If a text or a certain expression has no equivalent in another language, it is described as untranslatable.
Can anything be translated?
Some theories state that in principle nothing can ever be translated: languages are, according to the theory, so closely linked to the cultures in which they are used that one can even safely assume that no two languages have equivalent concepts (cf. the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis). In the Italian edition of her book Translation Studies, originally published in 1980, (La traduzione: teorie e pratica, translated by Genziana Bandini, 1993), Susan Bassnett illustrates this with the example of the English term ‘butter’ and the Italian translation ‘burro’. Both terms refer to an edible dairy product sold in the form of a block of fat in their respective cultures of origin. It would nevertheless be incorrect to claim that ‘burro’ and ‘butter’ mean the same thing in both cultural contexts, because there are in fact the following differences:
| burro | butter | |
| bright colour | deep yellow colour | |
| sweet taste | salty taste | |
| used when cooking | spread on bread (bread and butter) | |
| no social connotations | connotes high class (compared to more common margarine) |
Benedetto Croce and Eugenio Montale were supporters of the theory of the impossibility of translation particularly as regards literary translation.
Theory and practice
Despite the claims of this theory, in practice texts are constantly being translated from one language to another, regardless of whether they are said to be impossible to translate or not. How difficult texts are to translate depends on the genre and the skill and experience of the translator.
Describing a text or expression as “impossible to translate” is usually meant to show that there is a “gap”, rather than no corresponding word or phrase at all in the target language.
The translator can use several methods of translation to fill this gap.
Methods of translation
Among the methods of translation a translator can use to counteract the impossibility of translation are the following:
Adaptation
Adaptation, also known as ‘free translation’, is a translation method in which the translator replaces references to the source society or culture with corresponding features of the target society or culture which are more appropriate for readers of the target text.
For example, in the English translation of the Belgian comic Les Aventures de Tintin et Milou, Tintin’s animal friend Milou becomes Snowy; in the Dutch version he is called Bobby. Similarly, the detectives Dupond and Dupont become Thomson and Thompson in English, Jansen and Janssen in Dutch, Schultze and Schulze in German etc.
When the Québécois dramaturge Michel Tremblay put on the play The Government Inspector by Gogol under the title Le gars de Québec, he moved the setting from Russia to his own native country.
Translations of poems, plays and advertising texts often make use of adaptation.
Loan translation
A loan translation is a translation method whereby the translator translates a phrase (sometimes even the parts of individual words) literally into the target language, i.e. a word for word translation.
Compensation for a phrase
Compensation is a method of translation whereby the translator can get around stylistic difficulties in the source text by introducing similar stylistic effects at other points in the target text.
For example, many languages use two different second-person pronouns, one formal and one informal (French tu and vous, Spanish tú and Usted, German du and Sie, to give but a few examples). English only very rarely makes this distinction, so the translator must convey this in another way, either by using first names or nicknames, or through syntactic constructions which are seen as informal in English (I’m, you’re, gonna, dontcha etc.).
Borrowing
Borrowing is a method of translation in which the translator uses a word or phrase from the source text in the target text without changing it. Borrowed words are normal printed in italics if the word is not regarded as having been integrated into the vocabulary of the target language.
Paraphrase
Paraphrase (also known as periphrasis) is a method of translation in which the translator renders one term in the source text using several words or an entire phrase.
Translator’s notes
A translator’s note is an explanation, usually a footnote, which the translator inserts to give details about the either the limitations of a translation or the source culture or any other information he or she feels is useful.
These notes are sometimes permitted in translation exams and sometimes even required. However many professional translators see such notes as an admission of defeat.
The untranslatability of poetry and puns
Two fields in which texts are not far from being untranslatable are poetry and puns: poetry because of the importance of the rhyme and rhythm of the source language; puns because they depend heavily on the source language.
Nevertheless, some of the above mentioned methods of translation can be applied in such cases. A translator can, for example, insert a new pun at another point in the text to ‘replace’ an ‘irreplaceable’ pun.