The art of translation

1. AntarAbdellah The art of translation

2. Introduction • This chapter will explore what perspectives the translation of literary texts from and into English can offer on creativity, and examine 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. • The 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.

3. 1 Translating words, translating 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. • Indeed, literary texts have always been translated into other literary texts, often by authors and poets. • 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 : fidelityand equivalence. • Fidelity is a value judgment ; it has to do with being ‘faithful’ to the original text. Equivalence means similarity in meaning or function between language choices. • Unlike fidelity, equivalence does not involve a value judgment. However, both fidelity and equivalence are problematic notions.

4. No equivalence • 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. 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: • Big / large … brothers /brethren أفنلزمكموها • “should we compel you to accept it?”

5. Translating art • 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. • 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( • Yet in some cases, translations can come to be valued as more aesthetically pleasing than the originals. • Being a respected translator himself, the English poet John Dryden (1631—1700) drew up a set of ‘rules’ or guidelines for the translator of poetry. In his view, a good translator should:

6. Guidelines 4 trans poetry

7. Example

8. A good translator • 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.

9. 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. • 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.

10. Example 2

11. Example 3

12. Being faithful to syntax [Reading A] • Burton Raffel criticizes translators who too often approach prose translation as word-by-word’ translation . • 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 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? • شربت الماء

13. 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 speaker’s or writer’s feelings or attitude, or the meanings attached to a term by speakers of a language. • Thus, if we compare the difference between don’t complain and don’t whinewe can say that their denotational meaning is the same while their connotational meaning is not. • Poets usually use lexical equivalences that reflect the historical period they lived in. • 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 fameuxand the English famous, which both mean more or less ‘well known’. In English, however, famous is connotatively neutral whilst the French fameuxis derogatory, ‘une femme fameuse’ meaning roughly ‘a woman of ill repute’. [False friends]

14. Example She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word.Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and furySignifying nothing., se'n nights nine times nine • غدا ثم غد وبعده غد أخر • في الغد وبعد الغد ثم يتلوه غد جديد • غد يمر وفي أثاره أبدا غد تمر به للدهر خطوات ان مضت تسعون اسبوعا تباعا دون تسعة

15. 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. • Mona Baker (1992) considers a number of linguistic features, and explores the role that culture plays in the way we create and communicate meaning. • 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:

16. Baker’s aspects

19. Faithfulness or creativity • 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 Bassnett (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 intertextualdimension of texts, i.e. the way that the text draws explicitly or implicitly on other texts and textual traditions.

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

21. Extract taken from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert Human Machine 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 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.

22. MT • Machine translation (MT) is a process whereby a computer program analyzes a source text and produces a target text without human intervention. • 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. • A machine is unable to make creative choices.

23. Evaluating Machine Translation • 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 be 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].

24. 4 Ideology & 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 domesticationof 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. • Foreignizationis 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 inorder to understand the text. • Tymoczko(1999 p. 29) summarizes the dilemmas involved in domestication and foreignization of literature:

25. Faithfulness to what? • [...] 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 alternative- suppressing the distinctive qualities of the writer’s culture and language- compromises the writer’s 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’.

26. Therefore, any translator has to consider his or her audience when preparing to translate a literary . • 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 • “The translator’s dilemma: implicatures and the role of the translator”

27. 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. • Senguptaargues that Tagore’s 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.

28. Example of Tagore Antar Tagore Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into Fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into The dreary desert sands of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action, Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake. Rabindranth Tagore • هنالك حيث تعــــــــــــــــــيش العقولٌبعيدا عن الخوف لا تٌزدجرْ • وحيث تكون الرؤوس شوامخ وحيث يضيء الجميعَ القمرْ • وحيث تكون المـــعارف حرةْ بلا قيد يحجر حُر الفِكرْ • وحيث تكون الأراضي شعوبا بلا حد يفصل بين البـــــــــشرْ • وحيث يكون الكــــــــلام بيانا يصيــــــــــغ به الحقٌ أحلى أثرْ • وحيث يكون الجـــــدال مفيدابلا قيد يفسد حلو العِبرْ • و حيث ترفرف أفاقنـــــــــــــــــــــا على هدي منك، إلهَ البشرْ • هنالك هـــــــــــــــــــــــبْ يا إلهَ السماء لقومي يــــــــقظةْ بلوح القدرْ شعر ربندرانت طاغور .. ترجمة عنترصلحي عبد اللاه

29. 5 Recreating literature through participation • The creative audience? [Reading D] • AniaLoomba [I997],describes the translation, production and performance of Shakespeare’s plays in India through the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. • The Bombay Theatre, established in I849, produced English-language plays. Then came the ‘Hindu Dramatic Corps’ whose aim was to perform plays in Indian languages. • Loomba describes these theatres as embodying ‘colonial negotiations, theatrical transformations and cross-cultural adaptations at their most complex and hilarious’.

30. Loomba says little about textual changes, aside from mentioning titles of several plays: Othello was translated as Lionheart in Urdu, The Winter’s 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, Shakespeare’s tragedies have happy endings. • Loombadoes 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. • Tymoczko(1999) argues that domestication is acceptable when the audience or ‘translators’ are appropriating a dominant poetics, rather than the other way round.

31. 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 • 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.