Chapter 3: The Translation of Cultural Categories
3.4.2. Translation strategies for the transfer of cultural categories
3.4.2.7. Compensation
According to Hervey and Higgins (1992:35), it is when faced with apparently inevitable, yet unacceptable, compromises that translators may feel the need to resort to the technique referred to as compensation, which they describe as a technique of making up for the loss of important source text features through replicating source text effects approximately in the target text by means other than those used in the source text. The above scholars highlight four types of compensation which include compensation in kind, compensation in place, compensation by merging and compensation by splitting (Hervey & Higgins 1992:35-40). Compensation in kind involves making up for one type of textual effect in the source text by another type in the target text. They cite as example an area where compensation in kind is often needed to show the difference between French and English narrative tenses. The
difference between the African and Western cultures in their perception of time may also be cited here. In effect, “time” in most African cultures, unlike in Western cultures, is presented in the way the “months” were calculated by the ancestors of the villagers. The natives are not interested in knowing whether there are 28, 29, 30 or 31 days in a month, as the case may be, but rather the focus is on the face of the moon (i.e. quarter, half or full moon). The use of “lune”[moon] instead of “mois”[month] in African literary works to refer to time, therefore, has a powerful cultural effect which cannot simply be captured in the text by the mere use of the standard equivalent
“mois”[month] (cf. section 4.3.9. below).
The second type of compensation is compensation in place which, according to Hervey and Higgins (1992:37), consists in making up for the loss of a particular effect found at a given place in the source text by recreating a corresponding effect at an earlier or later place in the target text. For instance, the translator may compensate for an untranslated pun in the source text by using a pun on another word at a different place in the target text. The third type which is compensation by merging consists in condensing source text features carried over a relatively long stretch of text (e.g. a complex phrase) into a relatively short stretch of the text (e.g. a single word or a simple phrase). Finally, the fourth type of compensation, compensation by splitting may be resorted to in cases where there is no single target language word that covers the same range of meaning as a given source text word. Hervey and Higgins (1992:39) cite the example of “les papillons” usually translated as “butterflies and moths”.
3.4.2.8. Footnotes
It is evident from the examination of the above strategies that in order for them to be effective, most still rely on supplementary explanation and information in the form of a gloss or notes. In effect, where a literal or close rendering would result in a meaningless expression or wrong interpretation, the necessary adjustments could be made in the text. However, there are other circumstances in which more or less literal renderings are preserved in the text and the required adjustments are explained in
footnotes. For instance, when the translator notices in the process of translating that the modification of the text would introduce anomalies not in keeping with the temporal or cultural distance between source and target languages, he may be justified in retaining a more or less literal equivalent in the text and explain it in a footnote.
According to Nida (1964:238) in a translated text footnotes have basically the following two principal functions:
1. to correct linguistic and cultural discrepancies by:
a) explaining contradictory customs,
b) identifying unknown geographical or physical objects, c) giving equivalents of weights and measures,
d) providing information on plays on words,
e) including supplementary data on proper names; and
2. to add information which may be generally useful in understanding the historical and cultural background of the document in question.
It should, however, be noted that notes are not only placed at the bottom of the page where the object or event is mentioned but the substance of such notes may also be summarized in the form of tables or glossaries placed at the back of the book.
However, it could be said that tables and glossaries are usually intended to help rather sophisticated readers.
The inconvenience of gloss, footnotes and glossaries is that there is the danger that such additions may (and one could even say they often do) hold up the narrative and in some cases burden the reader with irritating detail. Furthermore, their application to certain genres such as drama is limited to page translations whose readers can refer to them whereas audiences of stage translations have no possibility of resorting to footnotes to elucidate unfamiliar or opaque culture-specific aspects while watching the play on stage.
However, on this issue, Rozhin (2000:140) insists and maintains that when in a play there are words and combinations of words denoting objects and concepts characteristic of the way of life, the culture, the social and historical development of a people alien to another and where all those elements or concepts in the original are intimately bound up with the universe of reference of the original culture, it is still possible for the drama translator to preserve the cultural context by providing a glossary of all the alien terms as well as some historical information, all of which are incorporated into the programme. She proposes that the drama translator could create a
‘manual’ to the play for potential directors and actors. The manual could equally be useful to the audience in that such a document produced and circulated to the public prior to the show would provide them with background reading and at least studying the programme notes prior to the show would be an ideal preparation. This gives the audience a chance to broaden their knowledge and makes their theatre experience more exciting through their discovery of the unknown.
While the above proposed solution could be considered a laudable one, the problems posed by the transfer of the cultural context in drama to the target audience still remain an obstacle as testified by the above solution which could be considered as being somewhat far-fetched, unconventional and rather costly. Besides, it is not certain that everyone will be willing to accept the ‘otherness’ of such a production.
The use of footnotes requires care and discernment on the part of the translator. As pointed out above, not only is it necessary for the translator to possess a good knowledge of the background of the target audience but he must also take into consideration the expectations of the particular target audience and be able to gauge accurately exactly what supplementary information it is necessary to include.
Unfortunately this is not always the case as in some translated works there are instances of footnotes that could be considered superfluous, irrelevant or unenlightening and sometimes downright misleading (cf. Suh 1995, Davies 2003).