A GENERAL VIEW OF INTERFERENCE IN TRANSLATION [629992]

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INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE
A GENERAL VIEW OF INTERFERENCE IN TRANSLATION

1. Definition

In his 1991 book “ About Translation” , Peter Newmark gave several definitions to the
phenomenon of interference in translation .

According to the narrower sense of the term, “[…] interference in translation takes place
when, apparently inappropriately, any feature of the source or a third language – notably a syntactic
structure, a lexical item, an idiom, a metaphor, o r word -order is carried over or literally translated
as the case may be into the target language (TL) text .”1

The other, broader definition of this concept according to Newmark states that
“interference includes cases when sentence length, punctuation, pr oper names, neologisms, or
cultural words are evidently transferred in the translation, in fact all cases where the language of
the translation is manifestly affected whether appropriately or not by the language of the original .”

To varying degrees, the translators are constantly influenced by the grammar and
vocabulary of the language of the original text. The degree of this influence is determined to a not
unimportant degree, by the language skills and experience of the translator .

1 Newmark P. About Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd

2. Justification

There are four main reasons why the phenomenon of interference happens in translation
and those reasons often overlap: the double tension associated with translation , the existence of a
universally -employed terminology in that field, the nonexistence of a sp ecific term or structure in
the target language, and the cultural influence of the source culture. These ideas affect every type
of translation, especially in the technical and scientific fields .

We have all, at least once in our life, read a translated work of any kind and, even without
knowing anything about the source language, could tell that it was a translation. This was caused
by the double tension, which influences more or less every type of translation. It is the reason why
some experts consider interference a universal phenomenon in the field of translation .

The second reason, the nonexistence of specific terms in the target language, explains
why the translation of technical works in languages other than English is marked by a considerable
degree of interference. When translating a text pertaining to a certain field, it is generally easier to
import terms that already exist in the source language, not to mention clearer for the target
audience, when it consists of people who are already familia r with the subject matter and the usual
terminology. This also has the added “bonus” of giving an air of exclusivity to the result, since the
imported terms are by default harder to understand for the non -initiated. For this reason, modern
technical termin ology is harder to understand for the general reader when the terms used are not
in English .

Using terms from the source language, especially when the SL is English, promotes the
“internationalization” of the terminology, and eases the flow of information . This is an important
and often quoted reason for the nontranslation of abbreviations, which probably represent the
maximum degree of interference in technical and scientific translation .

Of course, the non -existence of a certain term is a well -accepted argument in favor of
interference in the translation of technical and scientific works. Even prescriptivists sometimes

accept the introduction in the TL of a neologism, although many will argue that we should first
exhaust all other possibilities, that is the exploitation of pre -existing terms or the “invention” of a
new term. On the other hand, just because a term exists in the TL doesn’t mean that interference
is impossible, although the presence of an unnecessary neologism is harder to justify or implem ent.
In Spanish biomedical terminology, for instance, there are cases of terms which have been
incorporated into the jargon, such as accidente cerebrovascular (‘cerebrovascular accident’) or
randomizado (‘randomised’) even though terms such as “ictus/apopl ejía” or
“aleatorio/aleatorizado” already existed. When deciding whether to import a neologism or use a
pre-existing term or phrase, the translator has to take into account the cultural importance of the
source and target languages in relation to one anoth er.

Of course, in such situations there is also a tendency among purists to try to preserve the
Target Language or dialect, in the case of English, German, Spanish etc. Many of them consider
that the importation of foreign neologisms directly contributes to the degradation of the TL and
the diminishing of its importance as a means of communication and spread of information.

Depending on the authority exerted by certain purists, such as the language academies of
Romance language -speaking countries, as well as the socio -cultural context in the case of the target
society, the result of the translation will be impacted by a lower or higher degree of interference.
Thus, in French there are fewer English -origin neologisms than in the case of Romanian or Spanish
due to the pro -country conscience and the influence and power of language -related institutions
such as the Académie française. “Likewise, the defence of their particular and possibly threatened
mode of English as a scientific language seems to be encouragi ng some academic and scientific
journals such as Jostrans and the British Medical Journal to ask for their contributions to be written
in British English – in an explicit call against this particular form of interference -, whereas this
restriction does no t seem to apply in US technical and scientific journals, which have no apparent
need to defend themselves against linguistic displacement.”2

2 Aixelá F. An overview of interference in scientific and technical translation . Jostrans: 2009

In societies with a history of colonization, there is sometimes a lack of terminology that
causes the absence of an entire field in the local language or dialect, which has been replaced
completely with its variant in the colonizer’s language.

Concerning the legal documents, they are of course affected in several ways by the socio –
political context in which they are created or translated. As Márta Fischer explains, “dominating
languages, institutional practice and the peculiarity of the EU decision -making process affect both
the linguistic (language, text) and extralinguistic (translator, receiver) aspects of transla tions. First
of all, the source languages in which documents are drafted are mostly English, French and to a
lesser extent German; that is, the procedural languages of the European Commission. This is all
the more understandable, as the Commission is the i nitiator of legislative acts, and so most
legislative documents are ‘born’ here. However, it is rather difficult to trace the original language
of texts since they may be drafted in more than one language. Alternatively, the language may be
affected by int erference from other languages, since texts are drafted by officials whose mother
tongue is not always the language of drafting. Similarly, source texts are modified at several steps
in the decision -making process and likewise translated by different trans lators. It is important to
note that those aspects also make research in parallel corpora or terminology difficult, since the
notion of source language and source text is rather vague. […] From the perspective of the receiver,
the clarity and readability o f texts are crucial since a language difficult to understand may run
counter to the Union’s aim to bring citizens closer to Europe. The need for good quality
Community legislation has been emphasized in several documents and events in the EU.”3

3. Types of I nterference in Translation

A. Syntactic Interference

According to Newman, among the different types of interference we find the occurrence
of syntactic structures from the source language wrongly used in the target language, syntactic

3 Fischer M. Language (policy), translation and terminology in the European Union , in Thelen M. Terminology in Everyday life.
Philadelphia:2010

order incorrectly appl ied in the target language and the personal choices of the translator in terms
of style.