THEORIES OF LITERARY TRANSLATION



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|THEORIES OF LITERARY TRANSLATION  |

|Translation And The Trials Of The Foreign |

|The Manifestation of Translation |

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|Bilge METIN TEKIN - 148297405 |

|26.11.2015 |

By Bilge METIN TEKIN - 148297405

Antoine BERMAN

Translation And The Trials Of The Foreign

The Manifestation of Translation

1- Author Information

Antoine Berman (1942 – 1991) ) was a French translator, philosopher, historian and theorist of translation. Berman was active in philosophical and literary circles, nevertheless he has been influential in translatology, especially in translation criticism. He claimed that there may be many different methods for translation criticism as there are many translation theories; therefore he entitled a model of his own as an analytical path, which can be modulated according to the specific objectives of each analyst and adapted to all standardized text types. ().

He was also a well-known theorist of translation whose name is to be linked with such concepts as foreignization, ethics of translation and literal (but not word-for-word) translation. He contributed to the TS as a fierce defender of the foreign in translation and influenced other scholars like Lawrence Venuti who translated his famous essay “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign” (1985). (Lawrence Venuti, an American translation theorist, has used Berman's concepts to write a genealogy of translation in an Anglo-American context to introduce the "foreignizing" strategy that is normatively suppressed in mainstream translation.)

2- Translation And The Trials Of The Foreign

The article begins with the introduction of the notion of translation as the trial of the foreign

in the context of literary translations.

1- a trial for the target culture in experiencing the strangeness of the foreign text and word;

2- a trial for the foreign text in being uprooted from its original language context. (Munday, J. 2008, 147).

According to him, translation is both the ‘trial of the foreign’ and ‘the trial for the foreign’, since it is both ‘aiming to open up the foreign work to us in its utter foreignness’ and uprooting the foreign work ‘from its own language-ground’, in a way forcing it to exile (Berman, 1985:284). Berman deplores the general tendency to negate the foreign in translation by the translation strategy of "naturalization", which would equate with Venuti's later " domestication". "The properly ethical aim of the translating act", says Berman (p.277), is "receiving the foreign as foreign", which would seem to have influenced Venutı's "foreignizing" translation strategy.

Then, the author examines the system of textual deformation. He considers that there is generally a "system of textual deformation" in TTs that prevents the foreign coming through. His examination of the forms of deformation is called "negative analytic":

The negative analytic is primarily concerned with ethnocentric, annexationist translations and hypertextual translations (Pastiche, imitation, adaptation, free writing), where the play of deforming forces is freely exercised. (Berman, 1985b/2004; 278).

The reasons why the translator is never free of deforming forces: the ethnocentric structure of every culture and language as well as long tradition of such an approach has made them inherent to every translation.

Next, the twelve deforming forces or tendencies are analysed in separate subchapters and illustrated with examples taken from translations of great novels. These tendencies are:

(1) Rationalization: This mainly affects syntactic structures including punctuation and sentence structure and order. Berman also refers to the abstractness of rationalization, the translation of verbs by noun forms and the tendency to generalization.

(2) Clarification: This includes explicitation, which "aims to render 'clear' what does not wish to be clear in the original".

(3) Expansion: Every translation tends to be longer than the original. In a sense translation is inflationist. Berman asserts that the addition adds nothing. Explication may render the text more clear but actually obscure its own mode of clarity. (Berman, 1985:290).

(4) Ennoblement and popularization: It may mean producing elegant sentences in translation. It risks rewriting the text at the expense of the original. It is seen in both literary field and human sciences. Berman says that the translator are in attempt to popularize the original with slangs, which results in a degenerate text.

(5) Qualitative impoverishment: This term refers to the replacement of terms, expression or figures in the original with the terms that lack their richness.

(6) Quantitative impoverishment: This expression refers to a lexical loss. There is a loss since the translation contains fewer signifiers than the original text. The translator tries to compensate for the lexical loss by expanding the text. It results in a text which is poorer and longer.

(7) The destruction of rhythms: Berman claims that prose is luckier than poetry because translator cannot destroy the rhythmic structure of the novel. However, when it comes to poetry and theatre, they are susceptible to the deforming forces of translation. The translator may deform the translation through an arbitrary revision of the punctuation.

(8) The destruction of underlying networks of signification: According to Berman every literary work has a subtext which includes and underlying and hidden text. The words chosen in the original conveys the hidden meaning. The words may form a network. If such Networks are not transmitted, a signifying process in the text is demolished.

(9) The destruction of linguistic patternings: The translator may instill his style into translation. This may result in the fact that the text is more homogenous than the original. Thus a text may seem homogenous and incoherent at the same time.

(10) The destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization: Berman here asserts that translation can occur only cultivated languages. Unfortunately a vernacular clings tightly to its soil and completely resists any direct translating into another vernacular. (Berman, 1985:294)

(11) The destruction of expressions and idioms: Berman considers the replacing of an idiom or proverb by its TL "equivalent" to be an "ethnocentrism": "to play with 'equivalence' is to attack the discourse of the foreign work", he says (p.287). So, an English expression from Conrad containing the name of the well-known insane asylum Bedlam, should not be translated by "Charenton", a French insane asylum, since this would result in a TT that produces a network of French cultural references.

(12) The effacement of the superimposition of languages: The superimposition of language means the relation between dialect and a common language. He believes that translation threatens the superimposition of languages. The relation of tension and integration that exists in the original between dialect and common language may be effaced by translation.

Having described the deforming forces, the author presents the gist of the article: the essence of the translating is not only the restitution of meaning but also labour on the form of the translated text. This, in turn, produces more faithful translation preserving the sense, signification and connotations that enable full understanding of the work. Berman pinpoints that the deforming tendencies are historic and inherent in translation. Historically the translators have tried to restitute the meaning. They have been in an attempt to produce ‘clear’ and elegant text even if the original doesn’t possess the qualities. He offers another figure of translation. He coins it ‘literal’ which means attached to the letter. (Berman, 1985:297). He claims that labor on the letter in translation restores the particular signifying process of works(which is more than their meaning) and, on the other hand, transforms the translating language.

The author presents his views in a logical, structured and convincing way, pointing out the causes and results of what he calls textual deformation. His observations seem to be accurate and quite interesting. I agree that foreignization is the best strategy in the translation of great classic prose and that the tendencies towards domestication may oversimplify its meaning and

destroy the charm of the foreignness. Nevertheless, I am not convinced whether foreignization

should be applied in the translation of each type of literature. In the case of lighter reading for

less sophisticated readers, a certain level of naturalization or even domestication seems to be justified. It should be added that Berman’s theory cannot be applied beyond the translation of

literature. Still, Berman draws our attention to a very important problem and his analysis may contribute to the rise of quality of literary translation.

Translation is the “trial of the foreign.”

All translation is, and must be, the restitution of meaning

***Examine the text and its Turkish Translation in the light of deforming tendencies in translation.

‘Think about something cheerful old man’’ he said

‘’ Every minute now you are closer to home. You sail lighter for the less of forty pounds.’’

The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway.

‘’ Biraz da güzel şeyler düşünsene, yaşlı adam’’ dedi.

‘’ Her an eve biraz daha yaklaşıyorsun. Hem yükün de yirmi kilo azaldı.’’

3. The Manifestation of Translation

In this article Berman questions and tries to find some answers to the questions he raises. According to him, the domain of translation has always been the site of contradiction. He asserts that translation is both intuitive and scientific. He underlines the fact that many translators have written on this subject. The article goes on with the definition of the "problems" of translation. There are three consequences. First, translation has remained an underground, hidden activity because it did not express itself independently. Second, translation as such has largely remained "unthought", because those who dealt with it tended to assimilate it to something else: (sub-) criticism, (sub-) literature,, "applied linguistics". Finally, the analyses produced almost exclusively by non-translators. This may causes many problems like blind spots and irrelevances in the works.

History of Translation; The construction of a history translation is the first task of a modern theory of translation which means not an infatuation with the past, but a movement of retrospection which is an infatuation with itself. So the great re-translations of our century are necessarily accompanied by a reflection on previous translations. In the past, European poets were often multilingual and they wrote in several languages for an audience which was itself polyglot. Today, self-translations are exceptions, as are the case where a writer chooses a language other than his own. We even think that multilingualism or diglossia make translation difficult. Mother tongue is very important.

Berman coins the situation of translation as ancillary condition. He touches on the translators today. He asserts that in the eyes of the public, translators are suspects as translators are between the lines of fidelity and treason. Berman here gives some insight into ethics of translation. "Translating, as Franz Rosenzweig wrote, "is to serve two masters"; this is the ancillary metaphor. The work, the author, the foreign language (first master) have to be served, as well as the public and one's own language (second master). Here emerges what may be called the drama of the translator.’’ (Berman, The experience of The Foreign). If the translator chooses the author, the work and the foreign language as exclusive masters, he runs the risk of appearing a traitor in the eyes of his kin. Berman claims that every culture resists translation. He compared a language that has not been translated to a virgin. Every work wants to be self-sufficient and resists being translated.

According to him, in order for translation to gain access to its own being, an ethics and an analytic are required. The ethics of translation consists of bringing out, affirming and defending the pure aim of translation. (Berman, The experience of The Foreign). It consists of defining what "fidelity" is. As we understood from his words, translation cannot be defined solely in terms of communication. Translation is writing and transmitting. However, the writing and transmitting are governed by some rules imposed by ethical aims of translation. Berman puts forth that in this sense translation is closer to science rather than art. The ethical aim of the translation is to free translation from its ideological masters. Berman disapproves ethnocentric translation and he calls this kind of translation as ‘bad translation’. The translator must force his own language to adorn itself with strangeness. Analytic translation; ethnocentric translation must be complemented by an analytic of translation. Cultural resistance produces a systematics of deformations. He presents himself as a writer, but is only a re-writer. He is an author, but never The Author. The translated work is a work, but is not The Work. This network of ambivalences tends to deform the pure aim of translations. So an analytic of translation should be added to the ethics of translations. The translator has to "subject himself to analysis," to localize the systems of deformation that threaten his practice and operate unconsciously on the level of his linguistic and literary choices -systems that depend on the registers of language, if ideology, of literature, and of the translator's mental make-up.

There will also be room to analyze the system of "gains" and "losses" manifested in all translations, even successful ones - what is called the "approximating" character of translation.

There are four axes which we can define a "modern" reflection on translation and translating. 1- History of Translation, 2- Ethics of Translation, 3- Analytic of Translation, 4- Translation and Transtextuality. This is a fruitful field of research for the theory of translation, provided it goes beyond the narrow framework of transtextuality, and is connected to research on languages and cultures in general - a multi-disciplinary field within which translators could collaborate fruitfully with writers, literary theorists, psychoanalyst, and linguists. According to Gérard Genette, transtextuality is "all that sets the text in relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts" and it "covers all aspects of a particular text"

4. References

Berman, A. 2000. “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign”, in: Lawrence Venuti (ed.), The

Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge. 284–297

Berman, A.1992. ‘The Manifestation of Translation’ in The Experience of the Foreign Translated by S. Heyvaert. Albany. State University of New York Press. 1-10

Munday, J. (2008). Introcuding Translation Studies. London and New York: Routledge. pg:146- 149.

Rıfat, M. (2012). Çeviri Seçkisi II - Çeviri(bilim) Nedir?. Sel Yayıncilik. İstanbul. pg:61-66.

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