Explicitation in translation
3.4 Klaudy’s classification of explicitation
The wide variety of forms which explicitation might assume is not the only factor differentiating individual approaches. As emphasised by Klaudy and K´aroly (2005), explicitation functions in translation literature as an umbrella term for a number of different transfer operations. Klaudy’s typology (1993, 1996, 1998) encompasses four distinct types of explicitation: 1) obligatory explicitation; 2) optional explicitation; 3) pragmatic explicitation; and finally 4) translation-inherent explicitation.
Table 3.1 below reproduces Klaudy’s attempt to systematise the different types of explicitation which can be found in translation: her classification, which is essentially based on the likely motivations for explicitating shifts, overtly suggests that only explicitation type 4 would qualify as a universal trend in translation.
Type of explicitation Motivation for explicit-ation
Consequences of non-explicitation
1. Obligatory structural syntactic and se-mantic differences between 4. Translation-inherent the process of translation
itself
none
Table 3.1: Klaudy’s (1998) classification of explicitation: motivation and consequences
3.4.1 Obligatory explicitation
Obligatory explicitation is dictated by differences in the syntactic and semantic structure of language (Barkhudarov 1975; Vaseva 1980; Klaudy 1993, 2003;
Englund Dimitrova 1993). Syntactic and semantic explicitation is obligatory because without it TL sentences would be ungrammatical. The most obvious cases of obligatory cases of obligatory explicitation are triggered by the so-called ‘missing categories’. For example, there is no definite article in Russian. Translation from Russian into Spanish, which uses the definite article prolifically, will thus involve numerous additions, as will translation from the preposition-free Hungarian into languages such as Russian and English, which use prepositions. While syntactic explicitation generally entails an increase in the number of words (tokens) in the TT, semantic explicitation consists of choosing more specific words in the TT. Because of the different linguistic structuring of reality in different languages, certain concepts such as body parts, colours and kinship terms may have more detailed vocabularies in some languages than in others. For example, the English terms ‘brother’ and
‘sister’ cannot be translated into Hungarian without explicitation, because Hungarian has different terms for ‘younger brother’ (¨ocs) and ‘younger sister’
(hug), and for ‘older brother’ (b´aty) and ’older sister’ (n¨ov´er).
3.4.2 Optional explicitation
Optional explicitation is dictated by differences in text-building strategies and stylistic preferences between languages. Such explicitations are optional
in the sense that grammatically correct sentences can be constructed without their application in the TL, although the text as a whole would become clumsy and unnatural. Examples of optional explicitation include sentence or clause initial addition of connective elements to strengthen cohesive links, the use of relative clauses instead of long, left branching nominal constructions, and the addition of emphasizers to clarify sentence-perspective, among others (Doherty 1987; Vehmas-Lehto 1989).
3.4.3 Pragmatic explicitation
Pragmatic explicitation of implicit cultural information is dictated by differ-ences between cultures: members of the target-language cultural community may not share aspects of what is considered general knowledge within the SL culture and, in such cases, translators often need to include explanations in translations. For example, names of villages and rivers, or of items of food and drink, which are well known to the SL community may mean nothing to the TL audience. In such cases, a translator might, for instance, write ‘the lake Alster’ for Alster, or ‘Lake Fert¨o’ for Fert¨o.
3.4.4 Translation-inherent explicitation
Translation-inherent explicitation can be attributed to the nature of the translation process itself. S´eguinot draws a distinction between “choices that can be accounted for in the language system, and choices that come about because of the nature of the translation process” (1988:18). The latter type of explicitation is explained by one of the most pervasive, language-independent features of all translational activity, namely the necessity to formulate ideas in the TL that were originally conceived in the SL (Klaudy 1993).
3.4.5 Discussion
As useful as this classification can be for theoretical categorising purposes, however, it also shows some limitations. Englund Dimitrova (2005), for instance, already pointed out that the categories obligatory and optional explicitation seem to be superordinate, as pragmatic explicitations are in fact instances of optional explicitations, while translation-inherent explicitation would seem “obligatory” from the point of view of the translation process (ibid.: 38).
In addition, the examples provided by Klaudy for type 2 (namely, ex-plicitation dictated by differences in text-building strategies and stylistic preferences between SL and TL), i.e. the addition ofa) connective elements
to strengthen cohesive links and b) emphasizers for clarifying the sentence perspective, andc) the use of relative clauses instead of nominal constructions (ibid.: 83), do not seem fully comparable: the first two cases seem to relate to rhetorical preferences which may not be perceived by TT readers, whereas the third is one which may easily result in TT unnaturalness. Arguably, the choice between a clumsy and a perfectly acceptable sentence is not really an option for professional translators. The distinction between obligatory and optional explicitation may therefore be less clear-cut than it might seem in Klaudy’s classification.
Klaudy’s types 1 to 3 are caused or (non-obligatorily) motivated by certain differences between SL and TL (in the case of pragmatic explicitation: between SL and TL communities). This means that types 1 to 3 are all bound to exist. When we translate from English into Spanish, for example, we know in advance that we will have to explicitate at some point, because Spanish has two copulas with different meanings (ser/estar) while English has one (to be). In general, we know from linguistics that in every imaginable language pair there are lexicogrammatical, stylistic and cultural differences. These will inevitably cause or motivate instances of explicitation in translation, and we would be very surprised if their prediction were not born out by empirical data.
Type number 4, on the other hand, is a very different case: the translation-inherent type of explicitation is not predicted, but rather postulated to exist.