Theoretical Aspects Of Proverb Translation
Translation as intercultural communication
The world today is characterized by an ever growing number of contacts resulting in communication between people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This intercultural communication takes place because of contacts within the areas of business, military cooperation, science, education, massmedia, entertainment, tourism but also because of immigration brought about by labor shortage or political conflicts.
In all these contacts, there is communication which needs to be as constructive as possible, without misunderstandings and breakdowns. The goal of this project is to present some causes which lead to intercultural communication problems, and the means to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers. It is my belief that research on the nature of linguistic and cultural similarities and differences can play a positive and beneficial role in intercultural communication.
Encounters between people of different cultural background have existed forever, and equally forever, people were thinking about phenomena that were unusual in other cultures. However, these intercultural encounters were relatively seldom in early times, but in the 20th century society, they are part of everyday life. Along with the growth of intercultural encounters, English has reached the level of universal language, which facilitates intercultural communication, due to its approachable characteristics and its global status.
Human language arises from biological evolution, individual learning, and cultural transmission, but the interaction of these three processes has not been widely studied. In the present chapter, I will analyze cultural transmission, which allows people to investigate how innate learning biases are related to universal properties of language. I will show that cultural transmission can magnify weak biases into strong linguistic universals, undermining one of the arguments for strong innate constraints on language learning.
As a consequence, the strength of innate biases can be shielded from natural selection, allowing these genes to drift. Furthermore, even when there is no natural selection, cultural transmission can produce apparent adaptations. Cultural transmission thus provides an alternative to traditional nativist and adaptationist explanations for the properties of human languages.
“Cultural identity…is a matter of “becoming” as well as of “being”. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant.”
As well as the more obvious cultural differences that exist between peoples, such as language, customs and traditions, dress, there are also significant variations in the way societies organize themselves, in their shared conception of morality, and in the ways they interact with their environment. These differences can be considered incidental artefacts arising from patterns of human migration or simply evolutionary trait that is key to our success as a species. Cultural diversity may be vital for the long-term survival of humanity, the conservation of indigenous cultures being as important to humankind as the conservation of species and ecosystems is to life in general.
From one point of view language is a part of culture, and yet it is more than that. It is central to culture since it is the means through which most of culture is learned and communicated. Only humans have the biological capacity for language, which allows them to communicate cultural ideas and symbolic meanings from one generation to the next and to constantly create new cultural ideas. The capacity for language separates humans from the other primates. In any language, an infinite number of possible sentences can be constructed and used to convey an infinite number of cultural ideas. Because of this, human language is significantly different from any other system of animal communication.
From the other point of view, cultures are continually undergoing some degree of change, and since language is a part of culture, it is always changing as well. Of course, during one’s lifetime, one is not aware of linguistic change, except for changes in vocabulary, particularly slang words and expressions. If we compare our language usage with that of the language in Shakespeare’s plays, the extent to which English has changed over the past centuries is obvious. It is apparent that present-day dialect differences represent developments from an earlier form of the language.
People share society-organized life in groups-with other animals. Culture, however, is distinctly human. Cultures are traditions and customs, transmitted through learning, that govern the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them. Children inherit these traditions by growing up in a particular society. Cultural traditions include customs and opinions, developed over the generations, about proper and improper behavior. Cultural traditions answer such questions as: How should we do things? How do we tell right from wrong? How do we interpret the world? A culture produces consistencies in behavior and thought in a given society, because through culture people create, remember, and deal with ideas.
The most critical element of cultural traditions is their transmission through learning rather than biological inheritance. Culture is not itself biological, but it rests on human biology. Human adaptation (the process by which organism cope with environmental stresses) involves an interplay between culture and biology; and for more than 1 million years , humans have had at least some of the biological capacities on which culture depends: the abilities to learn, to think symbolically, to use language , and to employ tools and other cultural features in organizing their lives and adapting to their environments.
Fundamental changes in an entire society have a big impact upon the individuals, but, when exposed to a society with a fundamentally different culture, the individual is exposed to 'foreign' concepts of life, such as, for example, a capitalist view of economy, a hierarchically structured society with deep respect for authority, a deeply individualistic society. While adaptation is not necessarily the outcome, the individual will start reflecting on the concept, and may choose to adapt parts or all of the new outlook.
Being exposed to new ideas or a new environment, the society culture changes significantly at all levels, resulting in a shift in culture over time. Shifts in culture can of course initiate in the own society, but are more likely to be brought in by an outside culture, with a different set of assumptions, norms, values, etc. Shifts can of course be significant, or subtle, they can be fast or slow. The significant shifts are easily determined, changing society structure as a whole while taking place, and over a relatively short period of time.
Slow shifts are those shifts that occur over a long period of time, at least relatively spoken. The feminist movement is such a slower shift, taking some hundred years and more to change the basic assumptions, the values and attitudes of society. Fast shifts are dramatic like revolution developments: the end of the Third Reich was a fast shift, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe etc. The shift is abrupt, and changes society values fundamentally over a very short period of time.
The encounter of the individual with foreign concepts of a diverse society can easily give birth to serious complications and misunderstandings. A major problem of the individual regarding intercultural encounters is language. Language can be considered a barrier when it comes to communication, because conversation is fundamentally interactive and it requires response. This in turn requires a mutual understanding of conversational patterns/conventions. Conversational patterns are highly structured and very difficult to shift. Even when one speaks another language well, one probably still uses your native language conversation strategies.
Immigration, or the migration of a people into a country, along with its correlative emigration, or the migration of a people out of a country, constitutes an important social phenomenon. The issue of linguistic survival or the assimilation of individuals and groups into another language continues to be one of the most debated subjects regarding social and cultural matters.
The language assimilation patterns of today are not precisely those of the early 20th century, but they do not appear to pose any threat to English as the language that sets the bases of the nation and its culture. Bilingualism is more common today than in the past. Most children of immigrants speak to some extent in the mother tongue at home, especially if their parents have come from . However, if they are born and raised in the , they are highly likely to speak English well or very well. We conclude that both the anxieties about the place of English in an immigration society and the hopes for a multilingual society in which English is no longer hegemonic are misplaced. Other languages, especially Spanish, will be spoken in the , even by the American born; but this is not a radical departure from the American experience. Yet the necessity of learning English well is accepted by virtually all children and grandchildren of immigrants.
It is compulsory to study the relationship between globalization and contemporary culture, explaining the importance of time and space concerns, "deterritorialization," the impact of the media and communication technologies, and the possible growth of more cosmopolitan culture. Differences between speakers in any of these elements can lead to irritation, moral judgments, or misreading of intent. When there are tensions between the participants already, these conversational differences can cause serious confusions.
Cross cultural understanding simply refers to the basic ability of people to recognize, interpret and correctly react to people, incidences or situations that are open to misunderstanding due to cultural differences. Because, a genuinely cosmopolitan culture is unlikely to emerge unless we respect cultural differences and share a common sense of commitment about the world.
Both intercultural communication and translation have seen increasing attention in the last decade. This huge interest does not mean, however, that we are faced with new phenomena. On the contrary, direct and mediated communication between people speaking different mother tongues and belonging to different cultural groups has existed for many centuries as a fact of life. The contributions of translators to the development of alphabets and national languages, to the development of national literatures, to the dissemination of knowledge, to the advancement of, and to the transmission of cultural values throughout history are well documented . There has been a long tradition of thought and an enormous body of opinion about translation, and in the second half of the 20th century
Translation Studies developed as an academic discipline in its own right. Intercultural Communication, too, is regarded as an academic field with its own specific concepts and analytical methods. But despite a considerable amount of research output, both disciplines seem to have reached a stage where some of the key concepts and assumptions are being challenged, and the object of research is being looked at from a new perspective. Moreover, some of the key concepts employed in Translation Studies and in Intercultural Communication also play an important role in related disciplines.
1.1.Identity in translation
Translators work at the boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between theield with its own specific concepts and analytical methods. But despite a considerable amount of research output, both disciplines seem to have reached a stage where some of the key concepts and assumptions are being challenged, and the object of research is being looked at from a new perspective. Moreover, some of the key concepts employed in Translation Studies and in Intercultural Communication also play an important role in related disciplines.
1.1.Identity in translation
Translators work at the boundaries of languages, cultures, and societies. They position themselves between the poles of specificity and adaptation in accordance with the strategies of their translational behaviour. They either preserve the otherness of the other or they transform the other into self. By the same token, they cease to be simple mediators, because in a semiotic sense they are capable of generating new languages for the description of a foreign language, text, or culture, and of renewing a culture or of having an influence on the dialogic capacity of a culture with other cultures as well as with itself. In this way, translators work not only with natural languages but also with metalanguages, languages of description. One of the missions of the translator is to increase the receptivity and dialogic capability of a culture, and through these also the internal variety of that culture. As mediators between languages, translators are important creators of new metalanguages. That’s why a contemporary understanding of translation activity presupposes not merely a complex approach – the science of translation also has a need for innovation in the methodology for understanding the translation process.
G. Steiner said that “translation exists only because people talk different languages. In fact, this truism is based on a situation that we can consider mysterious and that raises a question of both psychological and socio-historical difficulty. Why must the human beings talk thousand of different languages that cannot be understood by everyone?” Thus, “within one language or even more than one language, communication between humans is possible due to translation”(Steiner 1983: 25).
This is why a history of translations does not lack significance when trying to demonstrate their high importance for the development of cultures. Translations, as Rodica Dumitru (2002:17) notices, “have accelerated cultural progress by shortening the accumulation time necessary for the outgrowth and ripening of each culture” and as remarked by Romul Munteanu (1986:31) “scientists, artists and philosophers had noticed since early times that translations were absolutely necessary and consequently they could not be taken as superfluous ornaments in the cultural life pf any country.”
The main problem about the historical understanding of translation lies in finding the appropriate metalanguages. Revisiting time in translation studies means finding complementarity between a historical metalanguage for the description of translational activity and a semiotic metalanguage to understand the different sides of translatability. Translation is the creation of a language of mediation between various cultures.
The historic analysis of translation presupposes the readiness of the researcher to interpret the languages of the translators belonging to different ages, and also to 2009).
A broader view of translation and translating within the framework of the methodology of translation studies contributes to the inner dialogue within translation studies. At the same time it also contributes to the dialogue between translation studies and semiotics and to the dialogue between both disciplines and other disciplines. Besides the dialogue within the discipline and between disciplines, the elaboration of the methodology of studying translation and translating also points to the need for a dialogue between diachrony and synchrony. As theory is put to test by the study of translation history, so are new concepts in translation studies put to test by the history of this discipline. Methodological cohesion is being created both in time and space
1.2.Translation strategies
While a formulation of a translation method can usually be reduced to the dominant, i.e. element or level that the translator regards as the most important in the text to be translated, the model of the translation process enables us to arrive at a more systematic treatment of the translation method. In order to describe a translation method, the following elements should be taken into consideration:
I. textual or medial presentation of translation: type of publication:
1) elements of publication (foreword, afterword, commentary,
glossary, illustrations, etc.)
2) principles of compilation
II. discursive presentation of translation:
1) aim of translation:
a) function of translation
b) reader of translation
2) type of translation: explicit dominant of translation
3) translator’s poetics:
a) translator’s explicit poetics
b) translator’s implicit poetics
III. linguistic or semiotic presentation of translation: translation technique
1) translational transformations:
a) cultural (keywords or key images of a culture)
a’) transcription
a’’) translation (neologism, substitution, indirect
translation, contextual translation)
b) linguistic: replacement, substitution, addition, deletion
2) limiting factors:
a) language and culture (grammar and culture, linguistic
worldview, sociolinguistics, etiquette)
b) language and psychology (associations, expressive and
affective devices, explicitness – implicitness)
The identification of the translation method is important for the comparative analysis of translations and their originals as well as for bringing the translator’s individuality into the sphere of research and culture. Translation method and translation type are concepts that connect an individual translation process with a virtual process and enable individual translation methods to be typologized on the basis of a single integrated model. This is especially important for the historical understanding of translational activity.
The way in which an idiom or a fixed expression can be translated into another language depends on many factors. It is not only a question of whether an idiom with a similar meaning is available in the target language. Other factors include, for example, the significance of the specific lexical items which constitute the idiom, i.e. whether they are manipulated elsewhere in the source text, as well as the appropriateness or inappropriateness of using idiomatic language in a given register in the target language. The acceptability or non-acceptability of using any of the strategies described below will therefore depend on the context in which a given idiom is translated. The first strategy described, that of finding an idiom of similar meaning and similar form in the target language, may seem to offer the ideal solution, but that is not necessarily always the case. Questions of style, register, and rhetorical effect must also be taken into consideration. Fernando and Flavell are correct in warning us against the 'strong unconscious urge in most translators to search hard for an idiom in the receptor-language, however inappropriate it may be' (1981, 82).
1) Using an idiom of similar meaning and form
This strategy involves using an idiom in the target language which conveys roughly the same meaning as that of the source-language idiom and, in addition, consists of equivalent lexical items. This kind of match can only occasionally be achieved.
2) Using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form
It is often possible to find an idiom or fixed expression in the target language which has a meaning similar to that of the source idiom or expression, but which consists of different lexical items. For example, He did not turn a hair
3) Translation by paraphrase
This is by far the most common way of translating idioms when a match cannot be found in the target language or when it seems inappropriate to use idiomatic language in the target text because of differences in stylistic preferences of the source and target languages. For example, prepare the ground; create a good/suitable situation for something to take place. Or: for the best; unpleasant now but will turn out well in the future.
4) Translation by omission
As with single words, an idiom may sometimes be omitted altogether in the target text. This may be because it has no close match in the target language, its meaning cannot be easily paraphrased, or for stylistic reasons.
5) Strategy of compensation
One strategy which cannot be adequately illustrated, simply because it would take up a considerable amount of space, is the strategy of compensation. Briefly, this means that one may either omit or play down a feature such as idiomaticity at the point where it occurs in the source text and introduce it elsewhere in the target text. This strategy is not restricted to idiomaticity or fixed expressions and may be used to make up for any loss or meaning, emotional force, or stylistic effect which may not be possible to reproduce directly at a given point in the target text.
Using the typical phraseology of the target language- its natural collocations, its own fixed and semi-fixed expressions, the right level of idiomaticity, and so on- will greatly enhance the readability of your translations. Getting this level right means that your target text will feel less 'foreign' and, other factors being equal, may even pass for an original. But naturalness and readability are also affected by other linguistic features.
1.3.(Non)Equivalence in translation
We should take into account the fact that translation theory is the traditional name that was given to the general knowledge about translation and nowadays, it has become an obsolete term as it is associated with the old, normative, prescriptive writings on the ways in which good literary translations could be achieved..
However, the progress recorded in linguistics in the 1960’s led to a science of translation as shown in Eugene A. Nida’s Towards a science of translation (1964). Wolfram Wills used a similar terminology and in 1993 Gentzler’s use of the plural term translation theories reflected the diversity of contemporary trends in translation. It was James Holmes that introduced that term which is widely accepted nowadays, i.e. translation studies. He even suggested a map of the discipline with all the branches it had to include. And in 1976, Andre Lefevere defined translation studies as “the discipline that concerns itself with the problems raised by the production and description of translations.” Its goal is “to produce a comprehensive theory which can also be used as a guideline for the production of translations.” (1978:234)
As regards to the meanings given to the word translation (Bell 1991:13), it can refer to:translating – as the process, that is the activity of translating rather than the entity, the tangible object itself; translation – as the product of the process of translation (translating), that is the translated text; translation – the abstract concept which deals with both the process of translating and the product of that process.
Translation is thus “the substitution of a text in one language for a text in another language” (J. C. Catford 1965); “an attempt to replace a written message/statement by the same message/statement in another language” (P. Newmark 1981). Translating, one the other hand, means “to reproduce in the receptor language the closest natural euivalent in the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style” (E. Nda 1964).
The universalist approach regards translation as an agreement between the two LCs involved to transfer signification on a common convertibility basis as long as it is not detrimental to the specific differences between cultures. The possibility of exchanging meaning similarly implies some degree of universality in the definition of thought and in the identification of reality. This does not necessarily imply that men are supposed to think alike or that reality is exactly the same all over the world.
In all essentials, translation is conceived as a process of transference on the criterion of equivalence.
The opposite theoretical conception is not necessarily a fundamental contradiction of the former. The relativist conception confronts us with the idealistic concept of interactions as an alternative to both separateness and confusion of differences. It is based on the radical differences existing between cultures and, consequently, between the individual participants and the specific conditions of the act of communication. In addition, each act of meaning productions determines alterations in the factors involved in communication including the medium in which it is achieved.
Humboldt thought that “language is a ‘third universe’ midway between the phenomenal reality of the ‘empirical world’ and the internalized structures of consciousness.”The relationships that exist between cultures are a natural extension of this perception of the process of signification. Cultural relationships are regulated by a complex interplay of attraction, repulsion, and cross fertilization. As Hewson and Martin (1991:38) point out, when cultures do not communicate, they are bound to regress or at least lose some of their distinctive ‘edges’. According to Steiner (1983:127), the role of translation is to determine this process of cross-determination since “in translation the dialectic of unison and plurality is dramatically at work.”
The variational approach, which was suggested by Hewson and Martin (1991:39), is an attempt at conciliating these two already mentioned contradictory options. There is no need for a deep scientific research to reach the conclusion that both universalist and relativist theories somehow distort the reality of the information which communication is supposed to convey. Therefore, the variational concept provides a good compromise between cultural universals in the universalist approach and irreductible cultural differences in the relativist approach.
Since the early 60’s discourse on translation has developed from a strictly linguistic stance (word and sentence levels) to broader pragmatic, textual and functionalist perspectives, and from the examination of the text in isolation to the whole socio-cultural context in which texts are produced and received.
After having adopted Pierce’s theory of signs and meanings, Jakobson (1959:232-239) states that for linguists, also, “ as mere users of words, the meaning of any linguistic sign lies in its translating into other alternative sign”. Therefore, translation represents the perpetual and unavoidable condition that the significance of a word presupposes. For Jakobson, the translating of the verbal signs falls into three classes:
Intralingual translation, or rewording – we translate/interpret a verbal sign by means of other signs belonging to the same language; Pierce suggested that any kind of definition or explanation is, in fact, a translation.
E.g., “authenticate” may be rendered by “to prove valid/ genuine/ true”
Interlingual translation or translation proper – an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language.
E.g., “authenticate” is to be rendered in Romanian by “a autentifica”
Intersemiotic translation or transmutation – verbal signs are interpreted by means of signs of nonverbal sign system, i.e. pictorial, mathematical, musical signs.
In all essential, the first two categories are, to a certain extent, similar. Even within the same language, synonymy very seldom presupposes total equivalence. To rephrase an utterance is to produce something more or, even something less than the previous one; when one makes an attempt at defining or explaining something by means of other words than those existing in the standard definition, the result will unavoidable be an approximation. Hence the mere act of rephrasing is evaluative.
As Jakobson puts it, “in a very similar way total equivalence does not exist between code units when interlingual translation is involved”. Intralingual translation presupposes the substitution of a unit of the code with another unit, while intrelingual translation presupposes the substitution of some larger units that Jakobsos refers to as messages. Translation is “an indirect language; the translator decodes and transmits a messages received from other source. Thus translation presupposes two equivalent messages belonging to two different codes”. (Jakobson 1959:239)
Being an interpretation, translation goes beyond the limits of the verbal medium. Being, in fact, a model of comprehension and understanding of the potential ideas contained in a message, an analysis of translation should also include inter-semiotic forms such as: the drawing of a graphic, the building of a sentence by means of dance or the description of a state of mind by means of music.
1.4.Fidelity in translation
Equivalence has always been a kernel concept in translation and its definition, relevance and applicability within the field of translation theory have caused controversy. Debates about equivalence have marked the development of translation studies in the past fifty years, forming a significant testing ground for hypotheses concerning the institutional legitimacy of the discipline.
Since ancient times , translators have observed that different situations call for different renderings. Sometimes it was a dilemma whether to choose a word-for-word translation rather than to adjust the message to the target audience. As an attempt to solve this problem, Cicero (106-43 B.C.) stated:
If I render word for word, the result will sound uncouth, and if compelled by necessity I alter anything in the order or wording, I shall seem to have departed from the function of a translator. (De optimo genere oratorum v.14)
(Nord 1997:4)
Later on, Bible translators such as Jerome (348-420) and Martin Luther (1483-1546) considered that, especially when translating extracts from the Bible, there are parts where nothing must be modified, including the word order, and other parts where it is more important to adapt the message to the target reader’s expectations.
The translator Eugene Nida was the one to name the two possibilities ˝formal equivalence˝ and ˝dynamic equivalence˝. Even if, at first, the two terms were invented to describe ways of translating the Bible, they are applicable to any translation.
According to Nida, ˝dynamic equivalence˝ denotes equivalence of extralinguistic communicative effect:
A translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression, and tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant within the context of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context in order to comprehend the message. (Nida 1964:159)
(Nord 1997:5)
The notion of culture is essential to considering the implications for translation and despite the differences in opinion as to whether language is part of culture or not, the two notions appear to be inseparable. Nida confers equal importance to both linguistic and cultural differences between the source language and target language and concludes that
differences between cultures may cause more severe complications for the translator than do differences in language structure.
(Nida 1964:130)
It is further explained that parallels in culture often provide a common understanding despite significant formal shifts in the translation. Language and culture are interdependent, meaning that one can not exist without the other. Linguistic notions of transferring meaning are seen as being only part of the translation process, a whole set of extra-linguistic criteria must also be considered. Thus, when translating, it is important to consider not only the lexical impact on the target language reader, but also the manner in which cultural aspects may be perceived and make translating decisions accordingly. Some translators may place the emphasis on culture, which could be meaningful to initiated readers, but on the other hand, for the general readership, this could cause problems and limit the comprehension of certain aspects.
According to Eugene Nida, a translator has to pay great attention to the degree of cultural relativity between languages. For instance, there are languages that are not related, but share similar cultural aspects, and cases where both the language and culture have nothing in common. That is why the translator has to find the best approach for his translation, and be aware of the so-called ˝΄false friends΄, borrowed or cognate words which seem to be equivalent, but are not always so ˝ (Nida 1964: 130). As an example, the terms ΄cont΄ in Romanian -ansamblu de operații constând din debit și credit , care exprimă valoric existența și mișcarea unui mijloc sau proces economic într-o anumită perioadă de timp- (DEX online, http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=cont), and the term ΄count΄ in English – to say numbers in order, usually starting at one- (Microsoft [anonimizat]).
Language and culture may thus be seen as being closely related and both aspects must be considered for translation.
In his book, Principles of correspondence, Nida defines the formal equivalence as:
Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. In such a translation one is concerned with such correspondences as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to concept. Viewed from this formal orientation, one is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language.
(Nida 1964:129)
Formal equivalence consists of a target language (TL) item which represents the closest equivalent of a source language (SL) word or phrase. There are not always formal equivalents between language pairs and these formal equivalents should be used wherever possible if the translation aims at achieving formal rather than dynamic equivalence. The use of formal equivalents might at times have serious implications in the target text (TT) since the translation will not be easily understood by the target audience. A formal equivalence translation is good to the extent that its words accurately convey the meaning of the original words. However, a literal rendering can result in awkward English or in a misunderstanding of the author's intent. Formal equivalent translations must be much more careful to render, as closely as possible, the English equivalent to what is physically there in the original language. Usually, a formal equivalent translation tries not to modify the grammatical units, the meaning of the terms in the source text (ST), attempts not to split the sentences, and sometimes it retains the original punctuation, such as marks of punctuation, paragraph breaks and poetic indentation. Nevertheless, this type of translation can prove difficult to read, because of the numerous grammar dissimilarities in various languages.
Here is an example of three short texts translated using formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence: (The three texts represent verses from the Bible, on the left is the translation from the Message version, which is considered a dynamic equivalence translation, and on the right is the King James version, which is considered a formal equivalence translation.)
(taken from http://thekingdomcome.com/bible_matters)
Another element of the formal equivalence is the ΄gloss translation΄, in which the translator attempts to reproduce as literally and meaningfully as possible the form and content of the original.
(Nida 1964:129)
In a text, gloss translation is to be avoided, because the result can be a strange meaning of the source text. However, there are cases when it is aimed that the readership understands as much as he can of the customs, manner of thought and means of expression. Such translations are, in most cases, provided with a series of footnotes. In order to illustrate gloss translation, here are a few examples:
˝It΄s raining cats and dogs.˝ → ˝Plouă câini și pisici.˝ (the more suitable translation would be ΄Plouă torențial.΄ or ΄Plouă cu găleata.΄)
˝mouse˝ → ˝șoarece˝ (but when talking about computers, ΄mouse΄ should be translated as ΄cursor mecanic΄)
˝The Last Supper˝ → ˝Ultima Cină˝ (Since this syntagma is written in capitals, it is obvious that it stands for a name, and that is Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting. In Romanian, this painting is known under the name of ΄Cina cea de taină΄. )
Dynamic equivalence is defined as a translation principle according to which a translator seeks to translate the meaning of the original in such a way that the target language (TL) wording will trigger the same impact on the target text (TT) audience as the original wording did upon the source text (ST) audience. Dynamic Equivalence is not following a word for word translation but changing, adding, or subtracting from the original to make it flow as the translator sees fit. It is a step up from paraphrasing. The author of a paraphrase is not trying to communicate word level truth. He is giving us his own interpretation of what he thinks the text means. He is giving us concept level communication.
If you take a dynamic equivalence approach to translation as a technique instead of verbal equivalence or formal equivalence–that is, the forms and the words being rendered from Hebrew or Greek into English as closely as possible–if you take the position that it really doesn't matter what the words are, what difference does it make which text you use? What difference does the Greek or Hebrew text make? You can change it any time you wish." I refer again to the article in the NRB by Harry Conay, printed in the Foundation magazine, "The more one descends on this scale from literalism to paraphrase, the more editorial interpretation takes place–and with it greater potential for human bias and error. It has been common practice for translators and editors to stress their truthfulness to the original language based on a study of extant manuscripts; few have had the hubris to inform readers they have deliberately altered, added to, and otherwise improved God's Word. Until now.
(Dr. D.A.Waite 1992:98)
Frequently, the form of the original text is changed; but as long as the change follows the rules of back transformation in the source language, of contextual consistency in the transfer, and of transformation in the receptor language, the message is preserved and the translation is faithful. A dynamic-equivalence translation focuses on translating the message of the original-language text. It ensures that the meaning of the text is readily apparent to the contemporary reader. This allows the message to come through with immediacy, without requiring the reader to struggle with foreign idioms and awkward syntax. It also facilitates serious study of the text's message and clarity in both devotional and public reading. Because dynamic equivalence avoids strict adherence to the original text in favor of a more natural rendering in the target language, it is sometimes used when the readability of the translation is more important than the preservation of the original wording. Thus a novel might be translated with greater use of dynamic equivalence so that it may read well, while in diplomacy the precise original meaning may be the uppermost consideration, favoring greater adherence to formal equivalence. Translators who follow the dynamic equivalence philosophy of translation emphasize the reader rather than the words of the original text. If something in the original text is deemed by the translators to be too difficult or obscure for the modern reader, the original text is translated with a "dynamic equivalent" that is believed to communicate the same general concept. Sometimes this theory of translation is described as "thought for thought" translation as opposed to an essentially literal "word for word" type of translation.
An illustration of the difference between essentially literal and dynamic equivalence translations is found in 1 Kings 2:10, which says, in the King James Version, “So David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.” This wording is followed by most essentially literal translations because that is literally what the Hebrew text says (using Hebrew words for "slept" and "with" and "fathers"). But dynamic equivalence translators would object that people today don't say someone "slept with his fathers" – they just say that he "died." So the New Living Translation (NLT), for example, says, "Then David died and was buried in the city of David." The translation is a “thought-for-thought” translation because the main thought or idea – the idea that David died and was buried — is expressed in a way that modern speakers would use to express the same idea today.
(taken from http://www.genderneutralbibles.com/seven.php)
The first major drawback of the dynamic equivalence is that it is not even attempting to be a word for word translation but really is just an editor’s interpretation of the text. If the editor’s interpretation is incorrect so shall the translation, but if the interpretation is correct then it may help the reader understand the original intent of the author. The question is, how do we determine if the editor’s interpretation is correct?
Translating Fixed expressions (FEI)
Idiomaticity of language plays a pivotal role in both foundation and comprehension of every language. In other words, all languages have idioms- a string of words whose meaning is different from the meaning conveyed by the individual words. Languages abound in such idioms. The same concept of these idioms may be expressed by a different word in another language and these two concepts may be equivalent culturally, though not lexically. A literal or word- for- word translation of them into another language will not make sense. The form can not be kept, but the receptor language word or phrase which has the equivalent meaning will be the correct one to use in the translation. The language fixity of idioms makes their translation sometimes rather problematic, and idioms are indeed considered as one of the most complicated elements of
language in terms of their translatability
Although most idioms resist variation in form, some are more flexible than others. A person's competence in actively using the idioms and fixed expressions of a foreign language hardly ever matches that of a native speaker. The majority of translators working into a foreign language cannot hope to achieve the same sensitivity that native speakers seem to have for judging when and how an idiom can be manipulated. This lends support to the argument that translators should only work into their language of habitual use or mother tongue.
Assuming that a professional translator would, under normal circumstances, work only into his/her language of habitual use, the difficulties associated with being able to use idioms and fixed expressions correctly in a foreign language need not be addressed here. The main problems that idiomatic and fixed expressions pose in translation relate to two main areas: the ability to recognize and interpret an idiom correctly; and the difficulties involved in rendering the various aspects of meaning that an idiom or a fixed expression conveys into the target language. These difficulties are much more pronounced in the case of idioms than they are in the case of fixed expressions.
As far as idioms are concerned, the first difficulty that a translator comes across is being able to recognize that s/he is dealing with an idiomatic expression. This is not always so obvious. There are various types of idioms, some more easily recognizable than others. Those which are easily recognizable include expressions which violate truth conditions, such as It's raining cats and dogs, throw caution to the winds, storm in a tea cup, jump down someone's throat, and food for thought. They also include expressions which seem ill-formed because they do not follow the grammatical rules of the language, for example trip the light fantastic, blow someone to kingdom come, put paid to, the powers that be, by and large, and the world and his friend. Expressions which start with like (simile-like structures) also tend to suggest that they should not be interpreted literally. These include idioms such as like a bat out of hell and like water off a duck's back. Generally speaking, the more difficult an expression is to understand and the less sense it makes in a given context, the more likely a translator will recognize it as an idiom. Because they do not following text are easy to recognize as idioms (assuming one is not already familiar with them). Provided a translator has access to good references works and monolingual dictionaries of idioms, or, better still, is able to consult native speakers of the language, opaque idioms which do not make sense for one reason or another can actually be a blessing in disguise. The very fact that s/he cannot make sense of an expression in a particular context will alert the translator to the presence of an idiom of some sort.
There are two cases in which an idiom can be easily misinterpreted if one is not already familiar with it.
a) Some idioms are 'misleading'; they seem transparent because they offer a reasonable literal interpretation and their idiomatic meanings are not necessarily signaled in the surrounding text. A large number of idioms in English, and probably all languages, have both a literal and an idiomatic meaning, for example go out with ('have a romantic or sexual relationship with someone') and take someone for a ride ('deceive or cheat someone in some way'). Such idioms lend themselves easily to manipulation by speakers and writers who will sometimes play on both their literal and idiomatic meanings. In this case, a translator who is not familiar with the idiom in question may easily accept the literal interpretation and miss the play on idiom
b) An idiom in the source language may have a very close counterpart in the target language which looks similar on the surface but has a totally or partially different meaning. For example, the idiomatic question Has the cat had/got your tongue? is used in English to urge someone to answer a question or contribute to a conversation, particularly when their failure to do so becomes annoying. Instances of superficially identical or similar idioms which have different meanings in the source and target languages lay easy traps for the unwary translator who is not familiar with the source-language idiom and who may be tempted simply to impose a target-language interpretation on it.
Apart from being alert to the way speakers and writers manipulate certain features of idioms and to the possible confusion which could arise from similarities in form between source and target expressions, a translator must also consider the collocational environment which surrounds any expression whose meaning is not readily accessible. Idiomatic and fixed expressions have individual collocational patterns. They form collocations with other items in the text as single units and enter into lexical sets which are different from those of their individual words. Take, for instance, the idiom to have cold feet. Cold as a separate item may collocate with words like weather, winter, feel, or country. Feet on its own will perhaps collocate with socks, chilblain, smelly, etc. however, having cold feet, in its idiomatic use, has nothing necessarily to do with winter, feet, or chilblains and will therefore generally be used with a different set of collocates
Translation typically has been used to transfer written or spoken SL texts to equivalent written or spoken TL texts. In general, the purpose of translation is to reproduce various kinds of texts—including religious, literary, scientific, and philosophical texts—in another language and thus making them available to wider readers. If language were just a classification for a set of general or universal concepts, it would be easy to translate from an SL to a TL; furthermore, under the circumstances the process of learning an L2 would be much easier than it actually is. In this regard, Culler (1976) believes that languages are not nomenclatures and the concepts of one language may differ radically from those of another, since each language articulates or organizes the world differently, and languages do not simply name categories; they articulate their own (p.21-2). The conclusion likely to be drawn from what Culler (1976) writes is that one of the troublesome problems of translation is the disparity among languages. The bigger the gap between the SL and the TL, the more difficult the transfer of message from the former to the latter will be.
The translation of idioms takes us a stage further in considering the question of meaning and translation, for idioms, like puns, are culture bound. When two languages have corresponding idiomatic expressions that render the idea of prevarication, and so in the process of interlingual translation one idiom is substituted for another. That substitution is made not on the basis of the linguistic elements in the phrase, nor on the basis of a corresponding or similar image contained in the phrase, but on the function of the idiom. The SL phrase is replaced by a TL phrase that serves the same purpose in the TL culture, and the process involves the substitution of SL sign for TL sign.
Dagut's distinction between 'translation' and 'reproduction', like Catford's distinction between 'literal' and 'free' translation does not take into account the view that sees translation as semiotic transformation. In his definition of translation equivalence, Popovic distinguishes four types:
(1) Linguistic equivalence, where there is homogeneity on the linguistic level of both SL and TL texts, i.e. word for word translation.
(2) Paradigmatic equivalence, where there is equivalence of 'the elements of a paradigmatic expressive axis', i.e. elements of grammar, which Popovic sees as being a higher category than lexical equivalence.
(3) Stylistic (translational) equivalence, where there is 'functional equivalence of elements in both original and translation aiming at an expressive identity with an invariant of identical meaning'.
(4) Textual (syntagmatic) equivalence, where there is equivalence of the syntagmatic structuring of a text, i.e. equivalence of form and shape.
Translation involves far more than replacement of lexical and grammatical items between languages and, as can be seen in the translation of idioms, the process may involve discarding the basic linguistic elements of the SL text so as to achieve Popovic's goal of 'expressive identity' between the SL and TL texts. But once the translator moves away from close linguistic equivalence, the problems of determining the exact nature of the level of equivalence aimed for begin to emerge.
Generally speaking, collocations are fairly flexible patterns of language which allow several variations in form. For example, deliver a letter, delivery of a letter, a letter has been delivered, and having delivered a letter are all acceptable collocations. In addition, although the meaning of a word often depends on what other words it occurs with, we can still say that the word in question has an individual meaning in a given collocation. Thus, dry cow means a cow which does not produce milk. We can still identify a particular meaning associated with the word dry in this collocation, and, of course, cow still retains its familiar meaning of 'a farm animal kept for its milk'. Idioms and fixed expressions are at the extreme end of the scale from collocations in one or both of these areas: flexibility of patterning and transparency of meaning. They are frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form and, in the case of idioms, often carry meanings which cannot be deduced from their individual components.
In other words, one class of figurative expressions which occurs in all expressions of "at least two words which cannot be understood literally and which function as a unit semantically" (Beekman and Callow 1974: 121). An idiom such as bury the hatchet ('to become friendly again after a disagreement or a quarrel') or the long and the short of it ('the basic facts of the situation') allows no variation in form under normal circumstances. Unless s/he is consciously making a joke or attempting a play on words, a speaker or writer cannot normally do any of the following with an idiom:
1. change the order of the words in it (e.g. *'the short and the long of it');
2. delete a word from it (e.g. *'spill beans');
3. add a word to it (e.g. *'the very long and short of it'; *'face the classical music');
4. replace a word with another (e.g. *'the tall and the short of it'; *'bury a hatchet');
5. change its grammatical structure (e.g. *'the music was faced').
As their name suggests, fixed expressions such as having said that, as a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen, and all the best, as well as proverbs such as practice what you preach and waste not want not, allow little or no variation in form. In this respect, they behave very much like idioms. Unlike idioms, however, fixed expressions and proverbs often have fairly transparent meanings. The meaning of as a matter of fact can easily be deduced from the meanings of the words which constitute it, unlike the meaning of an idiom such as pull a fast one or fill the bill. But in spite of its transparency, the meaning of a fixed expression or proverb is somewhat more than the sum meanings of its words; the expression has to be taken as one unit to establish meaning. This is true of any fixed, recurring pattern of the language. Encountering any fixed expression conjures up in the mind of the reader or hearer all the aspects of experience which are associated with the typical contexts in which the expression is used. It is precisely this feature which lies behind the widespread use of fixed and semi-fixed expressions in any language. They encapsulate all the stereotyped aspects of experience and therefore perform a stabilizing function in communication. Situation- or register- specific formulae such as Mary happy returns, Merry Christmas, Further to your letter of …, and Yours sincerely are particularly good examples of the stabilizing role and the special status that a fixed expression can assume in communication.
Examples are given below by giving a very literal translation in the first column and an idiomatic English equivalent in the second column (Ham 1956: 2).
The same translation principles apply for idioms as for other figures of speech. Sometimes it will be necessary to translate with a nonfigurative expression, but sometimes a good receptor language idiom may be used. The translator needs to learn to recognize the idioms and other figures of speech of the source text. The real danger comes in translating an idiom literally, since the result will usually be nonsense in the receptor language.
The translator also needs to develop a sensitivity to the use of idioms in the receptor language and use them naturally to make the translation lively and keep the style of the source language. There will often be words in the source language which are not idioms, but are best translated with an idiom. For example, the word peace is often translated with the idiom to sit down in the heart in Africa (Nida and Taber 1969: 106).
Although most idioms resist variation in form, some are more flexible than others. A person's competence in actively using the idioms and fixed expressions of a foreign language hardly ever matches that of a native speaker. The majority of translators working into a foreign language cannot hope to achieve the same sensitivity that native speakers seem to have for judging when and how an idiom can be manipulated. This lends support to the argument that translators should only work into their language of habitual use or mother tongue.
Assuming that a professional translator would, under normal circumstances, work only into his/her language of habitual use, the difficulties associated with being able to use idioms and fixed expressions correctly in a foreign language need not be addressed here. The main problems that idiomatic and fixed expressions pose in translation relate to two main areas: the ability to recognize and interpret an idiom correctly; and the difficulties involved in rendering the various aspects of meaning that an idiom or a fixed expression conveys into the target language. These difficulties are much more pronounced in the case of idioms than they are in the case of fixed expressions. As far as idioms are concerned, the first difficulty that a translator comes across is being able to recognize that s/he is dealing with an idiomatic expression. This is not always so obvious. There are various types of idioms, some more easily recognizable than others. Those which are easily recognizable include expressions which violate truth conditions, such as It's raining cats and dogs, throw caution to the winds, storm in a tea cup, jump down someone's throat, and food for thought. They also include expressions which seem ill-formed because they do not follow the grammatical rules of the language, for example trip the light fantastic, blow someone to kingdom come, put paid to, the powers that be, by and large, and the world and his friend. Expressions which start with like (simile-like structures) also tend to suggest that they should not be interpreted literally. These include idioms such as like a bat out of hell and like water off a duck's back. Generally speaking, the more difficult an expression is to understand and the less sense it makes in a given context, the more likely a translator will recognize it as an idiom. Because they do not following text are easy to recognize as idioms (assuming one is not already familiar with them).
Provided a translator has access to good references works and monolingual dictionaries of idioms, or, better still, is able to consult native speakers of the language, opaque idioms which do not make sense for one reason or another can actually be a blessing in disguise. The very fact that s/he cannot make sense of an expression in a particular context will alert the translator to the presence of an idiom of some sort.
There are two cases in which an idiom can be easily misinterpreted if one is not already familiar with it.
a) Some idioms are 'misleading'; they seem transparent because they offer a reasonable literal interpretation and their idiomatic meanings are not necessarily signaled in the surrounding text. A large number of idioms in English, and probably all languages, have both a literal and an idiomatic meaning, for example go out with ('have a romantic or sexual relationship with someone') and take someone for a ride ('deceive or cheat someone in some way'). Such idioms lend themselves easily to manipulation by speakers and writers who will sometimes play on both their literal and idiomatic meanings.
b) An idiom in the source language may have a very close counterpart in the target language which looks similar on the surface but has a totally or partially different meaning. For example, the idiomatic question Has the cat had/got your tongue? is used in English to urge someone to answer a question or contribute to a conversation, particularly when their failure to do so becomes annoying. Instances of superficially identical or similar idioms which have different meanings in the source and target languages lay easy traps for the unwary translator who is not familiar with the source-language idiom and who may be tempted simply to impose a target-language interpretation on it.
Apart from being alert to the way speakers and writers manipulate certain features of idioms and to the possible confusion which could arise from similarities in form between source and target expressions, a translator must also consider the collocational environment which surrounds any expression whose meaning is not readily accessible. Idiomatic and fixed expressions have individual collocational patterns. They form collocations with other items in the text as single units and enter into lexical sets which are different from those of their individual words. Take, for instance, the idiom to have cold feet. Cold as a separate item may collocate with words like weather, winter, feel, or country. Feet on its own will perhaps collocate with socks, chilblain, smelly, etc. however, having cold feet, in its idiomatic use, has nothing necessarily to do with winter, feet, or chilblains and will therefore generally be used with a different set of collocates.
The ability to distinguish senses by collocation is an invaluable asset to a translator working form a foreign language. It is often subsumed under the general umbrella of 'relying on the context to disambiguate meanings', which, among other things, means using our knowledge of collocational patterns to decode the meaning of a word or a stretch of language. Using our knowledge of collocational patterns may not always tell us what an idiom means but it could easily help us in many cases to recognize an idiom, particularly one which has a literal as well as a non-literal meaning.
Once an idiom or fixed expression has been recognized and interpreted correctly, the next step is to decide how to translate it into the target language. The difficulties involved in translating an idiom are totally different from those involved in interpreting it. Here, the question is not whether a given idiom is transparent, opaque, or misleading. An opaque expression may be easier to translate than a transparent one. The main difficulties involved in translating idioms and fixed expressions may be summarized as follows:
a) An idiom or fixed expression may have no equivalent in the target language. The way a language chooses to express, or not express, various meanings cannot be predicted and only occasionally matches the way another language chooses to express the same meanings. One language may express a given meaning by means of a single word, another may express it by means of a transparent fixed expression, a third may express it by means of an idiom, and so on. It is therefore unrealistic to expect to find equivalent idioms and expressions in the target languages as matter of course.
Like single words, idioms and fixed expressions may be culture-specific. Formulae such as Merry Christmas and say when which relate to specific social or religious occasions provide good examples. Basnett-McGuire (1980: 21) explains that the expression say when 'is… directly linked to English social behavioral patterns' and suggests that 'the translator putting the phrase into French or German has to contend with the problem of the non-existence of a similar convention in either TL culture'.
Idioms and fixed expressions which contain culture-specific items are not necessarily untranslatable. It is not the specific items an expression contains but rather the meaning it conveys and its association with culture-specific contexts which can make it untranslatable or difficult to translate. It is not the specific items an expression contains but rather the meaning it conveys and its association with culture-specific contexts which can make it untranslatable or difficult to translate.
b) An idiom or fixed expression may have a similar counterpart in the target language, but its context of use may be different; the two expressions may have different connotations, for instance, or they may not be pragmatically transferable. To sing a different tune is an English idiom which means to say or do something that signals a change in opinion because it contradicts what one has said or done before
c) An idiom may be used in the source text in both its literal and idiomatic senses at the same time. Unless the target-language idiom corresponds to the source-language idiom both in form and in meaning, the play on idiom cannot be successfully reproduced in the target text. E.g. He was deaf to his father's advice. Or: I ran short of money last week.
d) The very convention of using idioms in written discourse, the contexts in which they can be used, and their frequency of use may be different in the source and target languages.
Fernando and Flavell (1981: 85) discuss the difference in rhetorical effect of using idioms in general and of using specific types of idiom in the source and target languages and quite rightly conclude that 'Translation is an exacting art. Idiom more than any other feature of language demands that the translator be not only accurate but highly sensitive to the rhetorical nuances of the language.' The way in which an idiom or a fixed expression can be translated into another language depends on many factors. It is not only a question of whether an idiom with a similar meaning is available in the target language. Other factors include, for example, the significance of the specific lexical items which constitute the idiom, i.e. whether they are manipulated elsewhere in the source text, as well as the appropriateness or inappropriateness of using idiomatic language in a given register in the target language. The acceptability or non-acceptability of using any of the strategies described below will therefore depend on the context in which a given idiom is translated. The first strategy described, that of finding an idiom of similar meaning and similar form in the target language, may seem to offer the ideal solution, but that is not necessarily always the case. Questions of style, register, and rhetorical effect must also be taken into consideration. Fernando and Flavell are correct in warning us against the 'strong unconscious urge in most translators to search hard for an idiom in the receptor-language, however inappropriate it may be' (1981, 82).
One strategy which cannot be adequately illustrated, simply because it would take up a considerable amount of space, is the strategy of compensation. Briefly, this means that one may either omit or play down a feature such as idiomaticity at the point where it occurs in the source text and introduce it elsewhere in the target text. This strategy is not restricted to idiomaticity or fixed expressions and may be used to make up for any loss or meaning, emotional force, or stylistic effect which may not be possible to reproduce directly at a given point in the target text.
Using the typical phraseology of the target language- its natural collocations, its own fixed and semi-fixed expressions, the right level of idiomaticity, and so on- will greatly enhance the readability of your translations. Getting this level right means that your target text will feel less 'foreign' and, other factors being equal, may even pass for an original. But naturalness and readability are also affected by other linguistic features. Although some stylists consider translation "sprinkled with footnotes" undesirable, their uses can assist the TT readers to make better judgment of the ST contents. In general, it seems that the procedures 'functional equivalent' and 'notes' would have a higher potential for conveying the concepts underlying the culture-specific concepts embedded in a text; moreover, it can be claimed that a combination of these strategies would result in a more accurate understanding of the culture-specific concepts than other procedures.
Various strategies opted for by translators in rendering idioms seem to play a crucial role in recognition and perception of connotations carried by them. If a novice translator renders a literary text without paying adequate attention to the idioms, the connotations are likely not to be transferred as a result of the translator's failure to acknowledge them. They will be entirely lost to the majority of the TL readers; consequently, the translation will be ineffective.
It seems necessary for an acceptable translation to produce the same (or at least similar) effects on the TT readers as those created by the original work on its readers. A translator does not appear to be successful in his challenging task of efficiently rendering the culture-specific concepts and figurative language when he sacrifices, or at least minimizes, the effect of idioms in favor of preserving graphical or lexical forms of source language. In other words, a competent translator is well-advised not to deprive the TL reader of enjoying, or even recognizing, the idioms either in the name of fidelity or brevity.
It can be claimed that the best translation method seem to be the one which allows translator to utilize 'notes.' Furthermore, employing 'notes' in the translation, both as a translation strategy and a translation procedure, seems to be indispensable so that the foreign language readership could benefit from the text as much as the ST readers do.
2.1.Rosamund Moon's classification of FEIs
The English language is very rich in the use of idioms. They are used in formal style and in slang. Idioms may appear in poetry, literature, in Shakespeare language and, even, in Bible.
Rosamund Moon in her book Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English: a Corpus-Based Approach (1998) defines idiom as
“an ambiguous term, used in conflicting ways. In lay or general use, idiom has two main meanings. First, idiom is a particular means of expressing something in language, music, art, and so on, which characterizes a person or group. Secondly (and much less commonly in English), an idiom is a particular lexical collocation or phrasal lexeme peculiar to a language”.
(Moon, 1998, p.3)
Moon (1998, p.4) claims, that idiom denotes a general term for many kinds of multi-word expressions ‘whether semantically opaque or not’. To understand it better it is necessary to look at the typology that is proposed by Fernando (1996, p.35), who distinguishes three sub-classes of idioms:
1.Pure Idioms. Fernando defines pure idiom as ‘a type of conventionalized, non literal multiword expression’ (Fernando, 1996, p.36) Pure idioms are always non literal, however they may be either invariable or may have little variation. In addition, idioms are said to be opaque (Fernando, 1996, p.32). For example, pure idiom to spill the beans has nothing to do with the beans.
2. Semi-idioms. Semi-idioms are said to have one or more literal constituents and one with non literal sub sense. Therefore, this type of idioms is considered partially opaque (Fernando, 1996, p.60). For example, foot the bill which means ‘pay’ is semi-idiom.
3. Literal idioms. This sub-class of idioms are either invariable or allow little variation. In addition, literal idioms are considered to be transparent as they can be interpreted on the basis of their parts. For example, of course, in any case, for certain.
Rosamund Moon's central argument is that fixed expressions can only be fully understood if they are considered together with the texts in which they occur. She provides an overview of this area of lexis in current English. Writing from a lexicologicalrather than a computationalpoint of view, she gives a detailed, descriptivist account of the findings of research into several thousand fixed expressions and idioms, as evidenced in the corpus text, including information about frequencies, syntax, lexical forms and variations, and metaphoricality. The author argues that examination of corpus text raises questions about many received ideas on fixed expressions and idioms, and suggests that new or revised use-centred models are required. Later chapters of the book demonstrate the ideological and discoursal significance of idioms, paying particular attention to the ways in which they convey evaluations and have roles with respect to the information structure and cohesion of texts.
Idioms are learned and reused as single lexical items, yet they are not single words. While the canonicalform of an idiom (the citation form used for dictionary definitions) is fixed for the purposes of language description, the reality of language in use is that most idioms can undergo a controlled amount of variation to their typical realisation. There is some divergence in opinion on this point between theoretical and descriptive studies on idioms. Pre-corpus scholars defined idioms as being fixed or frozen in form, in reference to the fact that they resist morpho-syntactic change; now it is more common to find them described as stable (Ćermák 1988) or of limited flexibility(Barkema 1996: 128). This difference in terminology is due to the fact that much of the standard literature on idiom deals only with what is theoretically possible, with the result that the categories and principles devised, while extremely detailed and rigorous, fail to reflect adequately the attested behaviour of idioms in use.
Successive studies informed by corpus data, notably Moon (1998), have challenged the notion of fixity in light of the observation that most idioms do in fact allow variation to occur, so long as some vestige of the canonical form survives. Demonstrating the syntactic and semantic stability of idioms has been one of the prime considerations of metaphor scholars, especially those working within the generativist tradition. Idioms are said to be transformationally deficient, and in order to prove the case that non-canonical realisations of idioms cause their meaning to revert to literal, they can be subjected to a series of tests. The tests adopted fall into two broad categories: lexical and grammatical. The lexical tests include the augmentation test (addition of lexical constituents), the elimination test (deletion of constituents), the substitution test (replacing a constituent is fixed. The grammatical tests include blocking of predication, blocking of the formation of comparative and superlative forms of adjectives, blocking of nominalization and blocking of passivisation (Gläser 1988: 268-269).
Transformation tests work within a theoretical vacuum, but they do not stand up well to empirical scrutiny. Even before the widespread use of computer corpora, criticisms were levelled against this method of idiom classification, because it fails tolook beyond the tested phrase and compare its behaviour to similar structures or semantically-related language items. Chafe (1968: 122) argues that the blocking of passivisation can be explained by the underlying meaning of an idiom, not its idiomaticity. Citing kick the bucket, he points out that the literal equivalent die would similarly fail the passivisation test (*to be died). The other transformation tests do little better, and are of limited relevance to those idioms which have no literal homonym (hue and cry).
The advent of linguistic corpora has allowed idiom scholars to put transformations and other theoretical considerations to the test. Corpus-based studies illustrate that lexical variation in idioms is a widespread phenomenon, not one restricted to the creation of special linguistic effects such as punning, humour and irony. In Moon ‘s (1998) study of fixed expressions and idioms in a 18 million word corpus, attested lexical and morpho-syntactic variation is described in detail (ibid: 75- 174). Moon reports that that approximately 40% of the idioms and othr fixed
phrases studied occurred in a variant form (ibid: 120). However, the larger the corpus is, the more variation occurs; in some cases the canonical form can be outnumbered by its variants (Philip, in press: 7).
If idioms are not fixed then, they do have a stable form which is learned as a multi-word lexical item. This canonical form is subject to exploitation in the normal course of language use, and so idioms can appear with lexical and grammatical alterations, in truncated and augmented forms, and in phrases which merely allude to the original.
The rules governing such exploitations have yet to be determined, but are believed to be predominantly conceptual and semantic in nature. It has been established that figurative expressions are not merely colourful add-ons to the lexicon, but that they contribute to its evaluative inventory (Carter 1997:159).
2.2.Chitra Fernando's classification of FEIs
Chitra Fernando has written a description of English idioms using the Birmingham corpus among other sources as background material . She has divided idioms and other idiomatic expressions according to various principles and aspects, one of witch is lexicogrammatical structure. This seems reasonable as Fernando’s main criterion for idioms is that they are either totally invariant or tolerate a limited amount of variation(e.g. pag 36).
In Chirtra Fernando's book, the theme of the ubiquity of idioms dominates Chapter two (Conventional ways of saying) and six (Idiomatic expressions as a vocabulary resource). Chapter two has short sections on Sri Lankan English and Australian English.
Chapter three of 'Idioms and Idiomaticity' shows how talk and writing are enlivened by unusual variation of common idioms e.g. red herring ' something used to deliberately draw attention away from the truth or from what is important in a situation': A seemingly solid case mounts against Wallace as the narrative darts like a fish through flashbacks and time shifts. Herrings, reddish aboundÉ. The scent of doubt (or is it herring?) is pervasive in a classic piece of work. (TV Guide 13-19 January 1992). Unusual combinations are also to be found giving bizarre images, if taken literally, which of course they are not meant to be. Some examples are:
ALP plans to tighten government fat cats' belts (The Sydney Morning Herald 13 May 1991:5)
"Children dying of AIDS are brushed under the carpet," she said. (The Sydney Morning Herald 13 January 1990:1) These examples bring out another important feature of many idioms: they can't be taken literally.
Chapter four of ' Idioms and Idiomaticity' deals with idioms used in talk and range from service encounters of various sorts to small talk and seminar discussions. This chapter deals with how the use of the right idioms promotes conviviality, especially by softening power play (I am afraid so, I am sorry to say etc); conversely, other idioms signal conflict and are used to heighten power play (you don't know what you're talking about, let me tell you, etc.)
Chapter five focuses on those expressions like in connection with, with regard to, on the one handÉ on the other, first and foremost, in the meantime etc., which lead to the composition of well connected pieces of writing where one point leads logically to another. Detailed analyses are given of texts, both long and short. Dr. Chirtra Fernando's description of English in Idioms and Idiomaticity and the conclusions drawn therein are based on a consideration of material gathered from talk, letters, the media, literature and academic writing. Her aim throughout has been to exemplify naturally occurring English, arguably also the most idiomatic.
Idioms and Idiomaticity could be useful to the general reader with an interest in language, especially those with an interest in communicative skill, for example media persons. It will be most useful to undergraduates and post-graduates and so will provide a good reference work for native and foreign speakers of English for this part of the vocabulary if required by university libraries and language centres. In ' Idioms and Idiomaticity' Dr. Fernando has kept technicalities to a minimum, assuming that the reader is familiar with basic grammatical terms and basic linguistic concepts.
A review on Dr. Chitra Fernando's book, 'Idioms and Idiomaticity by Peggy Goldsmith, part-time lecturer in English as a second language at the University of Western Sydney (Nepean) has been re-produced in the Australian Style Journal June 1997 issue as follows:
' There have been a few reference books that a teacher might turn to in order to explore the functions of idioms in the context of communication. This new publication by Fernando uses a Hallidayan functional grammatical framework, whilst keeping to aminimum of those grammatical terms essential to the connective functions inherent in idiomaticity. (There is a short glossary).
The Chapters dealing with conventional ways of saying things (Chapter 2), images of the world (Chap.3), interpersonal idiomatic expressions (Chap.4) and relational idiomatic expressions in exposition and narrative (Chap.5) have much to offer the teacher of English. A broad knowledge of idioms particularly in current use would seem to be a standard requirement of such a teacher. Whilst primary school teachers may prefer to focus on semantic aspects of idioms as students encounter them in reading or conversation, the secondary teacher of English literature and facilitator of essay writing will find this a useful text. As Fernando suggests " É.. Idioms offer familiar, succinct ways of getting across complex information packagesÉ." (p.143) to the language user.
Mainstream teachers of English, secondary ESL teachers and possibly some teachers in Intensive English Centres with advanced students of English would find much to assist them in their analysis of English literature and newspaper journal articles, especially in the area of imaginary.
In introducing idioms to trainee teachers of English to speakers of other languages, it seems to me that there are two dangers: (1) that idioms will go unrecognised or will be misunderstood; and (2) that they will be thought to be old-fashioned language and outside teachers' own language repertoire. Part of this difficulty lies in the fact that we are training significant numbers of teachers for whom English is not their first language, as well as educating students who are the first in their families to aspire to be university graduates. The implication here is that there is neither evidence in such students' background of a broad literary knowledge nor, frequently, of educated conversation in English. This is not a cause for despair but points to a need t ensure that teacher educators are skilled in linguistic as well as literary analysis.
Fernando reminds us that grasping only the stable basic meaning of words, whether idioms or non-idioms, is not enough. If language-users want advanced compositional and comprehension skills, they must acquire the ability to create and respond to variable contest-specific meaning deriving from a number of factors, including the etymological origins of words. (p.110). As an example, amongst idioms selected for detailed analysis by Fernando's red herring. The benefit of analysing a number of instances of such an idiom's use is suggested: i.e. the greater the clarity of " its informational components, its meaning and function, the greater its capacity for helping the language-user make sense of the world he/she inhabits". (p.112)
Chitra Fernando, in her book Idioms and Idiomaticity, makes a useful contribution by posing and answering a fourth: What are the functional uses of idioms in discourse?
She begins with a review of some of the work of others who have examined idioms. She divides their thoughts into two parts: those that concern lexically and grammatically "regular" idioms, such as those mentioned above, and those that deal with "idiosyncratic" idioms, that is, those that
involve either lexical or grammatical irregularities. Instances of lexically idiosyncratic idioms are kith and kin and hell[bentJ for leather, and of grammatically idiosyncratic instances, fancy free and the X-er the Y-er, as exemplified by the more the merrier. The author concludes this part of the book by making a few observations. First, the lexicon of English has a considerable number of verb + particle/ preposition idioms, as well as of body part idioms. Second, idiosyncratic idioms can arise from either productive or nonproductive lexicogrammatical patterns. An example of a productive pattern is the X-er the Y-er, and of a nonproductive one, fancy free. Finally, she suggests that language learners would have more difficulty acquiring nonproductive
idiosyncratic idioms, presumably because they have no recourse to a standard grammar rule or meaning composition.
Her lexicogrammatical classificatory scheme is not a discrete distinction of what is and what is not an idiom; rather, it is a continuum or scale. According to Fernando, all idioms are conventional expressions: The constituents habitually co-occur. The lexicogrammatical structures of idioms range from invariant to restrictively invariant with respect to word substitutions, additions, and deletions, as well as to grammatical transformations. Instances of invariant idioms are you're telling me and the tip of the iceberg, and of restrictively variant, rain/pour cats and dogs and keep one's cool/temper. No idiom has constituents that are freely variant. Moreover, idioms are multiword expressions. The shortest length is a two-word compound structure. Fernando claims that the maximum limit is a complex clause with no more than two subordinate clauses. The characteristic concerns semantic opacity, that is, the idiom's
meaning is not merely the sum of its constituents' meanings. Fernando maintains that a conventional multiword expression need not exhibit this property to be classified as in idiom. Rather, idioms show a range of literalness.
The second half of Chapter 2 introduces the major focus of the book, Fernando's classification of idioms by their discourse function. The author identifies three types: ideational, interpersonal, and relational. Each class is discussed in detail in the three chapters that follow.
Fernando claims that ideational idioms serve to relate either the discourse content itself or its characterization in terms of specificness. Idioms that focus on content meaning may refer to actions, events, activities, entities, or attributes of these things. Examples include do a U-turn, turning point, be in a pickle, a lounge lizard, and lily-white respectively. Content meaning ideational idioms may also express the evaluation of items, for example, matter-or-fact and a Trojan horse, or convey emotions, as in green with envy and walk on air.
Ideational idioms may refer to specificity, for instance, to be exact/precise and the question is, or nonspecificity and vagueness, for example, and so on and kind/sort of.
Ideational idioms tend to allow restricted variance in their lexicogrammatical structures. This feature is important in that language users can thereby produce more figurative, elaborate, and cohesive discourse. For instance, she compares the use of the standard idiom wave an olive branch to an attitudetinged variation wave an olive twig.
Interpersonal idioms communicate interactional strategies such as greetings and leavetaking, commands, agreement, opinion elicitation, and rejections.
Examples are bye for now, tell you what, say no more, what do you think? and come off it respectively. Such idioms, like ideational idioms, can also characterize the discourse message, but instead, they can convey newsworthiness, sincerity, calls for brevity, or doubt, as exemplified by guess what, believe you me, get to the point, and mind you respectively.
The author herself suggests a couple of strategies to help language learners acquire idioms more readily. She relates the use of writing advertising copy and composing dialogues that incorporate idioms. Another way is by inference in reading: Learners are given authentic texts containing an
idiom and are asked to determine the meaning of the idiomatic expression from the context.
2.3.Romanian scholars' views on proverbs.
The problem of defining a proverb appears to be as old as man’s interest in them. People who consciously used them or began to collect them in antiquity obviously needed to differentiate proverbs from other gnomic devices such as apothegms, maxims, aphorisms, quotations, etc.
It appears that to the mind of proverb users, i.e. the general population in all walks of life, the proverb contains a good dose of common sense, experience, wisdom and above all truth. Do such "definitions" still hold true today, or do modern adults in a technological society see proverbs in a much more critical light? Are proverbs still considered to be solid kernels of wisdom and truth, or are they laughed off as antiquated bits of moral teaching? Phraseology is an intermediary field, being close, in the related literature both to vocabulary studies, since it studies fixed word combinations, characterized by a unitary meaning, as well as to syntax, since phraseologic phenomena are defined by syntactic relations of various kinds, which are realized on a syntagmatic axis (Boroianu, 1974, I: 24). Given the expressive nature of phraseologic phenomena, these have also been associated to stylistics (Bally, 1951: 66-87; Iordan, 1975: 265-304). Taking into consideration the possibility of differentiating styles and functional variants of a language by analysing phraseologic units, it has been particularly drawn closer to functional stylistics (Coteanu, 1973: 99). But beyond the closeness to different linguistic disciplines, phraseology tends to be regarded as an autonomous discipline, with its own object and methods of investigation (Hristea, 1984: 134).
The term phraseology designates the discipline as well as its object, the set or totality of phraseologic units in a given language. According to the origin of phraseologisms, a line has been drawn between two areas of investigation, namely, linguistic phraseology understood as “a community’s means of expression” and literary phraseology including “aphorisms, witticism, word combinations with an accidental character, belonging to certain writers, outstanding people” (Boroianu, 1974, I: 27).
As an autonomous discipline, the object of research of phraseology consists in phraseologic units from a given language (or a group of languages). The concept of phraseologic unit (unité phraséologique) has been first used by Charles Bally, in Précis de stylistique, wherefrom it was taken by V. Vinogradov and other Soviet linguists, who translated it by frazeologhiceskaia edinitsa, which led to the term frazeologhizm, with the same meaning, and then subsequently borrowed by different languages belonging to the European culture (Hristea, 1984: 138). In present-day Romanian linguistics, the concepts of phraseologic unit and phraseologism are seriously challenged, on different levels, by the structures stable syntactic groups, phraseologic groups, constant word combinations, fixed word combinations, fixed syntagms, syntagmatic units. For that matter, Casia Zaharia has drawn out an extensive list of phraseologic terms used in
Romanian and German linguistics and also wrote, at the same time and in a paper on comparative phraseology with a significant theoretical foundation, a biography of the most important ones (Zaharia, 2004: 97-107).
To clearly delineate the area of phraseology as a linguistic discipline, we may regard it as starting where vocabulary meets syntax, once the boundaries of the word – conceived as a semantic and functional unit contained in-between spaces (Boroianu, 1974, I: 27) – have been crossed. Therefore, the delineation of the field of phraseology requires, on the one hand, the separation of lexicology by illustrating the differences between the phraseologic unit and the compound word and, on the other hand, the separation from syntax by differentiation from syntagm or the phrase of an accidental, unrepeatable, unstable nature.
Fulvia Ciobanu and Finuța Hasan attempt to outline stable syntactic groups of words, starting from the premise that a compound represents one single word and the syntactic group, several words. Taking into account the three characteristics of a word, morphological unit, syntactic unit and syntactic behaviour, the authors aim at defining the category of compound words. Morphologically speaking, the elements which distinguish compound words from fixed syntactic groups are the presence of inflection, the indefinite article, the existence of a single main accent. Semantically speaking, the relations between the terms of the compound are, most of the times, understandable. In terms of syntactic behaviour, the compound word which displays morphological unity, behaves like a simple word, not allowing the insertion of a determinant, and compound words with no morphological unity can be separated by possessive or demonstrative adjectives (Ciobanu – Hasan, 1970: 8-19).
The difference between phraseological units and free word combinations is derived precisely from the syntactic stability of the former which, having been established through usage, are felt as distinct units due to the very fusion (to a larger or smaller extent) of the constitutive elements.
Anyway, the borders between free word combinations and phraseologic units, as well as those between a phraseologic unit and a compound word are volatile: due to frequent use, a free word combination may turn into a phraseologic unit and, in its turn, this may become, in time and also through frequent and long use, a compound word.
In Stilistica limbii române, Iorgu Iordan defines phraseologic structures, referred to in the paper by the term “isolations”, as “fixed formulas, somehow created for good, that are handed down through tradition and remain unchanged both in terms of formal aspect and as meaning”, motivating his calling it “isolation” with the fact that their “constitutive elements also isolate themselves from the rest of the linguistic material, in the sense that they are treated separately”. These structures are “interesting exclusively for their meaning which is unitary, just like in the case of a single word” (Iordan, 1975: 209).
An essential thing to be taken into account is the connection between phraseologisms and metaphor. In Lexic românesc. Cuvinte, metafore, expresii, Stelian Dumistrăcel claimed that “the connection between metaphors and idiomatic phrases asserts itself on its own by the fact that
they have the same stylistic function, expressivity and, logically speaking, by the fact that both carry a certain (figurative) meaning” (Dumistrăcel, 1980: 124). Concerning proverbs, Cezar Tabarcea went as far as to claim that they are deictic metaphors (Tabarcea, 1982: 42). It is known that in structures with a fixed nature, the degree of connotativeness accumulates from several sources. Elena Slave compares the connotative resources of a word with those of a lexical combination, showing that, whereas the connotation of a word results from addition, that of an idiom results from synthesis. For example, the connotation of the word îngeraș (little angel), with the meaning of “child” is obtained from the latent connotation of the meaning “child”, plus the affective connotation of the suffix -aș and the one springing from the metaphor used, while the connotation of the compound zgârie-brânză (tight-fisted; literally: scratch-cheese) is the result of a synthesis superior to the two sources, namely brânză (literally, cheese) which, by the referential and socio-cultural aspect evokes a certain atmosphere, and zgârie (literally, scratch), whose connotative value results from the meaning of the act as related to the object brânză (Slave, 1974: 75).
A very significant fact is that, as Cristina Florescu also observed, the connotativeness of fixed structures often manifests itself at the level of the colloquial register (Florescu, 2007: 175).
Therefore, the features which may be taken as criteria for distinguishing phraseological units are stability (manifested in the high frequency of occurrence in the language) and semantic unity (reflected in the lack of the correspondence between the general signification of the structure and the accumulation of significations of the constituent elements). The two characteristics are closely interconnected: the global signification associated with the group leads to its repetition, its frequent use leading to stability (Boroianu, 1974, I: 24).
As recurring phenomena, phraseological units belong, therefore, to language in the Saussurean meaning of the term, or to the norm, as a field of linguistic tradition in the triadic distinction made by E. Coșeriu.
The variety of phenomena comprised by phraseology makes classification attempts difficult. External marks for recognizing a certain category of phraseologisms are related to the form of the group, the fixed order of elements, the reduced possibilities of separating them, the impossibility to replace one element or another, whereas internal marks are related to the fact that the entire ensemble embodies an act of unitary thinking, equivalent to a single word, the existence of certain syntactic-semantic phenomena characteristic of the group (the presence of certain lexical, semantic or syntactic archaisms, ellipsis or redundancy).
The types of phraseological units, which have received most attention in linguistic literature, have been phrases and idioms.
The definitions proposed for the term phrase generally have the same structure, highlighting traits such as stability, syntactic and semantic unity: “expression constituée par l’union de plusieurs mots formant une unite syntaxique et lexicologique” (Guiraud, 1962: 5), “the group of words more or less that are joined together, that has a unitary meaning and grammatically behaves as a single part of speech” (GA, I, 1966: 34), “a grouping of two or more words, unitary in meaning that relates to the context as a single element, no matter whether these relations are achieved by one of its constitutive elements or whether the group, as a whole, establishes connections as a single term” (Boroianu, 1974, II: 243).
The majority of studies dedicated to defining and describing idioms take into consideration the functional-structural and expressive criteria, although there is no common viewpoint concerning this issue. In terms of functionality, idioms have been defined by Ioana Boroianu as “fixed word groupings that cover a whole sentence, which have, therefore, a subject (expressed or general, widely-understood) predicated with contingent complements” (Boroianu, 1974, II: 243). The conclusion of the author cannot be accepted, the criterion of equivalence with a syntactic unit of the type of a sentence being irrelevant in defining this category. In Locuțiunile verbale în limba română, Florica Dimitrescu distinguishes between phrases (“group of words that are joined together in various degrees, with an established unitary meaning, that grammatically behaves like a single part of speech”) and idioms (“word combinations – exceptionally, idioms may consist in only one word – carrying emotional content, characteristic of a certain language”) (Dimitrescu, 1958: 62-68). One may notice that the concepts defined are not opposed, the particularities for each of them being selected from different classes of relations. For Theodor Hristea, given the fact that a clear line cannot be always drawn between phrases and idioms, the
differences between the two categories may be identified on three levels: idioms are usually more complex than phrases in terms of structure, less “knitted together” or “petrified” and are, necessarily, the carriers of expressiveness due to the fact that their constituent elements are not too intimately joined together (Hristea, 1984: 250-251).
One category of idioms which raises analysis and definition difficulties is represented by idiomatic phrases (also called idiotisms or, even idiomatisms). The main characteristic of this category is that it has a figurative meaning which belongs to the entire phraseologic group, which is impossible to translate literally into another language (Hristea, 1984: 143).
The attempt to clearly outline the concept of idiomatic phrase fosters difficulties concerning the distinction between the idiomatic feature and the non-idiomatic feature, the degree of fusion of the constituent elements, and possibilities to translate from one language into another.
Moving from language towards the theory of language, Gertrude
Having as a fundamental criterion the establishment of the stylistic value of idiotisms based on the relations among their intellectual values, objective communication and expressiveness degree, Al. Andriescu proposes – in Valoarea stilistică a expresiilor idiomatice – a classification of these “according to their power to sensitize communicant ideas”. The author speaks about “idiotisms that have lost part of their initial emotional value by losing the ability to act as images” (the stylistic value is given by the presence of the terms in the passive background or by syntactic phenomena such as ellipsis), “idiotisms that have been created in certain historical circumstances” and that “no longer nurture their ability of concretisation by relating to the realities that created them but are based on some new associations, with no link to the initial realities” and “idotisms that ever since they were created – and nowadays, too – have been serving the needs of emotions as images” (Andriescu, 1956: 63-75). This classification has the disadvantage that it uses the degree of expressiveness as a criterion which
involves a high level of subjectivity.
In Lexic românesc. Cuvinte, metafore, expresii, Stelian Dumistrăcel establishes a typology of idotisms taking into account the circumstances in which an expressive function occurs, distinguishing between two categories: imaginary idioms, with an unmediated stylistic function that were born as figures of speech properly, and children-of-reality idioms that were originally “technical” formulas whose stylistic function, in figurative use, is a derived one (Dumistrăcel, 1980: 136-137). Directed by non-contradiction and simplicity requirements, this classification has broad applicability.
The concept of repeated discourse as theorized by Coșeriu and developed by Stelian Dumistrăcel, situate the discussion concerning phraseology in an area different from the one of previous linguistic contributions. A reason for changing the approach is provided by Coșeriu’s view concerning language as a main object of linguistic research.
Having been identified by Coșeriu while describing functional language at the level of synchronous language and comparatively discussed in relation to the free technique (which consists of the constitutive elements of language and the “present” rules concerning their modification and combination), repeated discourse represents “everything from a community’s language that is repeated in a more or less identical form, as an already made discourse or a more or less flexible combination, as a long or short fragment from «what has already been said»” (Coșeriu, 2000: 258-259).
In Coșeriu’s view, a “concrete discourse may often be analogous to a painting partially realized as [a] collage; the painting may also contain, besides parts executed by the technique of the painter, fragments taken from other paintings, painted by other painters” (Coșeriu, 2000: 259), observations which are rephrased as follows: “in all these idioms, fixed phrases, proverbs, quotations etc, speech is like a kind of painting with simultaneous collage, namely, it is partially actual technique and partially fragments of already existing and carried on – so to say, by tradition – speech” (Coșeriu, 1994a: 55).
E. Coșeriu then gives examples of acts of speech belonging to repeated discourse: quotations, “repetition of fragments of literary or other – known as such – texts”, proverbs, fixed phrases, wellerisms, i.e. “phrases introduced (or accompanied) by certain formulas” and that “claim to be
referring to somebody’s verbal reaction in a certain situation”, certain syntagms, lexical periphrases, traditional comparison formulas, with the indication that the last three mentioned forms might constitute “an autonomous behaviour of idiomatic competence” (Coșeriu, 2000: 259-262).
In terms of functionality, the forms of repeated discourse, according to E. Coșeriu, differ in that their elements are not linguistically “structurable” because, since they are fixed, they are not substitutable (“commutable”); therefore, they are not part of actual functional oppositions (Coșeriu, 2000: 259).
Although we “often play with these phrases, we understand that the new phrase alludes to the old phrase” (Coșeriu, 1994a: 55-56). Also, repeated discourse may be subjected to construction rules that have gone out of date, may contain unidentifiable forms (Coșeriu, 2000: 260). These are the reasons for which repeated discourse is eliminated from the field of functional language, as it does not take part in a system of oppositions that are current in language. Functional language is a homogeneous system, at the same time, syntopic (without differences in space or ignored differences in space), synstratic (without socio-cultural differences, at the same level, at a certain level, but not on more levels) and symphasic (a certain style of language), constituting the object of study of structural linguistics (Coșeriu, 1996: 25-26).
If repeated discourse is removed from the study of functional language, it is recovered by the study of speech that has to explain and observe “everything related to knowing things, everything that metalinguistic techniques imply, what repeated discourse is, what the diachrony of speakers is and the architecture of language known and used by speakers” (Coșeriu, 1994a: 62).
As far as the technique or repeated discourse is concerned, the Romanian scholar concludes: “Therefore, we need another science for repeated discourse” (Coșeriu, 1994a: 56). Using Eugeniu Coșeriu’s comments concerning the inter-subjective dimension of language viewed (particularly) as an assignment of the self towards others (Coșeriu, 1994a: 52), and positioning himself in the area of a linguistics of speech, Stelian Dumistrăcel associates the enunciation belonging to repeated discourse (ERD) first of all to the phatic function, in its widest meaning, of language as a way of action in conventional, “self- referential” utterances which aim at sociability, the connection between sender and receiver (Dumistrăcel, 2006a: 27). The ERD contributes in setting up a “phatic communion” whose textual manifestations may be of a
manipulative nature, oriented, beyond the establishment of empathy, towards seducing and even the direct incitation of the receiver. Stelian Dumistrăcel deals with the functionality of repeated discourse, going beyond the perspective of his mentor, Eugeniu Coșeriu. The elements of repeated discourse, in Coșeriu’s view, are distinguishable by the fact that since they are fixed, they are not substitutable (“commutable”); by not participating into present functional oppositions (Coșeriu, 2000: 259), be it even modified, the new phrase alludes to the old one (Coșeriu, 1994a: 55- 56). What is interesting, according to Stelian Dumistrăcel, although it does not generate functional oppositions, is the modification of the repeated discourse itself which represents a means of “updating” (in Coșeriu’s use of the term) this technique by “transforming the virtual designation into current designation” (Coșeriu, 2004: 302-303).
Analysing the intended, conscious and occasional changes of utterances pertaining to repeated discourse in the journalistic discourse of current Romanian press, Stelian Dumistrăcel believes that they are an expression of the primary universals of language (creativity and alterity), and, technically speaking, they prove to be governed by the rules of the four “construction figures” that Quintilian referred to as solecisms in Institutio oratoria, and which he called adiectio (addition), detractio (deletion), immutatio (substitution) and transmutatio (permutation; cf. Dumistrăcel, 2006a: 134-149).
This typology of contexts of the type of utterances belonging to repeated discourse favours the analysis of the issues of “destructuring” and “restructuring”, as means of meaningful utterance whose effects are related to subtle communicational strategies.
3. Overview of english and romanian proverbs
Proverbs represent a syntactic combination whose simple level is the sentence and whose elements are used with a special meaning, with an overall symbolic value (Slave, 1967: 174). This distinguishes them, on the one hand, from the free word combinations and, on the other had, from fixed combinations with no symbolic value or from sayings, structures where only some observation is made and which represent “a fragment of a linguistic statement (whose centre is mainly a verb) that is part of the logic-semantic structure of the entire statement in which it occurs” (Tabarcea, 1982: 93). Although they are said to be the research object of paremiology, proverbs and sayings may be included in phraseology, because they present the general functional traits of phraseologisms (stability, idiomaticity), features which cannot be ignored. Although they have not been a constancy in terms of language theory, the concerns for theorizing paremic structures have materialized in studies which aimed particularly at the possibilities of
definition and classification as related to minimal phraseologisms, they themselves also divergently classified from this perspective.
A relevant systematization of proverbs is provided by applying the criterion of figurativeness and the cultural-historic approach, as they lead to establishing the originating fields. Iuliu Zanne makes a thematic organization of proverbs, distinguishing among the following areas: physical nature, animals, man and human organs, physical life, social life, history, beliefs, superstitions, customs, intellectual and moral life, philosophy. The same author, correlating the semantic perspective to the cultural-historic criterion, has stated a first difference between universal proverbs which “express a worldwide and always acknowledged truth”, and particular proverbs which “rest on a fact found by experience, but a special and local experience concerning one or other people”, a class which also includes sayings and idiotisms (Zanne, 1895, I: xx). Proverbs are also the object of interest for folklorists, being approached from the perspective of language ethnography.
Other types of phraseologisms are the periphrases, structures located, according to Ioana Boroianu, “on the edge between free word associations and phraseologic units” (a face de mâncare (prepare a meal), a avea poftă (have a craving for), a-i fi foame (be hungry), a-i fi poftă de (crave for); Boroianu, 1974, I: 33), defined and integrated by Th. Hristea in the object of
study of phraseology, after having identified certain features characteristic of phraseologisms: frequency, expressivity, repeatability, age, meaning unity (Hristea, 1984: 145). The same category also comprises synapses, units that are made up of a determined and a determinant carrying the meaning of one single word [alcool metilic (methanol); Zugun, 2000: 21], common
combinations, representing the names of certain institutions, titles of literary, scientific, cinematographic works, etc. (Zugun, 2000: 21), emphatic phrases, “fixed collocations where one of the terms adds a superlative meaning to the other” [beat turtă (dead drunk); Boroianu, 1974, II: 245], stereotypical similes, “emphatic phrases” where the comparison is maintained [ieftin ca
braga (as cheap as dirt); Hristea, 1984: 146], international formulas and clichés, structures of a conventional and international nature, occurring in various languages of culture and civilisation [mărul discordiei (the apple of discord), oul lui Columb (Columbus’ egg); Hristea, 1984: 144].
Theodor Hristea regards the origin or etymology of phraseologic units as essential for the study of phraseology, origin which might be external, loans from other languages and transfers from foreign patterns, and internal, by creation inside a language from pre-existing material (Hristea,
1977: 590). The issue of phraseologic units, approached in terms of the language from where they were taken, has involved the discussion of such aspects as their adjustment to the peculiarities of the Romanian language and frequency at the level of speech, such investigations leading to the introduction of the concepts of phraseologic family, “the totality of phraseologic units (of external or internal origin) that have at least one constitutive element” (Hristea, 1977: 593), phraseologic derivation, the process achieved “each time when, from a combination of words with a constant nature, another fixed lexical combination is created” (Hristea, 1984:
154), and phraseologic field, representing the totality of phraseologic units synonymous with the given term (Hristea, 1984: 157).
The inventory of terms related to phraseology and the research of the meanings of various terms bespeak the difficulties that the delimitation of the sphere of this linguistic discipline implies. Such efforts prove the complexity of the problems raised by theorizing phraseologisms, a complexity that is irreducible to unique and definitive solutions.
3.1 On the origin of proverbs
The Book of Proverbs, in the Old Testament of the Bible, is a grouping of wisdom sayings and longer, connected poems composed from the 10th to the 4th century BC and finally collected about 300 BC. The sayings are either statements that provoke further thought or admonitions to behave in particular ways. The longer poems celebrate wisdom, encourage its observance, and personify it as a woman who at God's right hand assisted in creation. Egyptian wisdom is evident in Proverbs, making it possible to date the nucleus of the book to pre exilic times. The book as a whole reflects the ideology of enterprising privileged classes and expresses a general confidence in the human capacity to act freely and wisely. Self interest and religious devotion are shown to be congruent. Respect for women (31:10 – 31) is encouraged. The book is conventionally attributed to Solomon as the prototype of Israelite wisdom, but many sages had a hand in composing and collecting the subsections; mentioned specifically are the "men of Hezekiah."
The Book of Proverbs is a collection of moral and philosophical maxims of a wide range of subjects presented in a poetic form. This book sets forth the "philosophy of practical life. It is the sign to us that the Bible does not despise common sense and discretion. It impresses upon us in the most forcible manner the value of intelligence and prudence and of a good education. The whole strength of the Hebrew language and of the sacred authority of the book is thrown upon these homely truths. It deals, too, in that refined, discriminating, careful view of the finer shades of human character so often overlooked by theologians, but so necessary to any true estimate of human life" (Stanley's Jewish Church). As to the origin of this book, "it is probable that Solomon gathered and recast many proverbs which sprang from human experience in preceeding ages and were floating past him on the tide of time, and that he also elaborated many new ones from the material of his own experience.
Towards the close of the book, indeed, are preserved some of Solomon's own sayings that seem to have fallen from his lips in later life and been gathered by other hands' (Arnot's Laws from Heaven, etc.) This book is usually divided into three parts: (1.) Consisting of ch. 1-9, which contain an exhibition of wisdom as the highest good. (2.) Consisting of ch. 10-24. (3.) Containing proverbs of Solomon "which the men of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, collected" (ch. 25-29). These are followed by two supplements, (1) "The words of Agur" (ch. 30); and (2) "The words of king Lemuel" (ch. 31). Solomon is said to have written three thousand proverbs, and those contained in this book may be a selection from these (1 Kings 4:32). In the New Testament there are thirty-five direct quotations from this book or allusions to it.
Provebs is classed with the poetical books of the Bible, but we must content ourselves with a single illustration of the poetic form taken from The Literary Study of the Bible. In 4:10 we have a poem on The Two Paths. Its strophe and antistrophe consist of ten-line figures, varying between longer and shorter lines; the conclusion is a quatrain. This form is a reflex of the thought of the poem; the strophe describes the path of the just, the antistrophe the path of the wicked; the conclusion then blends the two ideas in a common image, as follows: Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; And the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in paths of uprightness. When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; And if thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. Take fast hold of instruction; Let her not go: Keep her; For she is thy life. Enter not into the path of the wicked, And walk not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, Pass not by it; Turn from it, And pass on. For they sleep not except they have done mischief; And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness. And drink the wine of violence. But the path of the righteous is as the light of dawn, That shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness; They know not at what they stumble.
In the Masoretic Text, the Book of Proverbs has for its natural heading the words Míshlê Shelomoh (Proverbs of Solomon), wherewith this sacred writing begins (cf. x). In the Talmud and in later Jewish works the Book of Proverbs is oftentimes designated by the single word Míshlê, and this abridged title is expressly mentioned in the superscription "Liber Proverbiorum, quem Hebræi Misle appellant", found in the official edition of the Vulgate. In the Septuagint manuscripts, the two Hebrew titles are rendered by and , respectively. From these Greek titles again are immediately derived the Latin renderings, "Parabolæ Salomonis", "Parabolæ", a trace of which appears in the Tridentine "Decretum de Canon. Script.", wherein the Book of Proverbs is simply called "Parabolæ". The ordinary title "Proverbia Salomonis" was apparently taken from the Old Latin Version into the Vulgate, whence comes directly the usual English title of "Proverbs". In the Church's liturgy, the Book of Proverbs is, like the other Sapiential writings, designated by the common term "Wisdom". This is consonant to the practice, common in early Christian times, of designating such books by the word "Wisdom" or by some expresion in which this word occurs, as "All-virtuous Wisdom", etc. Indeed, it is probable that the title , "Wisdom", was common in Jewish circles at the beginning of Christianity, and that it passed from them to the early Fathers of the Church (cf. Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", IV, xxii, xxvi). Of the various names given to the Book of Proverbs, that of Wisdom best sets forth the ethical object of this inspired writing. However disconnected the pithy sayings or vivid descriptions which make up the book may appear, they, each and all, are bound by one and the same moral purpose: they aim at inculcating wisdom as understook by the Hebrews of old, that is perfection of knowledge showing itself in action, whether in the case of king or peasant, statesman or artisan, philosopher or unlearned. Differently from the term "Wisdom", the title Míshlê (St. Jerome, Masloth) has a distinct reference to the symbolic character and poetical form of the sayings which are gathered together in the Book of Proverbs. In general, the Hebrew Mashal (constr. plur. Míshlê) denotes a representative saying, that is, a statement which, however deduced from a single instance, is capable of application to other instances of a similar kind. Taken in this sense, it corresponds pretty well to the words proverb, parable, maxim etc., in our Western literatures. But besides, it has the meaning of sentences constructed in parallelism; and in point of fact, the contents of the Book of Proverbs exhibit, from beginning to end, this leading feature of Hebrew poetry. Hence, it appears that, as prefixed to this inspired writing, the word Míshlê describes the general character of the Book of Proverbs as a manual of practical rules which are set forth in a poetical form.
As it stands at the present day, the Book of Proverbs begins with the general title, "Míshlê Shelomoh, the son of David, king of Israel", which is immediately followed by a prologue (i, 2-6), stating the aim and importance of the entire work: the whole collection aims at imparting wisdom and at enabling men to understand all kinds of Mashals. The first part of the book (i, 7-ix), itself a hortatory introduction to the collection of proverbs which follows, is a commendation of wisdom. After a deeply religious epigraph (i, 7), the writer, speaking like a father, gives a series of exhortations and warnings to an imagined pupil or disciple. He warns him against evil company (i, 8-19); describes to him the advantages attending the pursuit of wisdom, and the evils to be avoided by such course (ii); exhorts him to obedience, to trust in God, to the payment of legal offerings, to patience under the Divine chastisements, and sets forth the priceless value of wisdom (iii, 1-26). After some miscellaneous precepts (iii, 27-35), he renews his pressing exhortation to wisdom and virtue (iv), and gives several warnings against unchaste women (v; vi, 20-35; vii), after the first of which are inserted warnings against suretyship, indolence, falsehood, and various vices (vi, 1-19. At several points (i, 20-33; viii; ix) Wisdom herself is introduced as speaking and as displaying her charms, origin, and power to men. The style of this first part is flowing, and the thoughts therein expressed are generally developed in the form of connected discourses. The second part of the book (x-xxii, 16) has for its distinct heading: "Míshlê Shelomoh", and is made up of disconnected sayings in couplet form, arranged in no particular order, so that it is impossible to give a summary of them. In many instances a saying is repeated within this large collection, usually in identical terms, at times with some slight changes of expression. Appended to this second part of the book are two minor collections (xxii, 17-xxiv, 22; ssiv, 23-34), chiefly made up of aphoristic quatrains. The opening verses (xxii, 17-21) of the first appendix request attention to the "words of the wise" which follow (xxii, 22-xxiv, 22), and which, in a consecutive form recalling that of the first part of the book, set forth warnings against various excesses. The second appendix has for its title: "These also are words of the wise", and the few proverbs it contains conclude with two verses (33, 34), apparently taken over from vi, 10, 11. The third part of the book (xxv-xxix) bears the inscription: "These are also Míshlê Shelomoh, which the men of Ezechias, king of Juda, copied out." By their miscellaneous character, their couplet form, etc., the proverbs of this third part resemble those of x-xxii, 16. Like them also, they are followed by two minor collections (xxx and xxxi, 1-9), each suplied with its respective title. The first of these minor collections has for its heading: "Words of Agur, the son of Takeh", and its principal contents are Agur's meditation on the Divine transcendence (xxx, 2-9), and groups of numerical proverbs. The second minor collection is inscribed: "The Words of Lamuel, a king: the oracle which his mother taught him." In it the queen-mother warns her son against sensuality, drunkenness, and injustice. Nothing is known of Agur and Lamuel; their names are possibly symbolical. The book concludes with an alphabetical poem descriptive of the virtuous woman (xxxi, 10-39).
A close study of the present Hebrew Text of the Book of Proverbs proves that the primitive wording of the pithy sayings which make up this manual of Hebrew wisdom has experienced numerous alterations in the course of its transmission. Some of these imperfections have, with some probability, been assigned to the period during which the maxims of the "wise men" were preserved orally. Most of them belong undoubtedly to the time after these sententious or enigmatic sayings had been written down. The Book of Proverbs was numbered among the "Hagiographa" (writings held by the ancient Hebrews as less sacred and authoritative than either the "Law" or the "Prophets"), and, in consequence, copyists felt naturally less bound to transcribe its text with scrupulous accuracy. Again, the copyists of Proverbs knew, or at least thought they knew, by memory the exact words of the pithy sayings they had to write out; hence arose involuntary changes which, once introduced, were perpetuated or even added to by subsequent transcribers. Finally, the obscure or enigmatic character of a certain number of maxims led to the deliberate insertion of glosses in the text, so that primitive distichs now wrongly appear in the form of tristichs, etc. (cf. Knabenbauer, "Comm. in Proverbia", Paris, 1910). Of the ancient versions of the Book of Proverbs, the Septuagint is the most valuable. It probably dates from the middle of the second century B. C., and exhibits very important differences from the Massoretic Text in point of omissions, transpositions, and additions. The translator was a Jew conversant indeed with the Greek language, but had at times to use paraphrases owing to the difficulty of rendering Hebrew pithy sayings into intelligible Greek. After full allowance has been made for the translator's freedom in rendering, and for the alterations introduced into the primitive wording of this version by later transcribers and revisers, two things remain quite certain: first, the Septuagint may occasionally be utilized for the discovery and the enmendation of inaccurate readings in our present Hebrew Text; and next, the most important variations which this Greek Version presents, especially in the line of additions and transpositions, point to the fact that the translator rendered a Hebrew original which differed considerably from the one embodied in the Massoretic Bibles. It is well known that the Sahidic Version of Proverbs was made from the Septuagint, before the latter had been subjected to recensions, and hence this Coptic Version is useful for the control of the Greek Text. The present Peshito, or Syriac Version of Proverbs was probably based on the Hebrew Text, with which it generally agrees with regard to material and arrangement. At the same time, it was most likely made with respect to the Septuagint, the peculiar readings of which it repeatedly adopts. The Latin Version of Proverbs, which is embodied in the Vulgate, goes back to St. Jerome, and for the most part closely agrees with the Massoretic Text. It is probable that many of its present deviations from the Hebrew in conformity with the Septuagint should be referred to later copyists anxious to complete St. Jerome's work by means of the "Vetus Itala", which had been closely made from the Greek.
The vexed questions anent the authorship and date of the collections which make up the Book of Proverbs go back only to the sixteenth century of our era, when the Hebrew Text began to be studied more closely than previously. They were not even suspected by the early Fathers who, following implicitly the inscriptions in i, 1; x, 1; xxiv, 1 (which bear direct witness to the Solomonic authorship of large collections of proverbs), and being misled by the Greek rendering of the titles in xxx, 1; xxxi, 1 (which does away altogether with the references to Agur and Lamuel as authors distinct from Solomon), regarded King Solomon as the author of the whole Book of Proverbs. Nor were they real questions for the subsequent writers of the West, although these medieval authors had in the Vulgate a more faithful rendering of xxx, 1; xxxi, 1, which might have led them to reject the Solomonic origin of the sections ascribed to Agur and Lamuel respectively, for in their eyes the words Agur and Lamuel were but symbolical names of Solomon. At the present day, most Catholic scholars feel free to treat as non-Solomonic not only the short sections which are ascribed in the Hebrew Text to Agur and Lamuel, but also the minor collections which their titles attribute to "the wise" (xxii, 16- xxiv, 22; xxiv, 23-34), and the alphabetical poem concerning the virtuous woman which is appended to the whole book. With regard to the other parts of the work (i-ix; x-xxii, 16; xxv-xxix), Catholic writers are wellnigh unanimous in ascribing them to Solomon. Bearing distinctly in mind the statement in III (A. V. I) Kings, iv, 29-32, that, in his great wisdom, Solomon "spoke 3000 Mashals", they have no difficulty in admitting that this monarch may be the author of the much smaller number of proverbs included in the three collections in question. Guided by ancient Jewish and Christian tradition they feel constrained to abide by the explicit titles to the same collections, all the more so because the titles in the Book of Proverbs are manifestly discriminating with respect to authorship, and because the title, "These also are Mishle Shelomoh, which the men of Ezechias, King of Juda, copied out" (xxv, 1), in particular, bears the impress of definiteness and accuracy. Lastly, looking into the contents of these three large collections, they do not think that anything found therein with respect to style, ideas, historic background etc. should compel anyone to give up the traditional authorship, at whatever time–either under Ezechias, or as late as Esdras–all the collections embodied in the Book of Proverbs reached their present form and arrangement. A very different view concerning the authorship and date of the collections ascribed to Solomon by their titles is gaining favour among non-Catholic scholars. It treats the headings of these collections as no more reliable than the titles of the Psalms. It maintains that none of the collections comes from Solomon's own hand and that the general tenor of their contents bespeaks a late post-exilic date. The following are the principal arguments usually set forth in favour of this opinion. In these collections there is no challenge of idolatry, such as would naturally be expected if they were pre-exilic, and monogamy is everywhere presupposed. It is very remarkable, too, that throughout no mention is made of Israel or of any institution peculiar to Israel. Again, the subject of those collections is not the nation, which apparently no longer enjoys independence, but the individual, to whom wisdom appeals in a merely ethical, and hence very late, manner. The personification of wisdom, in particular (chap. viii), is either the direct result of the influence of Greek upon Jewish thought, or, if independent of Greek philosophy, the product of late Jewish metaphysics. Finally, the close spiritual and intellectual relation of Proverbs to Ecclesiasticus shows that, however great and numerous are the differences in detail between them, the two works cannot be separated by an interval of several centuries. Despite the confidence with which some modern scholars urge these arguments against the traditional authorship of i-ix; x-xxii, 16; xxv,- xxix, a close examination of their value leaves one unconvinced of their proving force.
The Book of Proverbs is justly numbered among the protocanonical writings of the Old Testament. In the first century of our era its canonical authority was certainly acknowledged in Jewish and Christian circles, for the Sacred Writers of the New Testament make a frequent use of its contents, quoting them at times explicitly as Holy Writ (cf. Romans 12:19-20; Hebrews 12:5-6; James 4:5-6, etc.). It is true that certain doubts as to the inspiration of the Book of Proverbs, which had been entertained by ancient rabbis who belonged to the School of Shammai, reappeared in the Jewish assembly at Jamnia (about A. D. 100); but these were only theoretical difficulties which could not induce the Jewish leaders of the time to count this book out of the Canon, and which in fact were there and then set at rest for ever. The subsequent assaults of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429), of Spinoza (d. 1677), and of Le Clerc (d. 1736) against the inspiration of that sacred book left likewise its canonical authority unshaken.
3.2 Proverbs as culture-bound expressions
It is assumed that proverbs and proverbial expressions belong to fixed units whose analysis allows access to a collective way of thinking of a given language community. It should be emphasized that a number of culture-bound proverbs, proverbial expressions and other fixed units are carriers of evaluation. In the present paper the mechanisms implemented in order to express evaluation in culture-bound units of proverbial character are discussed briefly and exemplified. The units at issue may contain culture-specific components, which are evaluation carriers. Some constituents are particularly rich in connotations, which predispose them to carry evaluation. In fact, some of such culture-bound proverbs may have a cross-linguistic equivalent expressing similar evaluation by different means. However, some units can express evaluations unique to given culture, which, for example, can be connected with stereotypes typical of a given culture or some cultural phenomena existent only in a particular culture. Moreover, in some cases knowledge of cultural history is necessary for proper evaluation decoding. Translation of such units is particularly difficult, since they are very closely connected with the culture of a given ethnic community. In a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective some evaluations in the source language are illogical by the target language users’ standards. The question arises whether such units are fully translatable into another language. The techniques of translation of culture-bound units are presented with a special focus on loss in translation and compensation. The technique of literal translation with amplification and the so-called effect of concrete foreignness are also discussed.
Culture bond expressions involves; metaphors, proverbs, idioms and collocations. Particularly, idioms and collocations constitute a core portion of authentic communications among native English speakers. Translating cultural meanings associated with idioms and collocations represent real translation problems especially among non-natives. Armellino (2008) maintains that it is impossible to replace culturally-bound words or idioms in one language by the same words or idioms in another because the meaning which lies behind this kind of idioms is always linked to the specific cultural context where the text originates or with the cultural context it aims to recreate. As for translating collocations, Zughoul and Hussein (2003) concluded that Arab learners of English at all levels face difficulty with English collocations. Bahumaid (2006) mentions that Arab university instructors' performance in the collocation translation test was considerably low. He adds that collocations represent major 'trouble spots' for translators.
As for translation strategy, literature on translation documents several translation strategies. Newmark (1988) suggests a long list of translation procedures such as: naturalization, cultural equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, componential analysis, synonymy, shift, transposition, modulation, recognized translation, compensation, paraphrase, couplets, and notes. Recently, Hariyanto (1997) suggests some strategies for translating cultural aspects such as: addition, componential analysis, cultural equivalent, descriptive equivalent, literal translation, modulation, recognized translation, reduction, synonymy, transference, deletion, and combination. Moreover, Harvey (2003) suggests four procedures for translating culture bound idioms such as: functional equivalence, formal equivalence or linguistic equivalence, transcription or borrowing, and descriptive or self-explanatory.
Cultural losses form a hierarchy of losses classified into four main categories: explicit losses, implicit losses, modified losses, and complete losses. The classification is based on the degree of cultural information lost (affecting the source language text both on the surface and deep levels). It must be pointed out that this classification is by no means absolute, nor has a clear-cut boundary, for one loss may be classified as both linguistic and cultural, depending on the perspective of analysis (verbal losses versus cultural losses). This, however, emphasizes the wedlock and interconnectedness between language and culture, where the separation of the two is unrealistic.
1) ‘Explicit losses’ refer to any loss of cultural information both on the surface level (the verbal signs and structures/ ‘etics’), and on the deep level (the hidden information that are culture-specific/ ‘emics’) of the source text. It was observed that such losses result mainly from literal translation, whereby linguistic equivalence is achieved on the expense of cultural equivalence, thus posing major difficulties in the decoding of the meaning intended in the source message. In these losses, translation adheres to the “principle of adequacy” (Toury 1986: 1123), but violates the “equivalence effect principle” (cf. Farghal, 1995b: 54). These ‘linguistic gaps’, as Farghal (1995a: 198) calls them, are purely linguistic as they are present in the experiential world of the culture in question. It is argued, though, that such linguistic gaps would inevitably influence and affect the overall cultural equivalence of the source text.
The literal translation of the idiom is problematic because it fails to capture the intended meaning reflected in the idiom’s context, both on the surface linguistic level, and on the deep cultural level. On the surface level, translation completely overlooks the formal and functional equivalence of ‘Friday eve’ rendering it into a non-idiomatic expression that is alien to the target readers. Such literal translation renders a message that is unnatural, hard to understand, and meaningless. In other words, it does not really make a difference to the target readers as to whether it is translated into, say, ‘Wednesday night’ or ‘Monday night’.
2) Implicit Losses refer to the loss of cultural information implicitly present in the source text. They are losses of the source-culture spirit, as echoed in its literary heritage. It should be pointed out that this type of losses is challenging because its understanding requires, what Bailey (1996: 152) calls, “reading between the lines”. That is, target readers are expected to “search for some special possibility of hidden and certainly situation-specific interpretations”. In contrast to explicit losses, where translation causes a loss both to the ‘etics’ and ‘emics’ of the source language, implicit losses are losses to the ‘emics’ of the source culture, and so, they are culturally-oriented.
3) Modified Losses refer to losses resulting from the replacement of cultural expressions in the source text by culturally equivalent expressions in the target text. Losses of this kind have a mild effect on the source text. In a sense, they are similar to implicit losses in not seriously affecting the theme of the message conveyed. However, they differ in that they achieve more cultural equivalence than implicit losses. Modified losses are indicators of how the two cultures in question reflect realities, and how people of one culture denote the world from their own perspectives.
4) Complete Losses are the result of a complete ignorance of the linguistic codes of the source text. Complete losses are purely culture-bound and unique to the source text, and so have no equivalents what so ever in the target culture. Complete losses were limited in their occurrence to culturalsimiles and idioms .
However, translation failed to transfer the deep/ implicit level of the source language, and the emics of the source culture. We argue that the translator assumed only one of the two functions that he should have fulfilled (both as an insider of the source culture and as an outsider of the target culture). He disregarded his role as a cultural insider of the source-culture, did not transfer his emic knowledge, and so has failed to complete the cycle of etic-emic-etic.
In other words, the translator remained an outsider to both the source culture and the target culture. Pike (1990: 34) asserts this dual function of the translator: “just as the outsider can learn to act like an insider, so the insider can learn to analyze like an outsider”. He explains that “to use the emics of nonverbal (or verbal) behavior I must act like an insider, to analyze my own acts, I must look at (or listen to) material as an outsider” (ibid: 34). In short, the lack of cultural equivalence that led to cultural losses occurred during the second sequence, where the translator failed to translate the emics of his source-language culture into the target culture.
3.3. Linguistic analysis of English proverbs
Cognitively, proverbs are mentally economical, since from one particular situation presented in them we can understand many others. Besides, we can activate a whole scene about a certain event in our minds just through the allusion to a relevant fact or moment of this one. For instance, in the proverb Blind blames the ditch (Lakoff & Turner 1989: 162) we have a whole scenario in which a blind person has fallen into a ditch and so he/she is blaming it for that fact, without realising that his/her condition is what prevented him/her from not falling. The proverb takes us to the moment when the blind has already fallen, but we can imagine the whole event, starting from the moment in which the blind was walking and had not still arrived to the ditch. Going further, this can be applied to any situation in which someone blames others for their own restrictions.
Pragmatically, proverbs are used for communicative purposes and we need pragmatic reasoning in order to understand them. That is, they are used with a certain communicative aim that transcends their linguistic form and meaning. Besides this, they reflect an implicit typology of patterns of reasoning or argument. For this and other reasons, proverbs are interesting to study, since through them we can extract many ideas on how we think, how we conceptualise and categorise the world, and how we transmit traditional folk knowledge from generation to generation.
Lakoff (1989) defines proverbs as metaphoric in nature, but recently there have been some studies that oppose to this view, and defend that they are metonymic. Metonymy is as much an important cognitive mechanism as metaphor: in both of them we find a mapping process, either from a source domain to a target domain or from a target domain to a source domain.
According to Ruiz de Mendoza (1999b: 54), the limits between metaphor and metonymy are not very clear, since we can use metaphors predicatively or metonymies referentially, and we can give a potential metonymy a metaphoric trait, among other things. In fact, the only distinguishing criterion between metaphor and metonymy is that metonymic mappings are domain internal -they hold a domain inclusion relationship- while domain external mappings are proper of metaphors – that is, mapping takes place across domains.
Proverbs would therefore consist of a source-in-target metonymy involving domain expansion. The importance of the relationships which hold between ‘generic’ and ‘specific’ in the organisation and processing of information was first noted by Lakoff and Turner (1989).
From all these patterns, the metonymic expansion of the source of a metaphor provide the relevant material for the construction of a metaphoric mapping which will produce a generic space. Therefore, these two patterns of interaction are relevant when we deal with proverbs, since they allow for the use of the Specific For Generic metonymy that constitute proverbs.
An example of it is: ‘Better be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion’. For the head of a dog part, we have a metaphorical understanding of leaders as being the head of a body, in terms of the basic metaphor Control Is Up, so by virtue of this metaphoric understanding, we can map part of an animal that is physically up (the head) onto that of a person, which is physically, and in turn metaphorically up, and still preserve the generic-level structure. Here, the Great Chain metaphor interacts with one basic metaphor: Control Is Up, and with a metonymy of the source-in-target kind, the Specific For Generic one, which involves domain expansion: head stands in a subdomain relation with person. In this case it stands for the person that has a leading role.
The source domain of the People Are Animals metaphor is developed through a source-intarget
metonymy. This metonymy structures a mental space to make the mapping from a specific to any generic situation that will be the source domain – or part of it – of the metaphor. We have two input spaces, one created by the metonymy and the other derivedfrom the specific situation to which the metonymy applies.
In my view, the source-in-target metonymy in proverbs dealing with many correspondence metaphors does not provide all the elements of conceptual structure needed to create a generic space which permits the metaphoric mapping, but it just highlights, as I have just said, what is relevant to understand such metaphoric mapping. The generic space is built upon a different basis from the input space created by that metonymy, which develops just one of the correspondences. Thus, the generic structure which shares such properties to make the relation between domains possible is taken form the source and from the target domains of the metaphor as a whole, from all the correspondences.
Related to all this, the Extended Invariance Principle formulated by Ruiz de Mendoza (1998a: 263) gives systematicity to the cognitive processes which underlie such phenomena.
It says: “Metaphorical mappings preserve the generic-level structure of the source domain in a way consistent with the inherent structure of the target domain.” Ruiz de Mendoza (1998a: 265) redefines it in order for that principle to make the convergence of more than one cognitive domain possible without violating the generic-level structures of any of them: “All contextual effects motivated by a metaphoric mapping will preserve the generic-level structure of the source domain and of any other input space involved, in a way consistent with the inherent structure of the target domain.” Thus, we have the convergence of the Generic Is Specific metaphor and the People Are Animals one, together with any ICM, either abstract or not, which appears in metonymies.
Thus, we can understand people in terms of lower-order forms of being or even understand these lower-order forms of being in terms of human attributes and behaviour. According to them, the domain of animal life is one of the most elaborate ones, which we use to understand the human domain. This is important for proverb analysis and interpretation. They present some common propositions that take place in schemas for animals:
(1) – Pigs are dirty, messy and rude.
– Lions are courageous and noble.
– Foxes are clever.
– Dogs are loyal, dependable and dependent.
– Cats are frikle and independent.
– Wolves are cruel and murderous.
– Gorillas are aggressive and violent.
According to this quotation, Lakoff & Turner (1989) seem to assume that this folk knowledge that is behind proverbs is natural, and so universal. In my opinion, the fact that it is so overspread and so deeply rooted in a wide variety of cultures does not mean that it is natural. It is a convention, no matter how spread it is, and therefore, it is subject to possible changes. Then, these metaphorical propositions are not universal, but common to many societies. This is what makes many proverbs coincide, if not in the perspective or in the form, at least in the message along different cultures in the world. Hatch and Brown (1995) have convincingly argued that although we think proverbs are bound to culture, there are many with equivalents across cultures. But even if we do not have the same proverbs, we can interpret them if we encounter them for the first time, because of their universal underlying mental mechanisms.
Proverbs are understood in relation to a background of assumptions and values, so they are primarily a social phenomenon. Context is essential for their correct interpretation, because they provide a message in an indirect way. They are learned through social interaction and for social purposes, and they promote social values. Proverbs, like species, evolve. They are vast in imagery, they are familiar, and easy to learn.
.
All the differences presented by now show different perspectives used in these metaphorical constructions, different cultural scripts, but they share the underlying deep meaning in most cases and all of them are invariably composed through the same mental mechanisms: metaphor and metonymy.
Examples:
ABSENCE makes the heart grow fonder.
Mai rãrut, mai drãgut.
ABSENCE sharpens love, presence strengthens it.
Celor ce duc mai mult dorul, le pare mai dulce odorul.
Long ABSENT, soon forgotten.
Prin depãrtare dragostea se uitã. Cf. Out of SIGHT, out of mind.
The ABSENT are always in the wrong.
Cei ce lipsesc nu capãtã dreptate.
Sim. He is neither absent without fault, nor present without excuse.
ABUNDANCE, like want, ruins many.
Bogãtia stricã pe om.
Out of the ABUNDANCE of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Din prisosul inimii grãieste gura.
Var. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. Cf. What the HEART thinks, the tongue speaks. * Matthew 12, 34 / Matei 12, 34 * Luke 6, 45 / Luca 6, 45
There is no good ACCORD where every man would be a lord.
Vai de casa cu multi stãpâni. Cf. Where every man is MASTER the world goes to wreck.
There is no ACCOUNTING for tastes.
Gustul disputã n-are. Sim. Everyone as they like best / Tastes differ. Cf. Every man to his TASTE.
ACORNS were good till bread was found.
Bunã si mãmãliga, când ne lipseste pâinea.
Bunã-i plãcinta, dar dacã nu-i, e bunã si pita.
Dacã nu e colac, e bunã si pâinea.
Sim. If you have not a capon, feed on onion / They that have no other meat, bread and butter are glad to eat / Better a mouse (louse) in the pot than no flesh at all.
ACTIONS speak louder than words.
Faptele grãiesc mai apãsat decât vorbele. Cf. DEEDS, not words.
3.4. Linguistic analysis of Romanian proverbs
The linguistic creativity builds fundamental sense for human existence as a semantic dimension. The human spirit of observation is well represented by the principle of alterity and the architecture of language, where the paremiological segments as well as the idiomatic expressions, well known as “repeated discourse” are important ones to understand the spirit of language that characterizes peoples. The semantic horizont of every proverb helps us to interpret the man and his identity inside of any specific community. The wisdom is not a product, it is a process sustained by language. The theoretical premises are universal and can be used by any language, as an important place where the language models the thought as wisdom concretized in speech.
Thus, Rome was not built in a day involving that nothing of value has ever been achieved without great effort (Gulland and Howell 1994: 210) has its Romanian counterpart in the saying încetul cu încetul se face oțetul, while to fiddle while Rome burns has a perfect equivalent in țara arde și baba se piaptănă both of them meaning to occupy oneself with trifles during a crisis. To meet one’s Waterloo, a phrase coined by Wendell Phillips, is turned into Romanian in the form of a-și afla sfârșitul. A tentative solution for the equivalent of this idiom could be a-și afla bacăul (where bacăul resembles the name of a Romanian town); nevertheless, this false toponym has hardly a connection with the Romanian set phrase for, probably due to the false analogy, the last word has been assimilated to the name of the town. In fact, bacău comes from bakó, a term of Hungarian origin, meaning executioner or hangman (Dumistrăcel 2001: 39-40). Moreover, to meet one’s Waterloo refers to circumstances making the defeat, while a-și afla bacăul refers to persons providing for the defeat. Therefore, it is advisable to use the first version, since it is meaningfully similar, even if it exemplifies a case of translation loss, the lack of the toponym Waterloo diminishing the imaginarydimensions of the defeat.
Two different toponymous idioms, to take/carry coals to Newcastle and to send owls to Athens that have the same meaning to take something to a place where there is already a great deal of it (Freedman and Freedman 1996: 61) are suggestively translated into Romanian by a saying a vinde castraveți grădinarului.
Originating in the following nursery rhyme Ride a cock-horse / To Banbury Cross, / To see an old woman / Ride on a white horse. / With rings on her fingers / And bells on her toes, / She shall have music / Wherever she goes. (DPF 1995: 18), the idiom to take a child to Banbury Cross (to swing it up and down on one’s foot) would find its correspondent in the syntagm a da huța (pe picioare).
A particular case within this analysis regarding the possibilities of translating toponymous idioms was noticed with two idioms, to come from Missouri and a road-to-Damascus(-style) conversion. The former is rendered in Romanian by means of an eponymous idiom, a fi Toma Necredinciosul (Nicolescu et al 1982: 73). The latter, a road-to-Damascus(- style) conversion, which suggests a dramatic change of mind on some burning issues, could have as a tentative equivalent o întoarcere ca la Verdun/Ploiești, conveying the same meaning, but, as in other cases referred in the foregoing, it is part of the every day speech, and due to its having an oral character it has not been included in any monolingual idiomatic dictionary yet.
The final example of this division comes from the American variant of English, all’s right along the Potomac and illustrates a case of transposition where the form is ignored and where the meaning plays the major role, its Romanian version being totul este calm/în ordine/ în regulă or nu există motive de alarmă, îngrijorare.
Very few toponymous idioms are used euphemistically, as it is the case with to dance the Tyburn jig ( a sfârși în ștreang) or with to talk Billingsgate (to talk like fish mongers at Billingsgate, which was formerly ‘the principal fish market in London, and notorious for its bad language’,
(Gulland and Howell 1994: 209). Full of flavour as the Romanian variant is, nevertheless, it belongs to the colloquial speech: a înjura ca un birjar; this solution could represent the proper equivalent for the latter example. It is, indeed, a case of translation loss for the toponym disappears in the Romanian equivalent, but stylistically they are meaningfully identical. A translation loss is obvious in the case of the idiom to wish somebody at Jericho/at York where either Jericho or York would have no content for the Romanian reader, while the version put forward by the biligual dictionary is not only the best equivalent but it also involves a traditional colouring, a trimite pe cineva unde a dus mutu iapa /și surdul roata/(Nicolescu et al 1982: 526). Euphemistically also are used the idioms to come Yorkshire over a man and to send (somebody) to Coventry. The former idiom, having the sense of to cheat/swindle a person, was the result of an extension of meaning for ’Yorkshire jockeys were known for their tricky dealings in the sale of horses’ (DPF1995 : 252). Its peculiar feature is the use of the toponym plays as a circumstantial adverb of manner, which is a rare thing to notice, since in their great majority, toponyms play the part of circumstantial adverbs of place. Thus, an incident during the English Civil War when groups of Royalists captured in Birmingham were sent for safekeeping to the Parliamentary stronghold of Coventry is the root of the latter saying mentioned in the foregoing, and its meaning of excluding from companionship ’signifies in disgrace or disfavour with one’s associates. It is ’used by schoolboys, who inflict the punishment frequently on their fellows.’(DPF 1995: 198)
In addition to the toponyms which belong to the British culture and there were also recorded toponymous idioms whose origin pertains to the non-British culture. To make a Roman holiday, that is to say to organize a gruesome spectacle for the public (Gulland and Howell 1994: 218) will have to be rendered in the target language by an explicitation, a organiza un spectacol înspăimântător/ terifiant/plin de cruzime for the intended reference of the idiom sends the imagination of the arenas of ancientmRome). An Olympian detachment translated by detașare olimpiană would hardly outline a vague idea of the English meaning, unless the Romanian version were completed by some additional information, pointing to an impersonal, unemotional view of human conflict (Gulland and Howell 1994: 211).
It seems only natural that many phraseological units should be, at least to a certain extent, international (through either meaning or phrasing – or both). Some English items can be considered (lexical or ideological) “variants” of what Romanians commonly use. Consider such instances as: a cincea roata (la caruta) – cf. fifth wheel “a hanger-on; a person who serves no function”; a sterge de pe fata pamântului “to wipe out” – Eng. fml. To raze to the ground; a face o scena – cf. to make a scene; (“de indignare etc.”) to put up a great show (of indignation, etc.); ca sardelele – cf. packed like sardines; cu orice pret – cf. at all costs, at any price; cântecul lebedei – cf. swansong; a studia (ceva) la microscop (fig.) – cf. to put (smth.) under the microscope; în toi “in full swing” (e.g. în toiul luptei “in the thick of the battle”), etc. The fact that some phraseological units (seen from the angle of both expression and image) tend to become (increasingly) international is no doubt an important feature of current phraseology.
By conducting a modest – though essentially didactic-oriented – comparative analysis of the corpus sampled for English and Romanian, we could detect a number of points of (literal) convergence and divergence.
_ There are units that seem to prove Romanian to be the more expressive language: si cu asta basta – cf. and that is that; îl paste un pericol – cf. a danger threatens him; a bate toba (fig.) – cf. to make a great fuss; a baga (pe cineva) la apa – cf. to get (smb.) into trouble; a baga în mormânt (fig.) – cf. to be the death of…; a fi cu cântec – cf. to have its (hidden) meaning; a mânca cât patru – cf. to be a heavy eater; a nu se baga – cf. to stand aloof, to keep off; a o scrânti, a face una boacana – cf. to put one’s foot in it; a se baga pe sub pielea cuiva – cf. to ingratiate oneself with smb.; a se vârî (pe) sub pielea cuiva – cf. to curry favour with smb.; a sta în capul oaselor – cf. to sit up; a vorbi între patru ochi – cf. to talk (to smb.) in private; a-si baga nasul (unde nu-i fierbe oala) – cf. to poke/stick one’s nose (where it’s not wanted); a-si lua câmpii – cf. to run away; amorezat/îndragostit lulea (de cineva) – cf. nuts/carried away/crazy about; etc…
It could be noted that, when the English structure has a higher degree of referentiality as compared to the Romanian one, the latter is either more figurative-metaphorical, or more conventional, e.g. to be drawn into – cf. a se angrena în (ceva); I’d give my shirt to (do smth.) – cf. ce n-as da sa…; to get it hot/in the neck – cf. a mânca bataie; a se mânia tare/rau – cf. to blow one’s top. Some expressive /graphical images in English mainly rely on the above-mentioned type of referentiality, e.g. to be skating on thin ice – cf. a fi într-o situatie delicata.
Conversely, the Romanian structure can have a higher degree of referentiality as compared to the English one, which is either more figurative-metaphorical, or more conventional, e.g. a bea aldamasul – cf. to wet the bargain; a-si uda gâtlejul – cf. to wet one’s whistle, to moisten one’s clay; (galben) ca ceara – cf. as pale as death; n-as pune mâna în foc (pentru el/ca el nu…) – cf. I wouldn’t put it past (him); a râde mânzeste – cf. to put on a forced/wry smile; to give a hollow laugh. So, the more conventionalized the structures are, the less expressive (i.e. stylistically neutral) they are overall: Rom. tot o apa/tot un drac – cf. Eng. much of a muchness; a face pe cineva albie de porci – cf. to call smb. names. Yet, such phrases as the ones below are altogether comparable: a fi rebegit de frig “to be stiff with cold, to be chilled to the bone/frozen to the marrow”.
That some (biblical) proverbs (and quotations) have become (or else, have come to be used as) idioms proper can be proved by such instances as: Spare the rod and spoil the child – which implies, in fact, the biblical quotation He that spareth his rod hateth his son: he that loveth him chastiseth him betimes/Rom. Cine cruta toiagul sau îsi uraste copilul, iar cel care îl iubeste îl cearta la vreme (Pilde, 13:24).
References
Andriescu, Alexandru. 1956. Valoarea stilistică a expresiilor idiomatice, în ,,Studii și cercetări științifice”, Filologie, Iași, vol. VII, nr. 1: 63-75
Bally, Charles. 1951. Traité de stylistique française, 3e éd. Genève-Paris,
Librairie Georg & Cie S. A., Librairie C. Klincksieck
Boroianu, Ioana. 1974. Conceptul de unitate frazeologică; tipuri de unități frazeologice (I), în ,,Limbă și Literatură”, nr. 1.: 24-34
Boroianu, Ioana. 1974. Conceptul de unitate frazeologică; tipuri de unități frazeologice (II), în ,,Limbă și Literatură”, nr. 2: 243-247
Ciobanu, Fulvia, Hasan, Finuța. 1970. Formarea cuvintelor în limba română. Compunerea, vol. I. București: Editura Academiei
Colțun, Gheorghe. 2000. Frazeologia limbii române. Chișinău: Editura Arc
Coșeriu, Eugen. 1994. Prelegeri și conferințe (1992-1993), Supliment la „Anuarul de lingvistică și istorie literară” al Institutului de Filologie Română „Al. Philippide”, Iași, XXXIII, 1992-1993, seria A., Lingvistică
Flavell, Linda. 1997. Dictionary of proverbs and their origins . London: Kyle Cathie.
Goossens, Louis. 1990. “Metaphtonymy: the interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic action”, Cognitive Linguistics 1-3, 323-340.
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. “Logic and conversation.” In: P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 3. Speech Acts. Nueva York: Academic Press, 41-58.
Hatch, Evelyn and Brown, Cheryl. 1995. Vocabulary, Semantics and Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, Georg. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, Georg and Turner, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Thornburg, Linda L. (eds.) 2003. Metonymy and pragmatic inferencing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, F. J. 2001. “Metonymy and the grammar.” Language and Communication 21/4, 321-357.
Copyright Notice
© Licențiada.org respectă drepturile de proprietate intelectuală și așteaptă ca toți utilizatorii să facă același lucru. Dacă consideri că un conținut de pe site încalcă drepturile tale de autor, te rugăm să trimiți o notificare DMCA.
Acest articol: Theoretical Aspects Of Proverb Translation (ID: 154782)
Dacă considerați că acest conținut vă încalcă drepturile de autor, vă rugăm să depuneți o cerere pe pagina noastră Copyright Takedown.