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Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Magisterská diplomová práce


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1.2 Explicitation

Probably the least disputable among all the controversial candidates for the status of a translation universal is explicitation, i.e. “the technique of making explicit in the target text information that is implicit in the source text” (Klaudy, 1998: 80). Most researchers seem to agree that target texts tend to be more explicit than their source texts as well as that translated texts tend to be more explicit than non-translated texts published in the same language (Hopkinson, 2008:15). However, there seems to be great confusion about the actual contents of the term explicitation itself, about its delimitation and about its relation to other related concepts, addition and specification in particular.

The origins of the confusion associated with the concept of explicitation can be seen in the well-known explicitation hypothesis formulated by Blum-Kulka in 1986 that turned the attention of a great number of researchers to this phenomenon.
The process of translation, particularly if successful, necessitates a complex text and discourse processing. The process of interpretation performed by the translator on the source text might lead to a TL text which is more redundant than the SL text. This redundancy can be expressed by a rise in the level of cohesive explicitness in the TL text. This argument may be stated as “the explicitation hypothesis”, which postulates an observed cohesive explicitness from SL to TL texts regardless of the increase traceable to differences between the two linguistic and textual systems involved. It follows that explicitation is viewed here as inherent in the process of translation. (Blum-Kulka, 1986: 19)
Unfortunately, the definition is rather vague. Blum-Kulka did not feel obliged to provide a precise explanation as “[a]t that point of the history of translation studies, explicitation appeared to be a fairly well-established term, grounded mainly in the prescriptive approach” (Kamenická, 2007a: 7). Taking it as a starting point, individual scholars tend to interpret, define and delimit the concept differently and the majority of later definitions of explicitation are unclear2.

Even before the explicitation hypothesis was formulated, there had been a couple of discussions that dealt basically with the concept of explicitation. The concept of explicitation was introduced by Vinay & Darbelnet, who in their glossary of terms defined explicitation as “[a] stylistic translation technique which consists of making explicit in the target language what remains implicit in the source language because it is apparent from either the context or the situation.” (1958/1995: 342). They also provided a warning pointing out that excessive use of explicitation usually leads to overtranslation (ibid).The concept is hinted at in Levý, 1963, too. Eugene Nida contributed to the discussion on explicitation, without actually having used the term explicitation, when writing about additions in his 1964 book.

In reaction to Blum-Kulka’s paper many studies were published, refining and supplementing the original hypothesis (Séguinot 1988, Klaudy 1993, Øverås 1998, Dimitrova 2005, Pym 2005, Kamenická 2007a, Hopkinson 2008, etc.) Let us mention only a few of them to illustrate the situation.

Candace Séguinot tested Blum-Kulka’s hypothesis on a small corpus of non-literary texts and concluded that the definition is too narrow as “explicitness does not necessarily mean redundancy” (Séguinot, 1988: 106). Moreover, Blum-Kulka “does not specify what it is that this redundancy concerns” (Kamenická, 2007b: 46) and her “observation is restricted to ‘cohesive explicitness’, to the markers that knit texts together. The hypothesis as formulated does not strictly concern all those uses of language that refer to things beyond the text or the turns in a conversation (which we may regard as parts of a text)” (Pym, 2005). Séguinot claimed that “‘[e]xplicitation’ [...] can only be defined relative to the kind and degree of ‘explicitness’ in a given language” and “the term ‘explicitation’ should [...] be reserved [...] for additions in a translated text which cannot be explained by structural, stylistic, or rhetorical differences between the two languages” (ibid: 108). Nevertheless, additions are not the only device of explicitation in her view. She also provided the first categorization of explicitation, albeit the distinction between the first two types is rather unclear:


“Explicitation can take three forms in a translation: something is expressed in the translation which was not in the original, something which was implied or understood through presupposition in the source text is overtly expressed in the translation, or an element in the source text is given greater importance in the translation through focus, emphasis, or lexical choice.” (ibid)
The classification was later refined by Kinga Klaudy, whose typology has been widely accepted nowadays and serves as a basis for the present thesis as well. In her 1993 study, Klaudy speaks about additions. She distinguishes the obligatory, optional (textual) and pragmatic additions. Obligatory additions are in her opinion “dictated by the structural differences between languages” (1993: 374), these are particularly the additions of missing categories and shifts in translation caused by the differences between analytic and synthetic languages, without these features target texts would be ungrammatical; optional are such additions that are not directly required by language, they are “necessary not for the correctness of the sentence but for the correctness of the text” (1993: 375) and are due to “differences that exist between languages concerning their text building strategies and stylistic preferences” (1993: 376). Without these additions, texts would sound odd and unnatural. Pragmatic additions are in a way optional and they “can be explained by differences between two cultures” (1993: 375). They are made use of when the translators feel that the target culture readers would not understand some particular issues the source culture readers take for granted and provide a kind of explanation.

In Klaudy’s later encyclopaedic entry in The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies in which the definitions originally used only for additions are applied to explicitation in general the term “translation inherent explicitation” occurs as well. Translation-inherent explicitations can be “explained by one of the most pervasive, language independent features of all translational activity, namely the necessity to formulate ideas in the target language that were originally conceived in the source languages” (1998: 81-83).

As already hinted above, the relation between explicitation, addition and specification has been perceived differently by different scholars and the distinction between the concepts is not a clear-cut one. It provokes a lively discussion. Nevertheless, most scholars tend to understand addition and specification as subcategories of explicitation. On the contrary, Nida, for example, was believed to assert that explicitation is a type of addition in his 1964 book. Kamenická, however, pointed out that he “conceptualises explicitation and addition – albeit implicitly – as synonyms” and provided well-grounded evidence for her argument (Kamenická, 2007a: 13). Linn Øverås believed addition and specification to be subcategories of explicitation—e.g. “The investigation of both grammatical and lexical explicitation include subcategories of addition and specification” (1998). Similarly Englund Dimitrova claims that explicitation can “take one of two forms: addition of new elements; or specification, a translation that gives more specific information” (2005: 34). Nevertheless, the seemingly unproblematic association between explicitation and specification (and implicitation and generalization) has been questioned by Kamenická: “This is, in my opinion, an association whose validity is limited. Although the observation may be accurate in some cases [...], ST/TT units where the connection is reversed can also be found. [...] A number of examples where a more general rather than more specific reference results in explicitation can be found in the category of the so-called pragmatic (cultural) explicitation” (2007b: 48).

Still another perspective of understanding of the concept of explicitation, or rather explicitness shifting was presented by Hopkinson (2008: 7-8, 33-39). He identifies four main angles from which individual researchers tend to view and explain the phenomenon of explicitation: the linguistic angle (e.g. Klaudy, 1998) viewing explicitation as shifts that “cannot be explained by systemic, structural, stylistic or rhetorical differences between languages” (Hopkinson, 2008: 7), the psycholinguistic angle that views translators as both readers and writers at the same time and explicitation as a result of their processing of the source text and reconstructing of the original meaning (e.g. Pym, 2005), the pragmatic angle that suggests that explicitation should be seen as “a by-product of a problem-solving process undertaken by translators” (e.g. Séguinot, 1998, quoted from Hopkinson, 2008: 37) or as a result of translators’ endeavour to provide their readers with a clearer, more comprehensible text, and the sociolinguistic angle that goes hand in hand with the notion of professional experience, translation norms and the functional linguistic approach (e.g. Dimitrova, 2005).

The aim of this section was to illustrate the complexity of the discourse on explicitation and the difficulties related to explaining and defining the concept. For the purpose of the present thesis, however, the exact definition of explicitation and all its types is of no major importance. The thesis builds on Kamenická’s opinion that
“explicitation is a prototype category, i.e. a category the membership of which cannot be defined by a single property shared by all of its members, but whose members are connected by family resemblances. What translation studies can do instead of adding to the rather futile attempts at constructing definitions around single/individual attributes of explicitation is describe the centre and the periphery of the category, which, to my knowledge, has not yet been done” (2007a: 55).
The focus of the present thesis is translation-inherent explicitation (and implicitation). Based on the instances of explicitation (and implicitation) identified in the corpus compiled for the purpose of the thesis, an attempt will be made to describe the centre and the periphery of these categories.

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