What it is
Generalization replaces a source term with a term that stands above it in the same semantic field. The target item covers everything the source item covered and more, so nothing is asserted that the source did not assert; what disappears is a distinction the source language made and the target text no longer makes.
Vinay and Darbelnet described the move as part of the comparative behaviour of their pair. Molina and Hurtado Albir list it among their eighteen techniques and illustrate it with the French set guichet, fenêtre and devanture, each of which English answers with "window". Baker approaches it from the practitioner's side, as translation by a more general word, and grounds it in an observation that explains why it works so reliably: the hierarchical structure of semantic fields is not language-specific, so a superordinate is almost always available even where a same-level equivalent is not. Chesterman files the operation as S3, hyponymy, treating the upward and downward moves as one strategy.
For culture-specific items, Franco Aixelá's scale supplies the specialized counterparts. Limited universalization replaces the source item with another item from the same culture that the target reader is more likely to know; absolute universalization replaces it with a neutral reference. Both are generalizing moves, but they are motivated by cultural distance rather than by the shape of a semantic field, and the strategy names are worth keeping distinct for that reason.
When it applies
- The target language has no term at the source's level of specificity, and the field above it is organized the same way in both languages.
- The distinction the source term makes plays no part in the passage, and reproducing it would give it prominence it does not have in the source.
- The source item is culture-specific and a neutral cover term serves the target reader better than a term that will be misread.
Examples
FR>EN
- Source: guichet
- Target: window
- Comment: The standard illustration. French distributes across guichet, fenêtre and devanture what English collects under one word; the English target is correct in each case and records none of the three distinctions. Where the text goes on to depend on which kind of opening is meant, the superordinate will not carry it.
TR>EN
- Source: kayınbirader
- Target: brother-in-law
- Comment: Turkish names affinal kin by the exact relation, distinguishing the spouse's brother from the sister's husband and from the wife's sister's husband. English has one term for all three. The generalization is unavoidable and, in a family record or a statement of relationship, it removes the information the document was drawn up to state.
NL>EN
- Source: gracht
- Target: canal
- Comment: Dutch distinguishes an urban canal within a town from a constructed waterway between places. English takes both as "canal". The loss is usually harmless in running prose and is not harmless in a land registry description, where the type of watercourse can determine who maintains it.
Watch out for
The characteristic property of this technique is that the loss is invisible from the target side. A reviser reading the translation alone finds nothing to question, because the target text is accurate as far as it goes. Only the comparison shows what was dropped, and Baker's point that superordinates are nearly always available is precisely what makes the strategy so easy to reach for without noticing.
- In terminology work, a superordinate is not an equivalent. A wider term in a legal or technical system covers instances the source term excludes, and a record that pairs the two propagates the error into every later job.
- Check the rest of the text before generalizing. Where a later passage exploits the distinction, an early generalization leaves that passage incoherent.
- Distinguish it from reduction. Generalization keeps a term in position and widens it; reduction removes the information item altogether. Both cost specificity, but only one leaves something in the target for the reader to see.
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. 30–39.
- Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London: Routledge, Ch. 2.
- Franco Aixelá, J. (1996). "Culture-Specific Items in Translation", in R. Álvarez & M. C.-Á. Vidal (eds), Translation, Power, Subversion. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 52–78, at 61–64.
- Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Revised edition 2016, Ch. 4.
- Molina, L. & Hurtado Albir, A. (2002). "Translation Techniques Revisited: A Dynamic and Functionalist Approach." Meta 47(4), 498–512.