Translation Universals.pdf - ymerleksi - home

Thefateof“TheFamiliesofMedellín” 213
Table 5. Retaining vs. changing the metaphoric instances of home/family
Home/family metaphor without with
instructions (N = 45) instructions (N = 35)
both retained 22 = 49% 15 = 43%
one retained 16 = 36% 14 = 40%
both missing 7 = 15% 6 = 17%
With the repetition related to the metaphoric extensions the students’ behaviour
seems to be more random than with the “normal” kinds of repetition
in the ST, although the differences are not very great. The reason could be that
we are dealing with a slightly different phenomenon here, and students do not
identify the metaphorical extensions as such. On the other hand, this may also
imply that the students’ unit of translation is not large enough; students may
operate successfully at the level of sentences or paragraphs; but they do not
operate at the level of the whole text.
5. Concluding remarks
The isolated examples of ST repetition and the students’ reactions to it discussed
in this article give a somewhat incoherent picture. In some cases there
is evidence of avoidance of repetition; in other cases the mechanism at work
seems to be the principle of “faithful” translation (typical of first-year students
who enter the university with a firmly rooted school-translation concept). In
some cases stylistic sensitivity training seems to produce results, while sometimes
the students seem more immune. Obviously, as novices in translation the
students have not yet internalised the unspoken “norms” of translation which
professionals might share (cf. Blum-Kulka & Levenston 1983). Furthermore,
as less experienced writers, they might not apply the “rules of good writing”
as systematically as experienced writers, such as professional translators, do. In
fact, there are a few intriguing exceptions in my material; these are students
who have entered translator training after studying e.g. English philology for
a couple of years. These students seem to be more inclined to avoid repetition
than the genuine novices who have entered university right after school.
The findings may also stem from the fact that the examples deal with
different kinds of phenomena. In the future it might make more sense to
treat the repetition related to the metaphoric extensions separately from the
“ordinary” kinds of lexical and structural repetition. There are also other