Dear All,
I would like to discuss "imperfect" equivalents in translations. It is based on the feeling that fairly fundamental concepts like "love", "kindness", do seem to have equivalents in other languages, but my hunch is that they are often imperfect equivalents. They don't render translation impossible, but somehow they may generate associations that are not quite what an author meant or thinks of. Of course few people are aware of that, and it seldoms leads to genuine misunderstandings. Yet, readers/ listeners might miss something "fairly fundamental".
Take for example "love" in English, "liefde/Liebe" in Dutch/ German, "amour" in French. we will mostly understand perfectly, I think, but do we associate the same things with it? "Kindness" and "vriendelijkheid" [lit. friendliness]. It can mean the same, but the former had a deeper (or ...) meaning than the latter.
But do you know of articles or books about this? I suppose it will/ would be dealt with in some branch of semantics; or of translation science, or something the like? Would you have any references?
I would like to discuss "imperfect" equivalents in translations. It is based on the feeling that fairly fundamental concepts like "love", "kindness", do seem to have equivalents in other languages, but my hunch is that they are often imperfect equivalents. They don't render translation impossible, but somehow they may generate associations that are not quite what an author meant or thinks of. Of course few people are aware of that, and it seldoms leads to genuine misunderstandings. Yet, readers/ listeners might miss something "fairly fundamental".
Take for example "love" in English, "liefde/Liebe" in Dutch/ German, "amour" in French. we will mostly understand perfectly, I think, but do we associate the same things with it? "Kindness" and "vriendelijkheid" [lit. friendliness]. It can mean the same, but the former had a deeper (or ...) meaning than the latter.
But do you know of articles or books about this? I suppose it will/ would be dealt with in some branch of semantics; or of translation science, or something the like? Would you have any references?
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