Question
The paragraph below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the paragraph.
It is often said that translation is impossible, since no word in one language corresponds exactly to a word in another, and the structures that hold words together vary even more sharply. Yet the same is true within any single language: the word “home” means different things to different speakers, and a sentence can shift in meaning according to context, tone, and reader. If we do not conclude on this basis that monolingual communication is impossible, we should hesitate to draw the conclusion for translation. What translation lacks is not the kind of fidelity ordinary communication possesses but the illusion of such fidelity. The translator’s labour is visible, and so the inexactness translation shares with all language is mistaken for a special failure of translation itself.
Options
Translation is widely thought to be impossible because of inexact correspondences between languages, but the same inexactness exists within a single language, and translation is therefore no more impossible than ordinary communication.
The claim that translation is impossible misidentifies the inexactness common to all communication as a defect peculiar to translation, an error encouraged by the visibility of the translator’s labour.
Translation is held to a higher standard of fidelity than monolingual communication because the translator’s labour is more visible, and this double standard accounts for the persistent belief in its impossibility.
Words and structures do not correspond exactly between languages, but neither do they correspond exactly within languages, so the impossibility of translation is overstated.
Detailed solution
Q19. Answer: B. The paragraph diagnoses an error: people mistake the inexactness common to all language for a defect peculiar to translation, an error encouraged by the visibility of the translator’s labour. B states exactly this diagnosis. • Runner-up: A. Tempting because it parallels the paragraph’s structure (inexactness in both contexts). But A reads the conclusion as “translation is no more impossible than monolingual communication,” which states a true entailment but misses the explanatory move about visibility and misattribution that is the paragraph’s main work. True but partial.
• C. Too narrow: focuses only on the visibility point and treats it as the whole argument.
• D. Restates premises without the conclusion.