2021/2, стр. 130 - 142

TRANSLATING NONCE WORDS (A CORPUS STUDY BASED ON A NOVEL)

Резюме: Translators face different challenges in their everyday work. They have to deal with lexico-semantic, syntactic, pragmatic and cultural problems. This article focuses on John Harding’s novel Florence & Giles where the narrator is the 12-year-old Florence. She has created her own language by distorting words, e.g. nouns and adjectives are turned into verbs, nouns into adjectives, adverbs and prepositions into verbs, etc. These nonce words constitute Florence’s fairly unusual style. Based on a parallel corpus of the original English novel and its Bulgarian translation, this research uses the contrastive method to analyze the intensely concentrated nonce words in the text and their equivalents in Bulgarian.

Ключови думи: nonce words (occasionalisms); parallel corpus; translation equivalents; Florence & Giles

Introduction

John Harding’s novel Florence & Giles is a Victorian ghost story set in a large, remote house in New England. The two children, Florence and Giles, are orphans and half-siblings (they have the same father). They are wards of an uncle who lives far away and domestic staff takes care of them. The uncle provides for them financially but due to his guidance 12-year-old Florence is not to be educated. However, she has taught herself how to read and write by secretly going to the library and taking books from the long-untouched dusty shelves. She has learned languages she had never heard spoken. Shakespeare is Florence’s favourite author and she tries to resemble his style by developing a unique language of her own. The present article studies this strange narration full of nonce words coined by Florence and their equivalents in the Bulgarian translation of the book.

As a subtype of neologisms nonce words are defined as new words that are spontaneously coined for an occasion, therefore they are also called occasionalisms. Like neologisms they are not permanent in time and are not usually accepted in standard language. According to Linguistics Encyclopedia (2006, 601), nonce-formation “is a neologism used in just one occasion” and “will not become a regularly used linguistic item”1). Their meaning is determined in a specific context and it expresses the personal opinion of the speaker. Neologisms and nonce words function differently in a language; neologisms name new entities and phenomena; nonce words are created for expressive and artistic purposes to attract the readers’ attention.

Due to the specifics of nonce words, the following characteristics are applicable to the present study : 1. Nonce words are coined for a specific situation; 2. Unlike neologisms, which gradually lose their novelty, they are new and unusual to listeners and readers; 3. The appearance of nonce words is unpredictable; 4. They are highly expressive because of the novelty of perception and unconventionality (cf. Gorchhanova cited in Holtvian, Severynchuk 2015, 214).

Recent research deals with author’s new formations and their translations in some bestsellers, e.g. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Joan K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, etc. (Nedelcheva 2017; Boyadzhieva 2017; Lugovaya 2019). Further studies discuss the occasionalisms in Chinese translations of J. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Damned Child (Starikova 2019), the loss of humorous effect in the Bulgarian translation of Terry Pratchett`s Soul Music (Iglikova 2013) and the transfer of occasionalisms from English into Russian, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of Rings and The Two Towers (Petrov 2019). Unlike other fiction books with single uses of occasionalisms, the novel on which this research is based abounds in nonce words. A previous article on the occasionalisms in the Bulgarian translation of Florence & Giles focuses on the grammatical, word-formative and semantic characteristics of the newly coined Bulgarian words (Savova 2016). The present article is a contrastive study of English as a source language (SL) and Bulgarian as a target language (TL) and, more specifically, it analyzes the nonce words in John Harding’s novel Florence & Giles and their translation into Bulgarian.

Methodology

This study draws the readers’ attention to the diverse nonce words (sometimes 6 – 7 per page) in Florence & Giles and their Bulgarian equivalents. They are mostly notional words, i.e. verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs. We apply the contrastive method to a parallel corpus, developed for the purposes of the study, and find some analogies and a lot of distinctions in the specifics of the nonce words due to differences in the two languages we compare. We discuss various translation procedures employed to transfer the SL nonce words into the TL. Harvey (2003, 2 – 6) defines culture-specific terms as “specific to the SL culture” and offers four major techniques for translating them: functional equivalence, formal equivalence, transcription, descriptive/ self-explanatory translation. Malone (1988) proposes a more detailed set of strategies: equation, substitution, divergence, convergence, amplification, reduction, diffusion, condensation, reordering. His classification is very similar to Newmark’s (1988b) but uses different terms to refer to the same phenomena. In this study we use Newmark’s terminology (1988a): functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent, cultural equivalent, through-translation, synonymy, shift or transposition, compensation, paraphrase, couplets.

Nonce words are difficult to translate because they are created “on the spot” for a particular occasion. The translators’ role is to re-create the nonce word they come across in the SL. The four most common translation methods that are usually involved in the translation of neologisms are transliteration, transcription, the use of analogues, calque or loan translation. As the parallel texts in the corpus of our study are fictional, we do not expect transcription and transliteration2) to be widely used in translation.

When they come across new words, translators risk to misuse them in the target language without any background information. They have to express them using the descriptive (explanatory) method of translation. This is seen as the most productive method in English-Bulgarian translation due to different means of expression in both languages. Sometimes a whole sentence is needed in Bulgarian to express the meaning of just a couple of words in English. Two other translation techniques that we expect to be used in translating nonce words are functional and formal equivalence.

This research is going to study those types that are applied to the translation of nonce words in a particular literary text, namely John Harding’s novel Florence & Giles. Having in mind that inaccurately translated neologisms cause “translation asymmetry” and miscommunication, we aim to reveal that Florence & Giles’ Bulgarian translation by Vladimir Molev is more varying and creative in coining occasionalisms than the source language due to language specifics.

The corpus of this research consists of 1003 uses of nonce words in English and 145 Bulgarian translation equivalents. The great difference in numbers could be explained by the specific morphological and word-formative characteristics of the two languages. The proportions that are found with nonce words are verbs (85,14%), nouns (6,19%) and adjectives (8,67%). In contrast to the definition of nonce words that they are “used in just one occasion”, Florence uses some of them repeatedly, e.g., outed (22 times), downstairsed, aloned (13 times), (un)comfortabled (6 times), unmirrored (3 times), afraided, dustery, smugglery, etc. (2 times).

Almost half of the nonce words appear in the first quarter of the book where Florence tells the story of her life full of hardships, self-learning and struggle for intellectual improvement. We find these words only in her personal narrative as she keeps her creative abilities in secret from the other members of the household. The second part, after the arrival of the new governess Miss Taylor in the manor, the occasionalisms are less maybe because Florence is quite busy with new experiences.

Key Findings

In our understanding of a translation procedure, we follow Krings’s (1986, 18) definition that it presents “translator’s potentially conscious plans for solving concrete translation problems in the framework of a concrete translation task,” as well as Loescher’s (1991, 8) interpretation that it is “a potentially conscious procedure for solving a problem faced in translating a text, or any segment of it.”

Formal and functional equivalents

With functional equivalence the function of the referent in the target language (TL) is similar to that of the SL referent, while formal/ linguistics equivalence stands for ‘word-for-word’ translation.

The first pair of nonce words can be interpreted as formal equivalents because they are both verbs derived from adjectives. The difference between them comes from the different word-formative patterns they follow. In English the adjective is transformed into a verb through conversion, i.e. the adjectival root combines with the verbal grammatical marker –ed and the result is a nonce verb. The Bulgarian occasional verb is formed through affixation by adding both a prefix and a suffix to the adjectival root: в-сериозн-ича се. The prefix v- brings to the new verb a nuance of meaning which makes it effectively communicative (cf. Ivanova 1974, 117) similarly to other deadjectival verbs that exist in Bulgarian, e.g. вбесявам ‘enrage, make angry’, вгорчавам ‘embitter, turn bitter’, вледенявам ‘freeze, turn into ice’, вкисвам ‘turn sour’, etc.

In the second pair of examples the English and the Bulgarian nonce verb employ prefixation in their word-formation, e.g. de-nest → раз-гнезд-вам. The formal equivalence is further enhanced by the common meaning not only of the root morphemes but also of the prefixes. The prefix de- in Latin had the function of undoing or reversing a verb’s action which is its primary function as a present-day prefix in English, as in defrost, deform, deactivate, etc. The Bulgarian raz- is polysemantic but in one of its meanings it denotes ‘reverse activity’, similarly to de-, e.g., разшифровам ‘decipher’, разцентровам ‘decenter’, разграничавам ‘delimit, demarcate’ etc.

Formal equivalence we also find between the compound occasional adjective Theo-free in (3), the nonce verb to tick-tock away and their respective equivalents, the complex adjective обезТеоена and the compound изтиктаквам. Both the adjective free and the combination of prefixes о-без- mean ‘without’; likewise, the adverb away in (4) is in accordance with the Bulgarian prefix iz- meaning ‘moving to the exterior’. The new meaning of the verb to tick-tock → тиктакам is understood only in this context where it is associated with an activity performed regularly as the ticking of the clock.

To problem → възтруднявам in (5) can be interpreted as functional equivalents because they are both nonce verbs which have the same function in the sentence and express similar meanings in the SL and the TL. The English verb is converted from the noun problem and has acquired the meaning ‘to cause a problem/problems’. The Bulgarian occasional verb, which has derived from the adjective труден ‘hard’, denotes almost the same ‘to make things hard’. Thus, these two verbs can be seen as instances of contextual synonymy.

Descriptive equivalent

With descriptive equivalence the translator provides a short explanation of the SL word or phrase into the TL. This short explanation mostly eliminates the possibility of having a nonce word in the translation as can be observed in the following examples:

In all these instances the equivalents in the TL are descriptive and provide additional information that makes the translation clearer, e.g., in (10) to goodmanner ‘to teach good manners’ is rendered with лекция за добрите обноски. More information and necessary cultural reference is added in the translation of the verb to shining-armour in (11). It derives from the expression knight in shining armour and the translator has adjoined the missing information to the Bulgarian set phrase рицар на бял кон. The gerund princessing in (12), which is related to daydreaming, is also clarified in the translation принцесешки мечтания. The occasional adjective принцесешки corresponds to the nonce gerund derived from the noun princess.

Cultural equivalent

It is not always possible to find an appropriate analogue in the target language, which can be explained from cultural perspective or in the political situation of the corresponding countries. Cultural equivalence involves replacing a cultural word in the SL with a TL one, while functional equivalence requires the use of a cultureneutral word (Newmark 1988b, 83).

The examples in this group are related to some culture-specific words or set expressions referring to institutions or idioms. The verb bridewelled in (13) which derives from the noun bridewell ‘reformatory’ in Bulgarian is rendered with a nonce verb that originates from the noun тъмница ‘dungeon’, which is a strong underground prison and is quite different from a reformatory but they both convey the same metaphorical meaning when it comes to limiting one’s brain. In (14) the nonfinite nonce verbal form greeding, which derives from the noun greed, in Bulgarian is translated with an idiomatic expression точа лиги. It can be used literally to mean ‘to expect to eat something tasty’, but in this case it is used metaphorically ‘to hope for something one passionately longs to receive’. In (15) an idiom is used in English to be caught red handed from which the non-finite redhanding originates, in Bulgarian it is translated descriptively хванат на местопрестъплението.

In the other examples (16-18) occasional expressions are formed from idioms and they are translated with corresponding idioms in Bulgarian. Although some of them are elliptical, the implication is clear from the context: (16) to heart-in-mouth (my heart is in my mouth) → сърцето ми се впети (сърцето ми падна в петите); (17) to teeth-edge (set my teeth on edge) → настръхвам (косата ми настръхна); (18) to sheep as lamb (I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb ‘the punishment for a bad action and an even worse one will be the same’) → вече си бях сложила главата в торбата ‘поемам голям риск’.

Through-translation

As through-translation is literal, it is used with common loan words and compounds, sometimes called calque (Newmark 1988b, 84). With nonce words it is difficult to find borrowings apart from the converted proper names.

The proper name Theo gave rise to the gerund Theoing, which is loaned in Bulgarian as the deverbal noun теосване. In the context they are interpreted as ‘making friends with Theo’. The family name Van Hoosier is the source of the verb to Van Hoosier → Ван Хузиърувам, which is used with two different meanings ‘to meet Van Hoosier’ and ‘to watch for Van Hoosier’. The occasional verb to Shakespeare is loaned in Bulgarian as шекспирам and it is used as a synonym of creating new words.

A similar process of loaning is applied to two other examples:

It is important in such uses for the reader to have some knowledge about E. A. Poe’s character Dupin and Charles Dickens’s Mrs Gargery from Great Expectations. Both have become nicknames for particular characteristics; Dupin is a smart investigator who solves intricate cases through deduction and Mrs Gargery is notorious for her aggressive behavior and atrocity.

Synonymy

Synonymy as a translation procedure requires finding a “near TL equivalent”, but this definition also relates to functional equivalence as has been discussed in (5) to problem → възтруднявам.

As an equivalent of the nonce verb to tragick, the verb озлочестявам се is used. Although close in their meanings, to tragick means ‘to have a tragic/ fatal accident’ and озлочестявам се ‘to be miserable and unfortunate’, they can be considered only contextual synonyms. However, in (25)

the occasional verb to misfortune would be interpreted as a through-translation if the Bulgarian equivalent озлочестяване belonged to the same word class. As it is a noun in this case it should be an instance of shift/ transposition (see below).

Shift/transposition

Shift or transposition as a translation procedure includes grammar changes from the SL to TL, for instance, (i) change from singular to plural and vice versa, (ii) changes in the structure of the phrase from the SL to the TL, (iii) a phrase in the SL is rendered with a word in the TL, etc. (Newmark 1988b, 86). Among the nonce words in the corpus we find three types of shifts although they do not exactly coincide with those pointed out by Newmark.

Shift of word classes: (26) (a nonce verb) to impossible → (a nonce noun) небъдница; (27) (a compound nonce verb) to between-the-lines → (a compound noun) междуредие.

Shift of a phrase to a word: (28) (a nonce Noun phrase) wakery thing → (a complex verb) разбудя.

Shift of a clause to a phrase: (29) (a clause with a nonce verb) who transparented her feelings → (a nonce Noun phrase) прозирни чувства.

Compensation

Compensation occurs when loss of meaning in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part (Newmark 1988b, 90). In the present study, we apply the term compensation a bit differently as we find examples in a single sentence where a nonce word in the SL is translated with a common word in the TL and vice versa, a common word in the SL is translated with a nonce word in the TL.

It is an insightful decision of the translator Vladimir Molev to create a nonce word in the TL from a common word in the SL if he could not develop one from the nonce word in the SL. In (30) the occasional verb to morning is translated with the common adverb сутрин, while the common adverbial in the library is translated with the nonce verb библиотекувам. Correspondingly, the nonce verb to afternoon is translated with the common adverb следобед, while the common adverbial in my tower is translated with the nonce verb кулувам. In (31) the common non-finite phrase watering the plants is translated with the compound occasional adjective цветополиваща, otherwise the occasional verb to sudden is rendered with a common adverb and verb construction. Similarly, in (32) to sudden is transferred to the TL with the same adverb+verb construction: изневиделица ме проряза; the common noun a twinge is translated with the occasional noun сещане, derived from the verb сещам се.

Paraphrase

Because of the longer explanation, paraphrase is a more detailed procedure than the descriptive equivalent (Newmark 1988, 91). However, the borderline between short and long explanation is not quite clear. In the following examples (33 – 36), the translator has provided an elaborated explanation of the SL nonce word.

More information than in the original text the translator has added to contexts he considered too culture specific to be understood by any reader.

The two fairytales are presented descriptively in the TL. Rapunzel is translated as Дългокоска ‘long-haired’, which is her distinctive feature. One should be familiar with the story in order to know that she is held captive by a witch in a deserted tower. The other paraphrase describes the composite nonce verb beanpoled. The translator has provided a direct reference to Jack and the Beanstalk “като бобеното стъбло на Джак” to help the Bulgarian readership make an association with the classic fairytale about the poor country boy who trades a cow for a few beans that turn to be magic and grow into an enormous beanstalk.

Couplets

Couplets are associated with a combination of two different procedures. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between functional equivalence and synonymy, as well as between descriptive equivalence, compensation and paraphrase.

In (38) the pair to captain’s-chair → настаних се в капитанския стол could be related to both descriptive equivalence and paraphrase, while the translation equivalents wistfulling the drive → копнежно се реех навън combine shift/ transposition, descriptive equivalence and some elements of compensation.

Notes

Notes give additional information to the reader and although translations containing a lot of footnotes are sometimes considered difficult to read, nevertheless, they can assist readers in understanding the specifics of the text. Nida (1964, 237 – 39) claims that footnotes fulfill at least two functions: (i) they provide supplementary information, and (ii) call attention to the original’s discrepancies.

In this corpus the translator has provided a few footnotes. One of them refers to a quote from the Bible, the others clarify names of literary characters who are not widely known.

Discrepancies between the SL and TL are predictable as forming new words in English is morphologically easier than in Bulgarian. What we find unexpected, however, is an instance of an occasionalism in the TL where there is none in the SL.

This mismatch can be explained with compensation as a translation procedure although in these cases it is not within the limits of one sentence.

Conclusion

This is a strange book to translate due to the unique style of the narrator. The differences in the morphology of Bulgarian and English and, consequently, in the word-formation models of the original and translated nonce words require the use of a variety of translation procedures. Choosing the right word to fully convey the meaning in the translated text is one of the main and most difficult tasks of the translator. The difficulty of this task is due to the complex nature of the word, its versatility and semantic richness. The translator of Florence & Giles into Bulgarian, Vladimir Molev, did not only find the appropriate words to convey the original meaning, but he took the role of co-author developing occasionalisms of his own to preserve the unique style of the narration.

NOTES

1. Such neologisms are used by Carroll in the poem Jabberwocky from Through the Looking-Glass.

2. Transcription tries to preserve the sound form of the source word with the help of another alphabet, while transliteration transforms the letters. Usually, both methods are combined. Some English letters and sounds do not have exact

analogues in Bulgarian and, therefore, some words can have two or more transliterated variants in the target language.

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