Over-consistency

Usually when people think of the problem of consistency, they are thinking of its lack – too lile consistency. But it is also possible to be overly consistent. In recent years, studies that compare a large corpus of translaons with a corpus of texts in the same field that were originally wrien in the target language have suggested a number of interesng ways in which translaons differ from original wring. For example, it appears that translators spell out connecons between ideas that original writers leave implicit. They also tend to avoid specific words and prefer more general ones (‘take’ rather than ‘grab’), even when the source text has a specific word. It would be interesng to find out whether translaons are also more internally consistent (have fewer synonyms) than original wring.

They certainly will be if extreme consistency is enforced by the reviser.

It’s false that the use of synonyms by its nature creates confusion. Were you confused when I referred, at the beginning of this chapter, to the American essay-ist Emerson and then to the U.S. editor White? Did you find yourself wondering whether I was somehow referring to two different naonal origins? Probably you did not noce my use of synonyms at all. Such use of different words or phrasings to convey a single concept is a natural feature of human language producon, and if you really want to write authencally in the target language, then you should not strive to eliminate it. On the other hand, if most of the readership

94 Brian Mossop

will be people who are not well educated, or just learning the language, it might be best to remove synonyms.

Oen when you are revising, you may find yourself wondering about phrase-ology. The translaon in front of you has evaluate the language capacity of employees, and you think: should it be assess the language skills of employees or perhaps evaluate the linguisc capabilies of employees? Certainly it is pos-sible that your client has a preference or even a set usage, but then again, it’s possible that the client’s original TL documentaon somemes uses assess and somemes evaluate, with no intended difference in meaning; and likewise for capacity/skills/capabilies and for language/linguisc. I suspect this situaon is extremely common, perhaps the norm, given the natural human proclivity to use whatever word comes to mind first.

Now, what about terminology? Should we not always strive for consistent cross-textual use of the ‘correct term’? The fact of the maer is that if you read several documents originally wrien in the target language on the topic of your text, you will discover that different authors use different terms for the same concept, and that a single author will use synonyms within a single text. This is even true, contrary to widespread belief, in technical and scienfic wring. Edi-tors of scienfic journals may remove certain inconsistencies but oen they will ignore synonyms because they know that all the intended readers will recognize the different expressions as synonymous. Of course, you need to know what the recognized synonyms are, as well as the extent of the synonymy (in some contexts, terms x and y may be interchangeable, in others not).

If synonymy and paraphrase were not available to language users, people would oen find themselves tongue-ed (i.e. if the single exisng term for a concept failed to come to mind). Experts oen make up their own terms or use a paraphrase if the ‘correct’ term does not come to mind. And when they are asked about a proposed translaon containing a term invented by the transla-tor, or a paraphrase that explains the concept, they will oen say ‘well I know what you mean’, and that is the end of their interest in the maer, especially if the translaon is being prepared for informaon only. Editors of specialist jour-nals will naturally have a somewhat different atude, combining linguisc and subject-maer concerns. As ‘language people’, editors and translators certainly need to keep an eye out for possible failures of communicaon; however it is simply false that successful communicaon requires the eliminaon of synonyms, explanatory paraphrases or terminological invenons.

One major hazard to keep in mind concerning terminological consistency is that the term which you have found in previous translaons may be the wrong one. This danger is amplified when databases of previously completed

transla-ons are easy to consult. Perhaps one translator did poor research and made a mistake, then others copied that mistake, and now you consult the archive and see that most previous translaons used that term. You then proceed to make your own contribuon to this chain of errors, and you end up being consistent in the worst possible way...consistently wrong!

Synonyms may be very helpful to non-expert readers; those who did not fully

Checking for Consistency 95

understand a concept when it was first introduced in the text may understand it if another expression with the same meaning is used later on. Revisers who devote effort to eliminang synonyms in the name of consistency may then be doing the reader a disservice. On the other hand, it is true that non-expert read-ers may well find synonyms confusing. If a computer manual somemes refread-ers to the Trash and somemes to the Wastebasket, non-expert readers may wrongly think two different things are involved. Or, conversely, they may wrongly take the instrucon to ‘enter’ informaon to mean the same thing as the instrucon to

‘input’ informaon, when different meanings were intended (perhaps ‘enter’ was intended to mean ‘press the Enter buon in order to incorporate the informaon you have just input’). A reviser might decide to eliminate such synonyms in texts for non-expert readerships, even though this means reducing the authencity of the text (it will then not have the synonyms typical of original wring).

One point frequently menoned in discussions of consistency is level of lan-guage. We are oen warned to make sure that a text has a consistent degree of formality or technicality. Once again, it is possible to be overly consistent.

For one thing, some types of wring typically do mix levels of vocabulary. In some English medical wring, for example doctor’s notes, it is not uncommon to find medical terms of Greco-Lan origin mixed with lay language. So if you are revising the English translaon of a medical text wrien in a Romance lan-guage, and authencity is desirable, it may be important not to reproduce all the Greco-Lan terminology of the Romance text (perhaps write ‘muscle pain’

rather than ‘myalgia’).

It may even happen that a single concept is expressed at different levels of language within a single text. For example, a doctor’s leer (consulted to help revise a translaon into English) referred at one point to ‘pneumectomy’ and then later to ‘resecon of the lung’ and later sll to ‘removal of a poron of the lung’ – all of which have the same meaning. Perhaps the author was aware that he was addressing a mixed audience of doctors and insurance agents. In addion, doctors are oen somewhat conflicted when addressing lay people: on the one hand, they want to seem scienfic and authoritave (hence ‘pneumectomy’);

on the other hand, they want to be understood (hence ‘removal’).

More generally, editors need to recognize that over the course of the 20th century there was a shi in what was considered acceptable regarding mixing of levels. This was in line with a general cultural trend (mixing of ‘high’ and ‘popular’

culture). For example, if I had wrien this book in 1950, the editor would rightly have considered it to have both unacceptable informality and unacceptable mix-ing of the formal and the informal (for example, I have mixed the various forms of address discussed in secon 7.2). Such mixing sll causes some older people discomfort, but if they are editors, they must realize that eliminang the infor-mality would constute a markedly conservave editorial approach. Of course, as me passes, if the trend connues, then eventually a generaon will appear that no longer experiences the combinaon of ‘you should’ and ‘one should’ as an inconsistent mixing of levels.

To sum up: consistency should not be treated as an end in itself. Inconsistency

96 Brian Mossop

is only a problem if it creates a communicaon barrier. It is mainly a concern when a single text is divided among several translators, or when several texts of similar genre and topic for the same client are distributed among several translators.

Pracce

1. Discussion: Do you think you spend too much me on consistency? too lile? just the right amount? If you are not sure, do you think it’s important to look into this maer further?

2. Exercise: Examine two or three completed translaons which you have revised. Or examine a revised translaon in a group. See if you can find any inconsistencies. Did you find any serious ones? Did you find many small ones?

Decide whether, in view of the brief, it would have been beer if you had focused on parcular kinds of inconsistency (e.g. in terminology, in level of language).