Synonymy in Translation

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Synonymy in Translation

by Said M. Shiyab, Ph.D.Translation Studies Department

United Arab Emirates University, UAE

1. Introduction

n this paper, an attempt will be made to examine the intricate nature of synonymy

in an attempt to investigate its problematic nature in relation to translation.Emphasis will be made on whether or not translation is a form of synonymy.

Types of synonymy will be analyzed and then examples from both English and

Arabic will be provided to examine the overlap between one form of synonymy

and another. Conclusions will be drawn at the end of the analysis and implicationswill be provided for further studies.

2. What is Synonymy?

Although the notion of synonymy has been regarded in the past two decades asone of the most significant linguistic phenomena that influenced the structure of

the lexicon, not much attention has been paid to this notion in the fields of

lexicography, psychology or even computational linguistics (Edmonds and Hirst2002). Whatever the reason, whether it be philosophical, practical or of

expedience, synonymy was thought of as a non-problematic issue in linguistics or

translation, because we have either synonyms with meanings that are completely

identical and hence easy to deal with, or we have non-synonyms, in which case

they can be treated as just different words (ibid: 106). The notion of near-synonyms, Edmonds and Hirst argue, shows that it is just as complex as the

notion of polysemy, and that it inherently affects the structure of the lexicalknowledge.

So what is this notion that is called

synonymy? Synonymy is a kind of semantic

relation among words. Technically, it occurswhen two or more linguistic forms are used

to substitute one another in any context in

which their common meaning is not affected

denotatively or connotatively. For example,words such as healthy and well, sickand ill,quickly and speedily, quickly and rapidly

may be viewedasexamples of synonymy,

simply because they share most of the

characteristics with one another.

Synonymy does

not mean

sameness, as this

form of synonymy

does not exist in

monolingual or

multilingual

settings.


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In an article entitled Translating Cultures: a Light-Hearted Look at the Pitfalls ofCommunication through Translation, Shaw (2003) states that human beings can

differentiate between the nuances and/or fine distinctions of meanings betweenone object and another. Shaw exemplifies this by saying that, within our own

language, ashow can be aplay, a drama, a musical, or a movie. The word show

can even be a display of talent, i.e. a talentora variety show. Shaw argues that,later on in life, we learn the real significant differences between angry, upset,

bothered, ticked off,furious, and ballistic (as in "he went ballistic when they

criticized his friends"). This same distinguishing process takes place as we learn asecond language and, at the same time, learn that words have values and such

values have unique and different semantic units.

Along the same line, Hjorland (2007) believes that synonymy is a kind of

semantic relation. That is, words or phrases are synonymous only if they have thesame meaning. However, there are cases where words or phrases may have subtle

meanings and may therefore give rise to different word associations. For example,

the Word Net database (2006) differentiates between different kinds of meaningsfor the word "computer" (cited in Edmonds and Hirst 2002:107). The firstmeaning is given as a "machine for performing calculations automatically". Here

is a list of the different meanings the word computerentails:

Computer

Computing machine

Computing device

Data processor,

Electronic computer

Information processing system

From a non-contextual point of view, Merriam-Webster's New Dictionary ofSynonyms (1984: 24)provides the following accurate definition of synonymy:

A synonym, in this dictionary, will always mean one of two or more words in theEnglish language which have the same or very nearly the same essentialmeaning.

Synonyms, therefore, are only such words as may be defined wholly, or almostwholly, in the same terms. Usually they are distinguished from one another by anadded implication or connotation, or they may differ in their idiomatic use or in

their application.

The above definition is a bit loose, as it does not distinguish between full or

complete synonymy and near or partial synonymy. Synonymy has been defined asboth full and partial synonymy, ignoring the subtle differences between one word
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and another. This inadequate definition, or rather the way some may regard

synonymy, is a bit confusing to translators, particularly those who believe

translation to be a form of synonymy.

3. Types of Synonymy

Since many linguists believe that true or complete synonymy does not exist in any

language (Quine 1951; Cruse 1986:270), attempts were made to classifysynonymy into types. According to Quine (1951), there are two kinds of

synonymy: complete synonymy and partial synonymy. Complete synonymy is

regarded as words having identical meaning components. In more specific terms,

words are complete synonyms if and only if they share all ingredients with oneanother. According to Quine, this kind of synonymy does not exist simply

because it is impossible to define, and the meanings of words in monolingual or

multilingual settings are constantly changing. Therefore, words may share most of

the constituents with one another, but not all the constituents. As for partialsynonymy, it is when words share most of the necessary components or

constituents. For example, the wordsfinish and terminate may share most of thecharacteristics with one another, but they are still different in some respects. The

wordfinish suggests the final stage of doing something, whereas terminate

suggests reaching a limit. It may suggest an end to a previous formal rendezvous.Since complete synonymy does not exist in monolingual settings, let alone across

languages, partial synonymy has been emphasized. This dichotomy between

complete and partial synonymy has added salt to injury in dealing with the notion

of equivalence in translation or whether or not translation is a form of synonymy.

Based on the above discussion, I believe there is clear confusion as to whatconstitutes synonymy. That is, some treat synonymy as words sharing several

characteristics with one another (Nida 1969: 73). Others suggest that this is

regarded as a form of partial synonymy (Edmonds and Hirst 2002:107). I wouldlike to suggest here that in order to be reasonable and clear, synonymy should be

classified as follows:


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Figure (1)

Classifications of Synonymy

The above diagram shows that, for two words to be synonymous, they have to beidentical and share all essential components and thus capable of being used to

substitute one another in all contexts without any noticeable difference in their

meanings. This kind of synonymy does not exist, without any doubt, between twotext versions of the same language or source texts, let alone texts across

languages.

4. Translation and Synonymy

My point of departure here is to suggest that translation is not a form ofsynonymy, simply because words may have semantic values that are not

translatable into other languages. For example, although words such as lie,falsehood, untruth,fib, and misrepresentation may be used to substitute oneanother in most contexts within the same language, they cannot be used to

substitute one another in all contexts. According to Edmonds and Hirst (2002:

107), these are regarded as near or partial synonyms. The explanation is given by

Edmonds and Hirst as follows:

Indeed, near-synonyms are pervasive in language; examples are easy to

find.Lie,falsehood, untruth,fib, and misrepresentation, for instance, are

near-synonyms of one another. All denote a statement that does notconform to the truth, but they differ from one another in fine aspects of


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their denotation. A lie is a deliberate attempt to deceive that is a flat

contradiction of the truth, whereas a misrepresentation may be more

indirect, as by misplacement of emphasis, an untruth might be told merelyout of ignorance, and afib is deliberate but relatively trivial, possibly told

to save one's own or another's face (Gove 1984). The words also differ

stylistically;fib is an informal, childish term, whereasfalsehoodis quiteformal, and untruth can be used euphemistically to avoid some of the

derogatory implications of some of the other terms.

From a different angle, the Arabic words hisaan,faras,jawaad, agarr, stand for

the English word horse. Although these words can be used interchangeably inmost contexts (since they all refer to the word horse), they are not interchangeable

in all contexts. If we take the words forhorse, we may find the following

meanings that are synonymous and used in a context related to that word:

1. The word hisaan hasthe components ofhorse and male.

2. The wordfaras has the components ofhorse and male orfemale.3. The wordjawaadhas the components ofa particular horse, which isfast,male orfemale.

4. The word agarrhas the components ofa particular horse, which has a

white patchon its foreheadand male orfemale.

The plural form of any of these forms is khayl(horses), though (1) and (2) can

have their distinct plurals as hisaan/ahsina andfaras asfurus/afraas, respectively.The above synonymous words have more than one semantic component in

common. All of them have the component horse and male and female

components. Only (1) has the component male alone, while (2) and (4) share the

component male orfemale. We can also find that (1) and (2) have no distinctivequalities as horses, other than the components mentioned. However, (3) is

characterized by agile movementandfastness and (4) by a special white patch on

the forehead, which naturally contrasts with the overall dark color of the horse.How can the translator render these words in translation with their shared

meanings into other language, without any loss or gain of meaning? This is an

area where more research needs to be done.

In actuality, however, (1) and (2) can be used to substitute one another, without

posing serious syntactic or semantic difficulties. I believe translators will have no

difficulty transferring any of these two forms into English as horsesince the

words denote species and gender. Although (3) denotes a race horse, it can alsobe used to refer to horse in the general sense, with some loss of meaning in its

associative meaning, i.e.fast horse.As for the word in (4), translators have to

make it clear when transferring the meaning of this word into English as horse,that it denotes a horse of a particular color. If translators choose to be more

faithful to the (SL) text, they can resort to paraphrase, in which case the wordjawaadcan be translated as a race horse, and agarras a horse with a white patch

on the forehead. If one agrees with Nida that, when dealing with synonymous


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words, we must look at the different componential features of the meanings of

these synonyms and "select only those meanings which compete in the same

semantic fields" (Nida 1969: 64), then we can be sure that the Arabic words forhorse mentioned above are near synonyms. Such words show certain overlapping

areas of meaning which 'compete in the same semantic field.'

Also, Arabic words suchsayf, muhannad, husaam, among other words or

expressions, stand for the English wordsword. The wordsayfis a neutral word,denoting the English wordsword. Although the words muhannadand husaam

share all the characteristics with the wordsword, they connote additional

characteristics. For example, the word muhannadrefers to a sword in its sheath orscabbard, case, indicating that the sword has not been used yet. The word husaam

refers to a sword that is pointed or sharp. It also suggests meanings of

straightforwardness or uprightness. The neutral Arabic wordsayfdoes not alludeto such connotations. The question now is whether or not these words can be used

to replace one another in all contexts without any loss or gain of meaning. In other

words, are all these synonyms substitutable for one another in all contexts?

From a linguistic perspective, Nida (1969: 73) defines synonymy in language as"words which share several (but not all) essential components and thus can be

used to substitute one another in some (but not all) contexts without any

appreciable difference of meaning in these contexts, e.g. love and like. PeterNewmark (1981:101) takes a position similar to that of Nida declaring very

clearly "I do not approve of the proposition that translation is a form of

synonymy". Susan Bassnett-McGuire explains synonymy and the complexities

associated with it in more detail. She points out that even apparent synonymydoes not yield equivalence, "hence a dictionary of so-called synonyms may give

the wordperfectas a synonym foridealorvehicle as a synonym forconveyancebut in neither case can there be said to be complete equivalence, since each unitcontains within itself a set of non-translatable associations and connotations"

(Bassnett-McGuire 1980: 15). Furthermore, Bassnett-McGuire (1980:29) argues

that "equivalence in translation should not be approached as a search forsameness, since sameness cannot even exist between two (TL) versions of the

same text, let alone between the (SL) and the (TL) versions.

Anna Wierzbicka, on the other hand, examines the problem of synonymy and

translatability by analyzing the deep structures of a language in terms of what shecallssemantic primitives. Discussing the problems involved in translating the

English color words and kinship terminology into other languages, she arrives at

the conclusion that utterances in various languages differ, not only in their surfacestructures, but in their deep structures as well. Wierzbicka (1980: 67) maintains

that "those different deep structures are always expressible in languages, which

are mutually isomorphic; they are all isomorphic with respect to the universal

lingua, that is to the language of semantic primitives. For this reason, deepstructures of sentences in different languages (different as they may be in


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themselves) are always mutually translatable".

5. Conclusion

As pointed out earlier, synonymy does not mean sameness, as this form ofsynonymy does not exist in monolingual or multilingual settings. Synonymy can

be described in terms of exact replacement and interchangeability. That is, words

can be described as synonymous if and only if they replace each other in allcontexts without any change in either the cognitive or emotive import.

Moreover, equivalence may be regarded as an appropriate criterion that proves to

be an adequate form of translation. What is meant by equivalence here is the fact

that every linguistic unit (below the level of the sentence) has a characteristicdistribution. If two (or more) units occur in the same range of contexts, they are to

be distributionally equivalent (or have the same distribution). It is extremely

important however to make sure that these two equivalent lexical items aresynonymous if and only if there is no change in the meaning within the whole

text.

References

Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1980). Translation Studies. NY: Methuen & Co. Ltd.

Hjrland, B. (2007). Synonymy (equivalence relation). Available at

http://www.db.dk/bh/lifeboat_ko/CONCEPTS/synonymy.htm.

Cruse, D. A. (1986).Lexical Semantivs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Edmonds, O. P. and Hirst, G. (2002). "Near-Synonymy and Lexical Choice".Computational Linguistics, Vol.28, Number 2: 105-144.

Gove, Philip B., Editor. (1984). Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms. Merriam-

Webster, Springfield, MA.

Lyons, J. (1995).Linguistic Semantics. An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Merriam-Webster(1984). Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms; a Dictionary of

Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words.

Springfield, Mass., U.S.A. : Merriam-Webster.

Nida, E. and Taber, C. (1969). The Theory and Practice of Translation. Netherlands: E.J.

Brill.
http://www.db.dk/bh/lifeboat_ko/CONCEPTS/synonymy.htmhttp://www.db.dk/bh/lifeboat_ko/CONCEPTS/synonymy.htm


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Newmark, P. (1981).Approaches to Translation. Oxford: pergamon.

Quine, W.V.O. (1951). "Two Dogmas of Empiricism".Philosophical Review, 60: 20-43.

WordNet. A Lexical Database for the English Language. (2006).

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn

Wierzbicka, Anna (1980).Lingua Mentalis: the Semantics of Natural Language.Sydney/New York: Academic Press.
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/

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