A SUMMARY OF COMPENSATION

Translation Loss

COMPENSATION?

A translation procedure used when there is a loss of

1) meaning;

2) sound effect;

3) metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of sentence.

One such loss is compensated in another part, or in a contiguous (connected) sentence.

Deficiency versus compensation

A deficiency occurs when a particular semantic or grammatical concept does not exist in either the SL or the TL. While a compensation, a technique of reducing translation loss, is an attempt to make for that deficiency through some other means; i.e. the lack of the dual pronoun form of address in English: can be compensated with the use of ‘both’ to أنتـماindicate duality, i.e. you both.

What do we benefit from compensation?

- We use compensation to palliate (lessen) the effects of using calque.

Note: There are many forms for compensation; one example is exegetic translation [i.e. inserting an explanatory addition to the TT].

Exegetic translation: a translation style in which the TT expresses and comments using additional details that are not obviously conveyed in ST.

What is the major challenge in applying compensation?

-To make balance between the loss of economy, denotative meaning and cultural presupposition, and the loss of message content.

What are the major factors that affect on compensation?

Nature and purpose of the ST.

Nature and needs of the target audience (TA).

The purpose of the TT.

In English, there is no lexical equivalent to the word ذكر, so we use exegetic translation. An appropriate paraphrase is found in Sufism: incessant repletion of certain words or formulas in praise of God.

The Boundary Between Compensation And Constraint

Using bilingual dictionaries and accepting the equivalents they provide as they are, without paraphrase or introducing them by explanations, is called constraint not compensation.

Compensation Categories :

Compensation in kind: compensation that usually entails a different kind of textual effect in TT from the one used in the TT.

Compensation in place: compensation which involves a TT textual effect occurring at a different place and relative to the other features in the TT context.

Compensation by splitting: compensation which involves dividing up a feature carried in a relatively shorter

COMPENSATION BY SPLITTING

A small loss of a denotative meaning accuracy could be compensated for by collocational acceptability, then it would be in literal translation too.

e.g. In Arabic, the dual adjective كال can sometimes be rendered to "both".

In translating شديدين to overwhelming or extreme, "both" can be deleted.

وحذٍر� ..... بحرٍص� يتعاملون الجميع بقي لهذا و. شديدين….. their dealings with each other continued to be motivated by overwhelming greed and extreme caution.