Untranslatability

Poem is a piece of writing which express feelings, emotions and ideas using descriptive figurative languages. However, poems are not dependable as a secondary source and if it is written about 100 years later than when the event actually happened. Likewise, the poem cannot be trustworthy if it contains different facts from the primary source written by the person who experienced that moment and who was actually there. Furthermore, as poems use figurative languages that exaggerate things, it is not a good resource. These lead up to the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which is a secondary source written as a third person point of view. Therefore, the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is unreliable than the letter wrote by Paul Revere which is a primary source. First of all, the poem is not a reliable source because the poem and the letter have time period difference. The letter was written about 20 years later by Paul Revere while the poem was written much later than when the event happened. In the poem it states, “of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; …” The text from the poem states that the midnight ride of Paul Revere was on the April 18, 1775 and the poem was written in 1860, which is 85 years later. Also, the language in the poem and the letter is different as it uses old English in the letter and present day English in the poem. “we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church…

(2016) “The Illusion of Untranslatability: A Theoretical Perspective with Reference to the Translation of Culture-Bound Euphemistic Expressions in the Qur'an” discredits the notion of untranslatability, which appears as a result of reconsidering the concept of equivalence and all the misconceptions related to it. They argue that “identifying equivalence as relative, approximate and necessary identity makes the notion of untranslatability a mere theorization” (p. 81). The researchers investigate…

include the problem of cultural equivalence, specifically idioms and expressions that are culturally bound as well as the problem of untranslatability of certain SL phrases in the TL cultural level and the lack of similar cultural convention in the TL. Additionally, the range of TL phrases available, in regard to the presentation of social class, status, age, and gender in cultural texts will be also discussed. Purpose statement The aim of the current study is to test the effectiveness…

Translating a contemporary love poem by Fawaz Allaboun turned out to be a challenging task. Allaboun is a Saudi poet and a Professor of Classical Arabic. He earned his PhD degree in Arabic language and literature at Al-Imam University. He published a collection of poems in a book called “Allabouniat.” Another collection of poems is forthcoming. The first problem that I encountered was in the different words that express the various degrees and state of romantic love in Arabic and the…

In “A Silence between Us like a Language: The Untranslatability of Experience in Sandra Cisneros Woman Hollering Creek “, Mullen describes the use of Spanish as an insight of the individual character’s true, conscious thoughts without the limitation of cultural incrimination. “Like a joke or a Freudian slip of the tongue that reveals some unconscious truth, the linguistic "errors" of a character expose the repressed cultural conflict of the bilingual speaker” (Mullen, 5), adding a more concise…

verbally expressed humour on screen is a relatively new issue (Chiaro 2008: 569-570). Vandaele (2010: 149-150) claims that humour is visible through laughter and smile and accordingly the failure of translating humour is visual through lack of laugh or smile. A translator should be aware that humour is group and culture specific thus parodies for example may be funny only to those who have seen the parodied movie, book or other source. One should be a part of that group or culture to understand…

Translation is to rewrite in language B, hoping that the target readers will perceive the text, emotionally, and artistically, in a manner that parallels and corresponds to the esthetic experience of its first readers. (Edith Grossman, 2010) However, the paradox of translatability and untranslatability has existed since the first translated works appeared. Translatability is not something inherent in the text; it is an “elective affinity”, which suggest the resonance, or a meeting of the minds,…

Translators do the same thing – they analyze what an author does in one language and try to replicate it in another. Just as no two copyists can produce the same copy of a piece of art, no two translators will produce the same translation. Similarly, artists or authors cannot produce the same work of art or writing even when given the same tools, materials, and parameters. What seems undeniable is that some texts are more easily translatable than others. In general, it can be asserted that a…

language)? What! (A book) not in Arabic and (the Messenger) an Arab.] (Qur’an 41:44). As Ali [3, p. xi], in his preface to the first edition of his translation of the Holy Qur’an, states, it is the duty of every Muslim -- man, woman or child -- to read the Qur’an and understand it according to his own capacity. For non-Arabic Muslims, this poses something of a problem. As Cook [4, p. 88] points out, Arabic is not just the original language of the Qur’an (as ancient Hebrew was the original…