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Tutor : Mr.Larbi (c)

5- The art of translation

Anna Magvar

Introduction
This chapter will explore what perspectives the translation of literary texts from and into English can offer on creativity, and examining where and how different kinds of creativity can be located in the translation of literary texts. It will investigate what happens to literature when it is translated, rather than adapted or interpreted within the same language. After a brief background to the practice of translation and the role of creativity in original and translated texts, largely from an inherency perspective, this chapter will look into some sociocultural issues around translation and creativity, including sociocultural aspects which can be considered ideological. Finally, how translation can be viewed as a participatory activity will be explored along with texts where the reader/ audience is considered instrumental in helping to create the text as it is read and/or performed.

1 Transla ng words, transla ng meanings

According to Alexander Pope[2002] translation is the realizing of meanings and effects in one language that correspond in some way to the meanings and effects realized in another. Translation has been a central part of literary life within Anglo/European literary traditions, certainly since Roman times. Translation goes back much further in time for languages such as Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic. Indeed, literary texts have always been translated or adapted, reworked and refashioned into other literary texts, often by authors and poets, already writers of their own creative texts. As far as the linguistic aspects of translation from the source text into the target text is concerned, it is worth considering two key terms used when comparing a target text with a source text : fidelity and equivalence. Fidelity is a value judgment used when discussing translations, and literary adaptations or performances; in other words, it has to do with being faithful to the original text. Equivalence means similarity in meaning or function between language choices, whether of lexis , grammatical pattern when applied to translated texts, and this concept is used in discussions of what the equivalent cultural concept, or the equivalent proverb, might be in another language. Unlike fidelity, equivalence does not involve a value judgment. However, both fidelity and equivalence are problematic notions. When a text is translated, it can be argued that it becomes a different text, so judgments about its fidelity to the original could be countered with the argument that we are not comparing like with like. Literary texts especially are often translated across cultures and perhaps across historical periods too. Equivalence, too, has come under fire ,and recent work in translation studies has challenged the notion that there can be such a thing as equivalence. A single word expressing a concept in one language may require a whole phrase to make it meaningful in another; even within a single language, there is rarely such a thing as a pure synonym: [...] a dictionary of so-called synonyms may give perfect as a synonym for ideal or vehicle as a synonym for conveyance but in neither case can there be said to be complete equivalence, since each unit contains within itself a set of non-transferable associations and connotations. (Bassnett, 2002, p. 22) Moreover, translating idiomatic expressions or metaphors into other languages frequently involves finding a word or phrase that functions in an equivalent way, rather than being the linguistic equivalent of the original. Translation has not always been viewed in the most positive light by readers familiar with, and affectionate towards, literature in the source language. Translations have been criticized as imitations, a favored metaphor casting the translator as a painter copying an original. Translation can only ever be at best a mock-Rainbow in the clouds, faintly imitating the true one (Erich Steiner, 1975, p. 19).Yet in some cases, transla ons can come to be valued as more aesthetically pleasing than the originals. Being a respected translator himself, the English poet John Dryden (16311700) drew up a set of rules or guidelines for the translator of poetry. In his view, a good translator should: 1 Be a poet. 2 Be a master of both the language of the original and his own. 3 Understand the characteris cs that individuate his author. 4 Conform his genius to that of the original. 5 Keep the sense sacred and inviolable and be literal where gracefulness can be maintained. 6 Make his author appear as charming as possible without viola ng his real character. 7 Be a en ve to the verse quali es of both the original and the English poem. 8 Make the author speak the contemporary English he would have spoken. 9 Do not improve the original. 10 Do not follow it so closely that the spirit is lost. (Cited in Hammond and Hopkins, 19952005, pp. 3889)
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A competent translator shows the following attributes: a very good knowledge of the language, written and spoken, from which he is translating (the source language); an excellent command of the language into which he is translating (the target language); familiarity with the subject matter of the text being translated; a profound understanding of the etymological and idiomatic correlates between the two languages; and a finely tuned sense of when to metaphrase ("translate literally") and when to paraphrase, so as to assure true rather than spurious equivalents between the source- and target-language texts. A competent translator is not only bilingual but bicultural. A language is not merely a collection of words and of rules of grammar and syntax for generating sentences, but also a vast interconnecting system of connotations and cultural references whose mastery, writes linguist Mario Pei, "comes close to being a lifetime job." The complexity of the translator's task cannot be overstated; one author suggests that becoming an accomplished translator after having already acquired a good basic knowledge of both languages and cultures may require a minimum of ten years' experience. Viewed in this light, it is a serious misconception to assume that a person who has fair fluency in two languages will, by virtue of that fact alone, be consistently competent to translate between them. In John Drydens view, then, to translate a poem, one must be a poet. The translator has a particular responsibility towards the author of the source text. The author is assumed to have created something of value: a particular charm and character that the text embodies and that's what the translator must preserve. what kinds of losses might occur in the translation of creative texts; and what resources might be required in order to create a successful literary translation.

Being faithful to syntax [Reading A]

Burton Raffel [994] criticizes translators who too often approach prose translation as a semantic exercise, a search for equivalence of meaning in its narrowest verbal sense, or what is referred to as word-by-word translation .He argues that the aspect of prose too often overlooked is the way that words are combined. According to Raffel's inherency approach, the necessity to be faithful to the syntactical patterns of the source text or the original prose is appropriate when source and target languages and cultures are relatively close. It is questionable whether this evaluative criterion, presented by Burton Raffel as a universal one, could be applied to translation between languages and cultures which are very far apart. Alongside this, Raffel gives consideration to the lexical choices made by the five translators, and the degree to which they succeed in translating the culturally specific connotations of the words used in the source text. Does successful translation of a literary text entails translating just lexis/ words? Or also being engaged with social , historical and cultural meanings?

2- The Issue of Equivalence in Translation: Text & Culture

The semiotic terms denotation and connotation are highly relevant to choices made by translators. Denotational meaning is concerned with the representation of an entity or concept. Connotative meaning is concerned with the speakers or writers feelings or attitude, or the meanings attached to a term by speakers of a language. Many seemingly similar terms, including synonyms in a single language, can be said to have different shades of connotative meaning. Thus, if we compare the difference between dont complain and dont whine we can say that their denotational meaning is the same while their connotational meaning is not. In terms of denotation, these terms mean different things. But on the connotative level, they are more similar. Poets usually use lexical equivalences that reflect the historical period they lived in. Therefore, its in the juxtaposition of several translations of the same poem that we can illuminate how problematic the notions of fidelity and equivalence are. Of course, a key issue for translation is the fact that across languages we find words that are denotationally the same but have very different connotative meanings. One example might be the French fameux and the English famous, which both mean more or less well known. In English, however, famous is connotatively neutral whilst the French fameux is derogatory, une femme fameuse meaning roughly a woman of ill repute. Therefore, we can see that the connotation of a word is complex, ambiguous and mutable: meaning changes over time, in combination with other words, and can be culturally, historically or socially specific. Since the meaning of a word is open to interpretation, this can make it hard to talk of accurate or inaccurate translations. There are subtle and not so subtle differences in the way that languages lexicalize experience. In the box below, the translation scholar Mona Baker (1992) considers a number of linguistic features, and explores the role that culture plays in the way we create and communicate meaning.
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According to her , there are some crucial aspects of language which a translator needs to reckon when translating any text, whether literary or non-literary: 1-Culture-specific concepts: a concept that is unknown in the target language. An example of an English abstract concept without an equivalent in some languages is privacy. 2-Non-lexicalised concepts: the source language word may express a concept that is known in the target culture but not lexicalized. An example of this is savoury which does not have equivalents in some other languages. The abstract use of landslide as in landslide victory is also not lexicalized in many languages, although the concept itself of overwhelming majority is easily understood. 3-Semantic complexity: languages can develop very concise words to describe complex concepts if they are important enough. One word, for example the Brazilian word arruaao, can express a complex set of meanings , in this case, clearing the ground under coffee trees of rubbish and piling it in the middle of the row in order to aid in the recovery of beans dropped during harvesting. 4-Differences in form: languages add prefixes and suffixes to root words in different ways to create meaning, and this often means that equivalences cannot be found. English has many couplets such as employer-employee, payerpayee. Speakers use the suffix -ish to create adjectives such as boyish, or the suffix -ese which adds an expressive dimension to certain words such as in journalese. Aside from being succinct, such linguistic resources can be used in verbal play which does not have direct equivalences in other languages. The meanings can paraphrased ,but where form is important, expressive and aesthetic meanings and their contribution to the overall meaning of the text can be lost. 5-Loan words: languages borrow from other languages for various reasons. Sometimes the word form is changed to resemble the target language, sometimes it remains in its source language form and in literary texts can be used in many different ways, giving information about a characters social background or the narrators attitude to a character. Examples of loan words in English are chic: sophisticated, trendy, and alfresco: outdoors.
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6-Idioms: fixed expressions that sometimes have similar expressions in the target language, using the same interplay of images, but sometimes not. Expressions that violate the truth, like its raining cats and dogs, or throw caution to the winds, are easily recognizable. Idioms that play with everyday objects and concepts are easy to understand, even if different images are used in the target language to express the same meaning. Others may be based on longforgotten events and people, and will have no meaning except to speakers within a culture: for example, Murphys law : used in the UK and USA to mean if anything can go wrong, it will. Idiomatic expressions may exist in the target language but have entirely different meanings. Thus to sing a different tune in English indicates a change in opinion, whereas in Chinese a similar expression has strong political connotations. 7-Metaphorical language: this is strongly associated with literary language. Metaphors often play a crucial role in the coherence of a poem or novel; if the metaphor carries different connotations or has no equivalent in the target language, this can present a significant challenge to the translator. Mona Baker attributes difficulties of equivalence in translation to a sociocultural perspective between the source and target languages. However, Burton Raffel [1994]claims that a good prose translation should preserve the original syntax as far as possible though difficulties of equivalence in translation is due to the fact that both the source and target languages usually don't share the same phonology , syntactic structures , vocabulary, literary history , prosody So a translated literary text should be judged not in terms of what Bassne (1998, p. 39) calls the moralizing discourse of faithfulness and unfaithfulness but on how well it stands as a creative text in its own right. It could be argued that the most difficult aspects of any text to translate are its word play, or other forms of patterning, and its cultural references. These could involve the cultural connotations of particular words or concepts which, in turn, are connected to the social, historical and cultural knowledge a language group will share. Alternatively, they could be related to the intertextual dimension of texts, i.e. the way that the text draws explicitly or implicitly on other texts and textual traditions.

3-Machine versus Human Translation

The following pairs of extract are all translations of literary texts; but in each case, one version was generated by typing the source text into a translation software program on the Internet while the other is translated by a person.
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Extract taken from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert Text A We were being studied, when the Headmaster entered, follow-up again equipped as middle-class man and of a boy with class which portrait a large desk. Those which slept awoke, and each one rose, as surprised in its work.

Text 2a is computer translation. This text doesn't comply with our lexico-grammatical expectations. Even where individual lexical items are used correctly and are recognizably English, the overall meaning often breaks down. The machine cannot recognize the different parts of speech and so uses nouns, for example portrait, when the phrase in fact requires a verb. A human being, even one who did not understand the exact meaning of the French portrait would know from the rest of the sentence that the word carried a verbal meaning.

Text B We were in study hall when the headmaster walked in, followed by a new boy not wearing a school uniform, and by a janitor carrying a large desk. Those who were sleeping awoke, and we all stood up as though interrupting our work.

Text 2b is human translation as long as it complies with our lexico-grammatical expectations, and abides by the English canon.

Machine translation (MT) is a process whereby a computer program analyzes a source text and produces a target text without human intervention, it is the translation of texts from one natural language into another by the use of computers . However, machine translation requires the precise specification of bilingual equivalences and the processes of conveying the meanings of expressions (words and sentences) from a source text into a target text. Overall, the machine translations are clumsy and over-literal. In these extracts there are examples of deviations which are clearly not intentional but due to the fact that the computer translating at word level, has been unable to interpret the function of the word within the phrase or overall meaning of the text. Much gets lost, especially the skilful way in which indirect meanings have been achieved by the writer. Thus, translation requires a creative interpretation which relies on far more than knowledge of the language system. The machine translations appear to be somewhat similar to creative texts in that they break language rules and violate expectations. However they do so without creative intent, and that helps us, as readers, to recognize the creative choices made and thereby value a creative text. A machine is unable to make creative choices. 3-1 Evalua ng Machine Transla on In machine translation general idea in the target text isn't always exactly accurate; and it is frequently literally translated (word for word translation) . Likewise, the target text is often grammatically incorrect, if not completely incoherent. Overall, most of the errors that can deduced in a target text that is a product of a machine translation are as follows: Lexical choices [vocabulary, terminology] errors. Proper names and abbreviations errors Verb tense errors Verb forms (passive/active) and personalization errors Subject-verb agreement errors Negation and modality errors logical relations[linking adverbs] errors Words order errors collocation and synonyms errors Closed system words errors : prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions Cohesion and coherence errors: errors on the structure and on the information display. Differences of style, e.g. when one language prefers nominalization (as in English technical documents: [The possibility of the meeting postponement was discussed] while other languages prefer verbs: [We discussed if it was possible to postpone the meeting].

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4 Ideology & Translation

This section is confined to the issue of ideology and translation. It has been mentioned that literary texts draw on literary traditions, whether of content or form, and these traditions may not have the same value, carry the same meaning, or perform the same function across cultures. In other words, literary texts are not produced or received in a cultural or temporal vacuum, and this has clear implications for how they are dealt with in translation. A key debate in translation studies of recent years centers around what the translator does, or should do, with the culturalness of literary texts. One approach is domestication of the text, i.e., adapting it to suit the tastes of the target audience and suppressing cultural references and meanings which would be alien, unsettling or incomprehensible to this new audience. Foreignization is another possibility, and it implies leaving the text rooted as far as possible in its original culture, and rely on the target language audience to make the effort to learn about this culture in order to understand the text. This debate draws attention to the political implications of translation and to the active role of the reader/audience in translation practices. Tymoczko (1999 p. 29) summarizes the dilemmas involved in domestication and foreignization of literature: [...] translators are caught in the dilemma of producing texts with large amounts of material that is opaque or unintelligible to international readers on the one hand or having large quantities of explanation and explicit information on the other hand. Either choice threatens to compromise the reception of the text as literature. A third alternativesuppressing the distinctive qualities of the writers culture and language- compromises the writers own affiliation with his or her culture and probably the very reasons for writing, just as a translation which is highly assimilated or adapted to the standards of the receiving culture raises questions of fidelity. Therefore, any translator has to consider his or her audience when preparing to translate a literary text , and both approaches, domestication and foreignization, share a concern with cultural context and with writing itself. In view of Venuti [ 1998], about domestication approach, for a literary text to be well received in translation, it needs to be adapted to the sociocultural knowledge and understanding of the reader in the target culture. It should not read like a translation, and should create the illusion for the reader that they are reading an original text Foreignisation, on the other hand, relies on the reader being willing to make the effort to understand what may be unfamiliar. Textually, the translation does not disguise itself, and footnotes or commentaries may be added by the translator. Overall, both domestication and foreignisation can be viewed as problematic :domestication because of its tendency to suppress any traces of the source culture from the text , particularly where the culture of the target text is in a position of dominance over the culture of the source text; and foreignisation because the result may be less accessible or acceptable to the target culture. The translator therefore faces a dilemma: eliminating the cultural distinctiveness of the source text deprives potential readers of some insight into other experiences and perspectives, might be viewed as imperialist, and suppresses the distinctive voice of the author. On the other hand, the text may be so foreign in its cultural references that readers are unable to engage with it.

Domestication as Compromise? [Reading C]

Sengupta argues that Tagore changed the content, form and style of his poetry in order to suit the expectations and traditions of his target audience: to conform to the aesthetic ideology of the Romantic and Victorian periods. She concludes that the innovative role that he played in the Bengali literary tradition is at odds with the way in which his translated poems were received in the target culture: they were valued not for their creativity but for supporting cultural stereotypes of an exotic, other, East. She seems to portray Tagore as a victim of his own colonization, and sees his being awarded the Nobel prize for literature as mere tokenism because it was not in recognition of the literary place he held in the Bengali literary canon. Sengupta argues that Tagores approach means that he has compromised the distinctive qualities of his work and, although he gained recognition in the target culture, it was for the wrong reasons and was short-lived although Tagore seems to be prominent in the west in the first half of the 20th century, it's not his reputation in India nor his current status worldwide as a respected poet that was stressed.

5 Recreating literature through participation

The creative audience? [Reading D]
Ania Loomba [I997],describes the translation, production and performance of Shakespeares plays in India through the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. She starts by explaining that from the I 850s, travelling theatre companies were run by the Parsis, a community originally from Persia but long se led in India, which was distinguished by its religion, relative prosperity and supposed westernization. The Bombay Theatre,
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established in I849, produced English-language plays. Then came the Hindu Dramatic Corps whose aim was to perform plays in Indian languages. Its first performance was given in Marathi; it went on to perform in Gujarati and Urdu. Loomba describes these theatres as embodying colonial negotiations, theatrical transformations and crosscultural adaptations at their most complex and hilarious,[p. I I 4]. Loomba says little about textual changes, aside from mentioning titles of several plays: Othello was translated as Lionheart in Urdu, The Winters Tale was translated as Dissolution of Doubt, Hamlet became Unjust Murder Changes were made to domesticate the formal conventions of Shakespearian theatre, notably the addition of songs and dances, to the extent that Unjust Murder was a musical. Changes were also made to the plot where the source plot would have been incomprehensible or culturally inadmissible to the target audience. In another change related to plot, since tragedy as a genre is not part of theatre traditions in India, Shakespeares tragedies have happy endings. Religious references are also inserted into the script and the performance. The goddess Parvati is also given a role in the performance, and ideological appropriation is illustrated by a wish made for the uplifting of the Motherland. Although, as with Tagores English translations, Shakespeare was rewritten to meet the popular tastes of the audience, Loomba does not present the result as a compromise or an impoverishment of the source text. In fact, rather than compromise, she sees these performances as instances of rich cross-fertilization. The idea of an audience directly influencing the course of a theatre production, rather than being in thrall to the authority of a text simply because it is part of a canon of literature, may be an attractive one to some, because it can be seen as transgressive or slightly subversive. Tymoczko (1999) argues that domes ca on is acceptable when the audience or translators are appropriating a dominant poetics, rather than the other way round.

Conclusion
This chapter has looked into translated literary texts which use linguistic and cultural resources to make meaning. It shed light on the strategies that translators use, and the specific challenges and creative possibilities that different literary genres present. It has also discussed the tension inherent in being faithful to the cultural meanings of a source text, on the one hand, and finding an audience in the target culture, on the other. It has been highlighted that a literary text has many levels of meaning, and translators creatively play with the cultural and linguistic resources of the target language. In relation to creativity in translation, source and target texts are received and reworked by readers and audiences. Likewise, literary texts are often created, received, and recreated within historical and social contexts. Translations , then, can be seen as readings, interpretations and, ultimately, rewritings of the source text; Therefore , the source text and the target text can be perceived as creative. This chapter has also highlighted that it is hard to separate the linguistic meaning of a text from its social and cultural meaning. Therefore, when translating a literary text, one is to some degree translating a culture. Languages and cultures fertilize and cross-fertilize each other through the exchange of cultural products, including literary output. These are creative and enriching processes. At the same time, one cannot ignore the dominance of particular languages and cultures over others, which leads to the silencing or marginalizing of so many voices and perspectives.