Another language / linguistics-related question from one who is a professional translator. One of my most recent projects was an automobile questionnaire thing. One of the English translated sentences I wrote was, “Here you can see a series of statements which describe the specific features and functions recognised with the model names of certain cars”.
Now, everything up to the word “functions” is enough to constitute a grammatically complete sentence in English, but I would say that it makes no sense in separation. What I mean here is that there is no way of knowing what everything up to the word “functions” is getting at if you don’t know what it is supposed to refer to to begin with; this would only be the case if you had identified the subject matter under discussion up to that point. What are sentences like this called?
In THIS comment I focus less on what I have to say in connection with language and translation and more on what other people have to say about it; I respond to a few things here.
1) Someone once said:
“Translation involves effectively communicating the content – the message – of a source text through the medium of another language, in a manner appropriate to the type of text, target group and cultural context.” (they add, “Do not be afraid to break free from the source text.”)
My response: Wouldn’t it be better to say “‘in’ the medium of another language”?
2) On the website of traducteurs.com you can read:
“Communiquer dans une langue qui n’est pas la sienne ne s’improvise pas : traduire est une affaire de professionnels.”
My response: Literally translated, this is like: “To communicate in a language that is not one’s own, does not ‘improvise itself’…” How astute am I to reword this thus?: “Communcating in a language other than one’s own is not a matter of improvisation…” or “Communicating in a language other than one’s own is not born of improvisation.” I don’t know.
3) Apparently, one of Charles Darwin’s quotes is:
“Language is an art, like brewing or baking… it is certainly not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt.”
I’ve never guessed that Charles Darwin was a linguist at heart, but it does seem to me that COMMUNICATION is a born of instinct (or quasi-instinct. Either way, maybe it’s the case that one cannot always tell the difference, but I know that Charles Darwin could if this quote of his is anything to go by. Language is an art, and like all art it is very diverse; it’s no wonder that misunderstandings and unwitting misrepresentations are so common, really.