Translating into an under-used language typically entails filling in lexical gaps (Toury 1985). In the presentation, we analyze translation students’ reflections on the use of loanwords as one of the methods for filling in lexical gaps when translating into Karelian, an endangered minority language spoken in Finland and Russia.
In 2015-2018, the University of Eastern Finland has hosted a language revitalization project ”Kiännä!” (”Translate!”), in which speakers and learners of Karelian from Finland and Russia are given seminars and workshops on professional translation skills and competences. The aim of the project is to support the revitalization of Karelian by empowering speakers to translate and publish their translations.
Our data consists of materials collected during the training seminars: translations and reflective assignments, e.g. translation commentaries. In the commentaries, students report on their translation process, including search for equivalent words or terms. Being constantly confronted with the lack of pre-existing equivalents, students are compelled to explain in their commentaries how they have filled in the lexical gaps. In our presentation, we focus on loanwords as a filling-in device and the arguments students use to justify their choice: why to opt for a loanword and whether to borrow from Finnish or Russian.
When choosing a loanword instead of coining a native equivalent, a translator adopts a model of the dominant source language. In the context of language revitalization, this may be seen as a threat to the distinctiveness of the minority language (see Cronin 1998). In the analysis, we focus particularly on signs of an emerging sense (or lack of it) of the translators’ responsibility for the development of the endangered language.
References:
Cronin, Michael (1998): “The Cracked Looking Glass of Servants. Translation and Minority Languages in a Global Age. ” The Translator 4 [2]: 145-162.
Toury, Gideon (1985): “Aspects of translating into minority languages from the point of view of Translation Studies.” Multilingua – Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication 4: 3-10.
