Borrowing

What it is

Borrowing takes the source item into the target text as it stands. No target lexeme is selected, because none is judged available or appropriate; the source form itself becomes the target form, and the reader meets a word that belongs to another language.

Vinay and Darbelnet placed it first among the direct procedures, as the simplest operation available, and identified two distinct motives. The first is necessity: the target language has no term because the target community has no corresponding notion, so the gap is metalinguistic rather than lexical. The second is deliberate: the translator imports a source item precisely to keep the text audibly foreign, which is a stylistic decision and not a confession of defeat. Newmark describes the same operation as transference and extends its scope, listing proper names, geographical and topographical terms, names of periodicals and newspapers, titles of untranslated works, and institutional and cultural terms; he also folds transliteration into it, which is why the two records overlap.

Molina and Hurtado Albir split the technique in two. Pure borrowing keeps the source form intact; naturalized borrowing adapts it to target spelling, pronunciation or morphology, and is treated here under naturalization. Baker's strategy of the loan word plus explanation belongs at this point as well: the loan is glossed at first occurrence and then left to stand alone, on the assumption that the reader has been equipped once and does not need reminding.

When it applies

• The source concept has no counterpart in the target culture, so any target term would name something that does not exist.
• The field itself uses the source form, and substituting a native term would make the text harder to place for its specialist readers.
• The item is a name, a title, a designation or a trade mark whose identifying function outranks its sense.
• The commission calls for a text that keeps its foreign setting visible, in which case the borrowing is chosen rather than conceded.

Examples

DE>EN

• Source: Bildungsroman
• Target: Bildungsroman
• Comment: English criticism adopted the term rather than coin one, and "novel of formation" now reads as a gloss on the loan rather than as its replacement. The borrowing is no longer a decision: it is the settled term, and choosing otherwise would be the marked option.

TR>EN

• Source: kaymakam
• Target: the kaymakam (the district governor)
• Comment: Loan word plus explanation in Baker's sense. The office has no equivalent in the target administrative system, so a functional rendering such as "district governor" alone would imply a comparability that does not hold. The gloss is supplied at first occurrence only; thereafter the loan carries the reference by itself.

EN>ES

• Source: software
• Target: el software
• Comment: Pure borrowing: the form is unaltered and only the article marks its integration. Contrast the naturalized route taken by the same language with líder, where spelling and morphology were adapted. Both operations are borrowings; only the degree of adaptation differs.

Watch out for

Borrowing is the least visible way of transferring a decision to the reader, and it is the technique most often used to avoid making one. A loan that names a concept the target audience already has under another name is not a borrowing but an untranslated segment, and a reviser will treat it as such.

• The reader must be able to do something with the loan. A source-script or unfamiliar form left bare, with no gloss, no apposition and no context, defers the work rather than performing it.
• Check whether the borrowing is already established before importing it. Where usage has settled on a native term, reintroducing the source form is a regression, not a stylistic choice.
• In certified and official documents the loan usually needs to appear alongside a rendering rather than instead of one, because the reader is an authority matching the text against a form it recognizes. The gloss carries the legal work; the loan preserves the traceable identity of the source item.

References

• Vinay, J.-P. & Darbelnet, J. (1958). Stylistique comparée du français et de l'anglais: méthode de traduction. Paris: Didier. English translation by J. C. Sager & M.-J. Hamel (1995), Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation, Benjamins Translation Library 11. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 31–32.
• Nida, E. A. (1964). Toward a Science of Translating, with Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating. Leiden: Brill.
• Newmark, P. (1988). A Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall, pp. 81–82.
• Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London: Routledge, pp. 34–36.
• Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Revised edition 2016, Benjamins Translation Library 123, Ch. 4.
• Molina, L. & Hurtado Albir, A. (2002). "Translation Techniques Revisited: A Dynamic and Functionalist Approach." Meta 47(4), 498–512.