A Deductive-logic-based Falsification Of The Explicitation Hypothesis In Translation

The present dissertation is a deductive-logic-based falsification of the explicitation hypothesis in translation initiated by Blum-Kulka and supported by some corpus-based empirical studies. The hypothesis proposes that "explicitation is a universal strategy inherent in the translation process itself’. The dissertation seeks to prove that the hypothesis is logically unsound whatever statistics corpus-based or example-based studies may provide for it. The research proceeds in two steps:first it studies and summarizes a common feature of the above-mentioned studies, that is, using statistics from corpus-based studies as evidence of the explicitation hypothesis. Then through a deductive-logic-based analysis of these studies, it points out the illogicalness in their reasoning and the falsehood of their conclusions.The way to falsify the explicitation hypothesis by recourse to deductive logic is a new attempt, which has the following significance:First of all, this research presents a comparatively thorough investigation into explicitation in translation and reflects deeply on the explicitation hypothesis. Making a critical review of the academic trend of thought that supports the explicitation hypothesis in translation based on corpora study, the present dissertation holds that such studies can only come up with some probabilities of the occurrence of explicitation in translation instead of any evidence that explicitation is, as the explicitation hypothesis claims, universally present in whatever is called translation. Rather they would be more productive if the focus were shifted to the study of comparative linguistics or to the search for more frequent translation strategies for the benefit of translation software designers.Then reflections on the explicitation hypothesis in translation trigger this author’s contemplation of hypotheses concerning other "universal strategies inherent in the translation process itself" on a corpora basis. The present dissertation holds that, except for universal features implied in the very definition of "translation"(such as "translation involves two languages" and "translation involves thinking"), all attempts to prove the existence of other "universal" strategies "inherent" in the translation process regardless of the differences between linguistic and cultural systems, such as simplification, normalization, leveling out and convergence are doomed to failure as well.Thirdly, by taking deductive logic as its theoretical basis, this dissertation has introduced a new line of research in the investigation of the explicitation hypothesis, thus highlighting the significance of logic in examining theoretical hypotheses, especially new ones.The present research mainly deals with the following questions: 1. What is the essence of explicitation in translation?2. What is the core of the explicitation hypothesis in translation?3. Can corpus-based studies prove or disprove the explicitation hypothesis? Why and why not?4. Then how can the explicitation hypothesis be falsified?The present research falls into the category of pure theoretical study, which aims to refute the explicitation hypothesis theoretically by means of deductive logic instead of attempting to provide more empirical evidence for or against that hypothesis.This dissertation is divided into five chapters.The introduction sketches the motivation, the purpose, the research questions, the methodology and the basic structure of the thesis.Chapter two deals with explicitation in translation, and defines several concepts related to explicitation. For example, it gives the definition of "explicitness" in language in general and provides a detailed description of its degree and levels. It puts forward a tentative working definition of explicitation while pointing out problems concerning the definition of "explicitation" in previous corpus-based translation studies. Types of "explicitation" are also discussed and the nature of "explicitation" is then revealed:First and foremost, explicitation is a translation technique; second, explicitiation in translation refers to causing a certain segment of the target text to surpass its corresponding segment in the source text in terms of explicitness.Chapter three introduces the explicitation hypothesis and corpus-based studies that attempt to confirm it. Taking Blum-Kulka’s example-based explicitation hypothesis as the starting point, this dissertation analyzes in detail the common methods that these studies use to confirm the hypothesis, that is, first proving the existence of a certain tendency toward explicitation in translation by statistics provided by corpora, indicative of a higher rate of the occurrence of explicitation, and then resorting to various reasons to prove that this tendency toward explicitation is equal to explicitation as a universal strategy inherent in the translation process itself.Chapter four is a deductive-logic-based falsification of empirical studies supporting the explicitation hypothesis. It starts with the analysis of the true meaning of Blum-Kulka’s explicitation hypothesis, pointing out that the hypothesis is actually made of two sub-propositions:that explicitation is a strategy inherent in translation and that explicitation is a universal strategy in translation. The reasoning that Blum-Kulka makes use of to prove the truth of the two sub-propositions, once put to the test of deductive logic, reveals its fallacious nature. Therefore, the hypothesis is false at the very time of its initiation. This thesis then analyzes the major types of corpus-based studies in support of the hypothesis to find the various reasons they use, likewise, puts them to the test of deductive logic, and, similarly, discovers that those reasonings are fallacious.Chapter five is the conclusion, where a summary of the main points of the thesis is presented. Also mentioned are limitations of the present paper and suggestions for future research in this field.The conclusions of this dissertation are as follows.1. Correct definitions of key concepts are vitally important in any theoretical study. But supporters of the explicitation hypothesis neither examine the connotations nor the denotations of the key concepts that they use, such as "translation","universality","inherence" and "strategy". Without a correct understanding of such key concepts, their point of view is bound to be untenable.2. As their key concepts are wrong, they are forced to resort to other irrelevant reasons to support the explicitation hypothesis, which are naturally incapable of standing the scrutiny of deductive logic.3. Corpus-based studies, which can only result in a higher or lower tendency or probability, cannot provide any credible evidence of any universal strategy, including explicitation, inherent in the process of translation itself except those implied in the very definition of translation. Such corpus-based studies should turn their attention to comparative linguistics so as to provide help for beginners of translation and for translation software designers by telling them what is more probably the proper way to deal with a particular problem arising from translation between a specific language pair and in a specific direction.