Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Magisterská diplomová práce

Conclusion

This observational study was performed in order to gather data that would either support or disprove the hypothesis formulated by Renata Kamenická in her dissertation on explicitation, implicitation and the individual translator’s style that the use of translation-inherent explicitation seems to be governed by the norm, whereas the use of translation-inherent implicitation depends on the individual translator’s decision. With the help of a small parallel corpus of non-literary texts, this assumption was confirmed.

The translators differ only slightly in their use of explicitation (even though the source texts vary greatly) and it can be inferred that the norm for explicitation in this type of texts is approximately 110-130 instances of explicitation per each 2,500 running words. In Kamenická’s corpus of literary texts, the results were considerably smaller: 40 (±8)¹² instances of explicitation in the first of the two sub-corpora and 31 (±12) in the second sub-corpus. Similarly like in the case of Hopkinson, the main difference can be found in textual explicitation. Whereas in our corpus cohesion markers and references to information from the preceding parts of the texts are extremely frequent, Kamenická identified only 6 (±3) and 6 (±2) instances of TE in her samples. The specific character of the texts included in our corpus might be the reason for the difference: popular science literature focuses on presenting scientific topics, it is important that the readers follow the “lecture”; cohesion markers can help. In essays and fiction, on the other hand, this might not be essential.

Utilization of implicitation seems to depend on the individual translator’s preference (approximately 47 occurrences of implicitation per 2,500 running words in Hradilek’s translations and about 80 in those of Markoš’s). These findings are obviously applicable only to the four translations analyzed; no general conclusions are to be drawn here. Similarly like in the case of explicitation, Kamenická’s results related to implicitation were much smaller: 12 (±5) instances of implicitation per 2,500 running words in the first sub-corpus and 32 (±9) in the second sub-corpus; the occurrences of TI, LI and II being extremely scarce.

With respect to the two corpora compared, it seems that translations of literary texts resemble those of non-literary texts as far as explicitation and implicitation of experiential meanings is concerned, implying that shifts of meanings related to the process, process participants or process circumstances undoubtedly are universal. Nevertheless, shifts at the textual level dominate in our non-literary texts, implying that cohesion and exact references to information stated in the preceding parts of the texts are more important in popular science literature than in fiction and essays.

Another aim of the thesis was to make an attempt at describing translation-inherent explicitation and implicitation as prototypical categories, i.e. to try to describe the centre and the periphery of individual universals. The criterion made use of was the frequency of occurrences of individual subtypes of explicitation and implicitation in the corpus. Experiential and also textual explicitations, to a lesser extent, seem to form the centre of explicitation (meanings related to the process participants and to cohesion). As far as implicitation is concerned, experiential implicitations are central, followed by textual implicitations (meanings related to the information structure). Extensive further research is needed, though, as a number of occurrences are extremely difficult to categorize: the boundaries between textual translation-inherent implicitation and textual optional implicitation, textual and experiential explicitation and implicitation from the subcategory of circumstances, lexical simplification and implicitation, and stylistic simplification and normalization, for example, are blurred.

The research confirmed that explicitations as well as implicitations seem to be universal features of translation contributing to improvements of target texts. Both translators handle the universals skilfully. Not even the first text of the corpus in which explicitation is so abundant could be classified as overtranslated as Vinay & Darbelnet feared. However, their warning could be generalized—excessive interventions and changes of the source text can harm the target text. Evidence supporting this claim is readily available: a sentence from The Diversity of Life “The metaconcept holding all of the units together is hierarchy, which presupposes levels of organization.” was simplified considerably and translated as “Základní jednotky jsou hierarchicky uspořádány.” A lot of important information disappeared and the comprehension might be complicated. Another example can be found in the translation of Gould: “Binet decided to assign an age level to each task, defined as the youngest age at which a child of normal intelligence should be able to complete the task successfully” becomes “Binet se rozhodl ke každému úkonu přiřadit hodnotu věku. Předpokládal, že předložený úkol ještě zvládne dítě s normální inteligencí.” To put it simply, extensive implicitations and simplifications as well as explicitations seem better to be avoided.

Nevertheless, the majority of shifts of explicitness found in the translations are motivated by a need to create a target text of a good stylistic quality or to make the text clearer and more comprehensible. These are the shifts that need to be studied because we can learn from them. They can be used as guidelines not only for the laymen in the sphere of translation studies. We need to be aware of all the aspects that influence the process of translation, we need to understand the issues of norm and style so that the potential threats related to translation are eliminated and the quality of our translations can be improved.

Summary

The present diploma thesis is a contribution to the empirical, or rather observational research related to translation universals, translation-inherent explicitation and implicitation as S-universals, in particular. With the help of a parallel corpus consisting of four extracts from popular science literature books and their translations by two Czech translators—Antonín Hradilek and Anton Markoš—the following hypothesis is tested: The level of translation-inherent explicitation is governed by the norm, whereas the level of translation-inherent implicitation depends on the individual translator’s decision.

The data received through the analysis of occurrences of translation-inherent explicitation and implicitation in individual target texts provides evidence that supports the hypothesis. The two translators’ attitudes towards explicitation are more or less the same, whereas the greater number of instances of implicitation can be found in the translations by Markoš.

The individual occurrences of translation-inherent explicitation and implicitation were categorized according to the type of meaning that was explicitated/implicitated in order to find out explicitations/implicitations of which meanings form the centres and peripheries of the individual universals. The Hallidayian framework that delimits four basic types of functions (meanings)—experiential, logical, textual and interpersonal—was made use of. The research showed that explicitation and implicitation of experiential and textual meanings seem to form the centre of translation-inherent explicitation and implicitation. In many cases, however, boundaries are difficult to set, e.g. the boundary between textual translation-inherent and textual optional implicitation or stylistic simplification and normalization.