When word choice is influenced by etymology or philology rather than surface meaning, it can be challenging for a target readership to decipher. For the translator, these underlying layers of meaning can be difficult to render to a target audience, further removed from these initial cultural references.
Etymology and philology are inextricably weighed down by the unique social, political and historical contexts of a given language community. The word is, in effect, a suitcase which we - the reader, translator, the critic – tend to view from a far. Rarely will we venture close enough to unpack a word. When we do, we realise that baggage inspection can be a risky business.
For example, one suggestion regarding the derivation of posh relates to India under British colonial rule. Pale-skinned expatriates would avoid the sun by standing on one side of the boat in the morning, and on the other at sunset, leading to the acronym Port Out Starboard Home. Is this a reliable story? The OED refutes this explanation but concedes it is part of ‘folk etymology’. In other words, although it may be erroneous, the explanation is widely believed.
Opening a suitcase suddenly becomes complicated when we can’t agree on its contents. Yet if a translator perceives that a source author is trying to convey these complicated meanings, can they be brought over to a target language?
Translation (from Latin translat- 'carried across') implies the notion of journey, yet often a word’s etymology will be lost along the way. Possible word-for-word translations of posh into other languages run the risk of losing these etymological meanings: pijo in Iberian Spanish (of uncertain origin according to the Real Academia Española) and alinhado in European Portuguese (from Old French lignage, from Latin linea 'a line’ according to the latest Dicionário Onomástico Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa ).
In “What is a Relevant Translation?” Dérrida is preoccupied with the transfer of a word’s cultural baggage from one language to another, going as far as to question whether it can leave the ‘airport’ at all. But is it therefore viable to ignore these meanings altogether? Venuti bemoans the tendency to domesticate when translating into English, and this could certainly be seen as an extension of this process.
At the end of “La reivindicación del Conde don Julián” (The Revenge of don Count Julián) Juan Goytisolo presents the Spanish reader with clusters of Spanish words of Arabic origin such as “algodón, algarrobo, alfalfa” (cotton, carob, lucerne). The stylistic effect here attempts to undermine the then Francoist claims of Spanish’s linguistic and ethnic purity. Approaching the translation of this cluster into English, I feel that two strategies are feasible. One would be to maintain the words as they are in Spanish, thus maintaining the Arabic overtones suggested by the prefix al- (Arabic: the) of which many English speakers would be aware . Essentially, the English text is foreignised. The second would be to introduce a Francophone element into the target text, leading to coton, caroube and lucerne. The English text is once more foreignised. Or is it? While this replicates the philology of English, or the influence of French in English, the cultural baggage of these words is transferred to a target setting. As a means of preserving the baggage of the source language, the first strategy is most successful.
-- Andrew Nimmo is a translator working from Spanish, Portuguese and French into English. His areas of interest include music, journalism, fiction and film. You can contact him at this.means.nimmo@gmail.com.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Lawrence Venuti's The Translator's Invisibility
Lawrence Venuti's book, The Translator's Invisibility (2008, 2nd edn) is a polemical history of translation into English from the seventeenth century to the present day, and it is littered with contradictions. I think we can understand these contradictions if we understand his argument not as a recommendation of a certain translation process, but as a way of critically reading translations. I also think that his polemic can be recast as a discussion of location. The notion of location will undo some of his more flagrantly rhetorical argument, hopefully opening the way for more open discussion.
This critical appreciation was written shortly after reading Anthony Pym's review in Target, and owes a good deal to his thoughts. I should further mention though, that I am engaging primarily and simply with Venuti, imagining that this can be worthwhile despite all the scholarship which has moved on from his position. The first edition of his book was published in 1995, and I recommend in particular Maria Tymoczko's work on post-colonial translation and ethics.
Venuti's most basic distinction is between domestication and foreignization. He draws heavily on Friedrich Schleiermacher's notion that the translator can take the reader to the author, or bring the author to the reader. So these two nouns are verbal: they refer to ways of translating: translation which domesticates, and translation which foreignizes. Venuti is against domestication, and for foreignization, on ethical grounds.
He first takes issue, though, with a distinction between qualities of discourse: fluency and resistancy. These are not however to be simply aligned with domestication and foreignization, nor are the latter to be seen as poles in the manner of many historical pronouncements on translation.
Violence is essential to the nature of translation. Venuti denies that this is a metaphorical description, but that violence is literally done to the semantic, syntactic, phonemic, phonetic structures of the source text.
He seems to indicate that he would prefer more violence to be done to the target language, in order that the cultural status (I must admit I struggle to understand this section of his argument) of the source text might retain its uniqueness, emerging undamaged into the target culture, where it might have a 'dissident' or disruptive effect.
I will now turn to his contradictions. Archaism is approved, as in (Cardinal) John Henry Newman's Iliad or Ezra Pound's Wayfarer. Archaism is disapproved, as in Robert Graves' Twelve Caesars, 'catamite'. Fixed form is approved, as in the balladic stanzas of Newman's Iliad. Fixed form is disapproved, as in Matthew Arnold's recommendations and criticisms of Newman.
But why, in each of these cases, is there approval or disapproval? In Newman's Iliad and Pound's Wayfarer, archaism is a populist or playful gesture. In Graves' Twelve Caesars, 'catamite' is an abstruse word meaning 'young man with whom one engages in sexual relations' and is disapproved of as homophobic. In Newman's Iliad, the balladic form is a popular way to tell a tale in verse, as it has long been in English tradition. Arnold's recommendations of heroic couplets and hexameter, which had long been considered a close way of rendering Homer's Greek versification while maintaining some of the tradition of the English epic, are disapproved of as evidence of elitist, exclusivist sensibility.
Liberal humanism is approved, insofar as the tolerance and acceptance of others is in focus. Liberal humanism is disapproved, when it seeks a principled implementation of its values. (Nida's functional or dynamic equivalence is dismissed as the pragmatic proselytising of a confirmed evangelist).
Venuti perceives a 'trade imbalance' between (the many) books translated from English and (the few) books translated to English: more translation to English would be good. But the co-opting or appropriation of foreign literatures to some kind of hegemonising 'world literature' would be bad.
Hence the importance of the ethical approach to translation: we translators should present the foreign faithfully, we have a duty to our authors, to our readers, and to our various cultures, whether distinct or shared.
Here is my one point of detail: when reading in chapter six Venuti's account of his own 'foreignizing' translations from the Italian, I was struck by how naturally they read. I mean naturally both in the discursive sense of 'fluency' and the ethical/cultural sense of 'domestically'.
There's a particular word choice he picks out: 'carefully.' Perhaps I was prepared for too much of a shock, perhaps I've read too much slightly shocking English literature, or perhaps Venuti's argument has had such a great effect since 1995 (when the first edition came out) that my youthful understanding has formed entirely in his wake. I'm not so sure. He claims his translation of 'carefully' is suggested by the English translation of Hegel's works, and that the whole poem is working out a tension between the positions of Hegel and Nietzsche. Perhaps my ignorance of the German philosophers should hold me back from commenting, but perhaps he is just going a long way around the houses to seek justification for a very simple choice.
What if this is turned on its head, though? If I ignore that Venuti seems fruitlessly to seek justification for a choice, then I can notice that he is very carefully inferring a great deal from the text of his translated poem. Then foreignization is no longer to be considered an attitude which can motivate the translation process. Foreignization is not a way to translate. It is an attitude of reading-in, a way to critically appreciate translation.
Then Venuti's apparently contradictory readings of Newman and Arnold and Pound and Graves and others could stand - or fall - on the specific arguments of his readings. My basic criticism is that Venuti is too ready to ascribe specific intentions and values to the translator, and that he does not seem to recognise or make explicit the way in which his criticism is simply a way of reading.
This can move one step further. Frequently, in casual discussions of translation, the terms 'domestic' and 'foreign' very quickly become confusing. Whose domestic? Foreign to whom?
I translate only to English, so it might seem simple enough at first. But a book written and published in English and set in Tripoli, Libya, such as 'In the Country of Men' by Hisham Matar, uses 'Baba' and 'Mama' on the first page. At home (domestically) I would say 'mum' and 'dad', and in New York (Matar's birthplace) 'mom' and 'pop' might be more usual.
Location might be a more helpful word for translators. Location would, at first, be more concerned with cultural concepts that occur within a text - places, foods, dances, modes of address, and so on and on - than with the form and style and feel of a text. We might later argue that form and style and feel and rhythm do as much if not more to locate a text, but there is unfortunately no room for that exploration here.
What the notion of location does, is recognise that the cultural setting of a work of literature is far more specific than simply its language. And that the languages we call 'French' and 'English' and 'Arabic' are far more heterogeneous than those easy names give credit. There are traditions - plural - within any language. And it is harder by far to define a 'Standard English' than might be imagined. Venuti's polemical terms of 'foreignization' and 'domestication' flatten the field of argument so much that they are difficult to engage with in dialogue. Location would allow us to account for a literary and cultural pluralism.
When translating novels, which is probably the most visible area of literary translation today (at least if you look at certain best-selling crime novels) the question of location occurs often. The question at many points of difficulty could be, how will I locate this?
The translated novel need not be afraid of the new. I don't remember the last time I read about an utterly familiar setting. Some student moves about a bit, and ends up in a small room with many books and a view (over the rooves on the edge of the estate) of a horse in a field just outside Norwich. Even in this, though, I realise that there is much here that is still unfamiliar to me. Whose is that horse?
Insofar as any literature is concerned with the particular, it will be unfamiliar to its readers. Without that, we could have neither the joy of pure escapism nor the food for thought of more difficult reading.
The central thrust of Venuti's book is that translators should do two things. We should seek for quality. And we should assume responsibility. Venuti is perhaps embarrassed to say such a simple thing, but in the end his call to action asks simply for translations, and translators, to be good.
--- Tom Russell is a literary translator from French to English. He read French and English at Oxford and is currently studying for an MA in Literary Translation at UEA. Particular interests include eighteenth and twentieth century short fiction, and problems in the translation of rhythm. He is also currently co-editor of Norwich Papers, an annual journal of translation studies.
This critical appreciation was written shortly after reading Anthony Pym's review in Target, and owes a good deal to his thoughts. I should further mention though, that I am engaging primarily and simply with Venuti, imagining that this can be worthwhile despite all the scholarship which has moved on from his position. The first edition of his book was published in 1995, and I recommend in particular Maria Tymoczko's work on post-colonial translation and ethics.
Venuti's most basic distinction is between domestication and foreignization. He draws heavily on Friedrich Schleiermacher's notion that the translator can take the reader to the author, or bring the author to the reader. So these two nouns are verbal: they refer to ways of translating: translation which domesticates, and translation which foreignizes. Venuti is against domestication, and for foreignization, on ethical grounds.
He first takes issue, though, with a distinction between qualities of discourse: fluency and resistancy. These are not however to be simply aligned with domestication and foreignization, nor are the latter to be seen as poles in the manner of many historical pronouncements on translation.
Violence is essential to the nature of translation. Venuti denies that this is a metaphorical description, but that violence is literally done to the semantic, syntactic, phonemic, phonetic structures of the source text.
He seems to indicate that he would prefer more violence to be done to the target language, in order that the cultural status (I must admit I struggle to understand this section of his argument) of the source text might retain its uniqueness, emerging undamaged into the target culture, where it might have a 'dissident' or disruptive effect.
I will now turn to his contradictions. Archaism is approved, as in (Cardinal) John Henry Newman's Iliad or Ezra Pound's Wayfarer. Archaism is disapproved, as in Robert Graves' Twelve Caesars, 'catamite'. Fixed form is approved, as in the balladic stanzas of Newman's Iliad. Fixed form is disapproved, as in Matthew Arnold's recommendations and criticisms of Newman.
But why, in each of these cases, is there approval or disapproval? In Newman's Iliad and Pound's Wayfarer, archaism is a populist or playful gesture. In Graves' Twelve Caesars, 'catamite' is an abstruse word meaning 'young man with whom one engages in sexual relations' and is disapproved of as homophobic. In Newman's Iliad, the balladic form is a popular way to tell a tale in verse, as it has long been in English tradition. Arnold's recommendations of heroic couplets and hexameter, which had long been considered a close way of rendering Homer's Greek versification while maintaining some of the tradition of the English epic, are disapproved of as evidence of elitist, exclusivist sensibility.
Liberal humanism is approved, insofar as the tolerance and acceptance of others is in focus. Liberal humanism is disapproved, when it seeks a principled implementation of its values. (Nida's functional or dynamic equivalence is dismissed as the pragmatic proselytising of a confirmed evangelist).
Venuti perceives a 'trade imbalance' between (the many) books translated from English and (the few) books translated to English: more translation to English would be good. But the co-opting or appropriation of foreign literatures to some kind of hegemonising 'world literature' would be bad.
Hence the importance of the ethical approach to translation: we translators should present the foreign faithfully, we have a duty to our authors, to our readers, and to our various cultures, whether distinct or shared.
Here is my one point of detail: when reading in chapter six Venuti's account of his own 'foreignizing' translations from the Italian, I was struck by how naturally they read. I mean naturally both in the discursive sense of 'fluency' and the ethical/cultural sense of 'domestically'.
There's a particular word choice he picks out: 'carefully.' Perhaps I was prepared for too much of a shock, perhaps I've read too much slightly shocking English literature, or perhaps Venuti's argument has had such a great effect since 1995 (when the first edition came out) that my youthful understanding has formed entirely in his wake. I'm not so sure. He claims his translation of 'carefully' is suggested by the English translation of Hegel's works, and that the whole poem is working out a tension between the positions of Hegel and Nietzsche. Perhaps my ignorance of the German philosophers should hold me back from commenting, but perhaps he is just going a long way around the houses to seek justification for a very simple choice.
What if this is turned on its head, though? If I ignore that Venuti seems fruitlessly to seek justification for a choice, then I can notice that he is very carefully inferring a great deal from the text of his translated poem. Then foreignization is no longer to be considered an attitude which can motivate the translation process. Foreignization is not a way to translate. It is an attitude of reading-in, a way to critically appreciate translation.
Then Venuti's apparently contradictory readings of Newman and Arnold and Pound and Graves and others could stand - or fall - on the specific arguments of his readings. My basic criticism is that Venuti is too ready to ascribe specific intentions and values to the translator, and that he does not seem to recognise or make explicit the way in which his criticism is simply a way of reading.
This can move one step further. Frequently, in casual discussions of translation, the terms 'domestic' and 'foreign' very quickly become confusing. Whose domestic? Foreign to whom?
I translate only to English, so it might seem simple enough at first. But a book written and published in English and set in Tripoli, Libya, such as 'In the Country of Men' by Hisham Matar, uses 'Baba' and 'Mama' on the first page. At home (domestically) I would say 'mum' and 'dad', and in New York (Matar's birthplace) 'mom' and 'pop' might be more usual.
Location might be a more helpful word for translators. Location would, at first, be more concerned with cultural concepts that occur within a text - places, foods, dances, modes of address, and so on and on - than with the form and style and feel of a text. We might later argue that form and style and feel and rhythm do as much if not more to locate a text, but there is unfortunately no room for that exploration here.
What the notion of location does, is recognise that the cultural setting of a work of literature is far more specific than simply its language. And that the languages we call 'French' and 'English' and 'Arabic' are far more heterogeneous than those easy names give credit. There are traditions - plural - within any language. And it is harder by far to define a 'Standard English' than might be imagined. Venuti's polemical terms of 'foreignization' and 'domestication' flatten the field of argument so much that they are difficult to engage with in dialogue. Location would allow us to account for a literary and cultural pluralism.
When translating novels, which is probably the most visible area of literary translation today (at least if you look at certain best-selling crime novels) the question of location occurs often. The question at many points of difficulty could be, how will I locate this?
The translated novel need not be afraid of the new. I don't remember the last time I read about an utterly familiar setting. Some student moves about a bit, and ends up in a small room with many books and a view (over the rooves on the edge of the estate) of a horse in a field just outside Norwich. Even in this, though, I realise that there is much here that is still unfamiliar to me. Whose is that horse?
Insofar as any literature is concerned with the particular, it will be unfamiliar to its readers. Without that, we could have neither the joy of pure escapism nor the food for thought of more difficult reading.
The central thrust of Venuti's book is that translators should do two things. We should seek for quality. And we should assume responsibility. Venuti is perhaps embarrassed to say such a simple thing, but in the end his call to action asks simply for translations, and translators, to be good.
--- Tom Russell is a literary translator from French to English. He read French and English at Oxford and is currently studying for an MA in Literary Translation at UEA. Particular interests include eighteenth and twentieth century short fiction, and problems in the translation of rhythm. He is also currently co-editor of Norwich Papers, an annual journal of translation studies.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Happy endings and open doors
The sound of the word theory usually makes me feel suspicious, especially if it is to form part of practical training. I am not saying anything original here: it is a common belief that in order to learn and improve one’s practice one needs to get her/his hands dirty practicing, not to talk about practice; and in this case in specific, one need better translate instead of theorize about translation.
But then again, there is quite a large bibliography on translation theory and without translation theory, what would translation studies be? Maybe then, translation theory can actually help. Maybe it came to exist in order to satisfy a need, in order to reply to someone’s constant cry for help. Maybe the answer to ‘can translation theory help me as a translator?’ is yes. Maybe this is not even the question I should be asking, maybe I should ask: How can translation theory help me as a translator?
To be honest, I think that, even though I had never before formed the words, I did have this question in mind when in the beginning of this term, I was taking out from the library all sorts of translation textbooks, each week a new approach, each week new names of academics that had said too much-or too little-in the specific field. But the answer to the question instead of becoming clearer became vaguer.
I felt overwhelmed. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what I was reading; what I could not grasp was how what I was reading would make any difference to me when I would have to deal with the rendering of an idiomatic phrase, let’s say, with high cultural specificity, in another language. Because yes, all these bipolarities suggested by different people-and meaning more or less the same-made some sense, but could they really be of any use?
Yes, a translation can be foreignizing and it can be domesticating, it can be documentary and instrumental but did it have to be either or, and even so, what did this mean for me when I was translating? I became highly doubtful of the fact that all this was helping me become a better translator and suddenly, I found myself asking again, whether translation theory can actually help me. Everything I was reading made my confusion bigger.
At some point I even thought of not reading any more theories…what was the point? After all, the result was to further confuse me and surely, soon I would not remember half the things that confused me, so why bother? But then again, I do not so much like to be the faint-hearted that ends up quitting, so I decided to continue reading the different theories we had each week and treat the whole process as something helpful. Now, when and where and how it would be helpful I should not question, and maybe in the end meaning would reveal itself to me.
I would really like to say that I was right and close this story with a happy ending along the lines: “And so, now, I know why I read translation theories, everything makes perfect sense to me and I live happily translating with the invaluable help of theory”.
But, this is not the case. It is not not the case either.
The ending to this story is that with the passing of time-and the reading and perhaps understanding of more theories-I started noticing that even though I was not consciously thinking of any of the theories I read about when translating a text, I was actually using them a lot when I talked about the said translation. Also, I found that with my fellow classmates we tended to go on for hours about something that we had all read and trying to give our own definitions of terms introduced by Venuti or Nida or some other academic.
With time all the conversations and all the thoughts that came after I had translated a text and was looking at the translation, made me feel more at ease with translation theory and also made me read translation theories with a different attitude. I still feel that what I’m reading is not clearly transferable in the actual practice of translation, but I also feel that by being exposed to theory I have learned to understand better my practice and to be able to talk about it with more confidence.
I know that I will probably forget most of the names of the theoreticians and surely, the theories that were already outdated when I read about them, or that I completely disagreed with, will not stay with me, but nor will the confusion and the suspicious eye towards translation theory. I feel that perhaps it is not there to be with me constantly, and I know that it does not go hand in hand with practice but I also know that if read with an open mind it can help open doors for the translation.
And opening doors that would be otherwise closed has to be a happy ending, no?
Avgi Daferera is a translator of English and Spanish into Greek, and Greek and Spanish into English. She just finished an MA in Writing at Warwick and is currently doing an MA in literary translation at UEA. She is interested in the translation of poetry and children’s fiction.
Contact: daferera.avgi@gmail.com
But then again, there is quite a large bibliography on translation theory and without translation theory, what would translation studies be? Maybe then, translation theory can actually help. Maybe it came to exist in order to satisfy a need, in order to reply to someone’s constant cry for help. Maybe the answer to ‘can translation theory help me as a translator?’ is yes. Maybe this is not even the question I should be asking, maybe I should ask: How can translation theory help me as a translator?
To be honest, I think that, even though I had never before formed the words, I did have this question in mind when in the beginning of this term, I was taking out from the library all sorts of translation textbooks, each week a new approach, each week new names of academics that had said too much-or too little-in the specific field. But the answer to the question instead of becoming clearer became vaguer.
I felt overwhelmed. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what I was reading; what I could not grasp was how what I was reading would make any difference to me when I would have to deal with the rendering of an idiomatic phrase, let’s say, with high cultural specificity, in another language. Because yes, all these bipolarities suggested by different people-and meaning more or less the same-made some sense, but could they really be of any use?
Yes, a translation can be foreignizing and it can be domesticating, it can be documentary and instrumental but did it have to be either or, and even so, what did this mean for me when I was translating? I became highly doubtful of the fact that all this was helping me become a better translator and suddenly, I found myself asking again, whether translation theory can actually help me. Everything I was reading made my confusion bigger.
At some point I even thought of not reading any more theories…what was the point? After all, the result was to further confuse me and surely, soon I would not remember half the things that confused me, so why bother? But then again, I do not so much like to be the faint-hearted that ends up quitting, so I decided to continue reading the different theories we had each week and treat the whole process as something helpful. Now, when and where and how it would be helpful I should not question, and maybe in the end meaning would reveal itself to me.
I would really like to say that I was right and close this story with a happy ending along the lines: “And so, now, I know why I read translation theories, everything makes perfect sense to me and I live happily translating with the invaluable help of theory”.
But, this is not the case. It is not not the case either.
The ending to this story is that with the passing of time-and the reading and perhaps understanding of more theories-I started noticing that even though I was not consciously thinking of any of the theories I read about when translating a text, I was actually using them a lot when I talked about the said translation. Also, I found that with my fellow classmates we tended to go on for hours about something that we had all read and trying to give our own definitions of terms introduced by Venuti or Nida or some other academic.
With time all the conversations and all the thoughts that came after I had translated a text and was looking at the translation, made me feel more at ease with translation theory and also made me read translation theories with a different attitude. I still feel that what I’m reading is not clearly transferable in the actual practice of translation, but I also feel that by being exposed to theory I have learned to understand better my practice and to be able to talk about it with more confidence.
I know that I will probably forget most of the names of the theoreticians and surely, the theories that were already outdated when I read about them, or that I completely disagreed with, will not stay with me, but nor will the confusion and the suspicious eye towards translation theory. I feel that perhaps it is not there to be with me constantly, and I know that it does not go hand in hand with practice but I also know that if read with an open mind it can help open doors for the translation.
And opening doors that would be otherwise closed has to be a happy ending, no?
Avgi Daferera is a translator of English and Spanish into Greek, and Greek and Spanish into English. She just finished an MA in Writing at Warwick and is currently doing an MA in literary translation at UEA. She is interested in the translation of poetry and children’s fiction.
Contact: daferera.avgi@gmail.com
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Theory meets practice? (This is not an anti-theory post)
Spring semester in MALT programme and things have become really exciting. New modules, new ideas, new supplies for our future translation arsenal. One of our most powerful weapons as literary translators is, presumably, a good knowledge of theory. And therefore, we were all happy to find out that there was a “translation theory” module in this semester’s programme.
I haven’t had any specific difficulty with this module, at least regarding all the reading we have to do. I like it, I find it extremely interesting, so much that I actually find myself not being able to stop talking about theories at some times. I have even managed to come up with some pretty decent jokes concerning theories and theorists.
However, I have been facing a problem as far as translation theories are concerned: I don’t seem to be able to apply them-and by the moment I have written this, I know that I take a great risk by using this term.
I am not trying to start an anti-theory manifesto, claiming that theory is not necessary and- in more extreme terms- useless. I believe I have a long way to go if I ever decide to actually set that as a belief. I am only stating that we should not consider theory to be panacea.
Literary translation is a very creative domain of translation studies. The translator is often regarded as a writer, especially when it comes to the “author is dead/alive” dilemma. Some times, intuition is stronger than any kind of theory, descriptive or prescriptive, and unfortunately, intuition cannot be engaged with theories-at least in my mind. Having been practicing translation for some years now, I have come to realise that theory can help to some extent, but it can’t overshadow the state of mind of a translator in the process of translating, unless one is asked to do so. Theory has helped me as a translator- reader, not as a translator- writer.
I feel the need to say one more time that I am not suggesting that theory can be yet another constraint-as if there were not de facto many- for a translator, and I am definitely not rejecting theory. What I am saying, is that if theory is supposed to “simply be a way of looking at the world”, as Gutt suggests, then every one has a different way to do that, a different perspective on what the world is, different experiences and ways of understanding whatever takes place to their reality.
And after I have managed to work all my way through inconsistency, since by quoting a theorist, I automatically reject all the things that I have argued above, I believe that theories are useful when we are not narrow-minded, following them with blind faith, considering them to be our translation Messiah.
However, intuition in translation is a marvelous thing. As the topic of this year’s Norwich Papers issue suggests, “it just does/doesn’t sound right” can be a very powerful theory, strategy, notion on its own (I wouldn’t want to call it something specific, as it is quite wide an idea to be described by one word only.)
To sum up, as mentioned above, this is not an anti-theory post. Theory is essential as well as intuition. They come in peace, they are here to help. They are not supposed to work as constraints. Publishers do a terrific job regarding that…
Thei Sorotou is a translator working with Greek, English and French. She graduated from the Department of foreign languages, translation and interpreting, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece, and is currently a MALT student in the University of East Anglia. She is really interested in the field of drama translation.
Contact: theisrt@yahoo.gr
I haven’t had any specific difficulty with this module, at least regarding all the reading we have to do. I like it, I find it extremely interesting, so much that I actually find myself not being able to stop talking about theories at some times. I have even managed to come up with some pretty decent jokes concerning theories and theorists.
However, I have been facing a problem as far as translation theories are concerned: I don’t seem to be able to apply them-and by the moment I have written this, I know that I take a great risk by using this term.
I am not trying to start an anti-theory manifesto, claiming that theory is not necessary and- in more extreme terms- useless. I believe I have a long way to go if I ever decide to actually set that as a belief. I am only stating that we should not consider theory to be panacea.
Literary translation is a very creative domain of translation studies. The translator is often regarded as a writer, especially when it comes to the “author is dead/alive” dilemma. Some times, intuition is stronger than any kind of theory, descriptive or prescriptive, and unfortunately, intuition cannot be engaged with theories-at least in my mind. Having been practicing translation for some years now, I have come to realise that theory can help to some extent, but it can’t overshadow the state of mind of a translator in the process of translating, unless one is asked to do so. Theory has helped me as a translator- reader, not as a translator- writer.
I feel the need to say one more time that I am not suggesting that theory can be yet another constraint-as if there were not de facto many- for a translator, and I am definitely not rejecting theory. What I am saying, is that if theory is supposed to “simply be a way of looking at the world”, as Gutt suggests, then every one has a different way to do that, a different perspective on what the world is, different experiences and ways of understanding whatever takes place to their reality.
And after I have managed to work all my way through inconsistency, since by quoting a theorist, I automatically reject all the things that I have argued above, I believe that theories are useful when we are not narrow-minded, following them with blind faith, considering them to be our translation Messiah.
However, intuition in translation is a marvelous thing. As the topic of this year’s Norwich Papers issue suggests, “it just does/doesn’t sound right” can be a very powerful theory, strategy, notion on its own (I wouldn’t want to call it something specific, as it is quite wide an idea to be described by one word only.)
To sum up, as mentioned above, this is not an anti-theory post. Theory is essential as well as intuition. They come in peace, they are here to help. They are not supposed to work as constraints. Publishers do a terrific job regarding that…
Thei Sorotou is a translator working with Greek, English and French. She graduated from the Department of foreign languages, translation and interpreting, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece, and is currently a MALT student in the University of East Anglia. She is really interested in the field of drama translation.
Contact: theisrt@yahoo.gr
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Computer theory
The other day I read an article in the Guardian (I think it was). Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the article, and I've cleared my browser history since I read it, but the reason I'm mentioning it is because it contained a link. A very interesting link. It was from a column written by my current home-boy, Umberto Eco, which can be found at http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_mac_vs_pc.html. In this speech, Eco compares religion to computers. He says that Macs are Catholics and PCs are Protestants. Now I'm neither Catholic or Protestant, but I think the idea of there being a theory behind computers very interesting.
As a Mac user, I've never thought of myself as having anything to do with Catholicism. In fact, I don't actually know much about Catholicism. However, I do think Eco's views are very interesting. He states that the Mac operating system is, "cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation."
I agree that Macs are very user friendly. When I got my first Mac, a Power Mac G4, I thought it was incredible that I could just open the box, attach the cables in their proper places, and voilà! Instant computer. I never had any kind of experience of that nature with Windows. In fact, even to this day, I still find Windows incredibly frustrating and difficult to navigate. With Macs, everything I need is right there
If I want to search for a document on my computer, for example, I just hit Command-space and type in the term I need. I can even write special notes so I can find a document or picture (for instance) more easily. If I want to do the same thing in Windows, I have to click on the Start menu, type in a term, and wait while the computer searches for the term, which it may or may not find, since there is no way to type any special notes. In other words, you have to know exactly what you are looking for if you want to find something in Windows. I once tried to look for a programme called Task Manager, which is a piece of software that every windows computer automatically comes with, so I could see how much processing space the machine was using. When I typed in "Task Manager" into the Windows search box, there were no results. If I now typed in those same words on Spotlight (the Mac search box), I would instantly be directed to this very document. Umberto says that DOS (the programming on which Windows is based) is Calvinistic, and I agree with him. With Windows, you have to accept their terms or else. I think this would also apply to the Windows word processor, Microsoft Word. In order to view a Word document either by you or someone else, you have to have Word installed on your computer. There are other programmes that can convert into Word, but they are unable to read Word files. I remember very early in my undergraduate career when I wrote an entire paper in AppleWorks, a Mac word processor which (alas) no longer exists. I tried to open it on a school computer and could not figure out why it would not open. I think I actually ended up copying and pasting the text of the paper into an email and sending it to myself. Unfortunately, it also meant that all of the footnotes I had written for this paper were missing, since AppleWorks did not copy them. If I had taken the Calvinistic Windows approach and accepted Word, I would have been able to print out the document without any problems. As a result of this, I later bought a copy of Word for Mac, which, now that I think about it, must completely contradict Eco's theory.
Lastly, I wonder what Eco would think of Rich Text Files, which can be opened by any word processor, from AppleWorks to Apple Pages to Text Edit to Word to Open Office. All for one and one for all. A sort of Three Musketeers theory, if you will. Which, incidentally, is precisely what I wrote this in. Text Edit.
Sabrina Steiner is a Spanish to English translator and ardent Beatles fan. You can contact her at beatles4life@gmail.com.
As a Mac user, I've never thought of myself as having anything to do with Catholicism. In fact, I don't actually know much about Catholicism. However, I do think Eco's views are very interesting. He states that the Mac operating system is, "cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation."
I agree that Macs are very user friendly. When I got my first Mac, a Power Mac G4, I thought it was incredible that I could just open the box, attach the cables in their proper places, and voilà! Instant computer. I never had any kind of experience of that nature with Windows. In fact, even to this day, I still find Windows incredibly frustrating and difficult to navigate. With Macs, everything I need is right there
If I want to search for a document on my computer, for example, I just hit Command-space and type in the term I need. I can even write special notes so I can find a document or picture (for instance) more easily. If I want to do the same thing in Windows, I have to click on the Start menu, type in a term, and wait while the computer searches for the term, which it may or may not find, since there is no way to type any special notes. In other words, you have to know exactly what you are looking for if you want to find something in Windows. I once tried to look for a programme called Task Manager, which is a piece of software that every windows computer automatically comes with, so I could see how much processing space the machine was using. When I typed in "Task Manager" into the Windows search box, there were no results. If I now typed in those same words on Spotlight (the Mac search box), I would instantly be directed to this very document. Umberto says that DOS (the programming on which Windows is based) is Calvinistic, and I agree with him. With Windows, you have to accept their terms or else. I think this would also apply to the Windows word processor, Microsoft Word. In order to view a Word document either by you or someone else, you have to have Word installed on your computer. There are other programmes that can convert into Word, but they are unable to read Word files. I remember very early in my undergraduate career when I wrote an entire paper in AppleWorks, a Mac word processor which (alas) no longer exists. I tried to open it on a school computer and could not figure out why it would not open. I think I actually ended up copying and pasting the text of the paper into an email and sending it to myself. Unfortunately, it also meant that all of the footnotes I had written for this paper were missing, since AppleWorks did not copy them. If I had taken the Calvinistic Windows approach and accepted Word, I would have been able to print out the document without any problems. As a result of this, I later bought a copy of Word for Mac, which, now that I think about it, must completely contradict Eco's theory.
Lastly, I wonder what Eco would think of Rich Text Files, which can be opened by any word processor, from AppleWorks to Apple Pages to Text Edit to Word to Open Office. All for one and one for all. A sort of Three Musketeers theory, if you will. Which, incidentally, is precisely what I wrote this in. Text Edit.
Sabrina Steiner is a Spanish to English translator and ardent Beatles fan. You can contact her at beatles4life@gmail.com.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Translation and Intentism: A Dialogue
Intentism is a movement which believes that art (in the broad sense) can convey an artist’s intended message to his or her intended audience. It both recognises and celebrates the relationship between an artist’s creation and its creator. Vittorio Pelosi is a founding member of Intentism. Over February-March 2011, I spoke to him about translation and Intentism, to get a better understanding of whether they are compatible. Below is an edited fragment of the conversation between Vittorio (not a translator) and myself (not necessarily an Intentist). Apologies for not presenting the entire dialogue; our discussion is still under way.
…
Samantha Christie: Can you provide a brief introduction to your ideas?
Vittorio Pelosi: It was said in a seminal work called 'The Intentional Fallacy' by Wimsatt and Beardsley that not only can intentions not be accurately found, but even if they were, they would not be useful in understanding meaning. However, Intentists believe that the work is the 'vehicle' of the meaning and that intentions imbue the work with meaning. If you want to distill our theory into a statement, I suppose it would be that 'all meaning is the outworking of intention.' This is to say, intention by itself is not meaning, as intention is a 'performance expectation'. However, once the intention has been realized, the meaning is found in what was intended.
SC: Where does translation stand in relation to Intentism? Are there any translators already working within an Intentist framework? Has it been written about?
VP: Intentists believe that a translator should put the author's intention (originally formed in one language) in a new set of signs (language.) Professor William Irwin, an Intentist and an American philosopher, has touched on this. He quotes Gadamer, who was against much of what Intentists believe. Gadamer said that however much a translator can empathize with the original author, the translator cannot re-awaken the original process in the writer's mind. Instead, the translator re-creates the text guided by the way he understands what it says. And Jorge J. E. Gracia makes an interesting distinction. He says that the translator can be a new author, but only the author of a new text, since the translator chooses new signs and nothing has been written in this language like this before. However, he can't be the author of the work, since that remains with the original creator.
SC: Gadamer’s point is quite a common view amongst translation scholars. We're almost trained to see ourselves in that way, actually. I agree with him. Though I also think it depends on what type of text is being translated and why - if it's a two-line answer to a question, something quite close
will probably be appropriate. If it's a poem or a highly stylised piece of writing, I think re-creating or rewriting comes into it more. There is more involvement from the translator and there are some cases where you have to restructure phrases in order for them to make sense in English, or add a short extra sentence to explain something culturally-specific. I agree with Gracia, too. The translator is the author of a new text; a re-created text.
VP: Intentists believe 'No creative input, no meaning input’ - meaning that anyone who creates something or adds to it creatively, adds to it epistemologically.
SC: I find this very interesting from a translation viewpoint. I see the translator as a separate entity from the author, not just an extension. Inevitably when translating, some of your personal views or style of language will seep in, or you may deliberately try to translate in a certain way to highlight certain things. We've already established that we have a creative input into the translation, so if we think of the translation alone, couldn't we see that the translator has a meaning input as well? I don't just mean by putting it into a new language we get the new meaning (or same meaning in a different language), I mean by the translation choices made. For example, translating a feminist text in such a way as to emphasize the feminism, or translating for a new audience, such as a children’s version. In this way, the translator’s intention supersedes the author’s.
VP: I think I agree. There needs to be a distinguishable difference between the work before the creative act and afterwards. So for example, some postmodernists believe in the creative eye. This is their way of saying when you look at a work you construct the signs and symbols through your creative frame of reference. This is another way of saying meaning comes from the viewer and not the author. I don't think this holds water. It has been put to me this way: I visit a gallery and I see a work I had seen before. Between my visits it has been seen by another without my knowing. Could I tell from the work alone? Surely not. The work is unchanged. Therefore, there is no genuine creative input that changes the works meaning. (Different cultures and generations can have different views of a work, but that is new significance, not meaning.) However, obviously a translation directly affects the text. So I think I would agree.
…
A full version of this dialogue will appear on www.intentism.com in April.
Samantha Christie is a translator from French and Spanish into English and is currently pursuing the MA in Literary Translation at UEA. Special interests include translation in the areas of detective fiction and music, and the relationship between author and translator.
Contact: info@samanthachristie.co.uk
…
Samantha Christie: Can you provide a brief introduction to your ideas?
Vittorio Pelosi: It was said in a seminal work called 'The Intentional Fallacy' by Wimsatt and Beardsley that not only can intentions not be accurately found, but even if they were, they would not be useful in understanding meaning. However, Intentists believe that the work is the 'vehicle' of the meaning and that intentions imbue the work with meaning. If you want to distill our theory into a statement, I suppose it would be that 'all meaning is the outworking of intention.' This is to say, intention by itself is not meaning, as intention is a 'performance expectation'. However, once the intention has been realized, the meaning is found in what was intended.
SC: Where does translation stand in relation to Intentism? Are there any translators already working within an Intentist framework? Has it been written about?
VP: Intentists believe that a translator should put the author's intention (originally formed in one language) in a new set of signs (language.) Professor William Irwin, an Intentist and an American philosopher, has touched on this. He quotes Gadamer, who was against much of what Intentists believe. Gadamer said that however much a translator can empathize with the original author, the translator cannot re-awaken the original process in the writer's mind. Instead, the translator re-creates the text guided by the way he understands what it says. And Jorge J. E. Gracia makes an interesting distinction. He says that the translator can be a new author, but only the author of a new text, since the translator chooses new signs and nothing has been written in this language like this before. However, he can't be the author of the work, since that remains with the original creator.
SC: Gadamer’s point is quite a common view amongst translation scholars. We're almost trained to see ourselves in that way, actually. I agree with him. Though I also think it depends on what type of text is being translated and why - if it's a two-line answer to a question, something quite close
will probably be appropriate. If it's a poem or a highly stylised piece of writing, I think re-creating or rewriting comes into it more. There is more involvement from the translator and there are some cases where you have to restructure phrases in order for them to make sense in English, or add a short extra sentence to explain something culturally-specific. I agree with Gracia, too. The translator is the author of a new text; a re-created text.
VP: Intentists believe 'No creative input, no meaning input’ - meaning that anyone who creates something or adds to it creatively, adds to it epistemologically.
SC: I find this very interesting from a translation viewpoint. I see the translator as a separate entity from the author, not just an extension. Inevitably when translating, some of your personal views or style of language will seep in, or you may deliberately try to translate in a certain way to highlight certain things. We've already established that we have a creative input into the translation, so if we think of the translation alone, couldn't we see that the translator has a meaning input as well? I don't just mean by putting it into a new language we get the new meaning (or same meaning in a different language), I mean by the translation choices made. For example, translating a feminist text in such a way as to emphasize the feminism, or translating for a new audience, such as a children’s version. In this way, the translator’s intention supersedes the author’s.
VP: I think I agree. There needs to be a distinguishable difference between the work before the creative act and afterwards. So for example, some postmodernists believe in the creative eye. This is their way of saying when you look at a work you construct the signs and symbols through your creative frame of reference. This is another way of saying meaning comes from the viewer and not the author. I don't think this holds water. It has been put to me this way: I visit a gallery and I see a work I had seen before. Between my visits it has been seen by another without my knowing. Could I tell from the work alone? Surely not. The work is unchanged. Therefore, there is no genuine creative input that changes the works meaning. (Different cultures and generations can have different views of a work, but that is new significance, not meaning.) However, obviously a translation directly affects the text. So I think I would agree.
…
A full version of this dialogue will appear on www.intentism.com in April.
Samantha Christie is a translator from French and Spanish into English and is currently pursuing the MA in Literary Translation at UEA. Special interests include translation in the areas of detective fiction and music, and the relationship between author and translator.
Contact: info@samanthachristie.co.uk
Monday, 7 February 2011
Call for Papers
Call for Contributions:
‘It just doesn’t sound right.’ – Translation and Intuition
Translation is a problem with two horns: to be caught on the point of free and apparently
subconscious decision; or to be pinned by the mechanical application of theory. But perhaps
this is not a helpful dichotomy. Rather, we would like to ask where in the muddle translation
actually happens, and how balance is struck between conflicting thought processes.
‘It just doesn’t sound right’ is both the catchphrase and bane of the practising translator. A lot
stands behind these apparently throwaway words, and we would like to invite considerations of
how they might be unpacked.
Areas of interest include, but are not restricted to:
- spirit and affect – how can poetics account for the sublime, or literature’s affective
power, the hairs that stand on the back of the neck?
- intentionality – the relationship between translator and author.
- preservation of non-standard features, especially in texts written to be read as if spoken.
- critical reception of translations, and the intuitive approval of translations that read smoothly.
- what is strange about translated language, and why?
- the stuff and substance of language – can we understand or only intuit the iconicity of sound?
Submission details
Please submit your papers to norwichpapers@uea.ac.uk
Deadline: Friday April 29th, 2011
Format: Word documents or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Please follow the Harvard style of
referencing. Articles should be between 4000 and 5000 words long, written in English.
‘It just doesn’t sound right.’ – Translation and Intuition
Translation is a problem with two horns: to be caught on the point of free and apparently
subconscious decision; or to be pinned by the mechanical application of theory. But perhaps
this is not a helpful dichotomy. Rather, we would like to ask where in the muddle translation
actually happens, and how balance is struck between conflicting thought processes.
‘It just doesn’t sound right’ is both the catchphrase and bane of the practising translator. A lot
stands behind these apparently throwaway words, and we would like to invite considerations of
how they might be unpacked.
Areas of interest include, but are not restricted to:
- spirit and affect – how can poetics account for the sublime, or literature’s affective
power, the hairs that stand on the back of the neck?
- intentionality – the relationship between translator and author.
- preservation of non-standard features, especially in texts written to be read as if spoken.
- critical reception of translations, and the intuitive approval of translations that read smoothly.
- what is strange about translated language, and why?
- the stuff and substance of language – can we understand or only intuit the iconicity of sound?
Submission details
Please submit your papers to norwichpapers@uea.ac.uk
Deadline: Friday April 29th, 2011
Format: Word documents or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Please follow the Harvard style of
referencing. Articles should be between 4000 and 5000 words long, written in English.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Cultural Translations Symposium 2011
*Venue*:
Valletta Campus,
Old University Building,
St Paul Street,
V A L L E T T A
Malta
*Dates*:
15-16th April
*Subject*: *Cultural Translations Symposium 2011*
The first definition of the word ‘translation’ offered by the OED is ‘Transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another’. Understood in this way, it is apparent that translation’s relationship with literary and cultural texts is not simply that of a process whereby a particular text is rendered in another language. Translation is not only something done to a text.
Understood in the broader sense, it is something that has occupied and exercised the literary and cultural imagination from its beginnings. This strange coextensivity takes us from Homer’s tale of the ‘translations’ of Ulysses, right the way up to Rushdie’s declaration that diasporic writers are ‘translated men’. Literary and visual culture has always told of journeys, loss, changes in condition or circumstance; even its very modes – metaphor, symbolism, irony, figuration itself – are arguably inherently translational. So although any mention of translation immediately and inevitably calls to mind what might be called ‘linguistic’ translation, on further consideration literature and visual culture seem to have always been preoccupied with what might be called ‘cultural’ translation. The distinction, however, is not an easy one. The border between the two is far from impenetrable and the linguistic is as prone to being carried over into the cultural as the cultural is to the linguistic.
However one looks at it, then, translation is rife and arguably always cultural. This conference invites papers that respond to and explore cultural translations and translations of culture in literature, art, culture and theory.
Papers may discuss, but need not be limited to, issues like the following;
• Loss and gain: the economy of cultural translation
• Literature and the exilic consciousness
• Cultural translation as an agent of literary/cultural/ historical
change
• The relationship between cultural translation and cultural memory
• Human translation and questions concerning technology
• The cultural turn in translation studies
• The place and state of language(s) in cultural translation
• Ethnicity, hybridity and multiculturalism
• Diaspora and migration
• Borders, margins and the in-between in art and culture
• ‘Foreignising’ cultural translations
• Cultural adaptation and transmediation
• Cultural untranslatability
• Surviving translation
• Origins, originality and authenticity
• Cultural translation and the future of comparative literature and
transnational literatures
• Aesthetics, politics and ideology in cultural translation
• Literary geographies
Proposals to be sent to: culturaltranslations2011@um.edu.mt
Valletta Campus,
Old University Building,
St Paul Street,
V A L L E T T A
Malta
*Dates*:
15-16th April
*Subject*: *Cultural Translations Symposium 2011*
The first definition of the word ‘translation’ offered by the OED is ‘Transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another’. Understood in this way, it is apparent that translation’s relationship with literary and cultural texts is not simply that of a process whereby a particular text is rendered in another language. Translation is not only something done to a text.
Understood in the broader sense, it is something that has occupied and exercised the literary and cultural imagination from its beginnings. This strange coextensivity takes us from Homer’s tale of the ‘translations’ of Ulysses, right the way up to Rushdie’s declaration that diasporic writers are ‘translated men’. Literary and visual culture has always told of journeys, loss, changes in condition or circumstance; even its very modes – metaphor, symbolism, irony, figuration itself – are arguably inherently translational. So although any mention of translation immediately and inevitably calls to mind what might be called ‘linguistic’ translation, on further consideration literature and visual culture seem to have always been preoccupied with what might be called ‘cultural’ translation. The distinction, however, is not an easy one. The border between the two is far from impenetrable and the linguistic is as prone to being carried over into the cultural as the cultural is to the linguistic.
However one looks at it, then, translation is rife and arguably always cultural. This conference invites papers that respond to and explore cultural translations and translations of culture in literature, art, culture and theory.
Papers may discuss, but need not be limited to, issues like the following;
• Loss and gain: the economy of cultural translation
• Literature and the exilic consciousness
• Cultural translation as an agent of literary/cultural/ historical
change
• The relationship between cultural translation and cultural memory
• Human translation and questions concerning technology
• The cultural turn in translation studies
• The place and state of language(s) in cultural translation
• Ethnicity, hybridity and multiculturalism
• Diaspora and migration
• Borders, margins and the in-between in art and culture
• ‘Foreignising’ cultural translations
• Cultural adaptation and transmediation
• Cultural untranslatability
• Surviving translation
• Origins, originality and authenticity
• Cultural translation and the future of comparative literature and
transnational literatures
• Aesthetics, politics and ideology in cultural translation
• Literary geographies
Proposals to be sent to: culturaltranslations2011@um.edu.mt
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Call for Papers
Call for Papers
A Dangerous Liaison? The Effects of Translation and Interpreting Theory on Practice
UWM Graduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Friday 30 September and Saturday 1 October, 2011
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Keynote speakers: Gertrud Champe and Madeleine Velguth
“A theory of translation is potentially more dangerous to translation practice than a theory of meaning, of literature, of the text, or of the reader.”
Jean Boase-Beier, 'Who Needs Theory?'
Translation and interpreting theory can be tremendously liberating for the practitioner but, as Boase-Beier argues, this liberating potential can be undermined by “naive application”. Translation and Interpreting Studies have been consolidating their status as independent academic disciplines since the 1980s and as a result today's translators and interpreters increasingly receive rigorous formal training in their field. Translation and interpreting theory is a well-established component of translation and interpreting programs, but the precise use that theoretically-aware translators and interpreters make of this knowledge in their practice is in need of further exploration. How does theory influence the trained translator/interpreter? Are 'outside' theories such as theories of cognition more useful to the translator/interpreter than theories generated within Translation and Interpreting Studies? Is the over-schooled practitioner a dangerous creature?
MA and PhD students are invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers on any aspect of the relationship between translation theory and practice. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Theory at the “wordface” (Wagner)
• Translation and interpreting practice and 'outside' theories
• Cognitive theories of translation and interpreting
• 'Failed' translations
• The dangers of translation and interpreting theory
• Translation pedagogy
• New directions in translation and interpreting theory
Expressions of interest are also solicited from graduate students who would like to participate in a round table on graduate programs in translation and interpreting and/or in a language-specific workshop in literary translation.
Please e-mail 250 word proposals for papers and expressions of interest in the round table and/or workshops to wrightcm@uwm.edu by April 30, 2011.
A Dangerous Liaison? The Effects of Translation and Interpreting Theory on Practice
UWM Graduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Friday 30 September and Saturday 1 October, 2011
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Keynote speakers: Gertrud Champe and Madeleine Velguth
“A theory of translation is potentially more dangerous to translation practice than a theory of meaning, of literature, of the text, or of the reader.”
Jean Boase-Beier, 'Who Needs Theory?'
Translation and interpreting theory can be tremendously liberating for the practitioner but, as Boase-Beier argues, this liberating potential can be undermined by “naive application”. Translation and Interpreting Studies have been consolidating their status as independent academic disciplines since the 1980s and as a result today's translators and interpreters increasingly receive rigorous formal training in their field. Translation and interpreting theory is a well-established component of translation and interpreting programs, but the precise use that theoretically-aware translators and interpreters make of this knowledge in their practice is in need of further exploration. How does theory influence the trained translator/interpreter? Are 'outside' theories such as theories of cognition more useful to the translator/interpreter than theories generated within Translation and Interpreting Studies? Is the over-schooled practitioner a dangerous creature?
MA and PhD students are invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers on any aspect of the relationship between translation theory and practice. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Theory at the “wordface” (Wagner)
• Translation and interpreting practice and 'outside' theories
• Cognitive theories of translation and interpreting
• 'Failed' translations
• The dangers of translation and interpreting theory
• Translation pedagogy
• New directions in translation and interpreting theory
Expressions of interest are also solicited from graduate students who would like to participate in a round table on graduate programs in translation and interpreting and/or in a language-specific workshop in literary translation.
Please e-mail 250 word proposals for papers and expressions of interest in the round table and/or workshops to wrightcm@uwm.edu by April 30, 2011.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
A Rant about finding books in Spanish
It's funny. When I write blog posts on my own blog, I can almost always think of something to day, but when I have to do it for an assignment, it's much more difficult. I’d imagine this also isn’t long enough anyway, and I probably can’t start it with “Today was a lovely day” like I usually do.
I've been trying to find books in Spanish to use for my two essays for Case Studies and Stylistics, but I'm having a very difficult time. It's a bit difficult to find books in Spanish when there's no Amazon in Peninsular Spanish (I'm not sure if there's a Latin American Amazon; must check on that) and Google España keeps giving me results in English.
Luckily, while I was Googling away, it occurred to me that years ago while I was still in university, I ordered a Spanish-French Larousse Grande from a Spanish bookstore and had it delivered to my university in the States. So after some more Googling (oh, how i love that word), I figured out the name of the site. Casa del Libro, or, if you prefer an English name, I suppose it would be something like "Book House" or "House of Books." I think I'm going to stick with "Book House" because then it sounds like a spoof of the Commadores' song "Brick House": 'cos she's a book house / she's mighty mighty, just letting those words come out.'
So I ordered a Spanish translation of Agatha Christie's 4.50 from Paddington in from Casa del Libro. It's my very favourite Agatha Christie book, and I thought it would be fun to write a paper about it (I've read just about all of her mysteries, and I love them). That was over a week ago. The only confirmation I've gotten was one of those automated emails saying "we've received your order," or words to that effect.
But I still haven't gotten the damn shipping confirmation form. Tis madness, I tells ya (as Russell Brand might say). Actually, he'd probably say something more expletive laden (and so would I), but I'm probably not allowed to swear in these things.
But seriously, how the flip am I supposed to get books in Spanish from the inter-webs if I can't even get a damn confirmation from the book shop? There must be an easier way.
[Edit] There is no Amazon Mexico. Why????? There bloody well should be.[/edit]
[Edit 2] Ack, it changed the font on me. Never mind, I fixed it. Damn it, now I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, wait, I remember. I found a copy of 4.50 at Casa del Libro, as I mentioned earlier, but then I was told by one of my lovely class mates that there’s a book shop in London called Grant and Cutler that has all sorts of books in other languages. I went there and got the first Harry Potter book in Spanish, and it’s a really cool shop. In addition to Spanish, I saw books in Portuguese, Russian, French, and even Japanese.
By Sabrina Steiner, Translator and Beatle Queen
Sabrina Steiner translates from Spanish to English and is an ardent Beatles fan. For more Beatle goodness, you can read her blog at http://beatles4life.xanga.com and visit her website at http://www.freewebs.com/beatles4life.
I've been trying to find books in Spanish to use for my two essays for Case Studies and Stylistics, but I'm having a very difficult time. It's a bit difficult to find books in Spanish when there's no Amazon in Peninsular Spanish (I'm not sure if there's a Latin American Amazon; must check on that) and Google España keeps giving me results in English.
Luckily, while I was Googling away, it occurred to me that years ago while I was still in university, I ordered a Spanish-French Larousse Grande from a Spanish bookstore and had it delivered to my university in the States. So after some more Googling (oh, how i love that word), I figured out the name of the site. Casa del Libro, or, if you prefer an English name, I suppose it would be something like "Book House" or "House of Books." I think I'm going to stick with "Book House" because then it sounds like a spoof of the Commadores' song "Brick House": 'cos she's a book house / she's mighty mighty, just letting those words come out.'
So I ordered a Spanish translation of Agatha Christie's 4.50 from Paddington in from Casa del Libro. It's my very favourite Agatha Christie book, and I thought it would be fun to write a paper about it (I've read just about all of her mysteries, and I love them). That was over a week ago. The only confirmation I've gotten was one of those automated emails saying "we've received your order," or words to that effect.
But I still haven't gotten the damn shipping confirmation form. Tis madness, I tells ya (as Russell Brand might say). Actually, he'd probably say something more expletive laden (and so would I), but I'm probably not allowed to swear in these things.
But seriously, how the flip am I supposed to get books in Spanish from the inter-webs if I can't even get a damn confirmation from the book shop? There must be an easier way.
[Edit] There is no Amazon Mexico. Why????? There bloody well should be.[/edit]
[Edit 2] Ack, it changed the font on me. Never mind, I fixed it. Damn it, now I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, wait, I remember. I found a copy of 4.50 at Casa del Libro, as I mentioned earlier, but then I was told by one of my lovely class mates that there’s a book shop in London called Grant and Cutler that has all sorts of books in other languages. I went there and got the first Harry Potter book in Spanish, and it’s a really cool shop. In addition to Spanish, I saw books in Portuguese, Russian, French, and even Japanese.
By Sabrina Steiner, Translator and Beatle Queen
Sabrina Steiner translates from Spanish to English and is an ardent Beatles fan. For more Beatle goodness, you can read her blog at http://beatles4life.xanga.com and visit her website at http://www.freewebs.com/beatles4life.
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Translators should look at The Sun (but not for too long)
Leave your political hang-ups to one side, you decide which: reading the news from any source is an excitement waiting to happen for the literary translator.
While it could be argued that news journalism is divorced from fiction, storytelling lies at the heart of both disciplines. And the line often blurs: Truman Capote based Cold Blood on real events and Juan Goytisolo weaved in newspaper excerpts in Señas de Identidad.
For the literary prose translator, analyzing and practising journalistic writing is a convenient way of perfecting source language competency. And for the poetry translator, tabloid headlines are especially loaded with stylistic effects and culture-specific references.
Reporting on the UK’s biggest ever diamond heist in 2009, The Sun’s two word effort is a double entendre, heightened by a stress on the syllable where the reader expects one thing, but gets the other (see the picture here). So instead of a ‘Diamond RO-ber-ry’ we get a ‘Diamond RU – bb e-ry’, as the perpetrators wore elaborate latex masks to conceal their identities. My attempt into Spanish – Ladrones Látex – compensates the dactylic (strong-weak-weak) stress of Rubbery with alliteration. Questions of ambiguity also arise - Did the robbers steal latex and, if so, why? Are they made of latex? Why the obsession with latex? - which leave the reader (hopefully) craving more latex.
Whether sonic effect should always be preserved in headline translation, whether we as translators should concentrate solely on conveying information, or whether there can always be a happy medium is, perhaps, another story.
There is, however, scant widespread translation of tabloids (at which point I might say fortunately but I can’t because I, like you, left my hang-ups to one side). Instead, news feature publications such as Le Monde Diplomatique, and news agencies such as Reuters and the BBC specialising in both features and bulletins, receive the most translation. An effective approach to this task requires not only awareness of linguistic differences, but also the journalistic conventions of both source and target communities. To illustrate, I’ll briefly look at news feature writing in Britain and Spain.
Features in Britain tend to put the most important information in the first sentence, acting as a bait which draws in the reader. Facts are then presented in order of decreasing importance, which is often termed the ‘inverted pyramid’. Perhaps this is a throw-back to the days when stories would often be crudely cut short by the printer. Or just the realisation that many readers won’t make it to the end of an article.
In contrast, Spanish features often introduce the hook mid-way into a story, language is more flowery, and sentences are lengthier, and packed with clauses (much like this one). Consequently, news stories tend to be longer, often without the afore mentioned pyramid structure. Working into English, it is feasible to re-structure a story, to drastically cut back on the text in order to transmit the news to the British readership. Without the British readership throwing its stylistic rattle out of the proverbial pram.
--Andrew Nimmo is a translator working from Spanish, Portuguese and French into English. His areas of interest include music, journalism, fiction and film. You can contact him at this.means.nimmo@gmail.com.
While it could be argued that news journalism is divorced from fiction, storytelling lies at the heart of both disciplines. And the line often blurs: Truman Capote based Cold Blood on real events and Juan Goytisolo weaved in newspaper excerpts in Señas de Identidad.
For the literary prose translator, analyzing and practising journalistic writing is a convenient way of perfecting source language competency. And for the poetry translator, tabloid headlines are especially loaded with stylistic effects and culture-specific references.
Reporting on the UK’s biggest ever diamond heist in 2009, The Sun’s two word effort is a double entendre, heightened by a stress on the syllable where the reader expects one thing, but gets the other (see the picture here). So instead of a ‘Diamond RO-ber-ry’ we get a ‘Diamond RU – bb e-ry’, as the perpetrators wore elaborate latex masks to conceal their identities. My attempt into Spanish – Ladrones Látex – compensates the dactylic (strong-weak-weak) stress of Rubbery with alliteration. Questions of ambiguity also arise - Did the robbers steal latex and, if so, why? Are they made of latex? Why the obsession with latex? - which leave the reader (hopefully) craving more latex.
Whether sonic effect should always be preserved in headline translation, whether we as translators should concentrate solely on conveying information, or whether there can always be a happy medium is, perhaps, another story.
There is, however, scant widespread translation of tabloids (at which point I might say fortunately but I can’t because I, like you, left my hang-ups to one side). Instead, news feature publications such as Le Monde Diplomatique, and news agencies such as Reuters and the BBC specialising in both features and bulletins, receive the most translation. An effective approach to this task requires not only awareness of linguistic differences, but also the journalistic conventions of both source and target communities. To illustrate, I’ll briefly look at news feature writing in Britain and Spain.
Features in Britain tend to put the most important information in the first sentence, acting as a bait which draws in the reader. Facts are then presented in order of decreasing importance, which is often termed the ‘inverted pyramid’. Perhaps this is a throw-back to the days when stories would often be crudely cut short by the printer. Or just the realisation that many readers won’t make it to the end of an article.
In contrast, Spanish features often introduce the hook mid-way into a story, language is more flowery, and sentences are lengthier, and packed with clauses (much like this one). Consequently, news stories tend to be longer, often without the afore mentioned pyramid structure. Working into English, it is feasible to re-structure a story, to drastically cut back on the text in order to transmit the news to the British readership. Without the British readership throwing its stylistic rattle out of the proverbial pram.
--Andrew Nimmo is a translator working from Spanish, Portuguese and French into English. His areas of interest include music, journalism, fiction and film. You can contact him at this.means.nimmo@gmail.com.
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Translating for theatre
As MALT students at the UEA postgraduate programme, we had the chance, in the Case Studies module, to examine some genres of literature, such as children’s literature, drama and crime-fiction and examine what is special about their translation. We focused on the challenges and several options there are for the translator, in order to have the best possible result and the same impact-effect on the target culture as the one the writer intended (although this is something that needs so much discussion that I better leave it for next time!). They were all really exciting and interesting, but personally, I have always found myself being mostly thrilled by drama translation.
Translating for the theatre is a very creative yet challenging task. It is true, though, that it has been sort of neglected by theorists. Such texts have not been much studied and there are relatively few theories dealing with the translation for the theatre.
The most creative part of a drama translation, for the translator, is the fact that they are the first actors and directors of a play in the target culture. But however, after having been through that process, one can easily see that this is not as simple as it might sound. The challenges that a translator must deal with, when translating for the stage-or a play just to be read? – are many.
First of all, as mentioned above, the translator must be aware whether the play to be translated is also to be performed or if it is just for reading reasons. Every theatrical text intended for performance, according to many theories, «carries» yet another text- Subtext, Gestic text, or otherwise Inner text. This text mainly concerns the actor, particularly in their kinesiology at the time of the performance of the text on stage.
A translator must also take into account the performability of a play. The term refers to the distinction between the written text and the physical dimension that it takes in the play (space, props, costumes, lighting, kinesiology etc.). Since the text is directly dependent on and completed when performed, it could be given different interpretations, since one show can never be the same as another. The translator must take into account the variable nature of the performability of a theatrical text and examine each time the extra-lingual parts.
But performability is utterly connected to the written text as well. A translator must be really careful when dealing with the several elements of a play. First of all, the stage directions. The translator should be really familiar with the equivalent terms in the target language, in order to avoid misinterpretations by the director and/or the actors.
Furthermore, where the play takes place and whether it will remain so or it will be adjusted to the everyday life of the target culture in order to be better comprehended by the target audience, it is of highest importance and thus, should be carefully considered.
The names of the characters of the play are another very important element of a play. The translator must take into consideration if the specific choice made by the writer has to do with the plot or the personality of the characters, therefore they should be translated, or whether it is a random choice that does not affect the plot, so they can just be transcribed.
The speed of delivery of the written text can be very tricky as well. Due to the fact that many lines are synchronized with the actors’ body language, this must be preserved to the translated text as well. If that is not possible, due to the different characteristics of every language, then the translator must work with the director and the actors in order to see if they are going to slow down the action of the play, or maybe add some more gestures and moves, or even exclude some lines, so that the text will function in the target language the same way it does in the source language.
Finally, the dialect as well as the use of slang that there might be in the play is also essential to be preserved. The translator must be very careful when choosing whether to keep or alter the dialect in order to correspond to the needs of the target culture. There is always the risk that if the dialect is kept, there will partly misunderstand the play, while on the other hand, if the dialect is adjusted to its “reality”, the text might lose even more in terms of authenticity.
This is quite a quick view on the challenges of translating for the stage. This genre can be examined more thoroughly, especially when it comes to translating plays to be read and not performed. But I guess I’ll just leave that for my next post…
Thei Sorotou is a translator working with Greek, English and French. She graduated from the Department of foreign languages, translation and interpreting, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece, and is currently a MALT student in the University of East Anglia. She is really interested in the field of drama translation.
Contact: theisrt@yahoo.gr
Translating for the theatre is a very creative yet challenging task. It is true, though, that it has been sort of neglected by theorists. Such texts have not been much studied and there are relatively few theories dealing with the translation for the theatre.
The most creative part of a drama translation, for the translator, is the fact that they are the first actors and directors of a play in the target culture. But however, after having been through that process, one can easily see that this is not as simple as it might sound. The challenges that a translator must deal with, when translating for the stage-or a play just to be read? – are many.
First of all, as mentioned above, the translator must be aware whether the play to be translated is also to be performed or if it is just for reading reasons. Every theatrical text intended for performance, according to many theories, «carries» yet another text- Subtext, Gestic text, or otherwise Inner text. This text mainly concerns the actor, particularly in their kinesiology at the time of the performance of the text on stage.
A translator must also take into account the performability of a play. The term refers to the distinction between the written text and the physical dimension that it takes in the play (space, props, costumes, lighting, kinesiology etc.). Since the text is directly dependent on and completed when performed, it could be given different interpretations, since one show can never be the same as another. The translator must take into account the variable nature of the performability of a theatrical text and examine each time the extra-lingual parts.
But performability is utterly connected to the written text as well. A translator must be really careful when dealing with the several elements of a play. First of all, the stage directions. The translator should be really familiar with the equivalent terms in the target language, in order to avoid misinterpretations by the director and/or the actors.
Furthermore, where the play takes place and whether it will remain so or it will be adjusted to the everyday life of the target culture in order to be better comprehended by the target audience, it is of highest importance and thus, should be carefully considered.
The names of the characters of the play are another very important element of a play. The translator must take into consideration if the specific choice made by the writer has to do with the plot or the personality of the characters, therefore they should be translated, or whether it is a random choice that does not affect the plot, so they can just be transcribed.
The speed of delivery of the written text can be very tricky as well. Due to the fact that many lines are synchronized with the actors’ body language, this must be preserved to the translated text as well. If that is not possible, due to the different characteristics of every language, then the translator must work with the director and the actors in order to see if they are going to slow down the action of the play, or maybe add some more gestures and moves, or even exclude some lines, so that the text will function in the target language the same way it does in the source language.
Finally, the dialect as well as the use of slang that there might be in the play is also essential to be preserved. The translator must be very careful when choosing whether to keep or alter the dialect in order to correspond to the needs of the target culture. There is always the risk that if the dialect is kept, there will partly misunderstand the play, while on the other hand, if the dialect is adjusted to its “reality”, the text might lose even more in terms of authenticity.
This is quite a quick view on the challenges of translating for the stage. This genre can be examined more thoroughly, especially when it comes to translating plays to be read and not performed. But I guess I’ll just leave that for my next post…
Thei Sorotou is a translator working with Greek, English and French. She graduated from the Department of foreign languages, translation and interpreting, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece, and is currently a MALT student in the University of East Anglia. She is really interested in the field of drama translation.
Contact: theisrt@yahoo.gr
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
'Death of a translator'
Late, the old Frenchman walked slowly around the body. So much for the Big Sleep. There were heavy shadows under his eyes, a cheap beat-up notebook in his cold left hand. A little smoke escaped his twice-broken nose. Just a kid. He looked at the cheap strap watch on his left wrist. 23:24. Well, that made two of them. His upper lip twitched, could be in wry appreciation - these English and their cheap understated puns.
An urgent and frozen wind blew torn fragments (perhaps you spot a name
- Sancho Panza) through the upstairs room. Quelle tempête! He felt it in his fingers, and in his toes. Wet. Wet, wet, the rain soon got through all this, the books, the body already damp where it lay, bleeding over 'Modern Criticism and Theory', David Lodge, ed. (London, 1988) page 167, red irony seeping into an essay by Roland Barthes (Paris, 1968, tr. Stephen Heath, London, 1977). The author was dead.
Only that wasn't quite it. This was no author, whatever the corduroy and curly hair said. Sure, he had written things down - the variations on a symbolist sonnet now blurring into further illegibility showed as much.
But that wasn't why the Frenchman had come.
Roget's Thesaurus (London, 1953 repr. 1985) and Le Nouveau Petit Robert (Paris, 2007) riffled pages hopelessly at him. This kid had translated!
And when it came to translators, the Frenchman had once carelessly admitted, some dark morning in the long back room at Frank's, maybe three fingers too many down the night's one-last-glass of pastis - when it came to translators, he knew a thing or two.
Very soon you must learn his name, this Frenchman, as he tucks his beat-up notebook into a pocket, still holding the gun in his right hand. It is Pierre Menard. He was laid to false and fictional rest by Jorge Luis Borges, who, despite failings of fact and philosophy, had the admirable ambition to recount Menard's perfect recreation of the works of Cervantes, which consists of the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of the first part and a fragment of chapter twenty-two of 'Don Quixote'. He pushes a torn scrap of sheet through his revolver barrel with a pencil, replaces the used cartridge and turns away from his translator's body.
In Menard's work Borges found infinite subtlety, something rich and strange - where Cervantes clumsily opposes his country's provincial life and chivalric delusion, Menard selects a history disdainful of the brash colour of the historical novel. But even Borges could not contemplate a living writer, when a critic alone could produce endlessly amusing interpretations of the ambiguous worldviews littering the new text. So, buried by Borges, Menard died to the world, and this new project came to be - the translation of his Quixote, those few fragmentary chapters written three hundred years too late. He is stamping outthis project remarkably thoroughly - you cannot say the Frenchman lacks style.
Style and worldview. These are the big problems, far too big to unravel here, just at the beginning of a thought about translating historical fiction (a category which, understood differently, could be broad enough to fit almost anything from a time not our own). Just as Cervantes is, Raymond Chandler is of a time no longer quite our own.
His style is sharp, hardboiled. Names or things - a sharp knee, a half-smile, the breeze - get to be subjects and then act. Objects come next, and modifiers branch right, carefully adding colour without slowing anything up too much. It's a world of decisive actors, and it happened in a simple past tense that held our attention and our sense of immediacy. Nothing came forewarned. Besides the obvious difficulties of paring any language down to that style, and the perhaps impossibility of writing in such an immediate past tense, there is Menard's question. What can it mean, to walk these mean streets, after Batman and Watchmen and Fathers4Justice? Or just with a mobile telephone?
In a moment there will be some puzzle at what's gone on here, as you've read. What tale has struggled to suggest itself; what beast, to steal now from W. S. Graham, have I sent across the space? 'For on this side / Of the words, it's late. The heavy moth / Bangs on the pane. The whole house / Is sleeping and I remember / I am not here, only the space / I sent the terrible beast across.' At first I thought Pierre Menard was the detective, in this little crime short - but that is not his character. He is not the figure of patient explanation. He is the figure of miraculous repetition. Impossible resemblance must flame amazement. Mere translation, however creative a rewriting in another language, is, next to that, the slavish piling-up of so many logs in static imitation. The perfect rewriter must murder his translator.
But -
In the end he didn't know what more he could have said, the cold barrel of the Colt pressed to the base of his skull as the firing pin fell.
Later, when Pierre Menard stepped back out into the Norwich night, he stopped. The wind blew; the leaves hissed resultant.
Every third thought the grave - that's right enough, for us prosperous few.
--- Tom Russell was a literary translator from French to English, a MALT student at UEA, and secret fan of acrostics. Contact:
tomalrussell at gmail.com
ps. Very quickly, just by the way, one dead guy to another, my postcard's on the way to Douglas Adams. (I'm not going to unravel that for you. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you might read his foreword to P G Wodehouse's unfinished book, 'Sunset at Blandings'. It's only four and a half pages long (the foreword, not the book) and you'll be wanting to drop me an e-mail to thank me for pointing it out to you.)
An urgent and frozen wind blew torn fragments (perhaps you spot a name
- Sancho Panza) through the upstairs room. Quelle tempête! He felt it in his fingers, and in his toes. Wet. Wet, wet, the rain soon got through all this, the books, the body already damp where it lay, bleeding over 'Modern Criticism and Theory', David Lodge, ed. (London, 1988) page 167, red irony seeping into an essay by Roland Barthes (Paris, 1968, tr. Stephen Heath, London, 1977). The author was dead.
Only that wasn't quite it. This was no author, whatever the corduroy and curly hair said. Sure, he had written things down - the variations on a symbolist sonnet now blurring into further illegibility showed as much.
But that wasn't why the Frenchman had come.
Roget's Thesaurus (London, 1953 repr. 1985) and Le Nouveau Petit Robert (Paris, 2007) riffled pages hopelessly at him. This kid had translated!
And when it came to translators, the Frenchman had once carelessly admitted, some dark morning in the long back room at Frank's, maybe three fingers too many down the night's one-last-glass of pastis - when it came to translators, he knew a thing or two.
Very soon you must learn his name, this Frenchman, as he tucks his beat-up notebook into a pocket, still holding the gun in his right hand. It is Pierre Menard. He was laid to false and fictional rest by Jorge Luis Borges, who, despite failings of fact and philosophy, had the admirable ambition to recount Menard's perfect recreation of the works of Cervantes, which consists of the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of the first part and a fragment of chapter twenty-two of 'Don Quixote'. He pushes a torn scrap of sheet through his revolver barrel with a pencil, replaces the used cartridge and turns away from his translator's body.
In Menard's work Borges found infinite subtlety, something rich and strange - where Cervantes clumsily opposes his country's provincial life and chivalric delusion, Menard selects a history disdainful of the brash colour of the historical novel. But even Borges could not contemplate a living writer, when a critic alone could produce endlessly amusing interpretations of the ambiguous worldviews littering the new text. So, buried by Borges, Menard died to the world, and this new project came to be - the translation of his Quixote, those few fragmentary chapters written three hundred years too late. He is stamping outthis project remarkably thoroughly - you cannot say the Frenchman lacks style.
Style and worldview. These are the big problems, far too big to unravel here, just at the beginning of a thought about translating historical fiction (a category which, understood differently, could be broad enough to fit almost anything from a time not our own). Just as Cervantes is, Raymond Chandler is of a time no longer quite our own.
His style is sharp, hardboiled. Names or things - a sharp knee, a half-smile, the breeze - get to be subjects and then act. Objects come next, and modifiers branch right, carefully adding colour without slowing anything up too much. It's a world of decisive actors, and it happened in a simple past tense that held our attention and our sense of immediacy. Nothing came forewarned. Besides the obvious difficulties of paring any language down to that style, and the perhaps impossibility of writing in such an immediate past tense, there is Menard's question. What can it mean, to walk these mean streets, after Batman and Watchmen and Fathers4Justice? Or just with a mobile telephone?
In a moment there will be some puzzle at what's gone on here, as you've read. What tale has struggled to suggest itself; what beast, to steal now from W. S. Graham, have I sent across the space? 'For on this side / Of the words, it's late. The heavy moth / Bangs on the pane. The whole house / Is sleeping and I remember / I am not here, only the space / I sent the terrible beast across.' At first I thought Pierre Menard was the detective, in this little crime short - but that is not his character. He is not the figure of patient explanation. He is the figure of miraculous repetition. Impossible resemblance must flame amazement. Mere translation, however creative a rewriting in another language, is, next to that, the slavish piling-up of so many logs in static imitation. The perfect rewriter must murder his translator.
But -
In the end he didn't know what more he could have said, the cold barrel of the Colt pressed to the base of his skull as the firing pin fell.
Later, when Pierre Menard stepped back out into the Norwich night, he stopped. The wind blew; the leaves hissed resultant.
Every third thought the grave - that's right enough, for us prosperous few.
--- Tom Russell was a literary translator from French to English, a MALT student at UEA, and secret fan of acrostics. Contact:
tomalrussell at gmail.com
ps. Very quickly, just by the way, one dead guy to another, my postcard's on the way to Douglas Adams. (I'm not going to unravel that for you. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you might read his foreword to P G Wodehouse's unfinished book, 'Sunset at Blandings'. It's only four and a half pages long (the foreword, not the book) and you'll be wanting to drop me an e-mail to thank me for pointing it out to you.)
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Attempting to translate «Η φάλαινα που τρώει τον πόλεμο» by Eugene Trivizas(Ευγένιος Τριβιζάς)
Children’s literature is considered by many as literature that is not ‘serious’ and often, people think that writing a book for children, especially a picture book, is an easy task. I couldn’t agree less. I believe that the people who say this, do not take into account how demanding an audience children can be or how easily they get bored or distracted, let alone how challenging it is to write this interesting, gripping story using a limited vocabulary, since, let’s not forget, children tend to have a more limited vocabulary than adults, especially children that will be reading-or have one read to them-a picture book.
That is why, when we were told that for the MA we had to create a small portfolio of translations of texts no-more-than-a-page-long, I thought of translating a picture book. It would be of the perfect length, it would add variety to the portfolio and it would be challenging. I had in mind a specific writer that I wanted to translate, Eugene Trivizas, an author of over a hundred children’s books who is famous for his puns, imaginative and creative use of language and made-up worlds. I chose a book called “The Whale That Eats War” (Η φάλαινα που τρώει τον πόλεμο), simply because it was the last I had read.
The book is about a blue whale that goes to a specific-made up-country every year in order to eat the war. The book has really nice drawings and no more than eight lines per two pages, sometimes just as little as two lines per two pages. It is addressed to children from the age of four. It is a typical example of what makes the translation-and writing, for that matter-of children’s literature challenging. The whole text is made of short rhyming lines full of humourous puns. Trivizas has also made up some words, like the name of the country where the whale goes every spring, which is ‘Varaduay’. Also, in order to achieve rhyme every time, he has, at points, changed the syntax. Finally, and in my opinion this is what makes this book even more challenging than the rest of Trivizas’ books, because it belongs to Trivizas’ anti-war series, and it is about a whale that eats war, it is full of war vocabulary and is populated by different army officials on their special vehicles.
One is prepared to encounter funny rhymes and puns in a children’s book. The made up words and the creative and non-standard use of language is, also, to be expected in children’s fiction. Finally, if the book is a picture book addressed to four-year-olds, one knows that the language she/he can use will be rather limited. So, I guess, ways of working around the syntax to achieve rhyme could be found, and deletion along with compensation could be used in order to produce a text that has the same effects on the audience, pun wise. But, working with the special jargon of war and mentioning the names of different weapons, vehicles and ranks in the army made the translation of this book even the more challenging. And, since the book is about a whale that eats war and belongs to an anti-war series, maintaining the war vocabulary is crucial.
I find that many words used in the Greek text even though they are clearly words related to the war, are much simpler than their equivalents in English and also, happen to rhyme with common every day words, like βλήματα (missiles) and προβλήματα (problems).Another thing that poses a potential problem is that many of the words related to war in Greek, are translated into English in two words as for example,αεροπλανοφόρα and επιλοχίας that translate into aircraft carriers and sergeant major respectively and thus, having two words in the place of one, could affect the rhythm of the text.
The puns, the made-up words, the funny rhymes and the creative use of language are what make Trivizas’ books so fun to read. As a matter of fact, they are so fun that one thinks of Trivizas as a magic person who speaks that way and is always imagining amazing worlds, but, to me, it is clear that they have been written with a lot of thought; with this translation attempt, I discovered just how much thought amounts to a lot of thought. In the end, I did not translate the book, in order to avoid producing a translation that I was not pleased with. I have decided to give it another try when I will have more time and will be able to think of and make up the alternatives that will do it justice.
Avgi Daferera is a translator of English and Spanish into Greek, and Greek and Spanish into English. She just finished an MA in Writing at Warwick and is currently doing an MA in literary translation at UEA. She is interested in the translation of poetry and children’s fiction. You can contact her at adaferer@hotmail.com.
That is why, when we were told that for the MA we had to create a small portfolio of translations of texts no-more-than-a-page-long, I thought of translating a picture book. It would be of the perfect length, it would add variety to the portfolio and it would be challenging. I had in mind a specific writer that I wanted to translate, Eugene Trivizas, an author of over a hundred children’s books who is famous for his puns, imaginative and creative use of language and made-up worlds. I chose a book called “The Whale That Eats War” (Η φάλαινα που τρώει τον πόλεμο), simply because it was the last I had read.
The book is about a blue whale that goes to a specific-made up-country every year in order to eat the war. The book has really nice drawings and no more than eight lines per two pages, sometimes just as little as two lines per two pages. It is addressed to children from the age of four. It is a typical example of what makes the translation-and writing, for that matter-of children’s literature challenging. The whole text is made of short rhyming lines full of humourous puns. Trivizas has also made up some words, like the name of the country where the whale goes every spring, which is ‘Varaduay’. Also, in order to achieve rhyme every time, he has, at points, changed the syntax. Finally, and in my opinion this is what makes this book even more challenging than the rest of Trivizas’ books, because it belongs to Trivizas’ anti-war series, and it is about a whale that eats war, it is full of war vocabulary and is populated by different army officials on their special vehicles.
One is prepared to encounter funny rhymes and puns in a children’s book. The made up words and the creative and non-standard use of language is, also, to be expected in children’s fiction. Finally, if the book is a picture book addressed to four-year-olds, one knows that the language she/he can use will be rather limited. So, I guess, ways of working around the syntax to achieve rhyme could be found, and deletion along with compensation could be used in order to produce a text that has the same effects on the audience, pun wise. But, working with the special jargon of war and mentioning the names of different weapons, vehicles and ranks in the army made the translation of this book even the more challenging. And, since the book is about a whale that eats war and belongs to an anti-war series, maintaining the war vocabulary is crucial.
I find that many words used in the Greek text even though they are clearly words related to the war, are much simpler than their equivalents in English and also, happen to rhyme with common every day words, like βλήματα (missiles) and προβλήματα (problems).Another thing that poses a potential problem is that many of the words related to war in Greek, are translated into English in two words as for example,αεροπλανοφόρα and επιλοχίας that translate into aircraft carriers and sergeant major respectively and thus, having two words in the place of one, could affect the rhythm of the text.
The puns, the made-up words, the funny rhymes and the creative use of language are what make Trivizas’ books so fun to read. As a matter of fact, they are so fun that one thinks of Trivizas as a magic person who speaks that way and is always imagining amazing worlds, but, to me, it is clear that they have been written with a lot of thought; with this translation attempt, I discovered just how much thought amounts to a lot of thought. In the end, I did not translate the book, in order to avoid producing a translation that I was not pleased with. I have decided to give it another try when I will have more time and will be able to think of and make up the alternatives that will do it justice.
Avgi Daferera is a translator of English and Spanish into Greek, and Greek and Spanish into English. She just finished an MA in Writing at Warwick and is currently doing an MA in literary translation at UEA. She is interested in the translation of poetry and children’s fiction. You can contact her at adaferer@hotmail.com.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Translating L’Hirondelle by Claude Simon
Post by Samantha Christie, MALT student
In the Case Studies module of the MA Literary Translation, we have recently been examining children’s fiction and its translation. Focussing on examples of children’s literature in its original and translated versions, and the theories about both writing and translating children’s fiction, we have analysed the genre with specific attention paid to the practicalities of translating it. Amongst other things, we have considered different features of children’s fiction, intra- and extra-textual aspects which might influence its translation, challenges and problems a translator might face in translating this genre, and possible strategies a translator of children’s literature may employ.
Typical, then, that the text I chose for my first practice translation of children’s literature doesn’t contain any of the more prominent challenges for which I have a helpful list of strategies. The text is not written in dialectal language, it contains no slang, there are no ethical issues raised by racist or offensive terms, no songs or limericks, no neologisms…
L’Hirondelle (The Swallow) is a short children’s story, written originally in French by Claude Simon in 1977 and accompanied by Martine Fiere’s colourful, rather abstract images. It follows the journey of a swallow who, whilst flying over a town square, loses a feather, becomes disoriented and starts to fall. In the nick of time, she plucks a feather from the hat of a lady sitting in the square, regains her equilibrium and flies away. It’s a beautiful tale, especially when paired with the illustrations, and I think its beauty lies in the fact it reads so simply. But does a simple story mean a simple translation?
Before starting to translate, I reflected on the text and noted some general aspects to consider. Despite its apparent simplicity, the structure is, in terms of translating, rather complex. The story, at just 16 pages, is very short. As such, the author hasn’t actually used very many words, but doesn’t that mean that the ones he has used are all the more important? So a careful choice of vocabulary was required, particularly with the target audience – children – in mind. The language used is lyrical and there is some rhyme and repetition of words and themes throughout the text. Some passages of text have a certain rhythm to them, although it is not a poem and it doesn’t have a meter. I wanted to keep as much of this rhyme, repetition and rhythm as possible, as it really makes the original flow and the author clearly used that style for a reason.
I hadn’t translated a picture book before, and as the images appear over various parts of the pages, so the text itself has an irregular layout. I needed to make sure my words and pictures were synchronised. I wondered whether the images would have an effect on my translation, whether an image would subconsciously influence my lexical choice. The story also has an iconic element; the movement of the swallow’s flight is mirrored in the text which starts off distanced from the action and zooms in for a close-up before pulling back and returning to where it started.
I’ll give two examples of linguistic areas which I found particularly tricky to translate.
The first line of the text is “Dans un pays il y avait une ville”. ‘Dans un pays’ translates directly as ‘in a country’, which isn’t a very natural thing to say in English. We would normally qualify it in some way: in a different country, in a foreign country, in some country or other. However, the author didn’t need to do that and doesn’t necessarily mean a place that is not ‘this’ country, he just means any country. Introducing a qualifying adjective could technically mislead the reader. On the other hand, the location of the country has no bearing on the tale overall and is non-specific throughout, so the likelihood of this negatively affecting the reader’s understanding is minimal. A further difficulty is by introducing an extra word, the balance and rhythm of the rest of the passage on the first page is upset. This passage is repeated in reverse at the end of the story, so whatever I chose for the beginning needed to fit at the end, too.
Later in the story, when the swallow takes the feather from the hat, she does so “d’un coup d’aile”. Directly, this means ‘with a flap of the wing’, but it also calls to mind another frequently used French expression which sounds similar, ‘d’un coup d’oeil’, meaning ‘at a glance’, ‘a quick look’, and this suggestion of speed in turn calls to mind ‘in the blink of an eye’. I don’t believe the author’s use of “d’un coup d’aile” was entirely coincidental, so needed to find an expression in English that combined the two meanings of ‘with a flap of the wing’ and ‘in the blink of an eye’, which would also fit the rhythm and layout of the text.
Samantha Christie is a translator from French and Spanish into English and is currently working on the MA in Literary Translation at UEA. Special interests include translation in the areas of detective fiction and music, and the relationship between author and translator.
Contact: snchristie@gmail.com
In the Case Studies module of the MA Literary Translation, we have recently been examining children’s fiction and its translation. Focussing on examples of children’s literature in its original and translated versions, and the theories about both writing and translating children’s fiction, we have analysed the genre with specific attention paid to the practicalities of translating it. Amongst other things, we have considered different features of children’s fiction, intra- and extra-textual aspects which might influence its translation, challenges and problems a translator might face in translating this genre, and possible strategies a translator of children’s literature may employ.
Typical, then, that the text I chose for my first practice translation of children’s literature doesn’t contain any of the more prominent challenges for which I have a helpful list of strategies. The text is not written in dialectal language, it contains no slang, there are no ethical issues raised by racist or offensive terms, no songs or limericks, no neologisms…
L’Hirondelle (The Swallow) is a short children’s story, written originally in French by Claude Simon in 1977 and accompanied by Martine Fiere’s colourful, rather abstract images. It follows the journey of a swallow who, whilst flying over a town square, loses a feather, becomes disoriented and starts to fall. In the nick of time, she plucks a feather from the hat of a lady sitting in the square, regains her equilibrium and flies away. It’s a beautiful tale, especially when paired with the illustrations, and I think its beauty lies in the fact it reads so simply. But does a simple story mean a simple translation?
Before starting to translate, I reflected on the text and noted some general aspects to consider. Despite its apparent simplicity, the structure is, in terms of translating, rather complex. The story, at just 16 pages, is very short. As such, the author hasn’t actually used very many words, but doesn’t that mean that the ones he has used are all the more important? So a careful choice of vocabulary was required, particularly with the target audience – children – in mind. The language used is lyrical and there is some rhyme and repetition of words and themes throughout the text. Some passages of text have a certain rhythm to them, although it is not a poem and it doesn’t have a meter. I wanted to keep as much of this rhyme, repetition and rhythm as possible, as it really makes the original flow and the author clearly used that style for a reason.
I hadn’t translated a picture book before, and as the images appear over various parts of the pages, so the text itself has an irregular layout. I needed to make sure my words and pictures were synchronised. I wondered whether the images would have an effect on my translation, whether an image would subconsciously influence my lexical choice. The story also has an iconic element; the movement of the swallow’s flight is mirrored in the text which starts off distanced from the action and zooms in for a close-up before pulling back and returning to where it started.
I’ll give two examples of linguistic areas which I found particularly tricky to translate.
The first line of the text is “Dans un pays il y avait une ville”. ‘Dans un pays’ translates directly as ‘in a country’, which isn’t a very natural thing to say in English. We would normally qualify it in some way: in a different country, in a foreign country, in some country or other. However, the author didn’t need to do that and doesn’t necessarily mean a place that is not ‘this’ country, he just means any country. Introducing a qualifying adjective could technically mislead the reader. On the other hand, the location of the country has no bearing on the tale overall and is non-specific throughout, so the likelihood of this negatively affecting the reader’s understanding is minimal. A further difficulty is by introducing an extra word, the balance and rhythm of the rest of the passage on the first page is upset. This passage is repeated in reverse at the end of the story, so whatever I chose for the beginning needed to fit at the end, too.
Later in the story, when the swallow takes the feather from the hat, she does so “d’un coup d’aile”. Directly, this means ‘with a flap of the wing’, but it also calls to mind another frequently used French expression which sounds similar, ‘d’un coup d’oeil’, meaning ‘at a glance’, ‘a quick look’, and this suggestion of speed in turn calls to mind ‘in the blink of an eye’. I don’t believe the author’s use of “d’un coup d’aile” was entirely coincidental, so needed to find an expression in English that combined the two meanings of ‘with a flap of the wing’ and ‘in the blink of an eye’, which would also fit the rhythm and layout of the text.
Samantha Christie is a translator from French and Spanish into English and is currently working on the MA in Literary Translation at UEA. Special interests include translation in the areas of detective fiction and music, and the relationship between author and translator.
Contact: snchristie@gmail.com
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