A Textbook of Translation Review

Neologisms are no special phenomena unique to any certain or dominant languages. They may be defined as newly coined lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense. As @newmark_textbook_1988 stated, 300 words annually is far less than accurate, hundred and thousands are being created, introduced, and even reinvented. At the time of writing, Oxford English Dictionary has just undergone a major update in October, adding more than 1,400 words and senses and subentries to this language since last update in January. The number of words that falls into oblivion and the number of words that jumps out of nowhere may be equally indiscernible. Countless words got themselves tagged “archaic” or “old-fashioned” in a faithful dictionary, not to be seen or written down for some time, much like those came into being in an ephemeral fad. After all, who would 😂 expect to be the Word of the Year 2015?

Neologisms are not necessarily essentially new, they can be old words embedded with new meanings, derived words, abbreviations, collocations, acronyms or phrasal words, these being not technically new, at least not in intracultural and intralingual level. They can also be new coinages, eponyms, transferred words, pseudo-neologisms, these can be seen as new since they may not be present in the source language[@newmark_textbook_1988]. Exhaustive as this classification seems, it may not correspond with E-C or C-E translation since the roots widely existed in Graeco-Latin forms cannot be found. The loss in translating two discrete language families is gargantuan. Cultural backgrounds also play a vital part in translating neologisms, which demands far more than addition. For instance, when translating “body-positivity”, there is no possibility to conduct a one-to-one transfer from English to Chinese, a literal translation would be too rigid to accept and understand, the meaning of this specific word is more cultural and phenomenal than linguistic.

The author had suggested several methods for conducting neologisms translation, with respect to various types of neologisms. While abstract procedures and methods being more or less the same, it can be rather different and difficult to apply translation method effective within a certain language family to all, not to mention the phonaesthetic and synaesthetic qualities to achieve. Take the translation of English acronyms, Arabic resists them and are often explicated[@newmark_textbook_1988]; Chinese has been through a long time when acronyms not being translated or explicated at all, and now they are more explicated than ever, wiping out all trails in official documents. And how are these neologisms translated to and from Chinese? @__2010 pointed out transliteration and literal translation with sufficient explanations and annotations will be competent enough to translate neologisms from Chinese to English. In researching the more modern methods of forming neologisms in English, @__2002 also purposed several approaches that can be applied to translate neologisms from English to Chinese, i.e. literal, liberal translation, transliteration, multiple translations, omission. Abreast of Newmark, @__2007 also placed emphasis on Naturalness. Nevertheless, neologisms from either C-E or E-C translation are not to be translated employing the exact fixed rules as seen in @newmark_textbook_1988.

No translator is omniscient, his knowledge limited, his vocabulary restricted, his mind biased. It is also common practice to fall into the pitfall of “false friends” under myriad conditions. @newmark_textbook_1988 dedicated a whole chapter to define unfindable words and provide reference books, including 18 accurately defined categories of “unfindable words” as well as dozens of dictionaries. Most of the 18 types can be identified as inadequacies due to a lack of information, such as Neologisms, names, etc. Others like misprint are no longer an issue, not with proper preserving technique. Thanks to the advances and development of Information Technology, more and more information in the form of words and phrases are being posted, corrected, updated online. Needless to say what a convenience it poses for any translator with a broadband connection. There seem to be less and less “unfindable words” to worry about for an ordinary translator.

In “Resources” section, the author recommended a broad range of dictionaries and references with expertise in separate fields. They are, however, still in line with the Chapter 13 and possess the same defects aforementioned, too concrete it can only be strictly applied translation within West European languages, along with a fatal one, obsoleteness. This does not refer to the dictionaries produced and compiled by Collins, Oxford, Webster, they survived and thrived the Internet, but the specialist dictionaries, among many others, are seldom updated and purchased, now only discontinued. Encyclopedia Britannica is replaced by Wikipedia, Wikia, dictionaries of slang by Urban Dictionary, dictionaries of finance by Investopedia. Even a remote village name, person, term can be readily lookup up in Wikipedia or Wiktionary. Terminologies are no longer Latin of the PhDs. A modern search engine can explain them no clearer with a mouse click.

But the use of easily accessed resources and materials also have its dark side. For example, the very same word can be found comes with different meanings in two equally prestigious and trustworthy dictionaries, say, Collins and Webster. They are designed for disparate users from different backgrounds or countries, the right meaning and translation of words need to be judged and determined by the translator nonetheless. Besides, with all the polysemous words in a certain language, relying solely on the dictionaries can be a travail, man’s superiority over machines are then manifested as he chooses the correct equivalence. But what about some “experts” on an online forum or BBS, can their words be taken seriously, or are their explanations analogously questionable to those Wikipedia entries that cite from random websites, or worse, no citation at all? Or can the translator detect the satire and ironicalness in some purposeful prank post? Food for thought for any dabbler.

Last but not least, words not deemed neologisms in the source language or directly introduced from a third language, how are they supposed to be translated? Philosophical definitions, ideas, hypothesis as such, they may better be literally translated with explanation or zero translated. So are maxims and certain abbreviations or acronyms. “Amor fati” is best left “Amor fati”, “Memento mori” just “Memento mori”, “GmbH” certainly not “Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung”. Some ambiguity, extra works, or judgments, can justifiably be done by the target readers.