Lesson Six

Introduction:

This lesson marks the beginning of Part Three of this course, in which we’ll explore some theoretical concepts to help us achieve the highest quality translations. In this lesson, we’ll examine the literal meaning of words and phrases and learn some linguistic terms which will help us to identify the problem when there is not an exact equivalent in the target language for a word or phrase in the source language. We’ll envision the relationship between words and phrases as more general or more specific, and explore different strategies for dealing with problems of non-equivalence. In the second part of the lesson, we’ll look at false cognates between Spanish and English, or words that have have a similar appearance, but a different meaning. We’ll review the different types of cognates and analyze how to avoid making mistakes in translating them.

Objectives:

After completing this lesson you will:

• Become familiar with tools derived from linguistics to identify words from the source language that do not have an equivalent in the target language.
• Learn to utilize a variety of strategies in order to satisfactorily translate words and phrases without an exact synonym in the target language.
• Understand the concept of true and false cognates between two languages.
• Be able to identify some important false cognates between English and Spanish and develop strategies for increasing your knowledge.

Key Topics:

6.1) Literal meaning - Basic concepts

a) Synonymy
b) Hypernomy & hyponymy

6.2) Problems of non-equivalence between languages and solutions

 a) Culture-specific concepts
 b) SL concept has no synonym in the TL
 c) SL word includes more detail than TL can express
 d) SL word or phrase has more than one possible TL translation

6.3) False Cognates

a) Definition of cognates - true, false, and partial
b) Common false cognates between English and Spanish