Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
53–62 (2003)
TIINA PUURTINEN
University of Joensuu, Savonlinna School of Translation Studies
P.O.Box 48, FIN-57101 Savonlinna, Finland
Phone: +358 15 511 7739, Fax: +358 15 515 096
E-mail: tiina.puurtinen@joensuu.fi
Abstract: The article applies to translation some ideas from critical discourse analysis
and discusses the potential effects of translational solutions on the ideological content of
texts in the light of a small-scale study on student translations. Ideology refers here to the
ways in which linguistic choices made by the writer or translator of a text, first, create a par-
ticular perspective on the events portrayed, second, may reflect the writer’s opinions and at-
titudes, and third, may be used to influence readers’ opinions. Particular linguistic struc-
tures, such as vocabulary, finite and nonfinite constructions, active and passive forms, and
grammatical metaphors, can be seen as conscious or unconscious strategies which realise
ideological meanings. In translation, ideologically motivated linguistic structures of a
source text may be manipulated either unintentionally because of insufficient language
and/or translation skills or lacking knowledge of the relationship between language and ide-
ology, or intentionally owing to translation norms, requirements of the translation commis-
sion or the translator’s own attitudes towards the source text subject. The analysis of Fin-
nish translations of English magazine articles made by translation students focused on ex-
plicitating and implicitating translation strategies. Implicitation was found to be much more
frequent than explicitation. Explicitation included, for instance, replacing a source-text
nominalisation with a Finnish verb phrase and making clausal relations more explicit by
adding connectives to the texts. Implicitation involved turning verb phrases into nominalisa-
tions and complete relative clauses into complex premodified noun phrases. These strategies
changed the viewpoints and occasionally even modified the opinions expressed by the
source-text writers. The students’ non-systematic application of opposite strategies suggests
that source text manipulation was mainly caused by insufficient skills and knowledge rather
than ideological motivations.
Key words: explicitation, implicitation, ideology, grammatical metaphor
1. INTRODUCTION
Every text reflects the writer’s attitudes, beliefs and viewpoints, or more gener-
ally, the values and taken-for-granted assumptions of a social group or culture.
Such (often unconscious) ideological meanings, or so called “common sense”
(see e.g., Fairclough 1990:77–108; Fowler 1987:490), tend to be unintentionally
encoded in linguistic expression. This relation between ideology and language
is the field of interest of critical discourse analysis (CDA; e.g., Fairclough 1990,
1995a, 1995b; Fowler 1991; Finnish studies include Heikkinen 1999; Kallio-
koski (ed.) 1996; Karvonen 1995, 1996). In recent years, ideas and findings pre-
sented by critical discourse analysts have gradually made their way into transla-
tion studies (Hatim 1997:108–122; Hatim and Mason 1997:143–163; Knowles
and Malmkjaer 1989, Puurtinen 2000).
This article applies to translation some ideas from CDA and discusses the
potential effects of translational solutions on the ideological content of texts in
the light of a small-scale study on student translations. Ideology, which is an
ambiguous and evasive concept, is here (following Simpson 1993:5) loosely de-
fined as taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs and value systems shared collec-
tively by social groups. In this article, however, ideology is used mainly as an
umbrella term for three phenomena: the ways in which linguistic choices made
by the writer or translator of a text, first, may create a particular perspective on
the events portrayed, second, may reflect the writer’s opinions and attitudes,
and third, may be used to influence readers’ opinions. Before a detailed discus-
sion of the effects of different translation strategies on source text ideology,
some general information on a few central notions and concepts is given.
(1)
Tiina broke the glass.
The glass fell out of Tiina’s hands.
The glass was broken (by Tiina).
The research material consisted of two articles, one column, one editorial and
one informative news story (taken from In Focus, New Scientist, New States-
man, The Economist, and The Futurist), and their Finnish translations made by
ten students at the Savonlinna School of Translation Studies. The total number
of translations was 42. With the exception of one purely informative text, all
source texts can be regarded as argumentative in that they express and argue for
the writers’ opinions (on the future of developing nations, and the bad effects of
increasing traffic, wildlife tourism, and mobile phones). The translations were
made as normal assignments on a translation course for 2nd- and 3rd-year stu-
dents with English as their major or minor subject. The relation between lan-
guage and ideology or the translation strategies the present article focuses on
had not been systematically taught in their translation courses, but the differ-
ence between using, for example, complex or simple Finnish clause structures is
likely to have been discussed at least occasionally.
The ideational and interpersonal content of the source and target texts was
compared by using Halliday’s functional grammar (1994) as a tool for analysis.
The analysis focused on explicitating and implicitating translation strategies,
particularly verb phrases vs. nominalisations and other grammatical metaphors,
active vs. passive constructions, and the expression of clausal relations. It was
hypothesised that first, actions, processes and causality, conveyed explicitly (by
e.g., complete finite clauses) in the source texts, would tend to be implicitated in
translation by the use of nominalisations; second, source text nominalisations,
other grammatical metaphors and passive constructions would tend to be ex-
plicitated by complete, active target language clauses; and third, such transla-
tion strategies would alter the values and opinions expressed and viewpoints
chosen by the source text writers.
The main purpose was not to obtain exact quantitative information on the
frequencies of different translation strategies, although some figures are also
given below, but to identify Finnish linguistic constructions which may easily,
even inadvertently, change source text ideology. The examples discussed in the
following sections are meant to illustrate such constructions.
It must be emphasised that although the presented translational solutions
can be assigned ideological interpretations, the students’ translation strategies
are not taken as evidence of any particular ideological motivations and deliber-
ate manipulation of the source texts. As pointed out previously, the source text –
target text comparison alone is naturally unable to uncover the reasons for their
behaviour. The present interest lies in the end products, the translations, and the
possibly different effects they might have on the reader because of the target-
language formulation of the source-text message.
A noticeable strategy common to all students and more or less manifest in all
target texts was the explicitation of clausal relations by using clause connectives
(conjunctions, adverbs) more frequently than in the source texts, possibly in or-
der to create more cohesive translations in compliance with appropriate Finnish
text type conventions (see Øverås 1998 for similar findings on grammatical ex-
plicitation in English – Norwegian and Norwegian – English translations). Al-
ternatively, this may be an unintentional habit, which can be interpreted as evi-
dence of the hypothesised translation universal of explicitation, i.e., tendency of
translations to become more explicit than their source texts (Baker 1995).
Occasionally clausal relations were also obscured by omitting a source text
conjunction and merely implying the type of relation by using a Finnish con-
tracted clause (often complex construction with a nonfinite verb, used to replace
a subordinate clause), as in Example 2 below (the English conjunction as and
the Finnish contracted clause in bold).
(2)
Road transport accounts for one-fifth of world carbon-dioxide output, and
the share may grow as developing countries get wheels. (Curbing the car
1996)
… ja määrä kasvaa edelleen autojen yleistyessä kehitysmaissa.
(Literally: … and the amount will grow with cars becoming more common
in developing countries.)
The comparison of active and passive structures in source and target texts
did not yield interesting results from the ideological point of view. Source text
active clauses with inanimate, abstract Actors (e.g., country, economy, future)
were sometimes turned into Finnish passive constructions, perhaps owing to the
difficulty of imagining an abstract entity as an active “doer”. There is no purely
linguistic reason for such a change, since abstract Actors are equally possible
and common in Finnish as in English.
(3)
This would implant an electronic smart card in cars’ engine-management
systems, to monitor the quantity of polluting emissions. The results would
then be totted up every year to produce a tax bill. (Curbing the car 1996)
. . . ja näiden lukemien perusteella autoilijaa voidaan kerran vuodessa ve-
rottaa.
(Literally: . . . and on the basis of these figures a car driver can be taxed
once a year.)
Thus, the experiential distance, i.e., distance between text and the reality which
it portrays (Eggins et al. 1993), is reduced and the text is likely to become more
effective, having a stronger impact on the reader than the more abstract and dis-
tant source text. In argumentative texts, such a change might of course be con-
sidered an improvement, if the purpose of the translation is to convince the
reader. On the other hand, an extensive use of this kind of explicitation which
involves splitting up nominalisations and “demystifying” grammatical meta-
phors by making process participants visible in the sentence may result in al-
tered clausal relations and even change the text type from argumentative into
narrative.
The reverse strategy to the previous one, turning verbal constructions into
nominalisations, grammatical metaphors, may obscure agency and responsibil-
ity, as in Example 4.
(4)
If we fail to reorient wildlife tourism in this fashion, climate change will
(most probably) turn many of today’s lovely parks into deserts devoid of
life. (Mittler 1997)
Tässä tehtävässä epäonnistuminen johtaa ilmastomuutoksiin, jotka muut-
tavat tämän päivän ihanat kansallispuistot elottomiksi aavikoiksi.
(Literally: Failure in this task will lead to climate changes . . .)
The target text contains no animate Actor, whereas the source text appeals di-
rectly to “us”, including the reader, who are responsible for climate change.
Therefore, the translation with no named participants might be regarded as less
effective than the direct address of the source text. This nominalising strategy
can have a harmful effect on the purpose of the translation, because it increases
the experiential distance, making the depicted processes seem remote and static,
as if they happened without actual involvement of people.
(5)
Cleaning up city air is also easier than curbing output of carbon dioxide, a
gas thought to cause climate change. (Curbing the car 1996)
Kaupunki-ilman puhdistaminen on helpompaa kuin ilmaston lämpene-
mistä aiheuttavien hiilidioksidipäästöjen rajoittaminen.
(Literally: . . . climate’s warming-causing carbon dioxide emissions)
poses; the choice between alternative ways of expression is a choice between al-
ternative points of view, which in turn may represent alternative conceptions of
the described event, even of the world.
4. POTENTIAL EXPLANATIONS
sirable depends on their effect on the text as a whole and on the purpose of the
translation.
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Finnish:
42 student translations