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PART ONE: PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSLATION

1. TRANSLATION AS A CULTURAL PRODUCT AND PROCESS

1.1. Around the notion of (un)translatability

Translation is commonly understood as transferring the meaning of a stretch of

discourse (a whole text or parts/s of it) from one language into another. It is frequently
regarded as tantamount to equivalence, similarity, sameness, or correspondence. As Peter
Newman acknowledges,

Most people can recognise a translation grosso modo - particularly if they find
enough corresponding features between the target and the source language texts.
But asked to define translation, they hesitate, and many dictionaries, which offer
synonyms for the verb (render, rephrase, reword, transmit, re-express, transmute,
transmogrify, interpret, convert, transform, transpose, express, transfer, run) and
add ‘from one language into another’ do not state what is being translated; other
authorities make use of expressions such as ‘equivalent’, ‘equivalent message’,
‘equivalent textual material’, ‘similar’, ‘like’, ‘parallel’, ‘equal’, ‘identical’,
‘comparable’, ‘synonymous’, ‘analogous’ (Newmark 1988: 5 )

Translation is a complex term, designating several processes: comprehension,

conversion and rearticulation, as well as several products: the source text (the text written
in its original language) and the target text (the text resulted from its transfer into a
meaningful textual unit in the chosen foreign language). As a process, translation has its
instrumental dimension, which grants it the status of a craft, consisting of the endeavour
to replace a text written in a source language by an equivalent text in a target language.
As Newmark emphasises (1988: 7), such a craft unavoidably entails partial loss of
meaning brought about by the lexical, grammatical, and cultural differences existing
between any two languages. The extent to which such a loss occurs vacillates between
two poles of a continuum: overtranslation (excessive detail) and undertranslation
(excessive generalisation and vagueness). The higher the cultural overlap between the
source language (henceforth SL) and the target language (henceforth TL), the less likely
the loss, and the more predictable the ‘untranslatability’, i.e. the inability to bridge the
gulfs between the SL and the TL (Newmark 1988: 25).
According to Hewson and Martin (1991: 16-18) the century-old vacillation between
translatability and untranslatability has engendered several myths in relation to
translation, viewed as a (dis)connector between humankind and divinity. Hence, the
emergence of several myths in relation to “talking into languages”:
1) The myth of the Edenic state was one of unconfined expression and comprehension,
the consequence of human beings experiencing ceaseless bliss owing to unmediated
correspondence with the surrounding world and with the Creative Logos. There was
no discontinuity or disruption between conception, perception and designation, all of
which constituted facets of the same reality.
2) The Tower of Babel myth undermined the Edenic harmony-laden representation of
signification and coherence. Once humans decided to “make a name” for themselves

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instead of abiding by the Lord’s sacred Logos, the Tower’s builders espoused verticality
in discourse by initiating an ascendant interrogation, symbolised by the unfinished,
unfinishable Tower itself, which aroused God’s wrath in the form of His descendant
punitive response. The original all-pervasivenes of meaningfulness was consequently
dismantled and humans needed to resort to the institution of translation in order to
maintain meaningfulness in their lives.
3) As a consequence of Christ’s Resurrection and the new bridge of love established
between humankind and divinity via redemption, the Pentecost revealed the descent of
the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, presently endowed with the gift of ‘speaking in
tongues’ in order to spread the Holy Writ all over the world.

As a product, translation cannot transcend language boundaries and cannot ignore

the comparative and adjustable facets of cross-cultural interrogations. Translation
surpasses the boundaries of interpretation and rephrasal and becomes an intricate process
of mediation, liable to constant culture-rooted and context-dependent contestation.
Translation is not be confined to language alone, since as an increasingly widespread
cultural phenomenon, it has become essentially communicational and cross-cultural:

Semioticians, literary scholars, and specialists in translation studies realize that […]
traditional text strategies do not necessarily reduce written texts to their language
component. The semiotics of space and gesture plays a key role in translated
communication as soon as the representation of a real or possible world is involved
(Lambert 1997: 63)

As Hewson and Martin (19??: 23) point out, translation, both as a product and as a
process, needs to be anchored in a System of Representation which mediates the
transposition and rearticulation of a text from a source language (SL) into a target
language (TL) in terms of the socially construed reality shaped by the target
community’s perception of reality. Since the act of translation undeniably involves more
than language, it is intrinsically culture-bound. Any translation is an activity which
involves “a kind of verbal, but never strictly verbal communication,” while being “norm-
bound and culture-bound” (Lambert 1997: 60). To be a successful translation, any re-
presentation or transposition needs to measure up to specific culture-related requirements.
Translation implies the conversion between several axiological (value-related)
and referential (related to object identification in the real world) systems. Translation is
meant to simultaneously bridge gaps between cultures and emphasise existing
differences. While acknowledging the tension between cultures, translation is intended to
function as an operator of coherence and a facilitator of clarification.
Intertextual competence smoothes the mediation between two cultural products
whose construction and reception may vary according to potentially incongruent social
and cultural parameters used by the respective language users:
No two languages exhibit identical systems of organizing symbols into meaningful
expression. The basic principles of translation in a receptor language can be the
equivalent of the model in the <source language>“ (Nida 1964: 27)

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Along the same line of thought, Newmark underlines that historic instances of wide scale
translations occur when two essential conditions are abided by:
1) the acquiring culture is assimilative and receptive to new ideas
2) there is continuous contact between the two languages.

History provides a plethora of such instances. The first traces of translation date
back as far as 3,000 BC, during the Egyptian Old Kingdom, in the area of the First
Cataract, Elephantine, where inscriptions in two languages were encountered. Starting
with the year 300 BC, the Romans took over a multitude of elements from the Greek
culture, which entailed massive transposition of Greek cultural concepts into the Roman
culture. To begin with the 12th century AD, Western Europe came into contact with the
Islamic culture in Moorish Spain and after the collapse of the Moorish supremacy, the
Toledo School of translators familiarised European scholars with Arabic versions of
Greek scientists and philosophers (Gentzler 1993). Later on, Luther’s translation of the
Bible (1522) largely contributed to the foundations of modern German, while the British
version of King James’s Bible (1611) had a seminal influence on the evolution of the
English language and literature.
Any efficient and accomplished translator needs to achieve well-formedness and
accuracy, adequacy of register and style, compliance with socio-cultural norms of
expression during the complex transfer of cultural aspects between languages and
cultures, in an endeavour to “reproduc[e] the total dynamic character of the
communication” (Nida 1964: 120). As a consequence, any translation theory relying on
cross-cultural variety and flexibility needs to elucidate the controversial notion of
‘equivalence’, which is to be discussed in the following section.

1.2. Translation and equivalence

Equivalence is commonly viewed as “the replacement of a representation of a text

in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language” (Bell
1991: 20). Lefevere (1992: 100) recommends that translators should accept the relativity
of translation practices and strategies meant to enable them to bridge the discrepancy
between the SL image and the TL image that the target audience is to process and
comprehend. As Christiane Nord (20011: 92) emphasises, generalisation is unconceivable
with successful translations, which are anchored in cultural specificity and expectations
on the part of a specific community of receptors:
This is why there will never be a common translation code for all cultures. What
we can achieve, though, is agreement on a general theory of translation which
allows for specific variations when applied to particular cultures, taking into
account the culture-specific conventions of translation and the expectations the
members of a particular culture have of a translated text.

Nida (1964: 165) makes a further distinction by stating that every aspect of translation
could either be formally or dynamically equivalent. One could thus speak of
formal/lexical equivalence on the one hand, and of cognitive /dynamic equivalence on the
other. In the case of formal equivalence the focus is on the message itself regarding both
form and content. The basic premise is that the message in the receptor or target language

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(TL) should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language.
This approach is often applied to the translation of poetry.
At first sight, the main purpose of translation is to faithfully convey the meaning
of the original text. Translation, nevertheless, surpasses the confinements of adequacy in
deciphering the original text:
It would be wrong to think, however, that the response of the receptors in the
second language is merely in terms of comprehension of the information, for
communication is not merely informative. It must also be expressive and
imperative if it is to serve the principal purposes of communication” (Nida 1964:
24).

By contrast, the dynamic translation approach relies on the principle of equivalent

effect. In this type of translation

one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the
source-language message, but with the dynamic relationship, that the relationship
between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which
existed between the original receptors and the message (Nida 1964: 159).

This type of translation pursues the following goals: achieving naturalness of

expression, and enabling the receptor to assimilate modes of behaviour relevant within
the context of their own culture. Nida opinionates that all translation should be concerned
with the response of the receptor. To substantiate his view, Nida resorts to Leonard
Foster’s definition of a good translation as “one which fulfils the same purpose in the new
language as the original did in the language in which it was written” (Foster in Nida
1964: 162). A successful translation is destined to capture the sense of the original rather
than its mere words and could only be regarded as a successful piece of communication
provided the receptor processes and internalises it effortlessly and appropriately. SL
words, phrases and textual chunks with all their denotations and connotations would have
to be transposed or re-created in such a way in the target text that the response of the TL
receivers should – ideally - be equivalent or at least similar to the response of SL
receivers. In compliance with Nida’s approach, if a translation can meet the following
basic requirements:
(1) making sense;
(2) conveying the spirit and manner of the original;
(3) having a fluent and coherent form of expression;
(4) arousing a similar response on the part of the receptor,
some conflict or tension between form and content will unavoidably be generated (Nida
1964: 164). In most situations, the translator will have to decide which aspects of the
source text they ought to be transferred equivalently to the target text. Such choices will
determine which type of translation will be used, namely a formal or dynamic equivalent
translation.
The issue of untranslatability occurs when absolute equivalence rather than
relative equivalence is required. “If one is to insist that translation must involve no loss of

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information whatsoever, then obviously not only translating but all communication is
impossible.” (Nida 1960: 13)
Following Nida, designating equivalence in translation theory has varied from one
theorist to another. Each language has a preference for specific lexical and functional
devices, preferably utilised to convey meanings and associated impressions that are rather
implied than literally stated in the text. Such devices are not necessarily alike in the SL
and TL. The duty of the translator in this case is multifold; first s/he needs to read and
comprehend what the source text says literally, then clarify what is implied by certain
utterances in specific contexts - such as rhetorical questions, understatements, instances
of irony, semantic repetition and parallelism, figurative language, emphasis as a carrier of
emotional overtones - in order to engage in the combined transmission of the literal as
well as the implied meanings. To this purpose, the translator commits him-herself to the
risky tasks of rewording, adding, omitting, providing footnotes, even rephrasing certain
textual chunks in order to convey the intended sense of the original.

Newmark (1988: 10) borrows the term ‘dynamic equivalence’ from Nida and
describes it as “the principle of similar or equivalent response or effect, or of functional
equivalence”. In Newmark’s view, equivalent aspects include the content as well as the
form, while supplying a more concise definition of a dynamically equivalent translation:
“ the criterion by which the effectiveness and therefore, the value of the translation…is to
be assessed” (Newmark 1988: 48). In a nutshell, a translation that attempts to be
dynamically equivalent is based on the principle of bringing about an equivalent effect on
the target receptor. Newmark’s view is endorsed by scholars such as Snell-Nornby (1988)
and Gentzler (1993) who argue that a translation should convey the meaning of the
original while being faithful to the “dynamics” of the original message. Their approach
differs from Nida’s in that it looks at the textual dynamics in terms of ‘naturalness’ of
language use and expected ease of comprehension on the part of the TL reader rather than
in terms of similitude in TL reader’s response, mostly regarded as an attitudinal issue. A
translation which transfers the meaning and the dynamics of the original text is to be
regarded as a faithful translation. Such a translation should pursue two objectives:

(1) make a natural use of the linguistic structures of the TL

(2) enable the recipients of the translation understand the message with ease.

To acquire further insight into the dynamics of translation and equivalence,

several perspectives on the relation between language, meaning and mental
representations might prove useful.

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2. THEORIES OF MEANING

Transposition of meaning from SL into TL is likely to be achieved by reviewing

several insights into contemporary theories of meaning. Starting from Stainton’s
definition of language: “Language is a system of symbols which we know and
use”(Stainton 1996: 4), contemporary research on meaning comprises three main families
of theories regarding the relationship between word and world, between verbal meaning
and encyclopedic or background knowledge, namely:
1) THING theories of meaning which view language exclusively as a system of
symbols
2) IDEA theories of meaning, which lay emphasis on knowledge, on language being
known via the comprehenders’ mental representations
3) USE theories of meaning, which analyse language in its use, or otherwise put,
language as social action, involving a social content, participants with specific social
positions and allegiances, pursuing certain communicative goals in compliance with
the interlocutors’ communicative intentions (Stainton 1996)
In the lines to come, I will enlarge upon the main tenets of the afore-mentioned families
of theories of meaning

2.1. ‘Thing’ Theories of Meaning

The basic claim of ‘thing’ theories of meaning is that meaningfulness exclusively lies
in the relations between symbols and extra-linguistic objects of various kinds. Such
theories roughly fall into two categories: ‘direct’ and ‘mediated’ theories of meaning.

2.1.1. Direct Reference Theories

This set of theories claim that any word corresponds to an external object and there is
nothing mediating between the word and the thing referred to. Otherwise formulated, the
meaning of a name is its bearer. The denotation of any expression thus becomes the thing
named, i.e. the thing which the expression designates or stands for. For such theories to
function, each meaningful expression needs being assigned a specific referent or extra-
linguistic object.
Being focused on the denotative value of words and their combinations, ‘thing’
theories assess sentences in terms of their denoting truth values. The truth value of a
sentence is indicated by its correspondence with extra-linguistic facts and its providing
correct descriptions of states of affairs in the world. Such sentential truths are of an
empirical nature and researchers need to benefit from access to world facts in order to
verify whether a statement is true or not. Such verifications are meant to reveal the so-
called truth conditions satisfying the assessment of a sentence as true or false.
Furthermore, such truth conditions need to be confronted with the facts meant to enable
researchers to establish the truth or falsehood of a specific sentence.
Springing out of logical positivism, such ‘verificationist theories’ professed by the
Vienna Circle philosophers (such as Carnap, Schlick, Russell) revolve around the claim
that “A significant assertion is one which may be tested for truth or falsity by means of
experience”. Consequently, if experience is the source of meaning, sentences whose

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meaning cannot be directly verified by appeal to experience are likely to be considered

meaningless.
Opponents of ‘direct’ theories of meaning question the validity of true/false as well
as the meaningful/meaningless dichotomies, by invoking examples such as “The king of
France is bald”. Such a sentence is not to be labelled as either true or false, since failure
to identify a referent corresponding to the expression ‘the King of France’ impeaches
researchers to state whether the predication ‘is bald’ holds true for a non-identifiable
referent.

2.1.2. ‘Mediated reference’ theories

Such theories go beyond the univocal correspondence between a sign and the
referent denoted by that sign and highlight the correspondence between signs, objects and
mental representations, revolving around Frege’s distinction between sense and
reference. According to Frege, the sense of a term is the concept/definition a speaker
grasps and mentally activates when understanding what the term means. By contrast, the
reference of a term indicates the object or set of objects denoted by the term in question.
Thus, the sense of the term ‘cat’ is the idea of ‘cattiness’ as mentally represented by a
comprehender of that term. The reference of the term ‘cat’ encompasses the total amount
of domestic felines satisfying the description of the term.
Terms may differ in sense despite their referring to the same object. For instance,
‘Marilyn Monroe’ and ‘Norma Jean Baker’ DO NOT have the same sense although they
refer to the same person, the famous American movie star in the fifties. A sentence like
“It is common knowledge that Marylyn Monroe acted in <Some Like it Hot>“ is a
perfectly intelligible sentence, while “It is common knowledge that Norma Jean Baker
acted in <Some Like it Hot>“ fails to be comprehensible unless it is placed in a
biographical context. One goes to a music store to buy a CD by Eminem, but when the
hip-hop star was subpoenaed in court he was addressed not by his stage name, but by his
ID name, Marshall Mathers. Consequently, Eminem and Marshall Mathers refer to the
same person, but display different senses, one designating his stage persona, the other his
legal persona. Hence, senses are regarded as the multifarious ways people envisage
objects, the way in which objects are presented. In Frege’s words, senses provide ‘the
manner and context of presentation’ of the object.
Further examples may comprise the following expressions:
Shakespeare/Old Will The Swan of Avon/the author of ‘Romeo and Juliet’
Michael Jackson/The King of Pop/the pedophiliac megastar
Brad Pitt/the sexiest man on the planet/Jennifer Aniston’s ex/ Angelina’s lovey-dovey

which convincingly point out that such expressions may designate the same referent yet
express a different sense. Consequently, if the sense of a term is specified by means of a
description, then the reference of a term is whatever satisfies the description granting
sense to the term. Sense, then, mediates between. a sign and what the sign refers to.
There are also senses which do not denote a specific existing entity or, otherwise
put, lack a real world referent, such as: unicorn, leprechaun, hobbit, the, but, the largest

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number in the world, the person who will invent the cure against AIDS, the likely winner
of the next Oscar award.
To sum up, mediated reference theories view words in relation to sense rather than
reference, starting from the premise that sense always determines reference.

2.2. ‘Idea’ theories of meaning

This family of theories argue in favour of linguistic meaning emerging from the
pairing of expressions with ‘something in the mind’: the meaning of a symbol is what one
mentally grasps in understanding it. ‘Idea’ theories are underlain by the unquestionable
assumption that meaning initially derives from ‘inside the mind’, rather than from entities
‘in the world’.
There are three main versions of ‘IDEA’ theories of meaning:
a) the mental image version, which maintains that meanings derive from ‘pictures in the
head’
b) the intention-based theory, according to which meanings derive from speakers’
intentions (Grice), i.e. from commonsensical intentional or propositional attitude states
(believing, hoping, desiring).
c) the LOT version, which defines meaning as derivable and expressible in terms of a
“language of thought”
In the lines to come, I shall briefly present the main tenets of the three above-mentioned
versions.

2.2.1. The mental image version

An early mentalistic view on meaning could be attributed to David Hume, who in

his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, defines words as ‘expressive ideas’,
while claiming that what is meant by an idea is similar to a complex of remembered
sensations or perceptions, all of which are constitutive of mental images. For instance,
mental images associated with pork chop encounters collectively engender the meaning
of the word ‘pork chop’.
A strikingly radical version of mentalistic views on language is the one set forth
by Edward Bradford Titchener, who claimed that there was a fixed image to correspond
to each and every word. For instance, according to Titchener, a cow is mentally
represented as ‘a longuish rectangle with a certain facial expression, a sort of
exaggerated pout”. The word ‘meaning’ itself is to be visualised as “the blue-grey tip of a
kind of scoop which has a bit of yellow about it”. Obviously, with such a radical
imagistic theory, the question inevitably arises whether words like ‘seven’ and ‘from’ are
meaningless.
Such a question only signals a series of flaws featuring theories exclusively based
on mental representations. First and foremost, not all meanings can be captured by mental
images. More often than not, certain associations between words and mental meanings
are not only idiosyncratic but also culture-specific: a Muslim or a vegetarian have
different mental representations of ‘pork chop’ than a regular meat eater. When hearing or
reading the word ‘cat, each individual is likely to instantiate a specific mental image is
specific: some have in mind a cat that is curled up, others a cat that is asleep, others a cat

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licking milk out of a saucer. It is impossible to mentally represent a cat leaving aside its
colour, in other words, to visualise ‘the’ cat, one that is not particularly black, white or
striped. Some mental images might not be the result of habitual interaction with the
referent in question, but the consequence of some accidental association. For instance, a
child’s perception of a raging bull is fright-inducing, unlike a matador’s or a farmer’s
visualisation of the same animal. Unlike meaning, images may not always correspond to
classes of things. Thus, it is hard to suggest some generally shared mental representations
of words designating classes such as ‘vegetables’, or ‘weapons’, taking into account that
such representations are always culture-specific: thus, in those communities where
potatoes are staple foods, people are more likely to instantiate an image of potatoes as
representative for the class ‘vegetables’ rather than an image of an ‘asparagus’ or a
‘beetroot’. In pre-industrial communities, knives or bows and arrows are more likely to
activate the mental image of salient exemplars in the category ‘weapons’ than in western
societies, where guns and even nuclear or biochemical weapons tend to be highly
representative of this class (Stainton 1996, Saaed 1996)
The main argument brought forth by opponents of mentalistic theories is that
ideas cannot resemble real life entities: one may only naturally wonder how an idea could
be similar to a cat.

2.2.2. The intention-based theory of meaning

The main proponent of an intention-based theory of meaning is the philosopher

Paul Grice, who distinguishes between ‘natural’ meaning, arising from a causal or logical
relation between two signs and ‘non-natural’ meaning, a matter of social convention,
bearing no factive or causal-logical relation between signs. The two sentences below
illustrate the notion of natural meaning
a) Those spots mean measles
b) The recent budget means that we shall have a hard year
In example a) certain spots on a person’s skin are indicative of a certain disease,
i.e. enable a physician to diagnose a specific ailment. In example b) a presumably low
budget entails (logically) certain financial hardships for a group of persons in the year to
follow.
On the contrary, no cause-effect relationship can be established in relation to the
sentences below:
a) Those three rings on the bell mean that the bus is full
b) That remark, ‘Smith couldn’t get on without his trouble and strife’ meant that Smith
found his wife indispensable.
In example a), the ring of the bell is a conventional way of signalling to passengers
that the bus is full and no further passengers are allowed to board it. The second example
above, uses a conventional linguistic device, namely rhyming slang, in order to designate
the referent ‘ Smith’s wife’.
As Grice emphasises, non-natural or conventional linguistic meaning is ‘cashed out’
in terms of speaker’s meaning, which, in its turn is ‘cashed out’ in terms of speaker’s
intentions. By intention Grice and his followers define whatever a speaker means beyond
or addition to what s/he explicitly says, what that speaker endeavours to convey to a
specific hearer within a particular context of verbal exchange. In the Gricean tradition,

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meanings arise from pairing utterances with intentions. For instance, it has long become a
matter of social and linguistic convention that an utterance of the kind ‘I’m terribly sorry
for what I said yesterday’ is intended as an apology, while an utterance such as ‘ Thank
you for your invaluable help’ in intended and is understood to count as an expression of
gratitude on the part of the speaker (Stainton 1996, Saaed 1996)

2.2.3. ‘LOT’ theories of meaning

Supporters of ‘LOT’ (acronym for ‘language of thought’) theories of meaning

regard public words and sentences as meaningful because they are paired with internal
words and sentences, more precisely with certain expressions of the language of thought,
also known as mentalese or LOT. Fodor views mental representations as ideas in the
head, more likely to be sentence-like than picture-like. In his outlook, when one learns
the meaning of an expression in a public language, one translates it into their LOT. A
public symbol is meaningful if it corresponds to some expression in mentalese. If the
public symbol in question fails to trigger a mental, sentence-like expression, it is to be
judged as meaningless. Mentalists insist on the human need to constantly operate pairing
between mental states and public symbols. For instance, whoever understands the word
‘cat’ must have mentally comprehended and encapsulated the ‘cattiness’, i.e. the essential
feature in a cat in a sentence-like representation.

2.3. The use theory of meaning

‘Use’ theories of meaning belong to the province of pragmatics, a branch of

philosophy and linguistics which analyses meaning as neither an exclusively mental
representation nor as a relation between a symbol (word, phrase, sentence, text) and a
worldly entity designated by it. The etymology of ‘pragmatics’ indicates its focus on
language as social action, since in Greek ‘pragma’ is the equivalent of practice or action.
Assessing language and linguistic expressions – from mere words to complex texts or
combinations of texts – in terms of their use and social function entails situating language
within specific contexts and envisaging who the users of the language are. In other words,
pragmatics situates language within wider social and cultural settings and behavioural
patterns and, while laying heavy stress on the context of verbal exchanges, it deals with
the way people exploit words and combinations of words, with the actions actual users
perform in the act of communication. The meaning of a linguistic expression is given by
its use, under certain circumstances, where interlocutors nourish specific intentions and
pursue specific goals. For instance, the meaning of “I’m sorry’ reveals how such a
linguistic expression is employed, for what purpose, under what circumstances. Its
meaning resides in what the expression does for a speaker and hearer alike, under a
specific linguistic and extra-linguistic context (Nehrlich and Clarke 1996)
According to Wittgenstein, language is used in a multiplicity of ways and
language users engage in a multitude of ‘language-games’, such as: giving orders,
formulating invitations, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying, describing objects or
persons, narrating events, speculating about happenings, making assumptions, emitting
and hypotheses, fabricating lies, play-acting, singing, concocting and guessing riddles,
telling jokes, and last but not least, translating from one language into another.

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2.3.1. Saying and doing as communicative acts

Contrary to truth-conditional or verificationist views on language, which equate
meaning with truth and test it with reference to objects or states of affairs, pragmatic
accounts regard meaning as context-dependent with reference to the possible networks of
actions and the potential effects such actions may generate. Pragmatists such as Austin or
Strawson disclaim the tenet that a linguistic expression solely serve to provide
denotations and to stimulate researchers to check whether such expression correspond to
certain states-of-affairs in the world or to certain mental representations entertained by
language users. In Strawson’s view, meaning exceeds the limitations of reference and is
not solely used to describe the world. Hence, Strawson’s ‘descriptive fallacy’: Since
description is not the only purpose of using language, lack of reference does not
necessarily entail meaninglessness (Stainton 1996, Saaed 1996) For instance, none of us
has identified leprechaun or unicorns in the real world, yet we can understand a story
whose protagonist is one of these fictional creatures. Nobody has a face to face encounter
with Batman, yet all narratives about Batman make sense to readers, listeners and
viewers of all ages.
In his seminal book, “How to do things with words’ (1962), Austin developed his
pragmatic theory of language in order to overcome problems previously encountered in a
truth-conditional or verificationist theories. Austin concluded that one of the century-old
enigmas of philosophy – “how to bridge the gap between language and reality” - is in
some cases a bogus one. This problem arises only when we regard description (or
representation) as the only function of language, overlooking instances where language
and reality actually collapse into one ‘deed’ accomplished with and through language. To
simplify Austin’s position, instead of saying something a speaker may be doing
something or be performing an action: ask questions, give order or commands, get
married, baptize, excommunicate, appoint somebody in a certain social or professional
position, make bets, invitations, offers and promises, congratulate, warn, apologise,
threaten, curse, protest, toast, thank and bless.
As Saaed (1996: 112) emphasises, part of the meaning of an uttered expression
resides in ‘its intended social function’. If interlocutors endeavour to employ language
realistically and efficiently, they need to consider the goals usually pursued by uttering
certain linguistic expressions within specific cultural communities, the intentions
underlying the selection of such utterances over others as well as the manner in which
these uses are signalled.
Austin regards each utterance as an act of communication or a speech act.
Pragmatics is the science that analyses speech acts as major units of human
communication by engaging along two directions of investigation:
a) pairing linguistic expressions with speech acts (henceforth SAs) or action types
b) specifying the context that allows a certain utterance to lead to the actual performance
of the intended action.

2.3.2. Interactivity and context-dependence

Interactivity involves the simultaneous contribution of at least two interlocutors

(who become in turn speaker and respectively hearer) to the successful performance of a
speech act. For instance, a bet comes into existence only if two or more parties interact. If

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I say ‘ I bet you 5 $ he doesn’t get elected’, a bet is nor performed unless my addressee
makes some response like OK or ‘You’re on’.
Other SAs – such as questions or greetings – may not automatically trigger
explicit responses yet they however set up the expectation for some potential interactive
response. Failure to respond to a question or a greeting (silence) is likely to generate
certain types of compensatory behaviour: The speaker may repeat the question or even
inquire why the interlocutor is snubbing them by their refusal to talk (Thomas 1995).
Within the framework of linguistic anthropology, an utterance can only become
“intelligible when it is placed within its context of situation, or, otherwise put, “ the
situation in which words are uttered can never be passed over as irrelevant to the
linguistic expression” (Malinowski 1922 in Nehrlich and Clarke 1996). Enlarging this
premise, researchers are likely to embark upon the investigation of language in the
context of culture. To understand language involves understanding the culture as well as
the social practices of the community of speakers in question. Meaning emerges, is
clearly conveyed and disambiguated only in specific contexts of situation, which need to
be defined as the site where social, cultural and psychological elements of communal life
become inextricably interwoven.
Along Malinowski’s line of argument, Firth redefined context of situation as the
relevant verbal and non-verbal actions of the participants, the relevant objects and the
effect of the verbal action. all of which needs to be judged as embedded in a variety of
wider social frameworks. Consequently, meaning relations need to be rearticulated as
multidimensional and functional sets of relations between words or word combinations
and the contexts of their occurrence. Word meaning is not contained in the word, it is not
the ‘essence’ of the word, but lies in the use of a word in a situation. Words are not
receptacles of thought, but the other way round: it is thought that depends on language
and ultimately on the actions performed/mable by means of language.
With translation especially, situating words or phrases or texts within specific
contexts is of primary importance. When transferring meaning from a source language
into a target language, the local context of an utterance and implicitly of a speech act
needs to be correctly identified in order to avoid mistranslation. Utterances may imply
one reading in one specific contextual location and a totally different one in a distinct
configuration of spacio-temporal elements, For instance, a very simple utterance such as
“ Are you going to buy this car?” may trigger, among a variety of other responses,
something like “Are you nuts?”. Such a reply could means opposite things in different
contexts: If the car is a bargain and meets with the buyer’s expectations, it will obviously
means “Isn’t it obvious I will?”. If the car is a write-out and the required price is
outrageously high, it will mean exactly the opposite: i.e. “Isn’t it obvious I won’t?”
If it is April 1, and one asks “Who are you trying to kid?” this may count as an honest
question, decodable as “Who is the target of your mystification?” On any other context,
“Who are you trying to kid?’ could be perceived as an expression of disbelief. (You’re not
kidding anyone but yourself)
A recurrent mistake done by translators is failure to identify the context meant to
elucidate whether the meaning of an utterance is literal or figurative. In a context where
participants complain of the harsh winter and biting frost, an utterance such as “You’ve
got cold feet” could simply be a constative remark or maybe an expression of
thoughtfulness and sympathy. In the context of a wedding which is about to take place,

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telling the groom ‘you’ve got cold feet’ will indicate the groom’ experiencing pre-marital
nervousness, even fright.

3. TRANSLATING AND CONCEPTUALISINGING WORDS

Translators need to bear in mind the wider context of language as social

interaction and as storer and triggerer of mental representations. Concomitantly, they
need to constantly assess the fluctuating role words play in the process of translating and
in the translated text as a socioculturally situated product. Consequently, some
perspectives on the way words may be decomposed or combined would prove
enlightening. In addition, word usage and choice is equally indicative of complex mental
processes such as categorisation, which translators need not overlook.

3.1. Word decomposition vs. word association

Psycholinguistic surveys reveal that using language for everyday communicative

purposes involves the human capacity to store words in a mental dictionary or lexicon,
out of which words are to be retrieved in order to comprehend and express meaningful
chunks. (Aitchinson 1996). The question arises as to how humans can select and use the
appropriate word and word combinations out of a tremendously vast number of entries in
order to achieve optimally successful comprehension. There are two basic assumptions as
to the way humans correlate suitable words with suitable expressed meanings:
1) the ‘fixed’ meaning assumption and
2) the ‘fuzzy’ meaning assumption.
According to the “ fixed meaning’ assumption, words have fixed, stable, cut-and-dried
meanings since there exists a basic meaning for each word which individuals should
strive to attain. The semantic entries in one’s mental lexicon should be clearly delineated
since they need to encapsulate the essence of the entities designated by words (the
‘cattiness’ in ‘cat’ or the ‘redness’ in ‘red’). Reaching such essences is facilitated by the
comprehenders’ ability to recognize essential properties of designated objects, or,
otherwise put, to establish a set of ‘necessary and sufficient conditions’, a checklist of
features imperiously needed to fully and faithfully encompass the meaning of a word. A
good illustrative example would be the word ‘square’, which could easily and accurately
be described in terms of the following set of necessary and sufficient conditions:
a. a closed, flat figure
b. having four sides
c. all sides are equal in length
d. all interior angles are equal
The above-listed conditions can also be called ‘conditions of criteriality’ or ‘criterial
attributes’, since they enumerate a cluster of criteria according to which a comprehender
judges whether something belongs to the category ‘square’ or not. Obviously, this can be
extended to less known entities such as arsenic, platinum, serotonin, magma, bipolar
syndrome, etc., if comprehenders rely on the premise that words do have a fixed
meaning, also regarded as their ‘core’ meaning, yet only experts know it. Ordinary people
need to consult such experts and credit their definitions if they intend to probe into the
‘essential’ nature of specific entities.

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In opposition to the traditional, Aristotelian ‘fixed meaning’ assumption, a large

number of linguists and psychologists have supported the ‘fuzzy meaning’ assumption. In
compliance with this widely spread theory, words cannot be assigned a fixed meaning
since most of them tend to have vague boundaries and fuzzy edges: “Words have often
been called slippery customers, and many scholars have been distressed by their tendency
to shift their meanings and slide out from under any simple definition.”(Aitchinson
1996).
Such theories regard words as fluid, fluctuant, prone to change and to unexpected
combinations, on the verge of constantly acquiring new meanings or shedding old ones.
Because of their ‘fuzzy edges’, words are more likely NOT to satisfy neat sets of
necessary and sufficient conditions. Consequently, they can be easier to classify
according to prototypical members of a certain category (e.g. birds or mammals) or to
prototypical features defining representatives of that category (‘laying eggs’ with birds
versus ‘delivering cubs’ with mammals’).

3.1.1. Prototypes

Promoters of ‘prototype’ theory (Rosch 1975, Mervis and Rosch 1975,

Tsohatsidis et al 1990, Ungerer and Schmid 1996) resort to two major arguments in
contesting traditional Aristotelian classifications:

1) For most natural categories, it is impossible to draw up a set of necessary and

sufficient conditions
2) The members of a category do not all have equal status. Certain members, the
prototypical members, have a privileged status as they enjoy full membership of the
category. Less prototypical or more marginal members are assigned a lesser degree of
membership, depending on how closely they resemble the prototype.

Prototype theorists claim that the conceptual representation of a given category is

lodged in a prototype, which combines in a single mental entity the attributes of the most
typical category members. Categories are internally structured, i.e. some members have a
higher degree of typicality, while others are regarded as less representative, marginal
members of the category. Boundaries between categories are fuzzy or ill-defined rather
than clear-cut. Intercategorial boundaries change according to the context in which
perceivers operate categorisation (Rosch 1975, Roth and Bruce 1995: 31-42).
Since typicality is central to the way we represent everyday categories, many
categories have an internal structure, i.e. they are not homogenous in member typicality
or representativeness. Thus, studies carried out by Rosch and collaborators have pointed
out that fruits such as apple, banana or orange are ‘fruitier’ than olives or figs. Typicality
differs with each individual perception of a category: children who have never been fed
avocado or lime will obviously not mention such fruits as ‘good’ representatives of the
class ‘fruits’. In addition, typicality undergoes cross-cultural variation: in Mediterranean
countries, oranges rank among the commonest fruits, while in Romania apples, pears or
grapes tend to come to mind instantly since people grow them widely and use them for a
variety of purposes (eating them raw, making jam, producing alcoholic beverages). In

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African countries bananas are widespread and likely to be regarded the ‘fruitiest’ fruit
around.
Degrees of membership or typicality ratings depend on the degree of resemblance
of certain members with the prototypical members, as well as on the number of shared
prototypical attributes. If ‘good’ examples share many attributes with other members of
the same category and are maximally different from members of other categories, ‘bad’
or ‘marginal’ examples share only few attributes with members of the same category, yet
may possess several attributes belonging to members of other categories. Thus, Alsatians
or Dalmatians tend to be more representative for the category ‘dogs’ in countries where
dogs are basically regarded as strong, loyal watchdogs rather than playful. With pet
lovers, who keep dogs in their apartments rather than outdoors, ‘lap dogs’ such as
Pekinese or even ‘Chihuahuas’ may be labelled as typical. On the contrary, hunters will
be unlikely to regard lap dogs as doggy, preferring greyhounds or retrievers.

Three main variants of Rosch’s prototype theory have been proposed:

1. The typical feature model, which claims that there is a list of typical properties that
enable comprehenders to distinguish one category from others
2. The exemplar model, which asserts that for each category, there are representations
given by specific exemplars that a comprehender has encountered
3. Mixed approaches, sustaining that categories are represented by a combination of
typical features and exemplar information.

According to the typical feature model, properties of objects are ‘weighed’ in

terms of their typicality and consequently assigned ‘a cue validity’ “which indicates how
characteristically the feature is associated with the concept” (Roth and Bruce 1995: 43).
Typical category members possess those features with the highest cue validity (Rosch and
Mervis 1975, Rosch 1975, Roth and Bruce 1995). Thus, ‘sweet’ or ‘juicy’ are high cue
validity features when typicality of members of the class ‘fruits’ is assessed. With the
class of vegetables, ‘sweet’ and ‘juicy’ are, obviously, low cue validity features. While
being a low cue validity feature with fruits, ‘crunchy’ is a high cue validity feature with a
class such as bakeries or groceries.
The exemplar model variant (Rosch 1978) states that category representation
consists of the representations an individual has encountered and stored in their memory.
A study carried out by Rosch and collaborators indicated that among American subjects,
the gun is regarded as the most typical exemplar for the category ‘weaponry’. Obviously,
before the invention of gunpowder, the bow and arrow or even the boulder would have
provided typical weapons. In a nuclear context, A-bombs and other sophisticated means
of mass destruction might be judged as highly representative.
Mixed approaches combine feature-based information and exemplar information
in achieving categorisation (Roth and Bruce 1995). In rural cultures, ‘good’ animals are
those that provide food: hens (since they lay eggs), pigs (since they get slaughtered
before Christmas) and cows (since they are milked daily). In urban communities, animal
lovers tend to label as ‘good’ animals specific pets they used to interact with in their
childhood or certain familiar animals with which they interact in a friendly way. Hunters
may use feature-based information (animals that are easy/hard to hunt, dangerous
animals, animals whose fur is valuable) as well as exemplar information (the huge grizzly

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bear they shot on a certain hunting expedition, the ferocious lion they confronted during a
safari).
Such exemplifications point out that the selection of certain prototypical attributes
or exemplars instead of others depends on the perceiver’s existing categorisation system
as well as on the context of categorisation. Context can alter the significance of attributes
regarded as relevant for a certain category or highlight attributes that are not commonly
associated with representative exemplars of a specific category (Ungerer and Schmid
1996, Hinton 2000). For instance, the same person may be labelled as a ‘too young
person’ when it comes to drinking spirits or having a driving licence while at the same
time they are considered to be ‘too old’ to start ballet classes or gymnastics. A stone may
be an object of scientific investigation for a geologist, a potential weapon for a person
who is being attacked and has no gun or knife on them, a means to break an entrance for
a burglar.
Apart from undergoing individual differentiation, categorisation is also flexible
with respect to the goal the categoriser pursues as well as the context in which
categorisation occurs. Thus, taxonomic categories, which arise from (directly or
culturally acquired) experience, are to be contrasted with goal-directed categories
(Barsalou 1982), which arise from functional necessities, such as: ‘ways to run away
from the Mafia’ or ‘things you pack in rainy weather’. The most typical members of
taxonomic categories are those with the most representative properties. The most typical
members of goal-directed categories are those which best satisfy the functional purpose
described by the category. For a lame person a stick is a device meant to enable them to
walk better, for a shepherd it is a tool meant to goad the flock, for an abusive parent an
instrument to punish an allegedly disobedient child.
As a concluding remark, the meaning of words is more often than not
contextually-defined, thus espousing blurred boundaries and abounding in vagueness
rather than in accuracy. As Aitchinson puts it: “Words are stitched together in one’s mind
like pieces on a patchwork quilt. The shape and size of the patches would differ from
language to language, but within each language any particular patch could be defined
with reference to those around it.” (1996: 29). In places patches overlap considerably, in
places there are bare spots left. The most obvious instance of overlapping is synonymy,
where the meanings of words such as chase and pursue, freedom and liberty or buy and
purchase get almost completely juxtaposed. On the other hand, most languages display
inexplicable gaps: if ‘corpse’ is the dead counterpart of a human or animal body, there is
no word designating ‘dead plant’. Overlapping frequently occurs with groups of words
that dictionaries are far from placing under the same entry. For instance, hog, sow, piglet
share the common features ‘ pigs’, sow, hen, princess are all ‘female’, while piglet, chick,
princeling indicates that all referents are ‘youngsters’.

3.1.2. Semantic components and semantic links

Overlaps, lexical gaps and restrictions in relation to word combinations have been
explored from two fundamental viewpoints:
A) the ‘atomic globule’ viewpoint, revolving around the fundamental claim that words
are decomposable into smaller constituents, called ‘semantic components’ or
‘semantic primitives’, which need to be regarded as ‘meaning atoms’. Such atoms lie

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in a ‘semantic pool’ out of which each word in a specific language extracts the
semantic primitives that make up its definable meaning.
B) the ‘cobweb’ viewpoint, a theory that argues in favour of words being meaningful,
comprehensible and recognizable because of the links word users build between
them.

3.1.2.1. Componential analysis

The most articulate version of the ‘atomic globulae’ viewpoint is the so-called
COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS (henceforth CA) (Kempson 1977), a clear and
economical method meant to provide systematic word description. CA assumes that
words do not have unitary meanings, but they are clusters of semantic components, which
can be decomposed into a number of constitutive elements. Humans treat words like
jigsaw puzzles, assembling and disassembling them into semantic primitives. Semantic
primitives are universal constructs in terms of which lexical items such as bachelor,
widower, divorcee can be constructed. Consequently, supporters of CA maintain that there
should be a stock of semantic primitives in each person’s mental lexicon, ready to be
accessed and appropriately employed. Below there is an exemplification of the semantic
field ‘human beings’, in terms of the presence and absence of specific semantic
primitives such as ‘+-adult’, ‘+-male’, etc.

e.g.
ROOT human adult male
MEANING:
humans
man + + +
woman + + -
boy + - +
girl + - -

It is claimed by those linguists who postulate the existence of semantic

components that such components are not lexical items themselves. They are not part of a
specific language but items pertaining to a meta-language, a universal inventory used in
particular ways in individual languages’. Each language selects specific combinations of
primitives out of the common pool accessible to the entire range of natural languages.
Each language consequently chooses a root meaning to be shred by all words making up
a specific semantic field and the semantic distinguishers, i.e. the features that enable
language comprehenders to operate differences between the respective words. An CA
description of ‘bakery products’ and ‘domestic hoofed animals’ are provided below:

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ROOT sweet raised yeast soft individual

MEANING:
bakery
products

cake + + - + +/-
cookie + +/- - +/- +
biscuit +/- +/- - +- +
cracker - - - - +
roll +/- + + + +
bun +/- + + + +
bread - + + + -

ROOT bovine equine adult male

MEANING:
domestic
hoofed animals
bull + - + +
cow + - + -
calf + - - +/-
stallion - + + +
mare - + + -
colt - + - +
filly - + - -

As a circular method, which makes use of ‘semantic universals’, CA aligns itself with
Chomskyan generative grammars in that it claims that semantic components belong to a
language-neutral stock of features, from which each language may choose a sub-set of
features, combine and arrange them so as to yield contrasting vocabularies. As a result,
semantic components required in the description of languages can be divided into two
types:
a) those which are universal, required in the description of all human languages
b) those which are language-specific, used only for the description of certain particular
language(s).
In this respect, CA received the most scathing criticism from linguistic anthropologists,
who maintain that most languages are strikingly dissimilar, because so are the cultures
they reflect and consolidate via linguistic practices. Therefore, languages cannot not be
using an identical stock of semantic primitives. irrespective of such justified attacks, CA
proves certain advantages for the analyst:
1) it provides an economical and convenient explanation for why certain words overlap
in meaning.

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e.g. mother, mare, aunt, waitress all share the semantic feature ‘+ female’
hop, skip, run, jump all share the semantic feature ‘ + move
2) it is congruent with other scientific approaches endeavouring to explain the way the
world appears to work (chemical substances are usually decomposed into more basic
elements)
3) it simplifies explanations supplied in order to elucidate word meaning. Without
resorting to CA descriptions, words are defined in terms of other words in an endless
chain. Definitions typically apply in chains and only stop when reaching a primitive
basis , in the case of CA semantic primitives)
Yet, CA completely ignores language being anchored in social and psychological
reality and adjusting to the changes the latter undergo and unavoidably extend on to the
domain of language. In addition, psychological surveys have pointed out that there is no
evidence that humans actually split words into atomic globulae in their mind. People
analyse words, but simple identification of mere features does not involve decomposing
the word down to a finite set of features.

3.1.2.2. ‘Cobweb’ theories

By contrast, ‘cobweb’ theorists of word meaning envisage the mental lexicon as a

network, an interconnected system of meaningful items, a gigantic cobweb. (Aitchinson
1996). According to Palmer, the meaning of words is contextually defined in terms of
syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic relations:

By SYNTAGMATIC is meant the relationship that a linguistic element has with

other elements in the stretch of language in which it occurs, while by
PARADIGMATIC is meant the relationship it has with elements with which it may
be replaced or substituted (Palmer 1976: 93)

A word is not defined in isolation but via the other words whose selection is acceptable in
a given language: “You know a word by the company it keeps” (Firth in Palmer 1976:
94). Company or collocation is part of a word’s meaning, since co-occurrence creates
‘mutual expectancy of words’
Most automatic associations within such cobwebs are generated by habit of use :
e.g. bread and butter, moon and stars, envelope and stamps
Frequent principles of association include:
1) Clusters of words related to the same topic are stored together, particularly items
belonging to the same semantic field. Thus, needle is generally NOT associated to
poker or dagger (pointed objects) but to the semantic field of sewing : thread, pins,
eye, sew.
2) Converses, i.e. words that designate referents whose existence is mutually implied:
e.g. husband /wife: parent/child; employer/employee; abuser/victim; doctor/patient;
plaintiff/defendant
3) Opposites, such as: big/small; present/absent;
dark/bright;handmade/machinemade;thick/thin; moist/dry; sea/land.
Frequent types of links comprise:

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1) coordination, which entails combinations of words either frequently combining at the

same level of detail or ‘freezing’ into fixed order pairs, sometimes called quantitative
hendiadys:
e.g. salt and pepper, knife and fork, bride and groom, cloaks and daggers
proper and peculiar; part and parcel, every nook and cranny, left and righ, lord and
master, home and abroad, sink or swim..
2) synonymy
e.g. starved / hungry; mean/vile; tight-fisted/stingy; clever/bright; wise/sagacious
3) collocation
e.g. salt water, butterfly net, bright red, homesick, street vendor, fashion victim, drug
addict, rape survivor.
Words that are more often than not automatically associated may lead to cliches:
e.g. striking contrast, overwhelming majority, agonising decision, astronomically
expensive, blissfully ignorant, stark naked, wide awake
Word combinations rely, among other things, on the human capacity to organise
background knowledge in the form of hierarchical relations between entities.

3.2. Word association and the organisation of knowledge

Tversky (1990) argues that there are two fundamental ways of organising knowledge
which are universal across cultures:
1) division into kinds : taxonomy/hyponymy
2) division into parts : partonymy/meronymy
3.2.1. Hyponymy

Hyponymy, also called class inclusion involves:

- the including term or the superordinate/hyperonym
- the included term or the subordinate/hyponym
One may think of the pet stretched on the rug as a ‘dog’, a ‘terrier’ or ‘ ‘Scotch
terrier, since dogs are regarded as superordinate to terriers, and terriers as superordinate
to Scotch terriers – and bull terriers. Keeping in mind the bigger picture, ‘dogs’ are seen
as subordinate to ‘mammals’ and ‘mammals’ as subordinate to ‘animals’ (Ungerer-
Schmid 1996).
The principle underlying such hierarchies is class-inclusion, which regards the
superordinate class as inclusive of all items on the subordinate level. If in science we deal
with detailed classifications/taxonomies (a classical example is that of Charles Linnaeus
in the 18th century), folk categorizations simplify categorisations down to three main
levels of specificity: superordinate – generic/basic level – subordinate level. In most
communicative situations, words designating entities included in the generic or basic
level are preferred: I ‘d rather call the pet on the rug my dog than my Scotch terrier or my
mammal. Describing a traffic accident would rather start with “ 2 cars crashed into each
other” rather than “two vehicles” or “ a BMW and a Volvo”. Generic or basic terms are
also learned first by children. At the basic level, similarities between subordinates are
easily perceived. So are dissimilarities with other categories of the basic level type. It is
the level where the largest amount of information can be obtained with the least cognitive

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effort: human comprehenders are ‘cognitive misers’ and seek for cognitive economy,
since they strive to achieve the most informative result against the least cognitive cost
(Tversky 1990) and contains the largest number of ‘typical’ instances (most prototypical
exemplars). Moreover, it is hard to delineate ‘a common shape ‘ for the superordinate
categories (e.g. fruit, vehicle), which, with young children are memorised much later than
basic level categories. In addition, superordinate categories borrow traits from the basic
levels, thus achieving parasitic categorisation.
Sometimes, suitable superordinates do not always come to mind readily
(Aitchinson 1996). Thus, hail, rain, snow: fall under the category precipitation only in
weather forecasts. How do we group cough, sneeze :? As noises indicating respiratory
discomfort? Or under what denomination could we group bathtub, basin :? As bathroom
fixtures or rather sanitary fitments?
English speakers frequently tend to use two coordinates to describe a set of items
despite the existence of a technically-sounding hyperonym. Thus most speakers tend to
say “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” instead of “ Do you have any siblings?”. At
dinner one is more likely to ask “Where are the knives and forks?” than “ Where is the
cutlery?”
Assigning a superordinate depends on the contextual needs: thus, shoes, slippers,
gumboots may be grouped as footwear when organising one’s closet, while gumboots,
raincoat, mackintosh may constitute rainwear if the weather requires waterproof outfit.
Psychologists sustain that humans encounter serious comprehension hindrances
when endeavouring to refer to subordinate level without having acquired expert
knowledge. Only an ornithologist would say “I saw a snowy owl /barn owl/screech owl”.
Most people would say, “I saw an owl”. Strollers along green pastures will mention
having picked a flower or ‘wild flower’ rather than a ‘daisy’, ‘buttercup’ or’bluebell’ or ‘
dandelion’ or having spotted fish in the river rather than ‘ pike’ or ‘ trout’ or ‘carp’.
Between items included within the same class, there is a relationship of co-
hyponymy. All co-hyponyms are incompatible, or mutually exclusive. Thus, Monday
cannot be Tuesday or a rose cannot be a tulip: a dog is not a cat and, obviously, a plant is
not a metal. Languages are intricate enough to display instances when incompatibility
works with certain groups and fails to work with others, more specifically in cases co-
hyponyms (partially) overlap. For instance, sincerity and honesty are both virtues but they
are neither synonyms nor incompatibles since they overlap; greed and selfishness are
both vices but not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, hate and anger are both
emotions but they can co-exist with the same experiencer.

3.2.3. Partonomy

MERONYMY or PARTONOMY establishes a relation between parts and their

inclusive wholes, starting from the premise that not all parts are graspable or noticeable
to the same extent in relation to wholes. Some parts are more salient than others and
those are the parts most likely to be mentioned by language users. Among such parts,
mention must be made of:
a. perceptually salient parts ,i.e. whose appearance or shape cannot be neglected ( the
flatness of a table, the depth of a sink, the roundness of a wheel)

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b. functionally significant parts, i.e. whose function is relevant to human purposes (the
seat of the chair, the blade of the saw, the leg of the trousers, the keys of the piano).
Obviously, perceptual salience may be indicative of good/bad functionality, as in the case
of a warped table or a crooked fork.

Partonomy and hyponymy are different but complementary modes of

investigation. Partonomy is the result of an analytic attitude (top-down investigation), in
which a whole is decomposed into parts on the basis of relative integrality. By contrast,
hyponymy seems a consequence of a synthetic attitude (a bottom-up enterprise) in which
specimens are grouped according to common and distinctive features.

3.3. Lexical relations: contrast and affinity

In order to achieve felicitous translations of texts belonging to various registers

and styles, translators need to develop a keen sense of relations of affinity and contrast
underlying words and word combinations (Cruse1986). They need to be acquainted with
notions such as complementarity, synonymy and antonymy in order to select the lexical
items or sequences that best serve the understanding of the SL text and its subsequent
transposition into the TL text.

3.3.1. Oppositeness

From Heraclitus to Jung, philosophers have remarked the dichotomous structure

of the world as well as the tendency of entities to slip into their opposite states. Many
thought-provoking disputes have arisen as to the thin line dividing love and hate, clean
from dirty, genius from madness, sublime from ridiculous. Most folk beliefs judge the
uniting or reconciling of opposites as a magical performance, an attribute of the Deity.
Lexical opposites paradoxically display simultaneous closeness and distance of
the two members: opposites display distance because of their being intuitively perceived
as maximally separated, while they equally exhibit closeness given their almost identical
distribution or context of occurrence. Opposites typically differ along one single
dimension of meaning, the extremities of which they occupy; in respect of all other
features they are identical.
Prototypical instances are easily grasped, early learned and widely used, such as :
good/bad; large/small; true/false; top/bottom. Yet, most opposites could be labelled as
impure, displaying various degrees of oppositeness, since they encapsulate an elementary
or prototypical opposition in their meaning. Thus, the opposition dwarf/ giant
encapsulates the prototypical opposition small/big, the opposition shot//whisper embeds
the binary pair loud/soft, while criticise:praise contain the elementary opposition
good/bad to the same extent to which stalactite/stalagmite relies on the up/down
opposition.
The so-called peripheral examples are those semantic instances where perfect
consensus is not reached and which apply situations where speakers have only two-way
choices. Such peripheral examples might include : mother/father (as the only two-way
choice a child about to be granted custody may have between two parents within a former
nuclear family); town/country (as the only choice one may have as to choosing a

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residence); clergy/ laity (as an only choice in terms of a +-secular lifestyle), gas/
electricity (as the only choice in terms of fuel) or tea/coffee (as the only choice in terms
of hot beverages to be served by an air-hostess during a flight)
Conceptually speaking, complementarity is the simplest and purest variety of
oppositeness, since a pair of complementaries exhaustively divides a specific conceptual
domain into two mutually exclusive compartments, so that whatever does not fall into one
of the compartments must necessarily fall into the other. Complementarity excludes the
presence of any ‘no man’s land’, since it envisages no possibility for a third term lying
between the two complementaries. Conclusive examples are. true/false;
dead/alive;open/shut;hit/miss (a target); pass/fail (an exam).With complementary terms, a
test that easily applies is the following: “Asserting one term implicitly implies denying
the other”. Consequently, John is not dead entails and is entailed by John is alive.
Specification such as “under normal circumstances” is needed when comprehenders face
dilemmas of the kind: Are vampires or ghosts dead or alive? Are hermaphrodites or
transsexuals male or female? How do we explain the acceptance of such expressions as
‘He was more dead than alive”.

3.3.2. Relational opposites : converses

Converses or relational opposites are a cross-culturally significant subclass of

opposites, since languages display lexical pairs expressing a relationship between two
entities by specifying the direction of one relative to the other along a specific axis.
Relational opposition or converseness implies that interchanging the two entities yields
logically equivalent sentences.
Basic converses imply a spatial relational opposition as is the case of:
above/below; in front of /behind; before/after. Via analogy or metaphorical extension, the
following pairs of converses have emerged in the lexis of most languages:
ancestor/descendant (A is the ancestor of B is logically equivalent/entails/is entailed by
to B is the descendant of A); father/son; husband/wife; master/servant;
predator/pray;guest/host;teacher/pupil; doctor/patient; precede/follow; give/receive;
bequeath/inherit.
Nevertheless, despite clear-cut mutually exclusive oppositions, most
complementary adjectives are not normally gradable, since expressions such as *more
married than most?, *a little shut, *moderately female do not make sense. Although
certain idioms involving unrealistic oppositions have been assimilated in the common
lexis ( more dead than alive, more alive than before, wide open), many entities and/or
properties are to be conceptualised in terms of ‘more or less’. Otherwise put, such entities
are gradable lexical items and apply to an astounding variety of fields from texture to
morality:clean/dirty;smooth/rough;drunk/sober;straight/bent;honest/dishonest,
fresh/stale
Such ‘more or less’ lexical items fall into the category ANTONYMS and display the
following semantic characteristics:
a) They are fully gradable (long/short; fast/slow, easy/difficult;good/bad;hot/cold)
b) The members of a pair denote degrees of some variable property (length, speed,
weight, accuracy)

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c) When intensified (by means of adverbs such as very, extremely, highly, utterly, quite),
members move along a scale representing degrees of the respective property
d) The two members do not bisect a domain ; there is a range of in-between values
It’s long stands in a relation of contrariety (not contradiction) with It’s short since saying
something like It’s neither long nor short is not paradoxical. Along the scale ranging from
extreme length to extreme brevity, there is an area of in-betweenness called ‘ a pivotal
region’. Certain notions (e.g. heat) display a range of lexical terms located on various
points along this pivotal region, such as hot tepid lukewarm cold in terms of
temperature or scrawny skinny thin slender slim of average weight plump sturdy stout fat
overweight humongous in terms of bodily weight.
Conceptualising scales varies widely according to the entities they apply to. For
instance, long/short river entails differences measured in miles or kilometres, while
long/short eyelashes need high accuracy measurements if literally measured. Isn’t that
tall? is understood differently when describing a person than when describing a tree or a
building

3.3.3. Synonymy

Synonyms are lexical items whose senses are identical in respect of ‘central’
semantic traits, but differ, if at all, in terms of ‘minor’ or ‘peripheral’ traits. Synonyms
must not only manifest a high degree of semantic overlap, they must also have a low
degree of implicit contrastiveness. Denying one member is a pair of synonyms
(honest:truthful) implicitly denies the other. Synonymy is often signalled by ‘or’/’that is
to say’ as in He was fired, that is to say, dismissed.
When synonyms are used contrastively, the fact is signalled by ‘more exactly’ or ‘or
rather’as in: He was murdered, or rather executed.
Two lexical items are absolute synonyms or ‘cognitive synonyms’ on condition all
their contextual relations are identical, Such is the case of mutually interchangeable pairs
such as. begin/commence;munch/chew;hate/loathe;scandalous/outrageous whose
contextual distribution is identical. Yet, this is not the case with hide/conceal whose
contextual distribution may differ as in the example below:
Where is he hiding?
*Where is he concealing?
Unlike cognitive synonyms, plesionyms designate pairs/groups of only partially
overlapping synonyms, since the assertion of one member of the pair/group does not
simultaneously trigger denying the other
e.g. It wasn’t foggy last Friday – just misty.
You did not trash us at badminton – but I admit that you beat us.
He is by no means fearless, but he is brave
The loch where we were fishing is not a lake – it’s open to the sea.
She isn’t ravishing, but in her way she is pretty

Although two lexical items may display the same semantic traits and may occur within
the same distributional context, they may differ with respect to their expressive traits.
e.g. daddy/father
mummy/mother

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paw (in the sense of ‘hand’)

mug (in the sense of face’)
blubber (in the sense of ‘weep’)
cat/ pussy
very/jolly (adverb)
All the first terms in the above-listed pairs are indicative of some emotional
attitude on the part of the utterer, ranging from endearment to derision. Certain lexical
pairs of words, such as horse/nag; car/banger; a smart alec/ a clever chap; mean/
careful with one’s money differ by their embedding evaluative judgements, such as
neutral stance, appreciation or deprecation.
The choice of one word within a synonymic range implies subtle knowledge of
the collocational restrictions each word may or may not take.. Thus, if fresh may occur
with any of the following edible items: fresh milk, fresh eggs, fresh bread, fresh meat,
addled only occurs with eggs, sour with milk, rancid with butter or bacon, stale or rotten
with meat and mouldy with bread! We say a spoilt child but not a stale child! We say odd
jobs and odd numbers, but when expressing their opposites we cannot say even jobs and
regular numbers, since the only accepted collocations are regular jobs and even numbers.
We describe sore throats and sore losers, but it never crosses our minds to say sore
failure instead of pitiable failure or vain attempt. We acknowledge rough talk as well as
smooth talk, rough patches (in one’s life) as well as smooth patches, yet the opposite of
rough sea is not smooth sea, but quiet sea. We say stiff neck as we say stiff punishment,
yet we cannot conceive of any lenient neck as we cannot fancy supple or flexible
punishment. One may have a soft voice or a soft spot, yet one can only conceive of harsh
voices and not harsh spots. An intelligent person is bright and sharp; an unintelligent
person is indeed dim but not blunt, and may be described as thick while a brainy
individual is never labeled as thin in terms of their IQ!
Collocations are very strict when it comes to wide range of synonyms delimited
by an often fuzzy line, as in the case of verbs designating noises. Thus, wheels screech,
while floors creak. Doorbolts click, so do stilettos, but ordinary shoes squeak. Chains
rattle and so do certain baby toys, unless they squeak. A sack falls with a thumb on the
ground yet a pebble drops into a lake with a plop. The fire may roar, so may a lion. It
may also crack so may one’s fingers. The wind howls and so do wolves. Synonyms
pertaining to the range of light-emitting verbs also obey strict collocational restrictions:
thus, stars twinkle, candles flicker, embers glow, lightning flashes, diamonds dazzle,
fireworks sparkle.
Finer distinctions need to be operated at the level of dialectal synonyms :
autumn/fall; lift/elevator; glen/valley; wee/small, which implies careful location of the
sociotemporal setting of the text and the participants in the textual verbal encounters.
Even subtler choices need to be made in terms of register, one of the pitfalls of translation
being the choice of a too formal synonym in a colloquial context, or, viceversa, or a
slangy word in a text permeated with formality. The synonymous ranges below indicate
gradual transition from high formality (right-hand terms) to informality and slangy
register (left-hand terms)

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FORMAL <----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> INFORMAL

decease pass away die perish expire pop off cop it snuff it kick croak
the
bucket
urinate pass point spend wee- pee piss
water Percy a wee
at the penny
porcela
in
mentally deranged insane crazy nuts nutty fruity barmy bonker cucko having having
disturbed s o a bats in
screw the
loose attic

3.4. Understanding idioms

Frequent – and hilarious – instances of mistranslation occur when idioms are

translated literally. In the TV series “Judging Amy”, a law –infringer was thought to be
‘drawing a buck of the back of his victims”, which was translated as ‘sketching the
outline of a goat on the rear side of the victims’. In a series adapted from Dickens’s David
Copperfield the expression ‘by hook and by crook’ was translated as ‘with the help of Mr
Hook and Mr Crook”. To avoid such gross distortions, a translator needs to be equipped
with a keen sense of discrimination between literal and idiomatic expressions.
The question inevitably arises as to what an idiom is. Traditionally, idioms
used to be considered to originate in “dead metaphors” (Gibbs 1994:273-175), which,
through frequent use and conventionalization, lose both their recognizability and their
freshness. Contemporary views, supported by scholars such as Gibbs (1994), claim that
idioms still retain much of their initial metaphoricity:
People make sense of idiomatic speech precisely because of their ordinary
metaphorical knowledge which provides part of the link between these phrases and
their figurative interpretations. There is now much evidence from cognitive
linguistics and experimental psychology to support the idea that idiomatic language
retains much of its metaphoricity. (Gibbs 1994: 268)

Even if an idiom like spill the beans is a hackneyed metaphor, comprehenders need
to resort to metaphorical conceptualization: the mind is a container in which there are
secrets, which look like beans, and when one is not careful, the beans may get spilt, i.e.
the secrets are revealed. But for this metaphorical inference, we would find it difficult to
comprehend and use the idiom.
Idiomatic speech is amply used owing to its suggestiveness, colourfulness and the
creative associations it brings to mind. Undeniably, the idiom is likely to activate an
image to which the synonymous word does not even come close. An idiom is perhaps not
as striking as an expectation-challenging metaphor in a poem, but it is definitely striking
and appealing enough for everyday speech not to labelled as dead or frozen. An example
given by Gibbs is the students’ slang idioms for vomit: blow chunks, lose one’s lunch, kiss
the porcelain god, which may sound more intriguing nowadays than the traditional
throw up or toss one’s cookies. In compliance with the context and especially the register,

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there are several idioms for the same literal paraphrase. Thus, to die can be verbalised as
follows:
• give up the ghost (dated)
• breathe your last (formal)
• go the way of all flesh (humorous)
• meet your maker (humorous)
• kick the bucket (informal)
• bite the dust (informal, humorous)
• push up the daisies (informal, humorous)
Such idioms cannot be interchanged without an alteration to their meaning
any more than different synonyms can.
I must announce with deep regret that His Majesty has breathed his last. –
*His Majesty has kicked the bucket. (in a formal announcement about the monarch’s
death on the radio)
‘What happened to your pal Joe?’
‘He kicked the bucket in a bank job.’
*’He breathed his last in a bank job.’ (in a conversation between two robbers about their
friend Joe who was shot by the FBI. such a sentence might be acceptable if ironical, but it
fails to render the suddenness of the shooting and it belongs to a different register)
Broadly speaking, idioms have been analysed in the light of two major
approaches: the compositional and the non-compositional approach (Titone & Connine
1999: 1655-74).

3.4.1. The non-compositional approach to idioms

According to the non-compositional approach (Titone & Connine 1999:1656),

idioms are viewed as one single word; they are stored in the lexicon and retrieved
similarly to long words, without paying heed to the constitutive parts. Syntactically,
idioms behave as one word, e.g. the expression kick the bucket is an intransitive verb, just
like its word counterpart die. Idioms have an internal semantic structure. “The individual
words in many idioms can be changed without significantly altering the meanings of
these phrases” (Gibbs, 1994: 283). Otherwise put, an idiom is not processed as a whole,
but its parts are recognizable not only syntactically, as shown above, but also
semantically. For instance, in let the cat out of the bag, or spill the beans, cat and beans
stand for secret, the object of disclosure. Semantic productivity plays a significant part in
idiom usage and comprehension: for instance, the idiom break the ice has been altered to
shatter the ice, which means “break down an uncomfortable and stiff social situation
flamboyantly in one fell swoop” (Gibbs 1994:283).
Idiomatic meaning is a distributed representation and not a single lexical entry.
The overall meaning emerges however not in compliance with the compositional
meaning of the parts, but “on the basis of knowledge of the frequency of co-occurrence of
idiom parts” (Titone & Connine 1999:1660). For instance, let the cat out of the bag
already triggers reveal a secret not because one associates cat with secret and let out with
reveal, but because one anticipates the final word which triggers the idiomatic meaning
as a whole, based on one’s familiarity with the co-occurrence of these words in the

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respective idiom. Suspending the literal processing may depend both on the
compositionality of the idiom and on the context, if the context contradicts the literal
meaning. Nevertheless, literal comprehension may still persist in an appropriate context:
e.g. The two kids used to fight like cat and dog, literally scratching and biting each other.
Since the non-compositional approach proves too restrictive to satisfactorily
explain the syntactic, lexical and semantic behaviour of idioms, the compositional
approach has been judged to provide a more flexible insight.

3.4.2. The compositional approach to idioms

The compositional approach classifies idioms into several classes. Nunberg (1978, in
Titone & Connine 1999: 1661-1662) proposed classifying idioms according to the extent
to which the meaning of the parts contributes to the overall interpretation of the idiom
meaning. Such a classification includes:
• normally decomposable idioms (e.g. work like a dog, where work is used literally),
• abnormally decomposable idioms (the referents can be identified metaphorically, e.g.
buck in pass the buck),
• semantically non-decomposable idioms (the meaning of the whole cannot be derived
from the meaning of the parts, e.g. cook somebody.’s goose).
Empirical surveys have highlighted (Gibbs and Nayak, 1989, Gibbs and O’Brien, 1989)
that decomposable idioms are processed faster than non-decomposable ones. This would
suggest that literal meanings facilitate comprehension because they partially overlap with
the idiomatic meaning. Moreover, decomposable idioms are rated as more flexible both
syntactically and lexically.
However, even with non-decomposable idioms, literal meanings may sometimes
constrain an interpretation. Titone and Connine’s (1991:1662) example is kick the bucket,
where the semelfactive kick prohibits the continuous form with the die meaning and
denotes a sudden event, as opposed to breathe his last, for instance:
Henry kicked the bucket in the car crash.
? Henry lay kicking the bucket because of his terminal illness.
John lay in bed breathing his last.
As pointed out by Gibbs, Nayak and Cutting (1989, in Gibbs 1994:286), certain
decomposable idioms are literally ill-formed (e.g. pop the question, since in a literal
context the noun question is not a suitable direct object to the verb pop), as opposed to
many semantically non-decomposable idioms which are semantically well-formed at the
literal level (e.g. chew the fat, give the sack). Empirical studies have emphasised that
comprehenders spend less time to understand the ill-formed idioms than the well-formed
ones, since, apparently, people only need to assign figurative meaning to certain parts of
the idiom.
Compositionality takes into account the ease with which the literal meanings of
the parts can be mapped onto the idiomatic meaning and such ease varies with the
comprehender’s familiarity with the idiom: for an idiom like grease your wheels, the
mapping is quite apparent, while with cook your goose is less apparent. Thus, an idiom
like till the cows come home is transparent (its motivation is obvious: do something till
the cows come home; the coming of the cows will never happen as a result of what you
do, so what you do is useless), but not compositional (till, cows, and come home do not
map in any way onto uselessly).

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Titone and Connine (1999:1666-1670) envisage idioms both as unitary word

configurations and as compositional word sequences. Activation of literal and idiomatic
meaning is a function of both conventionality and compositionality. Literal meaning does
have a noteworthy contribution to correctly processing decomposable idioms. As for
conventional idioms, highly recurrent in everyday speech, they are overlearned: the
frequent association between their form and their meaning becomes much too familiar to
the language user not to allow direct retrieval of the idiomatic meaning without resorting
to the literal meaning. In other words, “idiom predictability significantly correlates with
idiom frequency.” (Titone & Connine 1999:1667).
Inevitably, the question arises whether both the idiomatic and the literal meaning
are activated during comprehension.. Gernsbacher & Robertson (1999) sustain that with
polysemous words or phrases, unwanted meanings are overlooked during comprehension
via the cognitive mechanism of suppression, meant to temporarily annihilate engaging in
processing superfluous information. When understanding idioms, such a mechanism
allows suppression of the literal meaning is suppressed during the comprehension of an
idiomatic phrase. According to Giora (1999), literal and idiomatic meanings are activated
simultaneously, but in a graded way, depending on which interpretations are more salient.
The salient meaning of a word or expression is its lexicalized meaning, the one retrieved
from the mental lexicon rather than from the context; research has demonstrated that this
meaning is always accessed, and such access is prioritary. Thus, with familiar idioms, the
salient meaning is the idiomatic one, and this meaning is likely to be activated first, even
in literal contexts. On the contrary, with unfamiliar idioms, it is the literal meaning which
is salient and which is activated both in literal and in idiomatic contexts. Therefore, with
familiar idioms, a literal interpretation will necessarily involve suppression of the
idiomatic meaning. When hearing something like John kicked the bucket to the other side
of the room, comprehenders will need to suppress the die meaning. As expected, with
unfamiliar idioms, the literal meaning will first surface before being suppressed even in
idiomatic contexts.

3.4.3. Idioms and conceptual metaphors

Gibbs (1994) emphasises the permanent metaphoric quality of idioms, underlain

by conceptual metaphors. The analysability of idioms supports the argument that the
figurative meaning of idioms may be motivated by conceptual knowledge and that the
idiomatic meaning emerges through the metaphorical mappings between two domains
recognisable by language users.
Gibbs uses the arguments put forth by Lakoff & Johnson (1980), according to whom the
human conceptual system is “fundamentally metaphorical in character”, and most
concepts and notions used by people in understanding the surrounding world are
underlain by conceptual metaphors. The most widely-spread are orientational metaphors,
since everything can be understood in terms of space: for example: GOOD IS UP, BAD
IS DOWN; LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LOVE IS A JOURNEY; THE BODY IS A
CONTAINER, FEELINGS ARE A LIQUID, etc.
In Gibbs’s view, metaphors underlying the idiom are not perceived as frozen and
forgotten; on the contrary, they are active in the language user’s mind, which is why the
idiom is easily processed. The example given by Gibbs is spill the beans; it appears that

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speakers map the mental image of some container tipping over and overflowing its
contents onto the image of somebody accidentally revealing a secret. In the process,
speakers are likely to make use of the underlying conceptual metaphors THE MIND IS A
CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES. In the section to come I will
enlarge upon f figurative language as indispensable to our conceptualisation of the world,
while insisting on the role played by metaphor in everyday language and thought.

3.5. The metaphorical nature of our conceptual system

The recent proliferation of theories on metaphor has opposed, traditional Aristotelian

view according to which metaphor is exclusively a device of poetic imagination and of
rhetorical flourish, a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Cognitive
theories of meaning have emphasized the all-pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday life,
in language as well as in thought and action. (Lakoff 2001). In compliance with such
cognitive views, our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and
act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature: the way we think and we experience life is
very much a matter of metaphor. Since communication is based on the same conceptual
system that we use in thinking and acting, language provides an important source of
evidence for the metaphoricity inherent to our ordinary conceptual system (Lakoff
&Johnson 1980 : 3-4).
The main contribution of cognitive views resides in their acknowledging the
complementarity of reason and imagination. Reason involves categorization, entailment
and inference. Imagination involves picturing one entity in terms of another entity. By
reuniting reason and imagination, metaphor appears as an instantiation of ‘imaginative
rationality’(Lakoff &Johnson 1980 : 5-12).
By examining the examples below, whose occurrence is frequent in everyday speech,
the conclusion may be easily reached that language users categorise the concept of LOVE
in terms of the concept of journey, by drawing specific correspondences between the
domain of LOVE and that of JOURNEY.
Look how far we’ve come.
We’re at a crossroads.
We’ll just have to go our separate ways.
We can’t turn back now.
I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.
Where are we?
We’re stuck.
It’s been a long, bumpy road.
This relationship is a dead-end street.
We’re just spinning our wheels.
Our marriage is on the rocks.
We’ve gotten off the track.
This relationship is foundering.(Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 44-45)
The linguistic instantiations of the metaphorical mapping LOVE IS A JOURNEY are
deeply entrenched in our speech, but also in our thoughts and activities . This cultural
scenario is sketched along the following systematic correspondences:

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The lovers are travellers on a journey together, with their common life goals
seen as destinations to be reached. The relationship is their vehicle, and it allows
them to pursue those common goals together. The relationship is seen as fulfilling
its purpose as long as it allows them to make progress towards their common goals.
The journey isn’t easy. There are impediments, and there are places (crossroads)
where a decision has to be made about which direction to go and whether to keep
travelling together. (Lakoff 2001)

Metaphorical mappings enable comprehenders to achieve understanding of relatively

abstract concepts in terms of those that are more concrete (Lakoff 2001). In the LOVE IS
A JOURNEY correspondence, the metaphor involves understanding one domain of
experience, i.e. love, in terms of a very different domain of experience, i.e. journeys.
Otherwise formulated, the metaphor can be understood as a mapping from a source
domain (in this case, journeys) to a target domain (in this case, love). There are
ontological correspondences, according to which entities in the domain of love (e.g., the
lovers, their common goals, their difficulties, the love relationship, etc.) correspond
systematically to entities in the domain of a journey (the travellers, the vehicle,
destinations, etc.). Hence, the LOVE IS A JOURNEY mapping generates ontological
correspondences of the kind:
# The lovers correspond to travellers.
# The love relationship corresponds to the vehicle.
# The lovers’ common goals correspond to their common destinations. etc.
The scenario about travel is mapped onto a corresponding love scenario.
Consequently, this metaphor maps the ontology of travel onto the ontology of love. It is
via such mappings that we transfer knowledge about travel onto love relationships
( Lakoff 2001). By performing this mental operation, we constantly perform
‘metaphorical conceptualisations’ (Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 6). Metaphors are not
random or arbitrary occurrences, to be treated as isolated instances, they display cross-
cultural systematicity (Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 40)

3.5.1. Highlighting and hiding

Systematicity of metaphors involves two simultaneous processes: highlighting and

hiding. To comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another ( e.g., comprehending
an aspect of love in terms of a journey ) we highlight certain features (headway or
hindrance, partnership, obstacles, speed) while concomitantly hiding other, inconsistent
aspects of the concept (such as travel equipment or schedule) Viewing love as a journey
that two partners undertake in order to reach their common goals will automatically
conceal another facet of love: love is a state of tension and/or of conflict , highlighted in
the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS WAR:
He is known for his many rapid conquests.
She fought for him, but his mistress won out.
He fled from her advances.
She pursued him relentlessly.
He is slowly gaining ground with her.
He won her hand in marriage.

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He overpowered her.
She is besieged by suitors.
He has to fend them off.
He enlisted the aid of her friends.
He made an ally of her mother.
Theirs is a misalliance if I’ve ever seen one.

Metaphorical structuring involved is partial, not total. If it were total, one concept
would actually be the other, not merely understood in terms of it. Strictly speaking, love
is not a journey, it can only be understood in terms of a journey by metaphorical
mapping. Neither is love a sick person in need of medical assistance in the metaphorical
mapping LOVE IS A PATIENT , equally prolific in everyday language. We can speak of
a sick relationship, a strong, healthy marriage. A marriage can be dead, or it can no
longer be revived. Yet, no correspondences occur at the level of hospitalisation redtape,
health insurance or simply admission to hospital:
Their marriage is on the mend.
We’re getting back on our feet.
Their relationship is in really good shape.
They’ve got a listless marriage.
Their marriage is on its last legs.
It’s a tired affair. (Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 49)

3.5.2. Classification of metaphors from a cognitive perspective

According to the cognitive view, metaphors divide into three main classes, which are
to be defined and illustrated in the lines to come.
1) Structural metaphors structure one entity or concept in terms of another, without
any constraint as to the concrete of abstract nature of either.
We unawarely conceptualise time as a valuable commodity, available in limited amounts
and which we risk wasting by misuse
e.g. TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY
You’re wasting your time.
There’s little time left – let’s hurry.
Come on, we’re running out of time.
Sorry to take away some of your precious time...
This project is not worth considering for a second.
Lucky him – he’s got so much time on his hands!
2) Orientational metaphors organize a whole system of concepts with respect to one
another, focusing on spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-
shallow, central-peripheral, near-far. Such spatial orientations arise from the way our
bodies which function within our physical environment. The following metaphorical
mappings frequently underlie the way we conceptualise moods, quantities, virtues,
emotions or reason.
HAPPY IS UP vs SAD IS DOWN
I’m feeling up. My spirits rose. He’s really low these days. I fell into a depression.
CONSCIOUS IS UP vs UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN

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Get up. He rises early in the morning. He dropped off to sleep. He’s under hypnosis.
HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP vs SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN
He’s at the peak of health. Lazarus rose from the dead. He’s in top shape. He fell ill.
He came down with the flu. His health is declining. He dropped dead.
MORE IS UP vs LESS IS DOWN
My income rose last year. The number of errors he made is incredibly low. He is
underage. If you’re too hot, turn the heat down.
GOOD IS UP vs BAD IS DOWN
Things are looking up. Things are at an all-time low. He does high-quality work.
VIRTUE IS UP vs DEPRAVITY IS DOWN
She has high standards. She is upright. She is an upstanding citizen. That was a low
trick. I wouldn’t stoop to that. That would be beneath me.
RATIONAL IS UP vs EMOTIONAL IS DOWN
The discussion fell to the emotional level, but I raised it back up to the rational
plane. He couldn’t rise above his emotions ( Lakoff & Johnson 1980 : 14-19).
3) Ontological metaphors enable us to view events, activities, emotions, ideas as entities
and substances. Humans tend to understand the world by imposing boundaries on
physical phenomena and dealing with entities as if they were delimited by a surface.
Thus, many entities that can be conceptualized as containers: land areas, human beings,
rocks or substances, the visual field, events or activities:
There’s a lot of land in Kansas. (=land area)
He’s out of sight now. The ship is coming into view. (=the visual field).
Halfway into the race, I ran out of energy. (=event/race as container object)
He’s immersed in washing the windows right now. (activity as substance and
therefore as container)
I put a lot of energy into washing the windows. (action as container).
A typical example of ontological metaphor is THE MIND IS A MACHINE, which
underlies everyday expressions such as:
“My mind just isn’t operating today!”,
“I’m a little rusty today
“We’ve been working on this problem all day and now we’re running out of steam”
(L&J, 1980:27)
Besides entity and substance metaphors, ontological metaphors also comprise
container metaphors. People are physical beings, bounded and delineated from the rest
of the world by the surface of our skins, and our bodies are viewed as containers
endowed with an inside and an outside.
When hearing the outrageous news, he blew his top.
She was steaming with repressed anger.
Let him simmer if he is so mad.
John had an outburst of rage/laughter/despair.
You need to vent out your feelings for a while.
They stifled their indignation.
A special type of ontological metaphors is represented by those metaphors where the
physical object is further specified as being a person. Personification allows us to make
sense of phenomena in the world in human terms by ascribing human qualities to entities
that are not human, such as theories, diseases, inflation, etc.This allows for the

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comprehension of a wide variety of experiences with non-human entities in terms of

human motivations, goals, characteristics and activities.
Life has cheated me.
The experiment gave birth to a new theory in genetics.
Cancer finally caught up with him.
Inflation has attacked the foundation of our economy.
Our biggest enemy right now is inflation.

3.5.3. The experiential grounding of our conceptual system

Cognitivist scholars sustain that our natural conceptual system is metaphorically

structured, that is most concepts are partially understood in terms of other concepts, this
being assured by the directionality of metaphor, the phenomenon of structuring concepts
pertaining to one domain in terms of concepts of another domain. Hence the question of
the possible grounding of our conceptual system. The most salient sources for concepts
that are understood directly are spatial concepts, such as UP/DOWN, FRONT/BACK,
IN/OUT, NEAR/FAR. Such landmarks of our spatial experience are enlightening as to
our ceaseless everyday bodily functioning, which makes them prioritary over other
possible structurings of space. Our spatial concepts and their structure emerge from our
spatial experience, our first interaction with the surrounding environment. Some of the
central concepts in terms of which our bodies function, e.g. UP/DOWN, IN/OUT,
FRONT/BACK, LIGHT/DARK, WARM/COLD are better delineated than others. While
our emotional experience is as basic as our spatial and perceptual experience, it is much
less clearly defined in terms of bodily stances or actions. If spatial concepts are directly
emergent from our perceptual-motor functioning, no clear-cut conceptual structure
designating emotions emerges from our emotional functioning alone. Since there are
systematic correlates between our emotions (like happiness) and our sensory-motor
experiences (the erect posture), these form the basis of orientational metaphorical
concepts (such as HAPPY IS UP).
One important aspect to stress about experiential grounding is the distinction
between an experience and the way we conceptualize it. It cannot be claimed that
physical experience is in any way more basic than other kinds of experience, whether
emotional, mental or cultural. Yet, more often than not, the nonphysical is typically
conceptualized in terms of the physical. In other words, we conceptualize the less clearly
delineated, i.e. usually less concrete and inherently vaguer concepts in terms of the more
clearly delineated, i.e. usually more concrete concepts (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 56-59).
Orientational and ontological metaphors relying on simple physical concepts are
basic to our conceptual system, but they are not overabundant. Abundant processings are
supplied by structural metaphors (such as LOVE IS A JOURNEY) , which enable us to
use one systematically structured and clearly delineated concept in order to structure
another. Such structural metaphors emerge naturally in our culture because the aspects
they highlight are revealed by our collective experience and mirror the coherent
structuring of our experience (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 61-68).

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4. TRANSLATION, COGNITION AND CULTURE

In addition to previously discussed issues regarding word meaning, word

combination, intentionality and purpose of utterances, translation entails a process of
cultural de-coding, re-coding and en-coding. Translation should be conceptualised as
ceaselessly involving the transposition of thoughts expressed in the SL by one social
community into the appropriate TL expression of a similar or dissimilar community. The
process of transfer should consequently take into consideration re-coding across cultures
and systematic correspondences between SL and TL notions and formulations, meant to
ensure credibility in the eyes of the target reader. The “cultural” appurtenance of the text
is weightier than ever, given that cultures are increasingly brought into greater contact
with one another, In the early 80s, in his “Writing from the World II “, Paul Engle insisted
on the socially active, even politically urgent aim of translation in the contemporary
world:

As this world shrinks together like an aging orange and all peoples in all cultures
move closer together (however reluctantly and suspiciously) it may be that the
crucial sentence for our remaining years on earth may be very simply:
TRANSLATE OR DIE. The lives of every creature on the earth may one day
depend on the instant and accurate translation of one word. (Engle and Engle, 1985)

Multiculturalism, a ubiquitous present-day phenomenon, plays a significant role

in this respect since it has borne an undeniable impact on linguistic and cultural
phenomena worldwide as well as on the international relations emerging from current
developments. Cultural, ethnic and linguistic boundaries are disappearing and distinctions
among communities engaging in language-based social practices are being increasingly
blurred. As a result, transcoding should focus not merely on language transfer but also on
cultural transposition. Such transposition involves trans-(re)lating not only language
structures but mental representations from the source text into the target text, from the
author’s cognitive environment to the receptor’s rational and cultural background.
According to contemporary cognitive psychological outlooks, such mental
representations constitute cognitive schemata and are investigated by the so-called
‘schema-theory’. In the following lines, I will enlarge upon the main tenets of schema
theory, since I consider it a valuable instrument for any operator of successful
translations.

4.1. Schema theory

Like prototype theory, schema theory investigates simplified mental cognitive

structures, stored in memory and activated whenever comprehension of new input
requires it. In contrast with prototype theory, which is hyponymy-based and envisages
single categories or simple hierarchies of categories, schema theory considers

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representations of concepts as organised in complex spatio-temporal structures.

(Rumelhart (1980), Eysenck and Keane (1990), Cook (1994), and Semino (1997, 2001).

A schema is a structured cluster of concepts; usually, it involves generic knowledge

and may be used to represent events, sequences of events, precepts, situations,
relations and even objects (Eysenck and Keane 1990, my emphasis).

As ‘cognitive misers’ (Fiske and Taylor 1984: 12), humans need to be equipped
with mental shortcuts, best achieved by activating schemata, which are simplified and
systematic representations of knowledge. Schemata are similar to computer files: humans
create them in order to deposit items of knowledge inside them. Such items may range
from simple objects (shoes, buildings, stationery) to events (going on a date, having a
barbecue, delivering a child), natural phenomena (earthquakes, rainbows, tornadoes) and
eventually to complex intercultural processes and notions (globalisation, terrorism, the
hothouse effect, gender or race discrimination). Schemata enable comprehenders to
retrieve generic concepts from memory and accommodate incoming input into existing
conceptual structures. They undergo constant enriching and reorganising, just like
computer files may be modified by inserting new material or rearranging existing data.
Cognitive psychologists such as Rumelhart regard schemata as higher-order
cognitive structures defined as “fundamental elements upon which all information
processing depends” (Rumelhart 1980: 33). Schemata constitute the ‘building blocks of
cognition’. During the process of comprehension humans activate higher-order mental
structures which involve variables, variable constraints and default variables related to
the situation/object/event/person to be conceptualised (Rumelhart 1980: 35-39).
Rumelhart likens variables in a schema to characters in a play. Different values can
realise the same variable; the same way different actors can play the same character. The
variable constraints specify the ‘typical values of the variables and their
interrelationships’ (Rumelhart 1980: 35). Variable constraints enable comprehenders to
operate a shortcut search for elements that realise the variables in a schema they
instantiate. As for variables that are not explicitly specified in an input, constraints enable
comprehenders to supply missing values or default values meant to fill in the gaps in the
activated schema. (Rumelhart 1980: 36). Such ‘default values’ can be inferable on the
basis of shared expectations, i.e. expectations that are common among a group of
individuals. Rumelhart states that default variables are suppliable because schemata are
not rigid, but flexible structures, whose suppleness springs from the human propensity to
tolerate vagueness, and imprecision.
The total set of schematic cognitive structures instantiated by a comprehender
while processing a certain input yields the comprehender’s model of the encountered
situation/object/event/person (Rumelhart 1980: 37). I will illustrate the previously
mentioned terms with a BEACH schema. Normally, a BEACH schema involves, among
others, variables such as ‘people temporarily located on the beach’ and ‘ongoing beach
activities’. Depending on the context, the ‘people’ variable can take values such as
‘holiday makers’ (i.e. people getting a tan, swimming, loitering in the sands) or
‘fishermen’ (i.e. people preparing their fishing instruments on the beach before going out
to sea to catch fish). Likewise, the ‘activities’ variable could take different values
according to the context. A ‘holiday’ context would make comprehenders realise this

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variable by such values as: swimming, sunbathing, playing ball, building sandcastles. A
‘fishing’ context would imply different values meant to realise the ‘activities’ variable:
checking a fishing net, hurling it on to a boat during a pre-fishing stage and separating the
fish from the residuals during a post-fishing stage. Regarding the variable constraints of a
BEACH schema in a ‘holiday’ context, the values realising the ‘holiday makers’ variable
would be ‘human beings’ (and not animals or plants). The same constraint applies to the
‘fishing’ context.
Default variables in the BEACH schema (e.g. sand, waves, shells, etc) are easy to
supply whenever there is some familiarisation with the concept ’beach’. An Eskimo or a
bushman could not supply such default variables because they are not normally
associated with beaches. However, cross-cultural variations are likely to occur. Thus, a
Romanian activating a BEACH schema would not consider ebb and flow as a default
variable, as there are no tidal phenomena in the Black Sea bordering the south-eastern
Romanian coast. Most probably, a British person may include ebb and flow among the
default variables of their BEACH schema.

4.1.1. Schema activation, background knowledge and inferencing

The joined contribution of linguistic input and background knowledge enables

text readers to achieve coherence in text comprehension, and I would venture to add, text
translation. According to Semino,

It is one of the basic tenets of cognitive psychology that comprehension crucially

depends on the availability and activation of relevant prior knowledge. We make
sense of new experiences - and of texts in particular - by relating the current input
to pre-existing mental representations of similar entities, situations and events
(Semino 1997: 123).

Coherence in text comprehension heavily relies on deduction and anticipation on

the part of the reader. Besides drawing inferences, schema activation enables
comprehenders to develop expectations and/or predictions about incoming input and
consequently incoming mental representations. Once textual elements trigger the
activation of certain schemata in the readers’ minds, expectations are generated and
(dis)confirmation of those expectations is anticipated. Halasz (1991) stresses how the
process of text comprehension involves the reader in accessing (via ‘reminding’) not only
personal experience but discursive - including fictional intertextual - experience as well.
This view is also endorsed by Schmidt (1991: 275) who states that understanding is “a
subject-dependent, strategy - guided, intentional, and flexible process oriented towards
efficiency” (Schmidt 1991: 275) and that text comprehension arises from the interaction
between readers’ knowledge and text information.
Schema theory operates complex links between individual minds and socially
shared representations, since schemata “exist in the minds of individual subjects as
psychic structures, but they are linked to the socio-cultural and historical realities”
(Hoijer 1992: 289). Moulded under the impact the afore-mentioned socio-cultural factors,
schemata acts as flexible structures, since they accommodate cognitive processes such as
developing expectations and inferencing while simultaneously suspending useless

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representations. Once credible evidence has been gathered against the utility of a certain
schema for comprehension purposes, the reader ‘suspends‘ that schema and allocates
their mental resources towards a ‘more promising schema’ (Rumelhart 1980: 42).

4.1.2. ‘Schema-refreshment’ versus ‘schema-reinforcement’

As already pointed out, schemata facilitate coherence of to-be-comprehended

input by supplying simplified and prototypical clusters of knowledge on situations,
objects, events, persons. Serving the purpose of cognitive economy, schemata enable
perceivers to select those portions of existing knowledge and to develop those
expectations that normally provide smoother and shorter paths towards the successful
processing of incoming social stimuli. A common theme running through all the schema
research is that people remember information that confirms their schemata and forget
information that disconfirms them (Fiske and Taylor 1984: 162).
Schema-consistent information is favoured by natural retrieval processes, while
schema-inconsistent information requires effort-consuming integration into memory. As
people spend less time and make less effort in decoding and interpreting information that
is consistent with their expectations, it is natural to assume that schema-consistent
information generally requires less effort in processing than schema-inconsistent
information (Augoustinos and Walker 1996: 45). On the other hand, as Eysenck and
Keane (1990: 279) argue, comprehenders may also spend less time and pay less attention
to those elements they find familiar and dedicate more time and focus more on the
unexpected elements:

Since there is no need to spend very long looking at expected objects, this frees up
resources for processing more novel and unexpected aspects of any given scene
(Eysenck and Keane 1990: 279).

Processing of schema-consistent versus schema-inconsistent information in

relation to comprehenders’ processings of texts have been discussed by linguists such as
Cook (1994) or Semino (1995, 1997) in the light of two concepts: schema-reinforcement
and schema-refreshment. Schema-reinforcement largely accompanies the processing of
schema-consistent information, while schema-refreshment relates to the processing of
schema-inconsistent information.
Whenever an input, be it textual or not, can be accommodated within existing
schematic representations of events, situations, persons, and the comprehender’s
expectations are relatively readily met with, there is likelihood for the comprehender to
undergo ‘schema-reinforcement’, i.e. strengthening schema-consistent representations. A
recurrent example would be the ‘happy end’ of most Hollywood-style romances or
tearjerkers, consisting of the rescue of the hopeless victim of circumstances (be it illness
or the target of a serial killer) and/or the reconciliation of the couple(s) having undergone
a crisis and surmounted obstacles.
Cook (1994) regards schema-refreshment as inextricably linked to the effect of
unexpectedness or unfamiliarity that is generally brought about by literary texts (unlike,
he claims, advertising texts, which tend to be schema-reinforcing). Cook tends to
associate schema-refreshment with deviation from textual norms and implicitly with

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literariness (Cook 1994: 182). Cook’s view is partially criticised by Semino, who
proposes that texts – be they literary or non-literary - should be located along a
continuum whose two ends are schema-reinforcement and schema-refreshment:

If a text reinforces the reader’s schemata, the world it projects will be perceived as
conventional, familiar, realistic and so on. If a text disrupts and refreshes the
reader’s schemata, the world it projects will be perceived as deviant,
unconventional, alternative, and so on (Semino 1997: 155).

Semino refines Cook’s definition of ‘schema-refreshment’ by underlining that

schema refreshment rather includes “unusual instantiations of schemata and/or the
simultaneous activation and interconnection of schemata, that, in my case at least, were
not normally activated together” (Semino 2001: 350-351). A relevant example would be
the final twist of fate in a ‘whodunit’, where the murderer proves to be the least expected
person and the evidence against them is supplied by the least reliable detective mind. Or
the scene in recent slapstick teenage comedies where the guy who is overeager to have a
hot date ends up in the aggressive company of an enchanting transvestite!
The schema-reinforcement and the schema-refreshment potential of a text can
account for the “degree of alternativity, possibility, conventionality, etc., that readers
attribute to text worlds.” (Semino 1997: 176). Semino insists on regarding schema
refreshment as a potential and in most cases non-predictable effect of the text upon the
reader’s pre-existing knowledge structures, since, she argues, readers may ignore
expectation-challenging textual elements or may accept them solely for purposes of text
comprehension (Semino 1997: 213). Later on, taking on board Jeffries’s criticism as to
the presence of a cline with schema reinforcement at one end and schema refreshment at
the other (Jeffries 2001), Semino proposes introducing the notion of a schema-
refreshment cline as an analytical tool. Such a cline would have “no schema refreshment
at one end and dramatic schema refreshment at the other” (Semino 2001: 352).
Bartlett, the founding father of schema theory, proposed (1932) that schemata
should be related to emotional phenomena, thus blazing the trail for research that
explores the relationship between cognition and affect. A comprehensive theory of the
mind should envisage not only cognition but also imagination and affect and should rely
on factors such as emotions, concerns and attitudes (Semino 1997, Augoustinos and
Walker 1996, 1998).
Schema-refreshing discourses effect changes in existing schemata and the schema-
changing function of such discourses is thought to be sometimes related to emotional
reactions and attitudinal changes: “Sensations of pleasure, escape, profundity, and
elevation are conceivably offshots of this function” (Cook 1994: 191).
Attitudes are concomitantly a part of cognitive life and a part of social discourse
(Augoustinos and Walker 1996: 14-15). Attitudes denote a person’s orientation to some
object of reference that acts as a stimulus to that person’s evaluation of the object in
question (Augoustinos and Walker 1996: 13). Since attitudes involve judgements of the
‘like/dislike’ or ‘good/bad’ kind, they inevitably trigger an affective or emotional
response in individual attitude-holders. Attitudes display cognitive dimensions because
they imply categorization as a necessary stage prior to evaluation, thus being not only a
cognitive process but also an evaluative one. Affect and evaluation may be instantly cued

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by categorisation and social categories are inherently value-laden because they instantly
fit an object/event into a schema that bears emotional connotations (fear of dentists,
disgust inspired by demagogical politicians).
I have discussed the above tenets of schema theory in order to highlight the ceaseless
interaction and unavoidable complementarity between individual cognitive structures and
culturally shared representations, concurring with the claims set forth by scholars such as
Shore (1996), Quinn and Strauss (1997), Augoustinos and Walker (1998). A schema-
based approach to the process of text comprehension and, inevitably text translation and
re-creation in a target language, may shed further light on the intertwining of intra- and
extra-personal knowledge and, implicitly the mutuality between individual cognition and
socially available cultural models.

4.2. Cultural models

Being simultaneously individual and social representations, schemata could be

likened to the idealised cultural models proposed by Lakoff, who, in his seminal book
“Women, Fire and Dangerous Things”, argues that we organize our knowledge by means
of structures called idealized cognitive models (henceforth ICMs) and that category
structures and prototype effects are by-products of this type of organization. All idealized
cognitive models can be roughly defined as mental spaces and models that structure those
spaces. The differences lie in what those spaces relate to and the manner in which they
are structured. Lakoff takes the example of the concept of “week” in English culture and
in the Balinese calendric system and proves that our model of “week” is an idealized one.
The days of the weeks and the weeks as such, do not exist objectively in nature; they are
not separate entities, but creations of our own minds.
Lakoff goes on to prove that even if the categories defined by the ICMs are
classical, there would still be prototype effects that would stem from the interaction of the
given schema with other schemata in the system. By discussing the concept of
“bachelor”. he makes it clear that: “An idealized cognitive model may fit one's
understanding of the world either perfectly, very well, pretty well, somewhat well, pretty
badly, badly, or not at all.” (Lakoff: 70)
It is in Lakoff’s intention to dismantle the traditional view of categories: that
categories are defined by common features of their members; that thought is formed by
abstract symbols; that concepts are internal representations of external reality; that
symbols have meaning by virtue of their correspondence to real objects.
The dissemination of schemata or in their wider societal articulation, of cultural
models, can be seen as an ‘epidemic’ (Sperber 1996). Sperber’s ‘epidemiological’
approach to public representations analyses the spread of cognitive schemata in terms of
contagion of mental representations among individuals belonging to a like-minded
communities. Sperber addresses the re-evaluation of individual and local receptions of
globalised concepts, a standpoint which translators should not disregard. Cognitive
definitions of culture such as that provided by Sperber and Hirschfeld may prove
extremely useful to translators, unavoidably placed within a cross-cultural environment
(1999). Such (re)definitions of culture advocate that:

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From a cognitive point of view, it is tempting to think of culture as an ensemble of

representations (classifications, schemas, models, competencies), the possession of
which makes an individual a member of a cultural group (Sperber and Hirschfeld
1999: 14).

Sperber and Hirschfeld’s definition of culture ties in with the espousal of social
and cultural practices, including language practices. Hence the imperious need for
translators to be both bilingual and bicultural if not multicultural. Back in 1983, Ted
Hughes highlighted the necessity of translation triggered off by the multifarious
emergence of alternative representations of reality and axiological systems:

The boom in the popular sales of translated modern poetry was without precedent.
Though it reflected only one aspect of the wave of mingled energies that galvanized
those years with such extremes, it was fed by almost all of them ... Buddhism, the
mass craze of Hippie ideology, the revolt of the young, the Pop music of the Beatles
and their generation. That historical moment might well be seen, as ... an unfolding
from inwards, a millennial change in the Industrial West’s view of reality. (Hughes,
1983)

4.3. Cultural transposition and translation types

When dealing with the issue of multiculturalism, the relationship between cultural
transposition and interpretation requires further insight. Both translation and
interpretation deal with the rendering of a given text into another language. If translation
refers to written texts, interpretation designates “live and immediate transmission”
( Metzger ??:18) of –usually spoken - discourse. Yet, beyond the realm of language per
se, all texts can be seen to be “evidence of a communicative transaction taking place
within a social framework” (Hatim and Mason 1990: 22). It is the social framework that
urges analysts to dismantle the ‘myth of neutrality’ (Metzger 1999: 51).
A translator’s influence on and possibly reshaping of a text clashes with their
endeavour to maintain neutrality. Hence, the emergence of the age-long dilemma in
translation studies: literal versus free translation. Proper communication only occurs if
and when the receptor gets the messages which the emitter intends to convey. The
distortion of the message in the mind of the receptor is more likely to happen if the
receptor belongs to an audience that is wholly different from the readership the original
writer envisaged.
In compliance with Hatim and Mason’s discursive view on translation (1990), a
translator facilitates an act of communication between SL speakers/writers and TL
hearers/readers while concomitantly seeking to reconstruct perceived meaning for TL
receiver(s) as a separate act of communication. As shown in the previous sections, the
choice and the combinations of words, the grammatical structure, the contextual meaning
as well as the communicative purpose of the source text are important guidelines,
empowering the translation to decide on their grammatical, lexical and communicative
choices in the TL text. Yet, far from being mere linguistic conversion or transformation
between languages translation involves accommodation in terms of a plethora of domains
such as culture, politics or aesthetics.

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If linguistic or cultural reasons prevent the translator from transferring the source text
into the target text, accommodation tends to be preferred to literal translation, since it
implies minute adjustments brought to original meaning as well as the original style
and/or register. In outlining his dynamic theory of equivalence regarding translation, Nida
insists that, if content is prioritary, translation should incorporate accommodation or
adjustment to a considerable degree resulting in ‘free’ translation. A prototypical free
translation would be, in Nida’s view, that of the Bible, where the comprehension and
perception of the translated text requires loyalty to the original text, proffered by a stable
source, God, inspired with a stable intention. As far as the translation of the Bible is
concerned, Nida equates translation with revelation, emphasising that the original
message takes on archetypal status;

He must understand not only the obvious content of the message, but also the
subtleties of meaning, the significant emotive values of words and the stylistic
features which determine the ‘flavor and feel’ of the message ... In other words, in
addition to a knowledge of the two or more Ls involved in the translational process,
the translator must have a thorough acquaintance with the subject matter concerned.
(Nida, 1964).

By contrast, Nida specifies, ‘faithful’ translations privilege form and tend to espouse
literalness to a remarkable degree. Along the same line of argument, starting from a
statement made by Nabokov: “ To my ideal of literalism I sacrificed everything
(elegance, euphony, clarity, good taste, modern usage, and even grammar) that the dainty
mimic prizes higher than the truth”, Newmark finds it necessary to clarify upon the
distinction between semantic and communicative translation. Semantic or overt
translations that require the primacy of literalness - the case of the so-called ‘sacred’,
authoritative texts – while communicative or covert translations lie closer to interpretation
or accommodation, this being largely the case ‘run-of-the-mill’ texts. The chart below is a
simplified display some of the basic distinctions between the two types of translations, as
highlighted by Newman:

Semantic translation Communicative translation

Author-centred Reader-oriented
Related to thought Related to speech
Faithful Effective
More awkward, more detailed Simpler, clearer, more
Personal Social
Sl-biased TL-biased
Tendency to overtranslate Tendency to undertranslate
Inferior to the original Better than the original
Eternal, decontextualized Existential, context-dependent
Wide, universal Tailor-made, targeted for a specific
readership
True version Felicitous version
Meaning-centrered Message-centrered

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A middle-of-the-road theory of translation, attempting to reach a compromise between

literalness and effectiveness is the one proposed by Christiane Nord (2001). Her
distinction is between: documentary translation – a type of translation meant to preserve
the original frame of mind and style of expression and instrumental translation - a type
of translation meant to adapt source frame and style to target audience/readership. A
translator needs to carefully weigh the cultural and historical elements before deciding in
favor of an instrumental or a documentary translation. If a translator is keen on
preserving the original flavor of the text, documentary translation is preferred; if the
translator’s intention is to adequately convey specific information for successful
communication with a specific audience/readership, instrumental translation is a better
option.
In my view, the types of trannslation discussed before overlap both within the
process of transposing one text from a language (and implicitly culture)into another and
within the product of such transposition, namely the text in the target language, meant to
be comprehended and assimilated by the target cultural community of intended readers.
The translated text is a new creation, a reconstruction rather than a faithful copy of the
original. I wholly agree with Snell-Hornby (1988: 16) who emphasises that, while
translation is indeed achieved between two languages, it would be more accurate to state
that translation is achieved between two texts. Any endeavour to translate a text
presupposes” a degree of symmetry between languages which makes the postulated
equivalence possible” (Snell-Hornby 1988: 16). To this purpose, I invite the readers to
engage in the effort-consuming yet potentially rewarding task of translating a corpus of
literary texts I have selected according to the very challenge they posed to the would-be
translator in terms of such symmetry and the long-pursued equivalence accompanying it.
As you will see in the sections to come, the corpus consists of fifty texts to be translated
from Romanian into English (PART TWO) and fifty texts to be translated from English
into Romanian (PART THREE). A key or rather a set of tentative verso ions is provided
for each corpus of texts. A word of caution is necessary at this point: the solutions I have
provided for the respective translations are my own, which naturally entails they are
neither unique nor optimal. Needless to say that many of my fellow translators,
colleagues and students are likely to provide more faithful, more inspired and more
enticing versions. All suggestions and critical comments are more than welcome.

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