LESSON 10: UNIT 5 (cont.) THE ANALYSIS OF

MEANING (for homework, see last three slides)

- denotation

- componential analysis

- connotation

- collocation

The American Eugene Nida, who coordinated the translation of the

Bible from English into a variety of African and South American

indigenous languages, made a distinction between two types of

meaning: referential (or denotative) meaning and connotative

meaning (see HM 34-35)

Denotation and referential meaning:

Italian ‘sperare’ arguably covers a wider semantic field

than the English ‘hope’.

Speriamo che tutto vada bene. Let’s hope everything

goes well. BUT:

Spero di rivederti presto.

Non speravo che saresti ritornato.

Sperare in Dio

Speriamo che tutto vada bene. Let’s hope everything

goes well. BUT:

Spero di rivederti presto. I’m looking forward to

seeing you soon.

Non speravo che saresti ritornato. I wasn’t expecting

you to come back.

Sperare in Dio To trust in God.

There can be pairs of words in a TL that differ from one

another by only a single (and therefore important)

component of meaning. The SL may have only one term

for both of these meanings. Or the writer/speaker of the

ST may have deliberately chosen a single term that

covers both meanings:

E.g., ST Viveva ancora per quello che di lei si sentiva

vivere nell’anima e nella carne, …. TT He still lived

for her, for what he felt still living in his soul and flesh

… (not ‘meat’ = human food ). See section on collocation

below.

Another example of a pair of words that differ from one

another only by a single component of meaning is:

see vs show (‘show’ has the additional meaning of

‘cause to see’)

Compare with Italian: see vedere; show fare

vedere. (The same verb is used but it is preceded by an

auxiliary verb)

U. Eco (2003: 32) gives the example of how the single

term ‘topo’ covers the same semantic space that is

covered by ‘mouse’ and ‘rat’ in English. ‘… in Italian,

even though the difference between a ‘topo’ and a ‘ratto’

is recorded in dictionaries, in everyday language one can

use ‘topo’ even for a big rat – perhaps stretching it to

‘topone’ or ‘topaccio’– but ‘ratto’ is used only in

technical texts.’

Over to you: translate: ‘How now! A rat?’ (Hamlet, Act

III, scene iv)

For Eco (2003: 32) it is correct to translate this as ‘Cosa

c’è, un topo?’ or ‘Come? Un topo’. ‘Topo’ (rather than

‘ratto’) is sufficient for communicating the intended

meanings of ‘surprise, instinctive alarm and an impulse

to kill’.

In contrast, the Italian translation of the rodent mentioned

in A. Camus’ La peste will require, ‘if not a ratto, at least

a grosso topo or a topo di chiavica’. A plague (‘una

pesta’) is not usually carried by mice but by rats. (The

French word that is used by Camus is ‘un rat’.)

Translate the contemporary idiom: ‘Mmm, I smell a rat’

C’è qualcosa che non va!

Another reason for incorrect translation of a term is

under-translation (Dodds 198).

E.g., the translation of ‘poltrona’ as generic ‘chair’ (rather

than the more specific ‘armchair’) would be a case of

under-translation in that the translator only renders the

common components and misses altogether the

distinctive components of the source language word. Part

of the meaning would be ‘lost’.

Yet another reason for incorrect translation can be the

failure to distinguish between homonyms (i.e., two or

more words that have the same sound and spelling (i.e.,

the same form) but different semantic meanings.

The destruction of the Monte Cassino monastery during

WW2 was due to a translator confusing the German word

‘Abt’ (= Abbot) with an abbreviation of ‘Abteilung

(battalion).

(see HM: 36-7)

HOMEWORK (lesson 9) : Finally, when the SL has

words that are closely related in terms of meaning, it is

important for the translator to be aware of the

components of denotive meaning which distinguish them.

Can you translate the different (but partly overlapping)

denotative meanings of these pairs:

congress / conference || aggravate /irritate || libel

/slander || lend /borrrow || gabbled / garbled || classic /

classical || effect (noun and verb) / affect (noun and

verb). E.g., ‘It is claimed that global warming has

affected our weather patterns and that we shall suffer the

effects for many years’

congress = a big meeting of a political group

conference = a meeting of people who are interested in the same

subject

aggravate = to make worse

irritate = to make someone feel annoyed or impatient (medical: to

make a part of the body red, swollen or painful)

libel = writing or printing of anything that will discredit someone

slander = the saying of anything that will discredit someone

lend /borrrow (you know it already)

gabbled = the sound of a lot of people talking quickly and

simultaneously

garbled = to communicate something in speech or writing that is

not clear (e.g., a garbled speech/lesson)

classic = art, music and literature of the first rank.

classical = Greek and Roman culture and languages

effect (noun and verb) = consequence

affect (noun and verb) = influence.

E.g., ‘It is claimed that global warming has affected

(influenced) our weather patterns and that we shall suffer

the effects (consequences) for many years’

COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS

In order to deal with the above problems componential

analysis has been used in translation theory (see Larson,

HM 154). Lexical items that are related in terms of

meaning are broken down into their basic meaning

components. It can then be seen which of these

components have contrasting meanings:

E.g., girl = human, young, female

boy = human, young, male.

‘Human’ and ‘young’ are the generic, shared components;

‘female’ and ‘male’ are the contrastive components . Can

you distinguish between the generic and the contrastive

components of table, chair, wardrobe and cupboard?

The types of meaning mentioned so far are referential

(otherwise known as denotative). But connotative and

collocative meanings also have to be translated .

Connotative meanings: = additional meanings which a

lexical item acquires beyond its primary, referential

meaning, e.g., notorious means not just famous but

famous for something bad. E.g., translate: ‘This city is

notorious for its traffic jams’. (HM 336)

Ideas or higher qualities associated with a word or

expression in addition to its literal sense. For example,

the word peasant has negative connotations that the

word farmer does not have (Taylor 318). E.g., translate:

‘Farmers enjoy privileges that peasants don’t have’.

Consider the closely related pair lady and woman.

Lady can have a denotative rather than a connotative

meaning. It can be the formal equivalent of gentleman. ‘This

lady has lost her passport’. (‘This woman has lost her

passport’ could sound abrupt and somewhat rude to older

people.) Lady can also function as a formal title that is the

equivalent of Lord (e.g., Lady Chatterley’s Lover). This too is

a denotative meaning.

But in other contexts lady can have negative connotations and

can be condescending. E.g., In a supermarket at the cash till:

‘Come on lady! Hurry up! Translate this.

Lady can also have negative connotations when it is used as a

marked term. E.g., A lady driver. A lady doctor. This is

sometimes called semantic derogation. There is no male

equivalent: we don’t say ‘a man driver’ or a ‘man doctor’.

Concerning connotation, Crystal (2003: 170) writes:

‘A group of synonyms cannot by definition be

distinguished in terms of their denotation, but they

usually display noticeable differences of connotation, as

in the case of car, automobile, runabout, banger, old

crock.’

Translate these.

HOMEWORK: How would you translate the

following sentences which have connotative terms?

•Some male teenagers are youngsters and some are louts

or yobbos (= ‘boy’ spelt backwards)

•(From two estate-agent advertisements): A residence

with immaculate views. ||| A dwelling that is near the

shops.

•I am firm, you are obstinate and he is pig-headed.

•A is slender, B is thin and C is skinny. (Reversal:

‘skinny jeans’ anorexic)

•(From a newspaper): Francis: the Pope of the masses?

•I am a creative writer, she has journalistic flair and he

is a prosperous hack.

HOMEWORK Compare the Italian and English

translation of a German advertisement for a shoe

company. Is there any connotation in the Italian

translation? If so, is it appropriate for the text type?

•Das FinnComfort-Konzept: die Natur als Lehrmeisterin.

Paßform, Fußbetten und Sohle sind streng nach

anatomisch-orthopädischen Gesichtspunkten entwickelt.

•The FinnComfort concept: Learning from nature. Nature

is our teacher. Fit, footbeds and soles are developed

strictly in accordance with anatomical and orthopaedic

principals.

•La filosofia FinnComfort: obbedire alla natura. Forma,

plantari e suola sono ideati e realizzati nel pieno rispetto

di tutti i criteri anatomici ed ortopedici.

Homework:

Read the following pages in HM (if you haven’t done it

already) :

Section A, unit 5, pp. 34-39

Section B, unit 5, pp. 152-159