Additions and omissions of nouns

Table 6.2 lists the additions and omissions of nominal material that have been identified in the investigated data.

Eng→Ger Ger→Eng

addition 136 100

omission 65 77

Table 6.2: Denotational shifts consisting in the addition or omission of nominal material

The table allows us to make the following two observations:

Observation 1: Overall, the findings exhibit a marked lack of explicita-tion-implicitation counterbalancing (136 additions Eng-Ger vs. 77 omissions Ger-Eng; 100 additions Ger-Eng vs. 65 omissions Eng-Ger).

Observation 2: There is a disproportionately large number of nominal ad-ditions in the direction English-German (136 instances).

We are going to explain these observations in the following.

Qualitative analysis has identified three situations, or types of situa-tions, in which translators tend to add or omit nominal material. We will discuss them in turn.

1. First of all, my data indicate that translators tend to add nouns in or-der to fill argument slots of nouns and verbs. Cf. the following examples:

(133) [. . . ] Know what the company vision and values are and actively play my part.

[. . . ] Die Unternehmens-Vision und -Werte zu kennen und aktivzur Umsetzungbeizutragen

(134) Für Ihr Vertrauen danke ich Ihnen.

I thank you for your continuing confidencein our Company.

Nouns and verbs both take arguments. For example, we say thatA plays a part in B, orX’s confidence in Y, where the variablesA,B,X, andYdenote ar-gument slots that may be filled by lexical material (prototypically nouns).

In certain circumstances, namely when a verbal or nominal argument may be assumed to be inferable by the reader, the associated argument slot may remain unfilled (provided that grammar allows this, i.e. the filling of the argument slot is optional). Thus, in the English source text of the above ex-amples, a verbal argument (133) and a nominal argument (134) have been omitted. The translators of (133) and (134) have filled the empty argument slots by adding the prepositional phraseszur Umsetzung and in our Com-pany. (Recall that in the present study, the term noun-baseddoes not only mean shifts on the level of the noun phrase, but also refers to additions, omissions, and substitutions of prepositional phrases, which are largely made up of nominal material; see Section 3.7.1.)

The tendency of translators to fill nominal and verbal argument slots, which can be regularly observed in the investigated data, is not difficult to explain given what we have discussed in Section 2.5 (and observed in the previous chapter). The goal of expository prose is to provide a comprehen-sible description of states of affairs. An expository text can be considered as good if it enables the reader to build up a representation of these states of affairs in her knowledge. Translators of expository prose are essentially paid for extending the target audience of an expository text. Thus, their success is measured by the extent to which readers manage to understand the target text, or more precisely: to build up a cognitive representation of the states of affairs expressed by the target text. As a result, it should not surprise us that translators – when in doubt – tend to be rather too explicit than too implicit when determining which participants (= arguments) of a given state of affairs should be verbalized and which ones should be left implicit. For translators, being explicit means avoiding risk.

As the following example shows (cf. also example (41) discussed in Section 3.7.1), argument omissions also occur in the investigated data:

(135) XYZ’s Family Relationship Program has helpedpeopleget answers to questions and access resources.

Mit dem Family-Relationship-Programm hat XYZ geholfen, Fragen zu klären und Zugang zu Ressourcen zu öffnen [. . . ].

However, argument omissions were found to be considerably less fre-quent than the corresponding additions, which is to be expected from the

considerations made above.

2. Another tendency represented in the corpus is the noun-based ver-balization of additional states of affairs that are inferable from the context.

Cf. the following examples:

(136) These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management.

Das Management der Gesellschaft ist für dieErstellungdieser Jahresabschlüsse verantwortlich.

(137) Vorstand und Aufsichtsrat nehmen die positive

Geschäftsentwicklung zum Anlass, der Hauptversammlung eine gegenüber dem Vorjahr erhöhte Dividende [. . . ] vorzuschlagen.

Based on the positive business trend, the Board of Management and Supervisory Board propose to the Annual General Meetingthe payment of an increased dividend [. . . ].

In (136), the translator has added the noun Erstellung, which makes ex-plicit in what way the company’s management is responsible for these financial statements: The management is responsible for preparing them.

In doing so, the translator has verbalized an additional state of affairs – prepare (management, financial statements) – that is implicated, but not overtly expressed by the source text. Example (137) has already been discussed in Section 3.7.1.

It is interesting to note that there are no examples of implicitations in-volving this kind of shift. Our brief discussion above has already provided a plausible reason for this: Translators of expository prose have good rea-sons for increasing explicitness, but there is little that might motivate them to decrease explicitness. Thus, a translator back-translating the German target text of (136) to English, for example, will have no reason for omitting Erstellung, especially since salient equivalents of this noun are available in English (e.g. preparationorpreparing).

The lack of motivation to perform implicitations in the two cases just discussed – (a) the filling of argument slots and (b) the verbalization of inferable states of affairs – explains Observation 1 made at the begin-ning of this section, namely the observation that there is a marked lack of explicitation-implicitation counterbalancing in both translation directions.

3. While the two cases discussed above occur across translation direc-tions, the third case to be discussed here concerns a rather ‘unidirectional’

type of shift, where nouns are added in the direction English-German but tend to be omitted in the direction German-English. The high frequency of

this type of shift accounts for our Observation 2, namely the observation that explicitations are disproportionately frequent in the translation direc-tion German. To name an example of this kind of shift, English-German translators routinely add the nounJahr‘year’ to numerals denot-ing dates:

(138) In 2000, this number will be $17 billion.

ImJahr2000 wird dieser Servicebereich die $17 Mrd. Marke erreichen.

(139) If the events of 2001 have taught us anything, it’s that predicting the future is a very tricky proposition.

Wenn uns die Ereignisse desJahres2001 etwas gelehrt haben, so ist es die Lektion, dass das Vorhersagen der Zukunft eine äußerst riskante Angelegenheit ist.

(140) Although these savings will begin in 2002 [. . . ]

Obwohl bereits imJahr2002 mit derartigen Einsparungen gerechnet werden kann [. . . ]

It is easy to see why translators do this. The translator of (138) might have translated In 2000 wird dieser Servicebereich. . ., but the use of the preposi-tion in with dates is considered as an “annoying anglicism”¹ by German prescriptivists. The ‘correct’, preposition-less version would be: 2000 wird dieser Servicebereich. . . , but this version sounds a bit awkward because the bare numeral introducing the sentence is difficult to parse syntactically.

Thus, the translator of (138) has decided to add the noun Jahr. Similar considerations apply to examples (139) and (140).

The analysis of the opposite translation direction has shown that German-English translators are surprisingly good at performing the op-posite kind of shift, i.e. they regularly omit the noun Jahrin this context.

This can be nicely observed in the following introductory passages taken from three different corpus texts (by three different companies):

(141) Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,das Jahr1999 war für die XYZ-Gruppe ein sehr erfolgreiches Jahr.

Ladies and Gentlemen, 1999 was a very successful year for the XYZ Group.

1See http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/zwiebelfisch/0,1518,311727,00.html [last accessed 2010-12-07].

(142) Liebe Aktionärinnen, liebe Aktionäre,das Jahr2000 war für den Konzern XYZ ein einzigartiges und sehr erfolgreiches Jahr.

Dear Shareholders, 2000 was a unique and exceptionally successful year for XYZ.

(143) Liebe Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre, XYZ hat imGeschäftsjahr [‘fiscal year’] 1999 seine positive Entwicklung fortgesetzt.

Dear Shareholders, XYZ continued its positive performance in 1999.

As examples (141) through (143) indicate, there is some explicitation-implicitation counterbalancing to be observed in this case. The same is the true for the noun Bereich ‘area’, which is regularly added to English-German translations, but omitted in English-German-English translations, as the following pair of examples illustrates:

(144) New consumer demands and dramatic advances in automotive technology [. . . ]

Neue Kundenerwartungen und dramatische Veränderungen im Bereichder Automobiltechnologie [. . . ]

(145) Der Umsatz von XYZ liegt mit rund 70% imBereich Sicherheits-und Fahrwerkelektronik.

About 70% of XYZ’s sales are generated in safety and chassis electronics.

Although Veränderungen in der Automobiltechnologie would have been a possible rendition of advances in automotive technology, the translator of (144) has decided to add the noun Bereich. The reason for this seems to be that the use of Bereichin this context is very popular in German busi-ness texts. Accordingly, English-German translators regularly addBereich, while German-English translators tend to omit the item. Note that in (145) a direct translation ofBereichwould have been possible (cf. e.g.:in the area of safety and chassis electronics), but the translator has decided to omit the noun, most probably in order to comply with the communicative prefer-ences of the Anglophone target audience.

In sum, both in the case of Jahr and Bereich, we see a tendency to counterbalance English-German additions by German-English omissions, which seems to be driven by translators’ urge to observe the commu-nicative conventions of the target register, i.e. to apply a cultural filter.

However, as the following examples show, the counterbalancing is far from perfect, i.e. translators do not implicitate as often as they could:

(146) Die einschneidenden Restrukturierungsmaßnahmen habenim Geschäftsjahr2001 zu einer erheblichen Belastung des Ergebnisses und des Cash Flow geführt.

The drastic restructuring measures posed a considerable burden on earnings and cash flowin fiscal year2001.

(147) Hohes Wachstumspotenzial liegt imBereichChassiselektronik.

The chassis electronicsareaoffers considerable opportunities for growth [. . . ].

The translator of (146) has translated im Geschäftsjahr 2001asin fiscal year 2001, although the more implicit variant in 2001 would be more in line with the communicative conventions of the English business register, as examples (138) through (143) indicate. Similarly, the nounareacould have been omitted in (147): Chassis Electronics offers considerable opportunities for growth(cf. (145)).

Why do translators sometimes ‘fail’ to implicitate in the third category of shifts discussed here? Nouns such asJahr/GeschäftsjahrandBereichare not very salient to the translator. They do not pose a translation prob-lem that would require a creative solution. Thus, translators will only omit these nouns if they specifically watch out for them in the source text.

Translators who do not watch out for these nouns will tend to render them using equivalent nouns in English. Moreover, even translators who do try to get rid of redundant nouns such as Jahr and Bereich might over-look some exponents of this group. This explains the lack of explicitation-implicitation counterbalancing in the present type of shift (and, along with what has been said under 1. and 2. above, accounts forObservation 1).