In other words, insisting on translating these slogans verbatim defeats the purpose. Using antithesis in this slogan (staying apart) and (keeps us together) does not lend itself to translation without again loss of effect of the rhetorical technique. The sooner we all do it, the sooner we go through it.Īpart from the expletive “it” that refers to two different things or states in this example, the use of anaphora, which is starting two or more phrases, sentences, or verses with the same words, “the sooner” in this instance, cannot be replicated in translation without loss of the anaphoric impact. Recently, a COVID-19 awareness campaign carried the following slogans. Particularly because of these features, and other rhetorical techniques, such as anaphora, antithesis, and chiasmus, catch phrases fail to translate into other languages. Memorable catch phrases use techniques such as rhyming, alliteration, and parallelism to achieve maximum effect. However, when using such rhetorical techniques in English to communicate with non-English speakers through translation, they present a problem of translatability and often fail to communicate the message in the target languages. The English language is famous for the use of catch phrases, witty phrases, and buzzwords and the tendency to use them in writing is strong as they are entertaining and illustrative. These associative meanings are specific to their culture and do not invoke the same images in non-native speakers of English who are not familiar with such catch phrases. They derive their associative meanings from the cultural and social environment in which they are produced. Nothing Comes Close”, to cite a few.Ĭatch phrases are words that are in current use. Have you ever seen an awareness or marketing campaign that did not have a slogan, a catch phrase, or the expletive “it” in it? “Just do it!”, “Coke Is It!”, “If you drink and drive, you are a bloody idiot,” and “The Toyota T-Cell. Yet we are surrounded and bombarded with such slogans and catch phrases. It goes to show how ignorant and naïve are those writing the original texts and those commissioning the translations. And the asinine insistence of those commissioning the translation on verbatim, word for word translations staggers belief. Copywriters seem to be self-centred and focused on flexing their linguistic muscle regardless of whether their brilliant work is translatable or not. In particular, translation-mediated government awareness campaigns fail to achieve their desired goals primarily because the source text is invariably written without paying too much attention to the idiosyncrasies of languages. Although this is not the point of the present article, the phrase serves as a reminder that whether it is automated translation or human translation, preparing the source text is essential, if not crucial, for the success of translations.
Just have a look at social media and Google Translate, for example, and their varying degrees of success across languages. While today’s machine or automated translation technologies have made great progress since those early days, they still churn out translations that are far from perfect. “Garbage in, garbage out” was a catch phrase used in machine translation circles in the 1980s to emphasize the need for preparing the source text before processing it through the translation machine.
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