Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to analyse and discuss some translation difficulties that emerge when one signifier develops different meanings in two particular languages. When it is the case that, as a result of some semantic change, two languages share one signifier and that this signifier shares, at least, one of its meanings in both languages while it differs with regard to the rest, problems for translating from one to the other language emerge. Such problems become more significant when, in addition, each language’s signifier belongs to different sociolects and/or two alternative interpretations of a given text are reasonably possible. All these points are analysed in published translations of philosophical texts. Although I study other cases, the core of this chapter is devoted to the problems that emerge when the English noun actuality and its cognates in Romance languages appear in philosophical texts.
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Notes
- 1.
Although it has little to do with my topic, I cannot resist mentioning a funny erratum in (2′), which is detectable only when one knows (2). It deals with ‘género de los hombres’ (literally, “the gender of men”), which has been possible because of the graphic similitude between the Spanish terms hombre (man) and nombre (noun, name). According to what (2′) literally says, Black would be speaking of the gender of people, not of the gender of words!
- 2.
What is said about the French and Spanish nouns can also be said about the Italian noun attualità, the Portuguese noun actualidade/atualidade, and even the German noun Aktualität.
- 3.
Conversely, the translations of Aristotle’s work into Romance languages prefer the noun act. Thus, for instance, ‘Le mot d’Acte, appliqué à la realisation complète d’une chose, a été emprunté surtout des mouvements, pour être transporté de là à tout le reste’ (Aristote 2008: 171) and ‘La palabra ‘acto’, vinculada a la realización plena, se ha extendido también a otras cosas, fundamentalmente a partir de los movimientos’ (Aristóteles 1994: 370), in French and Spanish, respectively.
- 4.
To be precise, the noun actuality has three different senses even within scholastic philosophy, namely, “act”, “act thought of abstractly”, and ‘the state of being in act or of being real and complete’ (Wuellner 2012: 5. S.v. actuality). Properly speaking, only the third sense is shared with its standard use in English.
- 5.
The passage alluded to by Rawls literally reads: ‘nämlich das der Freiheit, von der das moralische Gesetz, welches selbst keiner rechtfertigenden Gründe bedarf, nicht bloß die Möglichkeit, sondern die Wirklichkeit an Wesen beweiset, die dies Gesetz als für sie verbindend erkennen’ (Kant 2011: 64). This passage has been translated into English as ‘viz., the power of freedom, the freedom of which the moral law, which itself needs no justifying grounds, proves not only the possibility but the actuality in beings who cognize this law as obligating for them’ (Kant 2002: 66), and as ‘namely the faculty of freedom, of which the moral law, which itself has no need of justifying grounds, proves not only the possibility but the reality in beings who cognize this law as binding upon them’ (Kant 2015: 41).
- 6.
Instead of the marked term actuality, Quine resorts to its synonym factuality. For instance, in Quine (1969: 52) or Quine (1992: 43). Indeed, Quine avoids the noun actuality to the extent of creating the collocation “what there is” in a seminal article (Quine 1948) so as not to use either actuality or reality.
- 7.
For instance, the title From a Logical Point of View itself is a jocular allusion to a comic Trinidad calypso that Harry Belafonte was singing in a night spot and that ended: ‘And so, from a logical point of view, / Always marry a woman uglier than you’ (Quine 1985: 228).
- 8.
Although it only tangentially has to do with my topic, I want to consider the name Wyman. This name can be understood either as a common family name or as the name of the letter Y (wy or wye). In fact there are two German translations of From a Logical Point of View showing both interpretations are reasonable: Wyman was translated into German as ‘Ypsiloner’ (Quine 1979: 10) and elsewhere ‘Wyman’ (Quine 2011: 11).
- 9.
Lalande himself explains this absence as follow: ‘Actuel et actualité n’ayant plus guère en français qu’une valeur temporelle, réel et realité ont hérité de ce sens, et il leur appartient bien incontestablement, même dans la langue usuelle’ (1926: 691. S.v. réel).
- 10.
I disregard the fact that it is probable as well that, in (4), the author was playing on (or alluding to) the two meanings of the Spanish noun actualidad—it does not matter whether consciously or unconsciously—since he also speaks of our today.
- 11.
This cannot be attributed to the translator’s ignorance of the Spanish language and/or lack of skill in his/her job. In fact, the same translator rendered actualidad into current affairs in another passage of the same page where it is patently clear that the Spanish noun cannot mean in any way reality/actuality. Actually, Ortega’s assertion ‘la única fuerza espiritual que por oficio se ocupa de la actualidad: la Prensa’ (Ortega y Gasset 1930b: 352), was, in fact ‘the only spiritual force which necessarily concerns itself with current affairs – the press’ (Ortega y Gasset, 2014: 76).
- 12.
Although this point does not have any bearing on the main topic I am discussing, I cannot overlook the fact that the translator makes an Aristotelian reading of Ortega y Gasset when he renders causa into efficient cause. The term causa eficiente is completely alien to Ortega y Gasset’s idiolect. He only uses the term causa eficiente once in the 12 volumes of his Complete Works to explain a debate on the different causes among the Aristotle’s heirs who ruled the Lyceum (Ortega y Gasset 1958: 166).
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Keith Allan and Claudia Fernández for comments and insights on the first draft of this chapter. No one but me is responsible for infelicities that remain.
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Chamizo-Domínguez, P.J. (2020). Partial Semantic False Friends and the Indeterminacy of Translation in Philosophical Texts. In: Allan, K. (eds) Dynamics of Language Changes. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6430-7_9
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