Recent Views on Translation

8/11/2019 Recent Views on Translation

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RECENT VIEWS ONTRANSLATION


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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION

1900s - 1930s: W. Benjamin, E. Pound, Jorge Luis

Borges, Ortega y Gasset

1940s - 1950s:Vladimir Nabokov, Jean-Paul Vinay andJean Darbelnet, Willard van Orman Quine, R. Jakobson

1960s - 1970s: E. Nida, J.C. Catford, Jii Levy,K. Reiss, James Holmes, G. Steiner, Itamar Even-Zohar,Gideon Toury, Hans Vermeer, Andre Lefevere, WilliamFrawley, Philip Lewis, Antoine Berman, Soshana Blum-Kulka, Lory Chamberlain

1990s:Ernst-August Gutt, Basil Hatim and Jan Mason,Keith Harvey, Lawrence Venuti


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TRANSLATION THEORY

presumesa systematic theory of language with

which it overlaps completely or from which it derives

as a special case according to demonstrable rules of

deduction and application.

(Steiner 1975: 280, emphasis in the original)


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TRANSLATION THEORY

always rests on particular assumptions aboutlanguage use, even if they are no more thanfragmentary hypotheses that remain implicit or

unacknowledged.

assumptions seem to have fallen into two largecategories: instrumentaland hermeneutic

(Kelly 1979, in Venuti 2000: 5)


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TRANSLATION THEORIES

product-oriented concerned with a "text-focused" empirical description of translations, andwith larger corpuses of translations in a specificperiod, language or discourse type.

function-oriented introduced a culturalcomponent which affected the reception of the TT.

process-oriented concerned with the problemof the "black box", i.e. what was going on in thetranslator's mind.

(Holmes 1972, 1975:12-14)


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TRANSLATION THEORIES

product-oriented emphasis laid on the

functional aspects of the TL text in relation to theSL text

process-orientedemphasis on the analysis ofwhat actually takes place during the translating

process.


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THE MISERY AND SPLENDOUR OF TRANSLATION

great translation must carry with it the most precise sensepossible of the resistant, of the barriers intact at the heartof understanding (Steiner 1975: 378).

translation renders in the target language what thesource language tends to silence (Venuti 2000: 54, Popa2008: 35)

the misery of translation its impossibility, because ofthe linguistic and cultural differences between languages

the splendour of translation the translators ability tomanipulate these differences and force the reader to gointo the tradition and universe of the foreign language text


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THE MUSTS OF A GOOD TRANSLATION

Tytler' s rules normative prescriptionsderiving from the

subjective and evaluative description of a "good translation :

the translation should give a complete transcript of

the ideas of the original work;

the style and manner of writing should be of the

same character with that of the original;

the translation should have all the ease of the originalcomposition.

a "good translation"

the translation in which the merit ofthe original is so completely transfused into another language,as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt by anative of the country to which that language belongs, as it is bythose who speak the language of the original work

(Tytler 1791:79, quoted by R. Bell 1991:11).


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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION: 1920s - 1930s

translation recreating the values accruing to the

foreign text over time and his utopian vision oflinguistic harmony (Benjamin 1923)

the translators happy and creative infidelity

(Borges 1935)

translation a distinctive linguistic practice, as aliterary genre apart. (Ortega. Y. Gasset 1937) the

cause of the enormous difficulty of translation all peoples silence some things in order to be ableto say others (Ortega. Y. Gasset 1937)


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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION: 1950s

translation theories

focused on the concept oftranslatability

Willard van Orman Quines (1950) later pragmatic view oftranslation centered on meaningas conventional,

socially circumscribed, the translated (foreign) text beingrewritten in accordance with the values, beliefs and expressivemeans of the foreign language culture

the process of dissemination of meaning, time, people, culturalboundaries becomes the necessity of demonstrating that anylanguage could always be shadowed or possessed by another(Nabokov 1974 qtd byBontil 2006, in Gonzales and Tolron2006: 144).


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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION: 1960s -1970s

translating a process of communicating the foreign text by

establishing a relationship of identity or analogy with it(Venuti 2000: 121).

based on the concept of equivalenceprovided standards

to evaluate translations: faithful vs. bad translations

beautiful vs. ugly translations

G. Mounin (1963) the concept of equivalenceis based on

universals of language and culture.

equivalence

submitted to lexical, grammatical and stylisticanalysis.

text typologyandtext functionessential in establishingthe degree of equivalencebetween the ST and TT


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Kller (1979: 186-191, 1989: 99-104)main concern wasequivalence typology

TYPES OF EQUIVALENCE

denotative: depending on an invariance of contentconnotative:depending on similarities of register, dialect and styletext-normative:based on usage norms specific to the text typepragmatic: related to the degree of comprehensibility in the TC

PRAGMATIC EQUIVALENCE

made the TTeasily comprehensible in the TC

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE caused linguistic andcultural approximations


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J. C. Catford (1965)gave a thorough description of thegrammatical and lexical shiftsin translation, which were

departures from formal correspondence. J. Levy (1965) considers that pragmatic translation involves

a gradual semantic shifting due to the fact that translatorshave to choose from many possible solutions. In his opinion,shifts work to generalize and clarify meaning, changing thestyle of a literary work into a dry and uninspiring descriptionof things and actions (Levy 1965: 78-80, qtd. in Venuti2000: 122).

A. Popovi (1970)shifts in translation do not occur

because the translator wishes to change a work, butbecause he strives to reproduce it as faithfully as possible,the kind of faithfulness he has in mind being functional, withthe translator using suitable equivalents in the milieu of histime and society (Popovi 1970: 80,82, qtd. in Venuti 2000:122).


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K. Reiss (1971) the functionally equivalent translationneeds to be based on a detailed semantic, syntactic and

pragmatic analysis of the foreign text (Venuti 2000: 122).

Venuti argues, the pragmatic translator doesnt simplyanalyse the linguistic and cultural features of the foreigntext, but reverbalizes them according to the values of a

different language and culture, often applying what Housecalls a filter to aid the receptors comprehension of thedifference (Venuti 2000: 122).

I. Even-Zohar and G. Touryconsidered literature as a

polysystem of interrelated forms and cannons thatrepresented norms constraining the translators choices andthe translation strategies.

Even Zohar argued that translation may adhere to norms

rejected by the source language.


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RECENT VIEWS ON TRANSLATION: 1980s

translation is not a sealed, "nomological" science but a

"cognitive/hermeneutic/associative" one (Wills 1982: 16).

A translation theory is based upon:

a) the concept of a universal language;

b) a belief that deep-structure transfer is possible by

a hermeneutic process;c) a qualitative ranking of texts, from a high levelincorporating art and science texts to a low levelincluding business and pragmatic texts.

translation research must develop a frame of referenceto view a text as a communication-oriented configurationwith a thematic, functional and text-pragmaticdimension.


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TYPES OF TRANSLATION


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intralingual translation/rewordingan

interpretation of verbal signs by means of othersigns in the same language;

interlingual translation/translation properan interpretation of verbal signs by means of some

other language, which describes the process oftransfer from SL to TL;

intersemiotic translation/transmutationaninterpretation of verbal signs by means of signs ofnonverbal sign systems.

(Jakobson 1959:232-9)


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rank-bound translationsthe selection of TL equivalents

is deliberately confined to one rank, used in machinetranslation, usually at word or morpheme rank;

Rank-bound translations set up word-to-word or morpheme-to-morpheme equivalences, but not equivalences between

high-rank units such as the group, clause, or sentence; suchtranslations are often "bad" in that they involve using TLequivalents which are not appropriate to their location in theTL text, and which are not justified by the interchangeabilityof SL and TL texts in one and the same situation (Catford

1965:25)

unbounded translations, i.e. normal, total translations inwhich equivalences shift freely up and down the rank scale.

(Catford 1965:24-5)


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fullvs. partialtranslations, referring to the extent in a

syntagmatic sense; fullvs. restrictedtranslations related to the levels of

language involved in the translation process.

TOTAL TRANSLATION the replacement of SL grammarand lexis by equivalent TL grammar and lexis withconsequential replacement of SL phonology / graphology by(non-equivalent) TL phonology / graphology.

RESTRICTED TRANSLATION the replacement of SL textualmaterial by equivalent TL textual material at only one level(either phonological or graphic), or only at oneof the twolevels of grammar and lexis. (Catford 1965)


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free translation

is always unbounded, as equivalences shunt up and down therank scale, but tend to be at the higher ranks, sometimesbetween larger units than the sentence.characterised by lexical adaptation to TL collocational or"idiomatic" requirements

word-for-word translationis rank - bound at wordrank

literal translationmay start from a word-for-word translation but may make

changes in keeping with the TL grammar (e.g. insertingadditional words, changing structures at any rank, etc)may also be a group-group, or a clause-clause translation.tends to remain lexically word-for-word, i.e. to use the highestprobability lexical equivalent for each lexical item.

(Catford 1965)


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dynamic/functional(Nida and Taber 1969) vs. formal

equivalence (Nida 1964)

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCEequated with the readersshadowy presence in the mind of the translator

FORMAL EQUIVALENCEequivalence of both form and

content between the two texts.

the equivalent effectthe desirable result rather thanthe aim of the translation (Newmark 1981)

achieving the equivalent effectis unlikely if:

the purpose of the SL text is to affect and thepurpose of the TL text is to inform;there is a clear cultural gap between SL text and TLtext (in fact, translation merely fills a gap betweentwo cultures if, felicitously, there is no insuperable

cultural clash).


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covertvs.overttranslations (House 1977)

House insisted on how much the foreign textdepends on its own culture for intelligibility.

if the significance of a foreign text is peculiarlyindigenous, it requires a translation that is overtornoticeable through its reliance on supplementaryinformation, whether in the form of expansions,

insertions or annotations (House 1977: 24).


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communicative translation

reader-oriented

pragmatic-oriented

functionally-oriented

semantic translation

the translator may translate less importantwords by culturally neutral third of functional terms

but not by cultural equivalents (Newmark 1988:46)the translator is faithful to the ST ignoring the

real world of the target culture

(Newmark 1977/1981/1988)


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paraphrasticoffering a free version of the original,with omissions and additions prompted by the exigenciesof form, the conventions attributed to the consumer, andthe translators ignorance;

lexicalrendering the basic meaning of words andtheir order;

literalrendering, as closely as the associative and

syntactical capacities of another language allow, theexact contextual meaning of the original.

(Nabokov 1974,1,vii-viii,qtd. in Bontil 2006: 145)


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general translation

the translation or interpretation ofnon-specific language that does not require any specializedvocabulary or knowledge.

specialized translationspecific to different domains ofactivity:

financial translation

literary translation

medical translationscientific translation

technical translation

legal translation


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literary translationtranslation of literary texts

(poetry, drama, novels, memoires, etc.)

non-literary translationtranslation of non-literary,

or pragmatic texts

(Ionescu 2000:37)

The difference between literaryand non-literarytranslation

is that the latter translates what is in the text, whereas the

former must translate what the text implies.

(Ionescu 2000:38)

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Recent Views on Translation