Idiom translation: literal renderings, functional equivalents and the marking scale
You are marking a 10-mark translation and vocabulary subsection from Tamil into English. Each of five items carries 2 marks: 1 for core meaning, 1 for natural target expression. The items are (1) யானைக்கும் அடி சறுக்கும், (2) ஆத்திரக்காரனுக்கு புத்தி மட்டம், (3) கற்றது கைமண் அளவு, கல்லாதது உலகளவு, (4) சுருக்கம், (5) மரபு. Candidate Ravi writes: (1) "Elephant's foot also slips"; (2) "Angry man's brain is low"; (3) "What is learned is a handful of soil; what is unlearned is world-size"; (4) "short"; (5) "old story". Candidate Meera writes (1) "Homer sometimes nods" and (2) "Anger is the enemy of reason". A colleague argues that Meera's answers are "not translation" and should be marked wrong because the English idioms are culturally foreign. You must settle the scale before the scripts are returned.
1. Score Ravi out of 10 and justify each item.
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(1) 1/2. Core meaning survives: even a great creature can slip. The wording is unidiomatic, so no naturalness mark.
(2) 1/2. "Brain is low" conveys diminished judgement but is not English usage; core only.
(3) 2/2. The contrast is complete and the image is clear in English; "world-size" is slightly coined but readable, so naturalness can be allowed.
(4) 0/2. சுருக்கம் in this paper means summary/brevity (a noun), not "short" (adjective). Wrong word class = wrong meaning.
(5) 0/2. "Old story" is not the sense of மரபு; tradition/custom is. This is a vocabulary error, not a translation style choice.
Total 4/10. Feedback should name the two vocabulary items separately from the two idiom items, because Ravi's problem is different in each: idioms need functional equivalence, vocabulary needs the correct sense.
2. Rule on Meera's two answers: are they acceptable, and does cultural foreignness matter?
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Accept both for 2/2 each. Translation of a proverb is judged by whether the target reader recovers the same general meaning in natural language; "Homer sometimes nods" does exactly that for யானைக்கும் அடி சறுக்கும். Cultural origin is not a defect, though the register is literary and should be noted. "Anger is the enemy of reason" is freer, but it preserves the causal claim that anger diminishes judgement, so core = 1 and naturalness = 1. Where to draw the line: reject equivalents that change the claim (for example, "haste makes waste" for item 2, which is about anger, not speed). Tell the colleague that a word-for-word gloss is not the only valid translation; however, in a 2-mark item the candidate must show both sense and target fluency, which Meera does.
3. Write the three-line guidance for students that the scores imply, with one example from each script.
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Guidance: "பழமொழியை மொழிபெயர்க்கும்போது சொல் அல்ல, கருத்தை மாற்றுங்கள். முதலில் பொருள் என்ன என்று ஒரு வரியில் எழுதுங்கள்; பிறகு இலக்கு மொழியில் இயல்பாக எழுதுங்கள். சொற்களுக்கு நேரான பொருள் தவறாக இருந்தால் (சுருக்கம் = 'short' அல்ல; 'summary'), அந்த மதிப்பு போய்விடும்." Use Ravi's item 4 as the vocabulary warning and Meera's item 1 as the success model: the proverb's point is that even the mighty can fail, and "Homer sometimes nods" says that without explaining the elephant. Add that the same rule applies to Tamil-to-Marathi work in the internal test, so students do not learn two different habits.