discourse words

[Josh Wilson]

We seem to really be raging on this issue. :) 

I had a very interesting conversation about this with my wife (she's
Russian, I'm American) this morning over breakfast and I thought I would
share the results as a way of possibly finding some resolution. 

I brought up the fact that one of my contributors liberally uses the
construction "napomnim chto." I strongly dislike this because, in English, I
find it worthless. The direct translation (we remind that) must be expanded
(we remind the reader that) in order to makes sense in and of itself.
However, an English-speaking reader will assume from this phrase that the
author has already told the reader this fact elsewhere in the text. This is
almost never the case when my contributor uses this construction. In
context, what "napomnim chto" really means is "we realize that you, dear
reader, are a widely read and intelligent professional and therefore we
likely do not need to tell you this information, as you likely already know
it, but here it is again anyway." Contextually this thought might be
encapsulated by the English "obviously" or the phrase "it is well known
that," depending on the specific context, but that opens another whole can
of rhetorical worms. If a fact is obvious or well known, why must the reader
be informed it is obvious and/or well known? Especially in a very short news
article, the phrase in English is "filler" - it adds to the bulk of the
piece without necessarily adding to the reader's understanding of the facts
at hand. 

As I finished this explanation, my wife's reaction was "nu i chto?" She
explained to me that in Russian these types of phrases, including "v
printsipe" and all the other discourse words mentioned here are important to
the Russian reader. These constructions establish the author's relationship
with the reader (respectful) and the author's relationship with the material
covered (whether it be an close relationship or peripheral, etc.)  

Our English-speaking readership could care less about these things. So long
as the author doesn't insult us, good. So long as the author can discuss the
material with a degree of authority, good. But do not tell us directly about
your personal life, dear author, we are busy, objective people and are
interested in facts and not particularly in whether or not you like us.
Hence, I cut this phrase when editing translations because I feel the
material should be translated not only from one language to another but from
one audience to another. Since we are dealing with relatively dry issues of
legislation, taxation, and economic indicators, these types of discourse
words are not as important as if we were recording the personal statements
of important politicians for posterity. Furthermore, our contributors
realize this is our editorial policy, and agree with it. 

However, I have never, with rare exception, cut these words from the Russian
originals. This is, in large part, because I've never met a Russian who
feels they should be cut. Particularly after my conversation with my wife, I
feel that, as a foreigner, it is not my position to dictate what constitutes
professional Russian, but rather to learn what constitutes professional
Russian and use it myself. As a native speaker, English-language editor,
however, it is my duty to dictate and teach what constitutes professional
English. 

Incidentally, for translations for the Russian language learning material I
publish in another publication, The SRAS Newsletter, I use a different
policy. Translations should follow the original text as closely as possible,
providing a translation that preserves the diction, grammatical structure,
and even, if possible, word order. This is because the audience is
different. They are students who want to understand the original text as
closely as possible - and not just learn the facts the original text has to
impart. 

In short, to paraphrase the old saying: "to every translation style there is
a season, and a time to every translation purpose."


P.S. 

I don't think that "allegedly" and "evidently" are necessarily bad or lazy
words. However, if the author does not tell us who alleges (particularly if
it is not obvious that a plaintiff or the state has pressed formal charges
alleging something in court), what the author is probably really saying is
"lots of people already believe this, no really they do, so you should too,
even though I'm not going to give you more information." In this case, yes,
it is lazy and academically reprehensible.

In the case of "evidently," if the author does not actually provide the
evidence, then the word is also used to avoid the actual hard work of
researching evidence. 

Or, as sometimes happens, the words have simply been used ironically to
refer to those people who misuse words such as these to allege something
they have no evidence to prove...


Best, 

Josh Wilson
Asst. Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor-in-Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
www.sras.org
jwilson at sras.org

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