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Languages affect each other, and languages in direct geographic contact can significantly change each other's lexicon, phonology, syntax and style. There is usually a dominant and a subordinate language, depending on the inherent characteristics of each language and the political and cultural circumstances. For example, the language spoken in the capital of an imperial power will exercise strong influences on those other languages within the sphere of influence of the empire. Border areas are especially prolific areas for language interaction, as are linguistic enclaves within a nation. English and Spanish each have strengths (and weaknesses) in certain features. Thus, Spanish is better suited for emotional expression, such as in poetry and speeches, while English is perhaps more appropriate for science, technology and business. Therefore, one would expect English to penetrate Spanish in matters of science and technology, especially when the pioneering research and development work in a particular field takes place using the English language or in U.S. laboratories or factories.
Languages can also be in contact through mass media. The widespread dissemination of U.S. movies and television programs throughout the Spanish-speaking world has linguistic impact, although this is lessened by the custom of dubbing the dialogue into Spanish. But even with dubbing, the cultural aspects make themselves known, and dubbing frequently carries over into the TL certain features of the SL. This problem has a political impact in Latin America, where the perceived penetrations by U.S. media are frequently labelled "cultural imperialism."
The translator has a special role and responsibility in this matter of languages in contact. Since the translator is a bilingual and bicultural individual, s/he is frequently a conduit for new influences to cross over from one language to the next. Although all good translators are careful not to allow this to happen to any significant degree, it is all too easy to let certain SL linguistic features enter into the TL through translation, many times with the translator not even being aware of it. This is especially true for the more subtle aspects of language, such as style and tone. New forms of words and grammatical constructions are more obvious, and generally the translator will spot them.
The problem of the translator serving as conduit for language interference is more serious if the translator lacks ability or confidence in the language s/he is translating into. This is yet another reason why translators should only go into their mother tongue, and should do all they can to improve their writing ability in their native language. When one translates into one's second tongue, one is never as certain about grammar, style (and even lexicon) as when going into the mother tongue, and this situation then permits a greater degree of language interference.
Anglicisms in the Spanish language have long been a sensitive issue for those who wish to protect their Hispanic heritage. When Spain was the dominant political and cultural power in Europe, this was not perceived to be a problem. But in the past several centuries the Hispanic world has felt unduly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon one, and an annoying and threatening aspect of this influence has been the penetration of the Spanish language by English. Spain's Real Academia de la Lengua has strongly resisted Anglicisms, and will consistently coin and suggest proper Spanish words, usually with a Latin root, to be used in place of the Anglicism. At times this works, but all too often the new Spanish word is used only in restricted academic and intellectual circles, while at the popular level of colloquial talk and mass media the Anglicism dominates.
The difficulties that Spanish has in resisting Anglicisms can be illustrated with the word "feedback." This term originated in the field of audio communications engineering, and was defined as the effect of a small portion of an amplifier's output finding its way back to the input side and thus feeding on itself. The phenomenon is readily observed when a microphone is placed too close to a speaker, and a loud squealing results. By extension, the term now has come to also mean a response or reaction to some action, such as a political speech, a publishing venture or a policy proposal. The Real Academia proposed the Spanish term "retroalimentación," which is awkward and ungainly, as well as suggesting rather bizarre feeding habits. It has gained some acceptance in the technical engineering usage, but not in the broader sense of feedback to a speech or some other form of human expression. In the long run "retroalimentación" is likely to be used less and less and "feedback" will have the field to itself. The same phenomenon is also evident in the computer field, where the English language's capacity to create compound words and string together nouns and adjectives is clearly more efficient and descriptive than Spanish, which has a need to insert prepositions and articles. Consider these terms: "software" = "programas y sistemas para la computadora" "data processing" = "procesamiento de datos" "hardware" = "el equipo y las maquinarias de las computadoras."
The problem of coining technical and scientific words in Spanish is not as severe if the English relies on words with Latin or Greek roots, since then the Spanish can legitimately coin a similar word from the same Latin or Greek root and avoid the direct acceptance of an Anglicism. Such is the case with words like "televisión," "micrófono," and "transistor." Many medical and scientific terms follow systematic naming procedures which respect these Greek and Latin roots, and are therefore not offensive.
The phenomenon of Anglicisms penetrating Spanish is more obvious in the spoken than the written Spanish, and more at the casual or slang level of speech than at the more formal and academic. Thus, the most blatant examples of Anglicisms in Spanish are observed in street slang along the cities of the US-Mexican border, in the region around Miami, in Puerto Rico, and in the Hispanic barrios of many large cities of the U.S. The easy penetration of English into Spanish is facilitated by the fact that many of the Hispanics accepting the Anglicisms have an inadequate academic foundation in their own Spanish mother tongue, especially in its written form, and thus find it difficult to resist the power of the Anglicism. It is common to hear words like "troca," "parquear," "yonque," "nursa," "typear." These tend to alarm the purists of the Spanish language, but their movement from spoken street slang to formal written Spanish is a long and slow one, and many of them will never make it. Dictionaries, and especially the formidable Diccionario de la Real Academia Española, tend to run several years behind the general acceptance of a word in written Spanish, and a word's inclusion requires careful scrutiny to see if any acceptable Spanish coinage has a chance of resisting the Anglicism.
There are many different categories of Anglicisms in the lexical, grammatical and stylistic areas of linguistics. García Yebra lists these as being among the more significant:
- Misuse of preposition
- Improper word order
- English words or variants accepted too readily into Spanish
- Incorrect use of Spanish "que" under the influence of "that"
- Excessive use of the passive voice in Spanish
- Unnatural conciseness
- Redundancy (not as common as conciseness)
- Wrong verb forms, or their improper use.
Application: The translator must be aware that Anglicisms exist, since s/he may encounter them in the Spanish, but must resist being a conduit for their entry into written Spanish. |
