Translatability
Sometimes it is not just cultural differences that pose hurdles for translation activity. It could be a grammatical construction that becomes the problem. For example the Hindi “Yahaan ka mahaul achcha hain” cannot be translated using the same word order in English. If we do so it would become “Here’s atmosphere is good” which is wrong in English. To have the correct English equivalent we use “The atmosphere here is good”. Similarly “Aap ka shubh naam” often gets converted to “your good name” in English. These gaps in translation often have (unintentional) hilarious results. Be on the lookout for such gaffes the next time you watch a movie or song in your mother tongue with English subtitles!
J. C. Catford identifies two types of untransalatability – linguistic and cultural. Linguistic untranslatability occurs when there are no grammatical or syntactic equivalents in the TL. Cultural differences pave the way for cultural untransalatability. Popovič also differentiates between two types of problems. The first is: “A situation in which the linguistic elements of the original cannot be replaced adequately in structural, linear, functional or semantic terms in consequence of a lack of denotation or connotation”. The other is a situation “where the relation of expressing the meaning i.e. the relation between the creative subject and its linguistic expression in the original does not find an adequate linguistic expression in the translation” (qtd in Bassnett 34). The examples given above illustrate these problems.
Does this mean that translation is an impossibility? This is not so. Georges Mounin, a French linguist felt that dwelling on the problems of untranslatability will not yield any positive results. According to him, there are certain areas of personal experience that are basically beyond translation. This is because each individual’s private domain is exclusively her/his own and anything, especially literature, that deals with it is also bound to be individualistic and might not yield to recapturing of its essence. Problems in translation also occur because of fundamental differences between two language systems that differ in their very basic sense. For example, it will be more difficult to translate from English (an Indo-European language) into Malayalam (a Dravidian language) because they differ in all linguistic aspects. But Mounin believed that communication through translation is possible if we try to understand it in context. He points out that the starting point of any translation should be clear and concrete. Translation involves “the consideration of a language in its entirety, together with its most subjective messages, through an examination of common situations and a multiplication of contacts that need clarifying” (Bassnett 36). Translation wo
uld imply comprehensive consideration of both source and target languages, and an evaluation of how the SL text can best be reproduced in the TL. This would mean that a completely successful communication through translation is impossible. But this also proves that some form of communication is not impossible either.
When we come to the problem of translatability and the fine hairsplitting that go with it, we have to pause and remember a few basic facts.
