Literal Meaning in Translation: Hyperonymy & Hyponymy
Literal Meaning and Translation
- The term ‘meaning’ is especially elastic and indeterminate when applied to an entire text.
Dictionary Definitions and Context
- In the case of words, it is this basic literal meaning that is given in dictionary definitions.
- A dictionary definition imposes, by abstraction and crystallization of a ‘core’ meaning, a rigidity of meaning that words do not often show in reality.
- Once words are put into different contexts, their literal meanings become even more flexible.
- Let’s discuss ways of comparing degrees of correspondence in literal meaning between Source Texts (STs) and Target Texts (TTs).
- Our discussion will presuppose the type of semantic equivalence.
Understanding Literal Meaning
Literal meaning specifies the ‘range’ covered by a word or phrase so that one knows what items are included in that range or category and what items are excluded from it.
- The most useful way to visualize literal meanings is by thinking of them as circles.
- In this way, we can represent intersections between categories and reflect overlaps in literal meaning between different expressions.
Hyperonymy and Hyponymy
- Hyperonymy and Hyponymy.
- Compare ‘el chico abre la ventana’ with ‘the boy opens the window.’
- It is at least possible that the Spanish phrase refers to a progressive event reported by the speaker.
- This would have to be expressed in English by ‘the boy is opening the window.’
- ‘El chico abre la ventana’ and ‘the boy opens the window’ are not full synonyms, but have non-identical ranges of literal meaning.
- An expression with the wider, less specific, range of literal meaning is a hyperonym of the one with the narrower and more specific literal meaning.
- Conversely, the narrower one is a hyponym of the wider one. For example, “Aquella es mi prima”
Particularizing and Generalizing in Translation
- Particularizing and Generalizing: Translating by a hyponym implies that the TT expression has a narrower literal meaning than the ST expression. That is, the TT gives particulars that are not given by the ST. This is particularizing translation, or particularization.
- Translating by a hyperonym implies that the TT expression has a wider literal meaning than the ST expression. That is, the TT is more general, omitting details that are given by the ST.
- Partially Overlapping Translation: For example, “The teacher treated brother and sister differently” and “La profesora trató a los hermanos de un modo diferente.”
- Regarding the gender of the teacher, the Spanish TT particularizes (just as it would have done in specifying ‘el profesor’).
- Conversely, in the English phrase, the gender difference between the two siblings is specified unambiguously.
- The Spanish TT leaves this ambiguous: the Spanish TT generalizes here, in that ‘los hermanos’ is a gender-neutral term, more or less equivalent in its literal meaning to ‘siblings.’
- This TT combines particularization with generalization, adding a detail not found in the ST and omitting a detail given in the ST.
- Overlapping translation is not acceptable when one or more of the following three conditions hold:
- First, if the omitted detail is important to the ST but cannot be recovered from the overall context of the TT.
- Second, if the added detail creates discrepancies in the TT.
- Third, if the TL does offer suitable alternatives to avoiding either the omissions or additions or both.