Loan Translations.

Calques
TPT Unit V:

Inlinguistics,acalque(/klk/)orloan

translationisawordorphraseborrowedfrom
anotherlanguagebyliteral,word-for-word
(Latin:verbum pro verbo)orroot-for-roottranslation.
Usedasaverb,to calquemeanstoborrowawordor
phrasefromanotherlanguagewhiletranslatingits
componentssoastocreateanewlexemeinthetarget
language.
CalqueisaloanwordfromaFrenchnoun,andderives
fromtheverbcalquer(totrace,tocopy)."Loanword"
isacalqueoftheGermanLehnwort,justas"loan
translation"isofLehnbersetzung.

Provingthatawordisacalquesometimesrequires

moredocumentationthandoesanuntranslated
loanwordbecause,insomecases,asimilarphrase
mighthaveariseninbothlanguagesindependently.
Thisislesslikelytobethecasewhenthegrammarof
theproposedcalqueisquitedifferentfromthatofthe
borrowinglanguageorwhenthecalquecontainsless
obviousimagery.
Calquingisdistinctfromphono-semantic
matching.Whilecalquingincludessemantictranslation,
itdoesnotconsistofphoneticmatching(i.e.retaining
theapproximatesoundoftheborrowedwordthrough
matchingitwithasimilar-soundingpreexistingwordormorphemeinthetargetlanguage).

thesemantic

calque,whereadditionalmeaningsofthesource
wordaretransferredtothewordwiththesameprimarymeaning
inthetargetlanguage;
thephraseological calque,whereidiomaticphrasesare
translatedword-for-word;
thesyntactic calque,whereasyntacticfunctionorconstruction
inthesourcelanguageisimitatedinthetargetlanguage;
theloan-translation,whereawordistranslatedmorphemeby-morphemeintoanotherlanguage;
themorphological calque,wheretheinflectionofawordis
transferred.
Thisterminologyisnotuniversal.Someauthorscalla
morpheme-by-morphemetranslationa"morphologicalcalque".

Types of calques

One classification classifies calques into five groups:

ThecommonEnglishphraseflea

marketis

aphraseologicalcalqueofthe
Frenchmarch aux puces'marketwith
fleas',asaretheGermanFlohmarkt,
Dutchvlooienmarkt,Serbian"buvlja
pijaca",Finnishkirpputoriandsoon.

Flea market

Albanian:qiellgrvishts("sky-scraper")
Afrikaans:wolkekrabber("clouds-scraper")
Arabic:

(ntih
a suh
b,"clouds-rammer")

Armenian:(yerg-n-a-ker,"sky-scratcher")
Azerbaijani:gydln("sky-piercer")
Bengali:"aakashjharhu

"("sky-sweeper")
Bosnian:neboder("sky-ripper")
Bulgarian:(nebostrga,"sky-scraper")
Catalan:gratacels("scrapes-skies")
Chinese:(mtinlu,"sky-scrapingbuilding")
Croatian:neboder("sky-ripper")
CzechandSlovak:mrakodrap("cloud-scraper")
Danish:skyskraber("cloud-scraper")
Dutch:wolkenkrabber("clouds-scratcher")
Estonian:pilvelhkuja("cloud-breaker")
Finnish:pilvenpiirtj("cloud-sketcher")
French:gratte-ciel("scrapes-sky")
German:Wolkenkratzer("clouds-scraper")
Greek:(uranoxstis,"sky-scraper")
Hebrew: (gored s'khakim,"scraperofskies")
Hindi:
(gagan-chumbi,"sky-kisser")
Hungarian:felhkarcol("cloud-scraper)

Skyscraper

An example of a morpheme-by-morpheme loan-translation is

French gratte-ciel 'scrapes-sky', from English "skyscraper". Similarly:

Icelandic:skjakljfur("cloud-splitter")
IndonesianandMalay:pencakar

langit("scraper-sky")
Italian:grattacielo("scrape-sky")
Japanese: (matenrou,"sky-scrapingtower")
Latvian:debesskrpis("sky-scraper")
Lithuanian:dangoraiis("sky-scraper")
Macedonian:(oblakoder,"cloud-scraper")
Malayalam:("sky-kisser")
Norwegian:skyskraper("cloud-scraper")
Persian:(smnkhrsh,"sky-scraper")
Polish:drapacz chmur("cloud-scraper")
Portuguese:arranha-cu("scrapes-sky")
Romanian:zgrie-nori("scrapes-clouds")
Russian:(neboskryob,"sky-scraper")
Serbian:(neboder,"sky-ripper")
Slovene:nebotinik("sky-rubber,-toucher")
Spanish:rascacielos("scrapes-skies")
Swedish:skyskrapa("sky-scraper")
Tamil:("sky-reacher")
Thai:

("sky-scrapingbuilding")
Turkish:gkdelen("sky-piercer")
Ukrainian:(hmaroos,"cloud-scratcher")
Vietnamese:nh chc tri("sky-pokingbuilding")
Welsh:cwmwlgrafwr("cloudscraper")

Mistranslations
TPT - Unit VI

Literaltranslationofidiomsisasourceofnumerous

translators'jokesandapocrypha.Thefollowing
famousexamplehasoftenbeentoldbothinthe
contextofnewbietranslatorsandthatofmachine
translation:Whenthesentence"Thespiritis
willing,butthefleshisweak"(anallusiontoMark
14:38)wastranslatedintoRussianandthenback
toEnglish,theresultwas"Thevodkaisgood,but
themeatisrotten".Thisisgenerallybelievedtobe
simplyanamusingstory,andnotafactual
referencetoanactualmachinetranslationerror

Mistranslations

Translation Project and

Criticism. Translation Quality.
TPT Unit VII:

Atranslation

projectisaprojectthatdealswiththe
activityoftranslating.
Fromatechnicalpointofview,atranslationprojectis
closelyrelatedtotheprojectmanagementofthe
translationprocess.But,fromaninterculturalpointofview,
atranslationprojectismuchmorecomplex;thisbecomes
evident,forinstance,whenconsideringBibletranslationor
otherliterarytranslationprojects.
TranslationscholarssuchasAntoineBermandefendthe
viewsthateverytranslatorshalldevelophis/herown
translationproject,adheretoitand,later,
developtranslationcriticism.Everytranslatorcanonlybe
faithfultohis/herowntranslationproject.

Translation Project

Translation

criticismisthesystematicstudy,evaluation,and
interpretationofdifferentaspectsoftranslatedworks.Itis
aninterdisciplinaryacademicfieldcloselyrelatedtoliterary
criticismandtranslationtheory.
Acomprehensiveviewtowardtranslationhaslongbeen
ignoredinmanyaspects.Somepeoplestatethattranslation
criticismworksonthenegativeaspectsofthework;theysay
criticismisfindingthepresentdeficiencies.Amoremodern
approachopposesthisviewandbelievesthatcriticismshould
careaboutthepositiveaspectsoftheworkaswell.Oneofthe
goalsinvolvedintranslationcriticismistomakethesociety
awareofthedelicacyinvolvedintranslation,tomakesure
whetherthetranslatorhasachievedhisgoalsornot.

Translation Criticism

Thetranslationprofessionalsandlaymenwhoengageinliterary

translationinevitablyfacetheissueofthequality of
translation.Translationcriticismhasseveralopenissues,such
asthenameforthepracticeofevaluatingtranslations,andthe
criteriaforevaluation,eachofwhichmeritsadetailedstudy.
Aliterarytextmaybeexploredasatranslation,notprimarilyto
judgeit,buttounderstandwherethetextstandsinrelationto
itsoriginalbyexaminingtheinterpretativepotentialthatresults
fromthetranslationalchoicesthathavebeenmade.When
comparingdifferenttranslationsfromasameoriginaltext,the
resultsoftheanalysesshouldbeusedtoconstructahypothesis
abouteachtranslation:criteriasuchas"divergentsimilarity",
"relativedivergence","radicaldivergence"and"adaptation"are
importantforsuchananalysis.

Quality of Translation

AveryinfluentialauthorinthefieldwasAntoine

Berman,whoclaimedthattheremaybemany
differentmethodsfortranslationcriticismas
therearemanytranslationtheories;thereforehe
entitledamodelofhisownasananalyticalpath,
whichcanbemodulatedaccordingtothespecific
objectivesofeachanalystandadaptedtoall
standardizedtexttypes.Hefurtherinsiststhat
everytranslatorshalldevelopfirstatranslation
project,priortothetranslationprocessitself.

Antoine Berman