I) Japanese term plus definition.

The translator may choose to introduce a Japanese term but add some defining text, as in the earlier example of ' tatami matting'. Gutt's (1991, in Venuti, 2000:377) concept of "optimal relevance" suggests that the translator must focus on those features of the object that are most relevant to his readers, as an attempt to convey each and every sense of an item as experienced by a native Japanese may destroy other relevant features of the original text. Certainly, a Japanese person's understanding of the term Obon will include not only the knowledge that it is a festival held in honour of the dead, but also knowledge of when it is held, how and where it is usually spent, it's atmosphere, the special foods and rituals associated with it, and so on, but to include all this information would place a gratuitous burden of mental processing on the reader. Instead, the translator is restricted to including the information deemed necessary for communication to succeed. One way of achieving this is to use the Japanese word as a premodifier of a head noun that is a functional equivalent of the foreign object. In this sense the following example reflects the same translation strategy as used in the earlier example of ' tatami matting':

Mitsuo clambered out of his futon bed and went downstairs.

(Distant Thunder, p.26)

Alternatively, a sense-segment rooted in Japanese culture may be expressed as a paratactic nominal group complex, in which defining text is added immediately after the Japanese word:

...one evening in Obon, the Festival of the Dead, Nobuo was invited to the home of Reinosuke Wakura...."

(Shiokari Pass, p.169)

Matsuzo always claimed the snail flesh tasted best with shochu, a distilled liquor made from potatoes, rice, or wheat.

(Distant Thunder, p.172)

He stumbled along, finding it hard to move in his hakama, a pleated garment, which puffed up around him.

(Distant Thunder, p.250)

In translations of dialogue, however, excessive pre- or post-modification in the nominal group may result in awkward, improbable utterances. This can be avoided if the defining text appears outside the dialogue, in the form of an overt communication from the translator to the reader:

"What would you say to an omiai?" Mitsuo squirmed. Omiai is a formal meeting between an eligible man and woman, arranged by a third party. He raised his eyes but found he couldn't bear his mother's gaze.

(Distant Thunder, p.35)

The term omiai is used repeatedly in later dialogue. Given this initial definition within the text, the reader is able to assimilate this word into his lexicon, and is ready to process its next appearance a few pages later:

"I'm doing omiai. "

(Distant Thunder, p.40)

At other times, however, it may be possible to include the necessary information within the dialogue by adding an utterance that does not appear in the source text. In other words, the translator speaks through the character:

"Their house was five ri away. Oh, I guess nowadays you'd say that's about twenty kilometers. "

(Distant Thunder, p.90)

Here the significance of the term ri is that it is a long-since obsolete unit of measurement, and is thus an important marker of the sub-text, or "meaning behind the meaning" (Newmark, 1988:77), which in this case concerns an elderly Japanese lady whose values are rooted in the past. To write simply "Their house was twenty kilometers away" would miss this completely.

The translator may sometimes add text that defines one sense of the original term's meaning, implicit for the Japanese reader, and relevant in a particular instance. In A Wild Sheep Chase, a text with strikingly few features to situate it within a Japanese cultural context, this strategy is used twice to deal with place names. In the case of a reference to Hokkaido the translator gives the additional information, implicit for the Japanese reader, that Hokkaido is an island, while when referring to Haneda Airport the translator adds the information that this is in Tokyo:

Mekurameppou ni Hokkaidou o urotsukimawaru yori wa madamashi dakara ne. (vol 2., p.26)

(lit: Anything's better than blindly wandering all round Hokkaido.)

Anything is an improvement over scouring the entire island of Hokkaido totally blind. (p.199)

Yokujitsu no chuushoku wa hikouki no naka de tabeta. Hikouki wa Haneda ni tachiyori, sorekara mou ichi do tobitatta. (vol.2, p.226)

(lit: The next day's lunch (I) ate in the plane. The plane stopped by Haneda, and then took off again.)

The following day I took a plane to Tokyo-Haneda, then flew off again. (p.351)

While the reference to Tokyo has been added, the reference to lunch has disappeared. It is certainly not a difficult sentence to translate, and we can only speculate that the translator was looking to economise. Berman (1985, translated in Venuti, 2000:290) observes that the need for the "unfolding" of meanings that are "folded" in the original is one reason why translations tend to be longer than their source text; as Steiner (1975) puts it, translations are "expansionist".

In A Wild Sheep Chase we find a similar strategy used to deal with car names:

Chuusha-jou ga ari, kuriimu iro no fearedii to supootsu taipu no akai serika ga chuusha shite-ita. (p.93)

(lit: There was a car park, a cream-colored Fairlady and a sports-type red Celica were parked.)

In it were a cream-colored Honda Fairlady and a sports car, a red Toyota Celica. (p.252)

This might be considered a controversial translation strategy. Clearly, in making explicit what the original author consciously chose not to say, the translator deviates from the source text. Moreover, the potential for error must also be considered; in this case, car enthusiasts will note that the Fairlady is in fact produced by Nissan.

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