Lingua inglese III:
Literary Translation
Lecture 1: Introduction to Translation Studies
Dr Jacob Blakesley
jacob.blakesley@uniroma1.it
Texts
•
Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation Studies, 4th edition, Routledge, London,
2016.
•
Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation (Routledge
Translation Classics), Routledge, London, 2016.
William Shakespeare, King Lear, any edition
Edoardo Sanguineti, La tragedia di re Lear, Il nuovo melangolo, Genova, 2008
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, translated by E. Terrinoni and F. Pedone. Testo
inglese a fronte. Vol. 3: I-II, Mondadori, Milan, 2017.
•
Emily Dickinson, Tutte le poesie, translated by multiple translators, Mondadori (I
meridiani), Milano, 1994.
Non-frequentatori:
Per i non-frequentatori e' necessaria la lettura di tutti i testi citati e anche il seguente:
Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth (eds.), Translators through History, John Benjamins,
Amsterdam, 2012
Translation terms
• Translate:
• from Latin trans (across) + latus (past
participle of ferre, to carry)
•
•
•
•
Source language (SL) [la lingua di partenza]
Source text (ST)
Target language (TL) [la lingua d’arrivo]
Target text (TT)
What is translation?
Translation n. 1 the act or an instance of
translating. 2 a written or spoken expression
of the meaning of a word, speech, book, etc.
in another language.
(The Concise Oxford English Dictionary
quoted in Hatim and Munday 2004:3)
‘The process of transferring the meaning of utterances
in one language to another.’ (Eugene Nida)
What is translation?
Translation An incredibly broad notion which can be
understood in many different ways. For example, one
may talk of translation as a process or a product, and
identify such sub-types as literary translation,
technical translation, subtitling and machine
translation; moreover, while more typically it just
refers to the transfer of written texts, the term
sometimes also includes interpreting.
(Shuttleworth and Cowie 1997: 181, quoted in Hatim and Munday 2004:3-4)
Translation: definition
• “We have here indeed what may very
probably be the most complex type of event
yet produced in the evolution of the cosmos.”
– I.A. Richards, “Towards a Theory of Translation,” in
Arthur F. Wright, ed. Studies in Chinese Thought
(Chicago, 1953), p. 250.
Translation: definition
• ‘Translation is an operation performed on
languages: a process of substituting a text in
one language for a text in another. (Catford,
1965, p. 1)
• Translation goes from somewhere to
somewhere.
– Andrew Chesterman, Memes of Translation, 3
Equivalence
• Equivalence
– Binary (formal / dynamic equivalence)
– Partial/whole equivalence
– Natural translation
– Back translation
– Equivalence is an illusion (Snell-Hornby)
Low status of translation
Translation is considered to be secondary or
derivative.
Translation formed part of other disciplines:
• Language teaching and learning
• Comparative literature
• Contrastive analysis
• Applied linguistics
Hattim and Munday (2004: 8)
Translation Studies has begun to lose its overly
European focus. Translation Studies has developed
rapidly in India, in the Chinese and Arabic speaking
worlds, in Latin America and in Africa. (Bassnett 1988: xiv)
Translation and Linguistics
Clearly, then, any theory of translation must
draw upon a theory of language – a general
linguistic theory.
(Catford 1965: 1)
Translation and Linguistics
The relationship can be twofold:
• One can apply the findings of linguistics to the
practice of translation,
• One can have a linguistic theory of translation.
(Fawcett 1998: 120)
The study of translation belongs to the field of
semiotics.
Semiotics is the science that studies signs
(systems of signs).
SIGN = Signifier (sound) + Signified (concept)
Beyond the notion stressed by the narrowly
linguistic approach, that translation involves
the transfer of ‘meaning’ contained in one set
of language signs into another set of language
signs through competent use of the dictionary
and grammar, the process involves a whole set
of extra-linguistic criteria also.
(Bassnett 1998: 14)
Translation is more than the transfer of
meaning through competent use of the
dictionary and grammar.
Comparative Linguistics
Edward Sapir claims that ‘language is a guide
to social reality’…
Experience, he asserts, is largely determined
by the language habits of the community, and
each separate structure represents a separate
reality …
(Bassnett 1988: 13)
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
This hypothesis has two parts: the theory of linguistic relativity
and the theory of linguistic determinism.
The theory of linguistic relativity states that different cultures
interpret the world in different ways, and that languages encode
these differences. Some cultures will perceive all water as being
the same, while others will see important differences between
different kinds of water.
The theory of linguistic determinism states that not only does
our perception of the world influence our language, but that the
language we use profoundly affects how we think. Language can
be said to provide a framework for our thoughts.
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to
be considered as representing the same social
reality. The worlds in which different societies live
are distinct worlds, not merely the same world
with different labels attached.
(Sapir, quoted in Bassnett, 1991:13)
Untranslatability
• Total equivalence does not exist.
• Translation Loss and Gain
Untranslatability
The linguist J. C. Catford distinguishes two
types:
• Linguistic (when there is no lexical or
syntactical substitute in the TL for an SL item).
• Cultural (when there is an absence in the TL
culture of a relevant situational feature for the
SL text).
(Bassnett 1988: 32).
Untranslatability
• If absolute equivalence is impossible…
• ‘Utopian task’ (Ortega y Gasset)
• ‘Poetry by definition is untranslatable’
(Jakobson)
The purpose of translation theory … is to reach
an understanding of the processes undertaken in
the act of translation and, not, as is so commonly
misunderstood, to provide a set of norms for
effecting the perfect translation. In the same way,
literary criticism does not seek to provide a set of
instructions for producing the ultimate poem or
novel, but rather to understand the internal and
external structures operating within and around a
work of art.
(Bassnett 1988: 37)
Translation Theory: Romans until
1900
• Rome
• 1st translator in the West: Livius Andronicus
(285-204 BC)
• 1st ‘commercial translators’: playwrights
Plautus (died 184 BC) and Terence (190-159
BC).
• 1st translation theorists: Cicero and Horace
Cicero, 106 BC – 43 BC
• Cicero: I have translated into Latin two of the most eloquent
and most noble speeches in Athenian literature, those two
speeches in which Aeschines and Demosthenes oppose each
other. And I have not translated like a mere hack (ut
interpres), but in the manner of an orator (ut orator),
translating the same themes and their expression and
sentence shapes in words consonant with our conventions. In
so doing I did not think it necessary to translate word for
word, but I have kept the force and flavour of the passage.
• [De optimo genere oratorum, The best kind of orator]
Horace, 65 BC – 8 BC
• “You’ll win private rights to public themes, if
you / Don’t keep slowly circling the broad
beaten track, / Or, pedantic translator, render
them word for word…”
• [Ars Poetica]
St. Jerome, 347-420
• Not only do I admit, but I proclaim at the top
of my voice, that in translating from Greek,
except from Sacred Scripture, where even the
order of the words is of God’s doing, I have
not translated word for word, but sense for
sense [Letter 57, to Pammachius]
Martin Luther, 1483-1546
• “We do not have to inquire of the literal Latin, how we are to
speak German, as these asses [that is, the literalists] do.
Rather we must inquiry about this of the mother in the home,
the children on the street, the common man in the
marketplace. We must be guided by their language, the way
they speak, and do our translating accordingly. That way they
will understand it and recognize that we are speaking German
to them.”
Martin Luther, 1483-1546
• “We hold that a man is justified without the
works of law, by faith alone” [Romans, 3.28].
• “Alone” [allein].
Etienne Dolet, 1509-1546
1.Translator must perfectly understand the sense and the material of the
original author, although he should feel free to clarify obsurities
2.Translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL, so as not to
lessen the majesty of the language
3.Translator should avoid word-for-word renderings
4.Translator should avoid Latinate and unusual forms
5.Translator should assemble and liaise with words eloquently to avoid
clumsiness
[La manière de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre, The way to translate
well from one language to another]
Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt, 16061664
• The best Authors contain passages that must needs be altered
or clarified…hence I do not always cleave to the words or
thoughts of this Author, whilst keeping in sight his purpose, I
fit things to our air and manner. Diverse times require not
only different words, but different thoughts. I have translated
many passages word for word, at least as much as one can do
in an elegant Translation; there are also passages wherein I
have heeded more what should be said, or what I could say,
than what he had said. [Preface to Lucian, 1654]
John Dryden, 1631-1700
• All Translation I suppose may be reduced to these three
heads.
• First, that of Metaphrase, or turning an Author word by word,
and Line by line, from one Language into another. The second
way is that of Paraphrase or Translation with latitude, where
the Author is kept in view by the Translator, so as never to be
lost, but his words are not so strictly follow’d as his sense. The
Third way is that of Imitation, where the Translator (if now he
has not lost that Name) assumes the liberty not only to vary
from the words and sense, but to forsake them both as he
sees occasion. [Preface to Ovid’s Epistles]
Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784
• Of every other kind of writing the ancients
have left us models which all succeeding ages
have laboured to imitate; but translations may
justly be claimed by the moderns as their
own.
• [The Idler, 1759]
Alexander Fraser Tytler, 1747-1813
1. The translation should give a complete
transcript of the ideas of the original work
2. The style and manner of writing should be of
the same character with that of the original
3. The translation should have all the ease of
the original composition
[Essay on the principles of translation, 1791]
Johann Gottfried von Herder, 17441803
• “The best translator must be the best critic; if only one could
run that backwards as well, and bind the two
together…Where is the translator who is at once philosopher,
philologist, and poet? He shall be the morning star of a new
day in our literature…
• [On the more recent german literature: fragments, 1766]
Johann Gottfried von Herder, 17441803
• “A language before all translations is like a
maiden who has not yet lain with a foreigner
and borne a child of mixed blood: for the time
being she is still pure and innocent, a true
image of the character of her people. She is
also poor, obstinate, and unruly; and as she is,
so is the original and national language.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 17491832
“There are three kinds of translation.
•The first acquaints us with foreign countries on our own terms;
a simple prosaic translation is best in this respect.
•A second epoch follows in which the translator really only tries
to appropriate foreign content and to reproduce it in his own
sense, even though he tries to transport himself into foreign
situations.
•The third epoch, which is to be called the highest and the final
one, namely the one in which the aim is to make the translation
identical with the original, so that one would not be valued
instead of the other, but in the other’s place.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 17491832
• There are two maxims for translation: the one
requires that the foreign author be brought
over to us so that we can look upon him as
our own; the other that we cross over to the
foreign and find ourselves inside its
circumstances, its modes of speech, its
uniqueness.
[The Two Maxims]
Madame de Stael, 1766-1817
• There is no more distinguished service that can be performed
for literature than to transport the masterpieces of human
intellect from one language to another. There are so few
works of the first rate; genius in any genre whatsoever is so
rare a phenomenon that if any modern nation were reduced
to its own such treasures, it would be forever poor.
[On the spirit of translations]
Willhelm von Humboldt, 1767-1835
• It has often been remarked, and both linguistic research and
everyday experience bear this out, that with the exception of
expressions denoting material objects, no word in one
language is ever entirely like its counterpart in another.
Different languages are in this sense only synonymous: Each
one puts a slightly different spin on a concept, charges it with
this or that connotation, sets it one rung higher or lower on
the ladder of affective response. [Introduction to translation
of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, 1816]
Friedrich Schleiermacher, 1768-1834
• Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as
possible, and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the
reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author
towards him.
[On the different methods of translating, 1813]
Novalis, 1772-1801
• A translation is either grammatical, transformative, or mythic.
Of these, mythic translations are translations in the noblest
style: they reveal the pure and perfect character of the
individual work of art. The work of art they give us is not the
actual one, but its ideal. Grammatical translations…require a
good deal of learning but no more than expository writing
skills…Transformative translations…verge constantly on
travesty.
[from Pollen, 1798]
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
• It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible
that you might discover the formal principle of
its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from
one language into another the creations of a
poet. The plant must spring again from its
seed or it will bear no flower – and this is the
burden of the curse of Babel. [The Defense of
Poetry]
Edward FitzGerald, 1809-1883
‘It is an amusement to me to take what
liberties I like with these Persians, who, (as I
think) are not Poets enough to frighten one
from such excursions, and who really do want
a little Art to shape them.’
(Bassnett 1988: 3)
Robert Browning, 1812-1889
• If, because of the immense fame of the following tragedy, I
wished to acquaint myself with it, and could only do so by the
help of a translator, I should require him to be literal at every
cost save that of absolute violence to our language. The use
of certain allowable constructions which, happening to be out
of faily favour, are all the more appropriate to archaic
workmanship, is no violence; but I would be tolerant for one –
in the case of so immensely famous an original – of even a
clumsy attempt to furnish me with the very turn of each
phrase in as Greek a fashion as English will bear. [Preface to
Translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, 1877]
Richard Burton, 1821-1890
• It is not pretended that the words of these
Hindu tales are preserved to the letter…The
merit of the old stories lies in their
suggestiveness and their general applicability.
I have ventured to remedy the conciseness of
their language, and to clothe the skeleton
with flesh and blood.
[Preface to Vikram and the Vampire]
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
• The degree of the historical sense of any age may be inferred
from the manner in which this age makes translations and
tries to absorb former ages and books. In the age of Corneille
and even of the Revolution, the French took possession of
Roman antiquity in a way for which we would no longer have
courage enough – thanks to our more highly developed
historical sense. And Roman antiquity itself: how forcibly and
at the same time how naively it took hold of everything good
and lofty of Greek antiquity, which was more ancient! How
they translated things into the Roman present!
Nietzsche, continued
• What was it to them that the real creator had experienced
this and that and written the signs of it into his poem? They
seem to ask us: Should we not make new for ourselves what is
old and find outselves in it? Should we not have the right to
breathe our own soul into this dead body?” They did noti
know the delights of the historical sense; what was past and
alien was an embarrassment for them; and being Romans,
they saw it as an incentive for a Roman conquest. Indeed,
translation was a form of conquest. Not only did one omit
what was historical; one also added allusions to the present,
and struck out the name of the poet, replacing it with one’s
own.
Benedetto Croce, 1866-1952
• Ogni traduzione, infatti, o sminuisce e guasta, ovvero crea una
nuova espressione, rimettendo la prima nel crogiuolo e
mescolandola con le impressioni personali di colui che si
chiama traduttore. Nel primo caso l'espressione resta sempre
una, quella dell'originale, essendo l'altra più o meno
deficiente, cioè non propriamente espressione: nell'altro,
saranno, si, due, ma di due contenuti diversi. Brutte fedeli o
belle infedeli…
– [The Aesthetic as the science of expression and of the linguistic in
general, 1903]
What is literary translation?
• ‘The translation of texts which are regarded as
literary in the source culture’.
• ‘The translation of a text—in principle, any
text, of any type whatsoever –in such a way
that the product is acceptable as a literary text
in the recipient culture’
– Gideon Toury, Descriptive Translation Studies—
and beyond, 199.
Literature, cultural institution
• ‘The essential difference between the two
senses of ‘literary translation’ stems from the
fact that literature does not boil down to a
body of texts, much less so a repertoire of
features which allegedly have something
inherently ‘literary’ about them which should
therefore be realizable by any literature.
Rather, literature is first and foremost a kind of
cultural institution’.
– Toury, 201.
Three types of translation (Toury)
• Linguistically-motivated translation
– Well-formed in terms of syntax, grammar, lexicon
– No conformity to any target model of text
formation
• Textually-dominated mode of translation
– Well-formed in terms of syntax, grammar, lexicon
– conformity to text formation, but not to literary
models
• Literary translation
Acceptability
• ‘it is not acceptance (or reception) which is
the key notion, but acceptability’
– Toury, 203.
All writing is translation
• No texts are original
• Learning to speak means translating meanings
into words (Chesterman, 9)
• We translate every day in speech
• When we read an author, we translate him in
our own minds (e.g., Dante, Shakespeare)