LEXICOGRAPHY AND TRANSLATION

Lexicography and Translation

Abstract

It is a commonplace that expressions in one language may resist a fully satisfactory translation into another: that there is, for instance, no exact English equivalent, capturing all its existentialist overtones, of the French ennui (a kind of jaded detachment), or the special piquancy of the German Schadenfreude (a form of pleasurable excitement at another's misfortune). This commonplace has little to do with Quine's thesis. Quine's claim is not that exact translation is sometimes impossible, but that there is no such thing as exact translation: that for any expression, in any language, there will inevitably be a range of alternative translations of it into any particular language each of which, in conjunction with co-ordinating adjustments in the translation of other expressions, will equally well — and unimprovably — accommodate all the behavioural data concerning speakers' use of the translated language.

Radical translation is the translation of a hitherto wholly untranslated language, about whose syntax, semantics and etymology we are in a position to make no prior assumptions whatever. All we are assumed to have to go on is our observation of the use of the language. More specifically: we are assumed to be able to identify behaviour on the part of its native speakers which constitutes assent to and dissent from particular utterances in the language, and we are assumed to be able to observe the circumstances in which such assent or dissent takes place. We are also allowed to suppose that we are able to interact with native speakers in particular contexts, to put utterances to them in their own language for assent or dissent, and in general to encourage the production of evidential data for our translation, rather than merely passively observe. Quine's claim is that if a project of translation is undertaken under these circumstances, then there are bound to be intuitively incompatible claims about the meanings of (what we identify as) expressions in the natives' language such that, no matter how extensive the data which we proceed to gather, it will in principle never give us a reason to prefer one such claim to another.

Lexicography and Translation

Introduction

Why, it may be wondered, the focus on radical translation? Why is the situation of someone engaged in so unusual a project, on so impoverished a basis of collateral information, of particular interest? Well, consider how it might be that radical translation was indeterminate, yet non-radical translation in certain cases — say the translation of some parts of French into English — was a fully determinate matter. There's no doubt that in translating a French utterance into English, we will make all kinds of assumptions — about the accuracy of dictionaries, the context, the purposes of the speaker and so on — which effectively may uniquely determine the translation of a particular word in it. But what justifies these assumptions?

With few exceptions, long-term counseling relationships between non-English-speaking clients and English-only-speaking counselors is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain. It is possible, however, for the monolingual counselor ...