistake. “Mock”
is translated in both the TT2 and the TT3
as “simulacro.” However, because I got overconfident I thought I
didn’t need the dictionary here. I knew “mock” is “burla” in Spanish, and
to make it fit in the context I translated it as “parodia sobre el funeral del
tomate.” However, little did I know that mock also means “simulacro”.
So I made one of the main mistakes translators have to keep themselves away
from: assuming you know something, and not double-checking. This would be
something like ignorance with interference LOL
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8. "(it) decided to roll
with the punches "
TT1: optó por
adaptarse al cambio.
TT2: decidió
amoldarse a la situación.
TT3: decidió ser flexible.
In this case we have the idiom roll
with the punches, which literally it’s used in boxing, but figuratively
can be used in any walk of life as well. It
means “to adjust to difficult events as they happen.”
All the three translations do a good job capturing the meaning of the original.
As it is the case with most
idiomatic expressions, they are a category three-type
correspondence.
A category
three-type correspondence is when a language A has a feature that B either lacks or can only be rendered in
terms of B’s, which operates according to different principles. This expression has no direct
translation in Spanish –We can’t find a translation that conveys the same
boxing imaginary–, and therefore an equivalent has to be found. Whatever it is the
equivalent chosen by the translator, it will be rendered as a phrase that
operates according to different principles.
9. “the tomatoes take
the center stage”
TT1: los
tomates toman el protagonismo.
TT2: los
tomates son los protagonistas.
TT3: los tomates toman el centro
del escenario.
The verb
take
as used in the ST sentence is translated as tomar in TT1 and TT3. This word is relatively easy to
learn, so that is why it is safe to say it’s a category-one-type correspondence. At the same time, it is worth
pointing out that even though there is certain correspondence between take
and tomar,
the first has a much higher functional load in English than its equivalent does
in Spanish.
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The same thing happens with the adjective epic
in epic
paella. We don’t use the word epic anywhere near as much as they
use it in English. An epic paella was translated as una
paella épica in TT3, but in the TT1 it was translated as una
estupenda paella and in the TT2 as una colosal paella.
And another case of the same principle is the
sentence
modifier today.
We could use hoy as a sentence modifier (though hoy en día would be
more common), but we don’t use as often as we would use actualmente o en
la actualidad.
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I wanted to make a quick mention about the
translation of unpalatable tomatoes. I translated it as tomates de mal sabor
and in TT3 it was translated as tomates incomibles. However, I
believe the translation in TT2 which is tomates no aptos para
el consume is fundamentally wrong. A lot of people got confused over
the difference between no comestible and incomible.
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10. “with the firing of a
water cannon, the main event begins”
TT1: con
el estallido de un cañón de agua, se da comienzo al evento principal.
TT2: con
el disparo de un cañón de agua, comienza el evento principal.
TT3: con el tiro de un cañón
de agua, el evento principal empieza.
Going back to Halliday's suggestion
that any single sentence will always correspond on a one-to-one
basis with any
single sentence in another language, there's in this case a total one-to-one
correspondence on the sentence rank between the ST sentence and the
three TT sentences.
Holliday doesn't specify there has
to be this same correspondence on the level of the phrase unit, but the three
translations begin with the same syntactic configuration: a sentence modifier
adverbial.
The most notable difference between these
translations is than following the adverbial, TT1 makes use of the passive
voice with “se”
while the other two use the active voice. Therefore, it can be said that
there’s not one-to-one correspondence on the phrase rank between the ST sentence and the TT1 sentence.
Because of this syntactic difference, TT1 is a semantic
translation –it
attempts to sound more natural to the TT reader–, and TT1 and TT2 are faithful
translations.
As an aside note, I have seen that among the 20
best translations from the contest, only two of them used the passive
voice while the
other 18 used the active voice. This might be an indicator that
it’s better to use the active voice in this kind of construction.
Moreover, the main distinct feature between TT2 and TT3 is that in one the verb precedes
the subject, and in the other the subject precedes the verb. This marks whether
the translator places more emphasis on the action or on the subject. Again, out
of the 20 best translations, 15 of them chose to put the verb first, and the
other 5 did it the other way around.
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verb + subject
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subject + verb
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·
empieza entonces el acontecimiento principal
·
comienza el evento principal
·
marca el comienzo del evento principal
·
empieza la actividad principal
·
inicia el acto principal
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·
el evento principal comienza
·
El evento principal se inicia
·
el evento principal da inicio
·
El espectáculo principal empieza luego
·
el evento principal inicia
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