Syntax and peculiarities of this sentence/text


>
> イギリスの少女はキノコ雲をかき、「科学者は時にダメージを与える」、日本の少年の絵は髪やひげは伸びたままにしている科学者で、「仕事のことばかり考えている」というイメージだ。([source](https://www.docdroid.net/6ruXJ6r/img-20170802-0002-new.pdf)
> line 8-10)

First, my attempt at translation:

> The English girls draw nuclear mushrooms and the image says: “scientists
> sometimes cause damage”, and the picture of the Japanese boys is a
> scientist, in whom they made the hair and moustache long (=in which they
> elongated hair and moustache) and the image says: “In my job I must think
> all the time”.

Because the context is rather strong in this sentence, I didn’t have too many
problems understanding it. However, the translation required me to make quite
a lot of assumptions about either lacking or seemingly superfluous elements.
So I want to ask about them now:

というイメージだ This element could relate to both the first part of the full sentence
=> イギリスの少女はキノコ雲をかき、「科学者は時にダメージを与える」 And the second part:
日本の少年の絵は髪やひげは伸びたままにしている科学者で、「仕事のことばかり考えている」

The problem is that things get _really_ complicated if I wanted to incorporate
the というイメージだ in my translation of the full sentence. Just to give an example,
another more “bumpy” translation: “The English girls draw a nuclear mushroom
and it is an image which says: ‘scientists sometimes cause damage’ and the
picture of the Japanese boys is a scientist, in whom they made the moustache
and hair long and it is a picture which says: ‘In my job I must think all the
time’.

For that reason, I wanted to know whether my assumptions were correct, because
they imply quite far reaching, rather complex relations.

Besides that, another question centered both around this specific sentence,
but also touching the whole text: Is the text switching tenses? Line 1-2 and
3-4 (half) and 6-7 are in past tense. The rest seems to be in present tense. I
can’t really make out a contextual reason. For example, as we can see in line
6-7, whether the text cites the children's drawings or not doesn’t seem to be
of importance. In line 6-7, the “narrator” ultimately narrates in past tense,
although he always talks to us in present tense when citing the drawings in
all of the other cases in the text.

Do you see any contextual requirement for this? Or even a grammatical
requirement? Or is it just a stylistic phenomenon? For example, in fictional
literature this is often used to increase the suspense.




I think the biggest problem of your translation attempt is that you tried to
use "say" to translate という. This type of という is used to describe the noun that
follows. I understand you want to translate it as literally as possible, but
using "say" would usually end up with extremely unnatural English sentence.

>   * 地球は丸いという事実  
>  the fact that the earth is round
>   * 美女が野獣に恋をするという物語  
>  a story where a beautiful woman falls in love with a beast
>   * 家族がいるという幸せ  
>  the happiness of having a family
>   * 入学試験に遅刻したという思い出  
>  the memory of being late for the entrance exam
>   * 科学者は時にダメージを与えるというイメージの絵  
>  a picture that gives an impression that scientists sometimes cause damage
>

というイメージだ at the end of the sentence relates to both 科学者は時にダメージを与える and
仕事のことばかり考えている. This is an example of [right-node
raising](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/17744/5010). To translate this
sentence into English, I would not hesitate to split it into two sentences. My
attempt:

> A British girl draw a mushroom cloud, which gives an impression that
> scientists are sometimes harmful. What a Japanese boy drew is a scientist
> who leaves his hair and beard grow, which gives an impression that
> scientists think only about their jobs.

The mixture of the present and past tenses comes from the mere fact that
"draw" is a past action but the pictures are things that exist "now". ("This
picture _is_ beautiful! Picasso _painted_ it!" It's not unnatural, is it?)




I think the biggest problem of your translation attempt is that you tried to
use "say" to translate という. This type of という is used to describe the noun that
follows. I understand you want to translate it as literally as possible, but
using "say" would usually end up with extremely unnatural English sentence.

>   * 地球は丸いという事実  
>  the fact that the earth is round
>   * 美女が野獣に恋をするという物語  
>  a story where a beautiful woman falls in love with a beast
>   * 家族がいるという幸せ  
>  the happiness of having a family
>   * 入学試験に遅刻したという思い出  
>  the memory of being late for the entrance exam
>   * 科学者は時にダメージを与えるというイメージの絵  
>  a picture that gives an impression that scientists sometimes cause damage
>

というイメージだ at the end of the sentence relates to both 科学者は時にダメージを与える and
仕事のことばかり考えている. This is an example of [right-node
raising](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/17744/5010). To translate this
sentence into English, I would not hesitate to split it into two sentences. My
attempt:

> A British girl draw a mushroom cloud, which gives an impression that
> scientists are sometimes harmful. What a Japanese boy drew is a scientist
> who leaves his hair and beard grow, which gives an impression that
> scientists think only about their jobs.

The mixture of the present and past tenses comes from the mere fact that
"draw" is a past action but the pictures are things that exist "now". ("This
picture _is_ beautiful! Picasso _painted_ it!" It's not unnatural, is it?)

