Orð og tunga - 01.06.2005, Side 48

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Orð og tunga
in the other: for example, the word tækifæri, in the English sense of
'occasion' or 'opportunity', is often used with the preposition við, as
in ég geri þetta við tækifæri; but what with Icelandic eyes perhaps looks
like a rather simple prepositional usage, becomes, when rendered into
English, a verbal phrase, as in 'when the opportunity arises' or, more
colloquially, 'some time or other' - 'I'll do it some time or other'. There
is no rendering in English of this type in the Iðunn 1989 entry for tæki-
færi, although there is a rendering of við hentugleika in the article for
hentugleiki, but I must say that this element of an article's construction
was not something we consciously checked or kept an eye on dur-
ing our editing of Iðunn 1989, and it is therefore high on the list of
priorities for forthcoming revision. The production of dictionary ma-
terials of the type outlined in the article by Jón Hilmar Jónsson in the
present volume will greatly assist in identifying where these "nodes"
of meaning are to be found. These prepositional usages will usually
best be demonstrated in English in the form of verbal phrases.
II.B.3. "Translational surrogates [replacements] for culture-bound
words"; here Kromann is referring to a problem that is self-evident the
moment you realise that it exists, and it is related to what was touched
on before about "non-translatable" items: a Ministry of Education is
not necessarily a Ministry of Education in every country, since its func-
tion can quite easily vary from nation to nation, thus when thinking
about how to render Menntamálaráðuneytið, one does well to check the
English version of its website, where it is helpfully pointed out by
virtue of its official title in English that it is in fact 'The Ministry of
Education, Science and Culture'.
This issue becomes more complicated where there are institutions
that have absolutely no equivalent in other countries; an example that
springs to mind is draugasetur, which there is a clear temptation to
translate into English as 'Ghost Institute' which would not be helpful,
not to say misleading. These problems are most acute for translators
(whom we will come to later, see section 3.1.3 below)
H.B.4.: the importance of being prepared to deviate from the mono-
lingual lexicographic principles of the (monolingual) dictionaries of
the L1 will not be discussed here; it is hopefully self-evident, and the
issue is expanded on in Kromann 1990.
Now we move to what I have called "User needs / user possibil-
ities in the L2—> Ll" situation.