Translanguaging in Translation: Evidence from Japanese Mimetics

Abstract

To explore the possibility of translanguaging in translation, a corpus of seven English translations of a Japanese novel, GingaTetsudō no Yoru, was quantitatively and qualitatively studied with a focus on mimetics. Among the 1,806 possible spaces for renderings of Japanese mimetics across the seven English translations, only 15.61% were mimetics rendered by mimetics, and most of which were rendered by lexicalized mimetics in English. Only 1.44% were non-lexicalized mimetics rendered by non-lexicalized mimetics, but some of them have revealed theartifacts of translanguaging. They also have revealed that translanguaging in translation can have a significant rhetorical effect that can expand the pragmatic dimension of the text whilethe risks of translanguaging for translators can be reduced by creative ways of scaffolding. However, like translation, translanguaging is constrained by societally constructed norms of language use although it can also shape our languages and language use.