ABSTRACT
To introduce the question, we shall take examples from the last sentence of the ST in Practical 4.3 from the short story راﻮﺸﻣ ( ﺲﯾردإ 1954: 127):
ﻢﮭﺘﻠﻤﺴﺑو خﻮﯿﺸﻟا ﺔﻤﺘﻤﺗ ﻲﻓ ﺎﮭﺗﻮﺻ عﺎﺿ ةﺪﯿﺑز تدﺮﻏز ﻦﯿﺣو ،ﻞﻤﻨﻟﺎﻛ ﺎﻤﮭﻟﻮﺣ ةﺪﯿﺴﻟا ﺐﯾذﺎﺠﻣ نﺎﻛ [. . .] .. ﺮﻛﺬﻟا تﺎﻣاودو ءﺎﺴﻨﻟا ﺔﻗﺰﻗزو
A possible translation of تدﺮﻏز in this extract is ‘let out a ululation’. This would maintain a certain foreignness, the assumption being that even a reader who did not know what a ululation was in the context of women’s behaviour in social gatherings in Egypt would be able to guess that it was some sort of culture-specific vocal sound. However, in a different context, or with a different readership, this assumption might not be justified – ‘ululation’ could sound facetious or comic. These effects would be a betrayal of the ST effects and therefore count as a serious translation loss. The loss could be palliated by adding an exegetic element (cf. Section 1.3) along the lines ‘let out a ululation as women do at times of great joy’. This does not make the idea of ululation any less unfamiliar in itself, but it does make the unfamiliarity less likely to have a misleading effect. This exegetic translation is a simple example of compensation: that is, mitigating the loss of important ST features by approximating their effects in the TT through means other than those used in the ST. In other words, one type of translation loss is palliated by the deliberate introduction of another that is considered less unacceptable by the translator. So, in our example, adding ‘as women do at times of great joy’ incurs great translation loss in terms of economy, denotative meaning (cf. Chapter 7) and cultural presupposition, but this is accepted because it significantly reduces an
even greater loss in terms of message content. It is important to note the ad-hoc, one-off element in compensation: this is what distinguishes it from constraint, as we shall see in a moment.
