Calque in translation: William Tyndale

Lexical calque:

• Passover < to pass over = Hebrew פסח [pāsáḥ]

• Scapegoat < to escape and goat = Hebrew עזאזל [‘ǎz’āzēl]

Phrasal calque:

• knock and it shall be opened unto you

• twinkling of an eye a moment in time

• seek and you shall find

• eat, drink and be merry

• ask and it shall be given you

• judge not that you not be judged

 

Borrowings vs calques: what to choose for translation?

It depends on the target of translation: if you need

• to render a historical or ethnic flavour in the literary text

• to use an ‘universal’ / ‘international’ words for specific items in the technical text or concepts in the humanitarian text

• to name a new item or concept but TL doesn’t have an equivalent word,

you CAN use BORROWINGS!

If you need

• to avoid the overuse of borrowings in the target language

• to render author’s neologisms in the literary text

• to give emotional expressivity to the translated literary text,

you SHOULD use CALQUES

For example, in Ukrainian we use the French word Planchette for the electronic gadget; the literal meaning of this word is ‘a little board’; if to calque this word, its Ukrainian equivalent will be «дощечка». The French borrowing is preferable in this case.

How to translate from Ukrainian into English the author’s neologism «розхмарене чоло» (M. Ryl’s’ky)? To use here paraphrases “the bright face” or “the shining forehead / brow”? In this case the emotional connotations are lost.

It would be better to use calque here: “the brow-without-clouds”. If it sounds like a whole word, it sounds more impressive and emotional.

 

Problems of the calque

In the Latin translation of the Bible of st. Jerome (Vulgata) in the prayer “Our Father in Heaven” (“Pater noster”) the Greek word ἐπιούσιος (ἐπι- ‘over’ and ούσια – ‘essence’, ‘substance’), which means ‘everyday’ (adj.), was translated as ‘supersubstantialem’, i.e. ‘supernatural’

Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie (Mat 6:11 NOV)

In the Old Latin Translation: Panem nostrum cotidianum (‘everyday’).

 

Literal Translation

Literal translation occurs when there is an exact structural, lexical, even morphological equivalence between two languages. This is only possible when the two languages are very close to each other:

English: The ink is on the table

French: L’encre est sur la table.

Ukrainian: Чорнильниця на столі.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not: if one sentence can be translated literally across languages, it does not mean that all sentences can be translated literally.

 

Oblique Translation Techniques

Oblique Translation Techniques are used when the structural or conceptual elements of the source language cannot be directly translated without altering meaning or upsetting the grammatical and stylistics elements of the target language.

 

Transposition

This is the process where parts of speech change their sequence when they are translated:

English blue ball becomes boule bleue in French.

Grammatical structures are often different in different languages:

He likes swimming translates as Er schwimmt gern in German. Transposition is often used between English and Ukrainian because of the object’s position in the sentence: English often has the object after the verb; Ukrainian can have it in the beginning (if this position is emphatic).

My friends said me happy birthday.

Мене привітали друзі з Днем Народження.

 

Modulation

Modulation consists of using a phrase that is different in the source and target languages to convey the same idea:

Hold your peace! – the literal translation of this phrase is «Тримай свій мир!», but translates better as «Тримай язик за зубами». Through modulation, the translator generates a change in the point of view of the message without altering meaning and without generating a sense of awkwardness in the reader of the target text. It is often used within the same language: you can say “Be silent!” in English or «Мовчи!» in Ukrainian.

Have you a nice day! – is translated as «Гарного дня!» (literal translation: «Май гарний день!»)