Translation Universals.pdf - ymerleksi - home

190 Pekka Kujamäki
weather out on the sea. The ambiguity can also be seen in translations of
these items into other languages (see Appendix 1) and in their dictionary
equivalents. In both cases the used or the potential translation equivalent
is either much more explicit than or only a semantic approximation of the
Finnish unique item in question. The following table (Table 1) with a few
examples from Finnish-German and Finnish-English dictionaries illustrates
the tendency of dictionary equivalents to explicate the meaning of such items
in other languages. It also shows the close (both semantic and functional)
synonymy of the first two Finnish items.
Table 1. Dictionary equivalents of hanki, kinos and keli in Finnisch-Deutsches Grosswörterbuch
(Katara & Schellbach-Kopra 1997 = FD) and Finnish-English General Dictionary
(Hurme, Malin, & Syväoja 1984 = FE)
Hanki Schneefläche, Schneedecke, Schneekruste,
Schnee (FD)
snow; (kinokset) snowdrifts (FE)
→ lumikerros, lumikasa, lumi
→ lumi, lumikasat
Kinos Schneewehe, -verwehung (FD) → lumikasa
keli
drift, snowdrift, snowbank (FE)
→ penkka, lumikasa, lumipenkka
Zustand der Wege (im Winter), Straßenzustand;
(säästä) Wetter, Witterung (FD)
→ teiden kunto, tieolosuhteet, sää
conditions, road/snow/surface conditions, → olosuhteet, tieolosuhteet
weather (FE)
/lumiolosuhteet/tien pinta, sää
To sum up: the category of “unique items” in a sense gets a definition
in translations from L1 to L2. As a research object, however, the category is
interesting in translation into the opposite direction, i.e. from L2 to L1. As
implied by the above examples, the concept of “unique items” opens (not
always, but with lexical units like these) a new perspective into the problem
of realia in translation: instead of asking the old-established question of how
these culture-specific items of L1 could be or have been translated into other
languages (L2), the question to be asked now is, whether and how such realia
of the target culture are used in translated utterances. Since “unique items”
like the ones above are lexicalised in Finnish but not in the source languages
from which the translation into Finnish is (e.g. in this particular experiment)
taking place, i.e. from German and English, the source languages do not offer
any direct stimulus for their use. The interesting research question is then, what
happens to such lexical elements in learners’ translations into Finnish. Are they
represented at all? With respect to students’ belief in their L1 competence one
would expect a straigtforward positive answer. To be more realistic, however,