discourse words

[Olga Meerson]

Hurray for Josh's wife! Wives have solved many problems of very smart men. All the so-called discourse words may or may not be lazy, depending not only on the difference between discourse analysis and normative approach but also on the genre of the translation in question. What cutting is desirable in, say, a legal document, is inadmissible in any poetic text -- including the same legal document parodied. Imagine someone "improving" Dickens' parody of Legalese in Russian, or Fetiukovich's or Ippolit Kirillovich's speeches in English (well, Constance Garnett actually dared to, and the re4sults were catastrophic, for several generations of Dostoevsky's readers in English!).
As for the paying client, it is important that they know what text they want translated. For example, legal documents may require typical legalese language, OR the translation of all the discourse words, the latter in case the document in question is a deposited witness/ testimony, or a quote overheard from a criminal, say a murderer. Was s/he raving mad or cold-blooded? Did s/he perhaps try to establish a rapport with the victim and, in the end, in case s/he failed, did s/he kill in self-defense? Was there bitter or last-resort irony in the words quoted and to be translated? There are legal documents and legal documents. And this explains why it pays to study both poetics and discourse analysis not only for philologists and linguists respectively but for everyone: otherwise, any text can be understood "s tochnost'iu do naoborot". So the problem here is not only the translation client's possible insensitivity to what "lazy" words may mean in different contexts but his or her
 disdain for the linguists or philologists among us, translators. Sometimes we just turn out to be too serious, conscientious, and competent for them to appreciate the effort -- especially when we invest our literary or linguistic professional competence in what we do as translators. When our employer or client has less of that than ourselves, s/he simply cannot appreciate all our efforts and, therefore, is unable to imagine what we should be paid for--what is there to reward in a symphony offered as a tribute to a tone-deaf Mecenate?

----- Original Message -----
From: Josh Wilson <jwilson at SRAS.ORG>
Date: Friday, November 30, 2007 3:00 am
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] discourse words

> 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 
> wouldshare 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, 
> dearreader, 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 
> knownthat," 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 
> thepiece 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?" 
> Sheexplained 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 
> relationshipwith 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 
> discoursewords 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 
> whofeels 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 
> constitutesprofessional 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 
> professionalEnglish. 
> 
> 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 
> chargesalleging 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 
> theevidence, 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 
> somethingthey 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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