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Probal
Das Gupta
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Probal
Das Gupta, one of the best minds of his generation
of linguists, is Professor in the Center of
Applied Linguistics and Translation studies,
University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. His PhD
dissertation on Complementation in Bangla,
carried out at the university of New York,
is rated by many as the best thesis on a South
Asian language. He has published extensively
in Indian and international journals on syntax,
morphology, translation, Indian English, philosophy
of language, and so on. He is an Esperanto
activist.
He is reachable at pdgalts@uohyd.ernet.in
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or convenience, here is a summary of the
expository sequence in this paper. Section 1 observes that
neologisms are non-domesticated new expressions, and that
translators responding to the problem of |
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tackling neologisms
often need to go back to the basics and develop an overall
understanding of the issue of newness: The issue is fundamental
since a translation must both be new to the TL (and meet a
felt need for something missing in the TL) and keep in touch
with old trends in the TL (so that normal TL readers understand
the translation and do not find it opaquely foreign).
Section 2 on domains and innovative styles shows that all
domains of discourse have their own
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technical details that
keep evolving, producing novelties for the translators in
that field to keep up
with. The way this happens varies from
domain to domain.
Section 3 addresses the question of why
abbreviations become so frequent in all domains of the modern
use of language in contrast to classical societies. It is
argued that this happens because the modern period brings
with it an overriding interest in saving time and in abbreviating
all processes.
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Section
4 argues that modernity prizes originality, that original
creators wish to mark their work with special identifiers,
that expressions serving in this role become namelike, that
names need to be entered in registers in some sense, that
registers in traditional societies tended to emanate from
a single monarchical source of power and thus to belong to
a single central archive, and that, in contrast, the typical
registers in modern societies are the decentralized body of
newspapers which hold and disseminate public information. |
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