Japanese-English translation : problems and implications

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe the problems that occur when native speakers of English translate Japanese non-literary, non-technical texts into English, and to examine the implications of translation theory for the practice of Japanese-English (J-E) translation and, conversely, the implications of J-E translation for translation theory. Translation problems were identified by a combination of concurrent think-aloud reports and error analysis. The translations examined were carried out by postgraduate students of J-E translation and by practising professional translators. Problems were classified into six main categories — lexical, grammatical, stylistic, suprasentential, cultural and editing problems. The following broad hypotheses were posited: 1. that problems in J-E translation are caused by certain inherent characteristics of the Japanese language and Japanese language usage and by contrastive differences between Japanese and English which cause interference at all levels. 2. that there is a qualitative difference between (1) translation between languages which are related typologically and which share a similar cultural background and (2) translation between languages which are typologically divergent and culturally dissimilar. A corollary of this hypothesis is that current translation theory, which is largely based on translation between Indo-European languages, is not applicable to translation between typologically and culturally unrelated languages. The thesis also dealt with the following sub-hypotheses: 3. that the major causes of lexical problems in J-E translation are semantic voids and differences in denotation, connotation, intensity and frequency of usage between Japanese lexical items and their English equivalents; 4. that the discrepancy in grammatical informational requirements between Japanese and English means that the meaning cannot always be derived directly and fully from the language; 5. that certain stylistic devices that are a part of Japanese national have an adverse impact if retained in English; 6. that differences between Japanese and English texts at the suprasentential level affect text reception; 7. that not only the surface forms, but also the actual content of texts is to some extent culturally determined; and 8. that the translator needs to edit the style and substance of Japanese texts to compensate for interlingual and crosscultural differences. Our findings supported the first major hypothesis, but did not fully support the second hypothesis. We argued that the cognitive processes involved in translation are universal, even though language-pair-specific differences occur at the level of actual translation techniques and concrete problems. We suggested that differences between different language pairs are not essential differences, but simply differences in what factors are most important in a particular language pair. Two mainstream theories of translation —' i.e. linguistic theories and the interpretive approach -- were examined in the light of J-E translation. It was found that neither approach accounts fully for the linguistic, interpretive and cultural factors at work in J-E translation. From this we concluded that any theory that claims to be universal must integrate these three main elements into a cohesive theory of translation.