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Week 4

The document discusses concepts of loss and gain in translation, providing examples from translating between English and the Guaica language. It also discusses untranslatability and examples like certain Turkish words. The document considers whether translation is a science or secondary activity and argues that translation theory aims to understand translation processes rather than prescribe norms.

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19 views

Week 4

The document discusses concepts of loss and gain in translation, providing examples from translating between English and the Guaica language. It also discusses untranslatability and examples like certain Turkish words. The document considers whether translation is a science or secondary activity and argues that translation theory aims to understand translation processes rather than prescribe norms.

Uploaded by

detektifconny
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IMT201

INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION
STUDIES I
Week 4
Asst.Prof.Dr. Burcu TÜRKMEN
What and how we loss/gain
during the translation process?
LOSS AND GAIN

 Once the principle is accepted that sameness cannot exist between


two languages, it becomes possible to approach the question of loss
and gain in the translation process.

 Eugene Nida is a rich source of information about the problems of loss


in translation, in particular about the difficulties encountered by the
translator when faced with terms or concepts in the SL that do not
exist in the TL.
 Nida cites the case of Guaica, a language of southern Venezuela, where there
is little trouble in finding satisfactory terms for the English murder, stealing,
lying, etc., but where the terms for good, bad, ugly and beautiful cover a
very different area of meaning. As an example, he points out that Guaica does
not follow a dichotomous classification of good and bad, but a trichotomous
one as follows:
 (1) Good includes desirable food, killing enemies, chewing dope in moderation,
putting fire to one’s wife to teach her to obey, and stealing from anyone not
belonging to the same band.

 (2) Bad includes rotten fruit, any object with a blemish, murdering a person of the
same band, stealing from a member of the extended family and lying to anyone.

 (3) Violating taboo includes incest, being too close to one’s mother-in- law, a
married woman’s eating tapir before the birth of the first child, and a child’s eating
rodents.
 Bible translators have documented the additional difficulties involved
in, for example, the concept of the Trinity or the social significance
of the parables in certain cultures. In addition to the lexical
problems, there are of course languages that do not have tense
systems or concepts of time that in any way correspond to Indo-
European systems.
Can you give examples for untranslatability?
(words in Turkish)
UNTRANSLATABILITY

 When such difficulties are encountered by the translator, the whole issue of the
translatability of the text is raised. Catford distinguishes two types of
untranslatability, which he terms linguistic and cultural. On the linguistic level,
untranslatability occurs when there is no lexical or syntactical substitute in the TL
for an SL item

 Catford’s category of linguistic untranslatability, which is also proposed by Popovicˇ,


is straightforward, but his second category is more problematic. Linguistic
untranslatability, he argues, is due to differences in the SL and the TL, whereas
cultural untranslatability is due to the absence in the TL culture of a relevant
situational feature for the SL text.
 He quotes the example of the different concepts of the term bathroom in an
English, Finnish or Japanese context, where both the object and the use
made of that object are not at all alike.

 But Catford also claims that more abstract lexical items such as the English
term home or democracy cannot be described as untranslatable, and argues
that the English phrases I’m going home, or He’s at home can ‘readily be
provided with translation equivalents in most languages’ whilst the term
democracy is international.
 With the translation of democracy, further complexities arise. Catford feels
that the term is largely present in the lexis of many languages and, although
it may be relatable to different political situations, the context will guide the
reader to select the appropriate situational features.

 The problem here is that the reader will have a concept of the term based on
his or her own cultural context, and will apply that particularized view
accordingly.
 Hence the difference between the adjective democratic as it appears in the
following three phrases is fundamental to three totally different political
concepts:

 the American Democratic Party


the German Democratic Republic
the democratic wing of the British Conservative Party.
 Popovic defined untranslatability in 2 forms as:
1. A situation in which the linguistic elements of the original cannot be
replaced adequately in structural, linear, functional or semantic terms in
consequence of a lack of denotation or connotation.

2. A situation where the relation of expressing the meaning, i.e. the relation
between the creative subject and its linguistic expression in the original
does not find an adequate linguistic expression in the translation.
 Mounin believes that linguistics demonstrates that translation is a dialectic
process that can be accomplished with relative success:

 Translation may always start with the clearest situations, the most concrete
messages, the most elementary universals.

 But as it involves the consideration of a language in its entirety, together with


its most subjective messages, through an examination of common situations
and a multiplication of contacts that need clarifying, then there is no doubt
that communication through translation can never be completely finished,
which also demonstrates that it is never wholly impossible either.
 Levý stresses the intuitive element in translating:

 As in all semiotic processes, translation has its Pragmatic dimension as well.


Translation theory tends to be normative, to instruct translators on the
OPTIMAL solution; actual translation work, however, is pragmatic; the
translator resolves for that one of the possible solutions which promises a
maximum of effect with a minimum of effort. That is to say, he intuitively
resolves for the so-called MI.
 How we describe visibility?
 Is it only about the author or translator?
 How could it be possible to be visible during
translation process?
VISIBILITY

 One of the most important keywords in Translation Studies that emerged in


the 1990s is ‘visibility’.

 In 1995 Lawrence Venuti’s history of translation, The Translator’s Invisibility,


appeared, in which he argues that in contemporary Anglo-American culture
there is such minimal recognition of the importance of translation that
translators and their works are effectively rendered invisible.
 Translated texts are judged acceptable provided traces of their foreign origin
are removed and the ideal translation should read as fluently as possible, to
create an illusion of transparency.

 Venuti suggests that this practice not only devalues the work of translators,
but derives from a position of anglocentric complacency which he sees as
xenophobic at home and imperialistic abroad.
 To support his case, Venuti produced figures for world translation
publications, showing how little was translated into English, compared to
what was translated out of English.

 He also argues that translators have colluded with this state of affairs,
choosing to render themselves invisible, and calls for both readers and
translators to reflect on what he terms ‘the ethnocentric violence of
translation’, urging them to endeavour to highlight the fact that translations
derive from works produced in other cultural contexts.
What do you think about TRANSLATION? Is it a science or
secondary activity? How? Explain.
SCIENCE OR ‘SECONDARY ACTIVITY’?

 The purpose of translation theory, then, 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.
 The pragmatic dimension of translation cannot be categorized, any more than
the ‘inspiration’ of a text can be defined and prescribed.

 Once this point is accepted, two issues that continue to bedevil Translation
Studies can be satisfactorily resolved; the problem of whether there can be ‘a
science of translation’ and whether translating is a ‘secondary activity’.
 The case for Translation Studies and for translation itself is summed
up by Octavio Paz in his short work on translation.

 All texts, he claims, being part of a literary system descended from


and related to other systems, are ‘translations of translation of
translations’:

 Every text is unique and, at the same time, it is the translation of


another text.
 No text is entirely original because language itself, in its essence, is already a
translation: firstly, of the non-verbal world and secondly, since every sign and
every phrase is the translation of another sign and another phrase.

 However, this argument can be turned around without losing any of its
validity: all texts are original because every translation is distinctive.

 Every translation, up to a certain point, is an invention and as such it


constitutes a unique text.
Thanks for your participation =)

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