Translating the Folk. PUB DATE 2000-00-00 NOTE 7P.; for Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 2000, See FL 026 722

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AUTHOR Fletcher, Bryan TITLE Translating the Folk. PUB DATE 2000-00-00 NOTE 7p.; For Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics, 2000, see FL 026 722. AVAILABLE FROM EWPAL Subscriptions, IALS, 21 Hill Place, Edinburgh EH8 9DP Scotland UK (7.50 Scottish pounds). PUB TYPE Journal Articles (080)-- Reports Evaluative (142) JOURNAL CIT Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics; n10 p32-36 2000. EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Applied Linguistics; *Nonstandard Dialects; *Poetry; Scots Gaelic; Standard Spoken Usage; *Translation; Uncommonly Taught Languages; *Written Language

ABSTRACT This article looks at issues affecting Robert Garioch's translation into Scots of a sonnet from Giuseppe Gioachino Belli's Romaneschi collection. It begins with the discussion of a problem involved in writing in dialects with no settled written standard. This 'standardizing' poetry is then looked at in terms of translation and theories of the "impossibility" of translation. It is argued that the problems facing the translator/poet are much the same as those the dialect writer encounters in writing the original. A brief comparison is made at the level of lexical equivalence between the two texts in order to illustrate some of these issues. It is concluded that claiming there is divergence in meaning between the two texts is dependent on the assumption that there is a determinancy of meaning in both of the languages concerned, an assumption that is ultimately subjective. (Contains 12 references.) (Author/KFT)

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1 Bryan Fletcher (TAAL)

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Bryan Fletcher (TAAL)

Abstract from affecting Robert Garioch'stranslation into Scots of a sonnet This paper looks at issues of the problems involvedin writing in Belli's romaneschi collection.It begins with a discussion standard. This 'standardising' poetryis then looked at in terms dialects with no settled written translation. It is argued thatthe problems of translation and theoriesof the 'impossibility' of much the same as thosewhich the dialect writer comes up facing the translator/poet are made at the level oflexical equivalence against in writing theoriginal. A brief comparison is between the two texts in order toillustrate some of these issues.

Er Caffettiere Fisolofo L'ommini de sto Monno soll'istesso che vvaghi de caffe nnermascinino: c'uno prima, uno doppo, e unantro appresso, tutti cuanti pera vvanno a undistino. Spesso muteno sito, e ccaccia spesso er vago grosso er vagopiccinino, e ss'incarzenotutti in zu l'ingresso der ferro che li sfraggne inporverino. E ll'ornmini acussi vviveno arMonno misticati pe mmano de la sorte che sse li gira tutti in tonnoin tonno; e mmovennose oggnuno,o ppiano, offorte, scnza capillo maicalcno a ffono pe ecasca ne lagola de la Morte. (Giuscppc Gioachino Belli:from Sonetti 1833/1978)

The Philosopher CaféProprietor Men in this wand, whanaa's said and duin are juist likecoffee beans in a machine: first yin, anither, and acmair, they rin til the same destiny, that's easy seen. They keep aye checngin places, abig yin shothers its wey afore asmaller bean: they croud the entrance,fechtan their way in syne the mill grindsthem doun and throu the screen. Sae in this wand ilka man maunboun Intill fate's neive, thair tobe passed and passed frac haun till haun and birlit rounand roun; and as thae folk, aye muvanslaw or fast, maun gang, unkennan,til the boddum doun, and faa intill daith'sthrapple at the last. (Robert Garioch 1975)

number 10 (2000) ISSN 0959-2253 EDINBURGH WORKING PAPERS INAPPLIED LINGUISTICS, 124) 1. Transcribing/translating the plebs poetica della it poeta dialettale tende a realizzareartificialmente questa intensificazione pseudo lingua nei parlanti in rapporto non puramentestrumentale, e trasferisce dentro glischemi letterari interi pezzi di quella realta dilessico, di gergo, come per unadocumentazione. (Pasolini, 1952)

Garioch's translations of Belli's sonnets are anexample of Schleiermacher's notionof bringing the then it author to the reader. Indeed, if we considerBelli's work in the light of Pasolini's comments, nineteenth century to the reader may be possible to speak ofbringing the people of Rome of the early of modern Scots poetry. Belli in hisintroduction to his sonnets comments:

Nel mio lavoro io non prcscnto la scritturade' popolani. Questa for manca;... Lascrittura valgo ad mia, e con essa tento d'imitare la loroparola. Pack) del valore de' segni cogniti io mi esprimere incogniti suoni. (Belli, 1978: 9-10)

How seriously can we take such aclaim to represent a people? The poetoffers himself as translator operazione di between the illiterate masses and culturedreaders: "tramite una complessa ed intricata dal popolano supplenza culturale e tecnica, di vigile esorvegliato mimetismo, di continua traduzione linguaggi della cultura e della poesia..." (Merolla:1995: 190). al colto e, quindi, di ri-traduzione dai collection of Not only does Belli suggest that he willimitate the word of the people, but also, in one "cavare una regola dal caso e sonnets, he intends to create awritten standard for the Roman dialect: una grammatica dall'uso, eccoit mio scopo." (Belli: 1978, 6). illusory, however. The We needn't necessarily accept thatthe mimetic ideal is anything other than do with literary manifesto set out in Belli's introduction maybe a mask of sorts for an agenda more to experimentation than folkloric documentation. the issue of translation for a numberof reasons. For Belli These are complicating questions for psyche of the language represents a "magic key" (Joseph1996) into the traditions, even into the Steiner Romans. Belli in considering his poetry this waybelongs to an illustrious line of thought. As pivot of man and the points out, in this tradition there is a notionthat "language (is) the defining determinant of his place in reality... But so far aseach human tongue differs from everyother, the resulting shape of the world is subtly or drasticallyaltered." (1975: 81-82) In the poems, theBelli that share no original and Garioch's translation, the languageused is at the core of distant cultures more than a superficialhistorical resemblance. Is translation possible betweenthe two? The politico-linguistic debate around Scotshas its own manifesto and similar claimsthat there are things that can be can be worded only in the GuidScots tongue: E'en herts that ha'e nae Scots'll dirl richt thro' As nocht else couldfor here's a language rings Wi' datchie sesames, and names for namelessthings.

(MacDairmid:`Gairmscoile') be expressed in the In Belli the work represents the "genius"of the people of Rome, which can only Roman tongue. Relativism in a very similarguise has been and is being used as therallying cry to put general. Just as Scots back into writing and to re-animatethe language across Scottish culture in justify Joyce, with his linguistic inventions, 'captured'the soul of the Irish nation, so Scottish writers atavistic dictionary dredging in the attempt toresuscitate a moribund literary tradition. But can a language so closely bound to the 'genius' of anation be used to translate other literatures, other cultures?

There is indeed a paradox in translating Belliand perhaps also in translating into Scots. It is, however, the paradox of translation in general. InSchleiermacher's terms Garioch's task is animpossibleone in that he attempts to make a nineteenth centuryRoman poet sound like a modern speaker of Scots. The task is made to seem even moreunlikely by the fact that both writers aresimultaneously engaged in the standardisation of the language or dialectin which they are writing. Belli has the normative role of committing a particular sociolect of Romanspeech to writing and transforming itinto art. Garioch is taking part in the recreation of a newScots tongue while also "deciding tointerpret someone in one judgements." (Putnam, 1988: 14) way rather than another[which] is intimately tic 3 to normative Translation as part of the emerging traditionthat is attempting to put Scots back onto the literary agenda has a number of functions. ForMacDairmid, `free adaptations' of AlexanderBlok woven into the text of A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle are astatement of modernist credentials. For Garioch, on the other hand,translating Belli is perhaps an attempt to escapethe fact that "the language that enables us to communicate with one anotheralso encloses us in an invisible webof sounds and meanings, so that each nation is imprisoned byits language." (Paz, in Schulte, 1992: 154) Or, in more positive terms, translation widens the net ofScots: "The bringing forth of language is an inner necessity of mankind ...[Each speechform] is a foray into the totalpotentiality of the world." (Steiner, 1975: 83, quoting Humbolt)

2. Vulgar Insularity

For Garioch translation provides reproofagainst the accusation of insularitysometimes levelled at writers of modern Scots. Both Belli and Garioch areurban writers, they give poetic form to a style of language dubbed in recent times by Halliday asanti-language. An anti-language is the extreme form of a social dialect and as such the antithesisof a standard language:"A social dialect is the embodiment of a mildly but distinctly differentworld view." (1978: 179) The translation of the world-view of the plebeo Romano, or Napoletano, orMilanese into literary form was not until recently accepted as 'literature' in Italy and assuch was possibly only accepted as ananti-language of anthropological interest. As Merolla points out"La riscoperta dei grandi valori poetici dei Sonetti romaneschi a stata piuttosto tardiva e difatto put, farsirisalire solo agli armi Cinquanta e Sessanta.."(1995: 188) For Garioch then, Bellimight represent a kind of father figure in the International of urban dialect writing.

Are such affinities not an illusion, a spinoff from the rhetoric of international socialism?Can a reader of Scots empathise with the Roman caféproprietor of 1833? The assumption inGarioch's work is that Belli's `meaning' is not only interpretable for aScot but also that that interpretation can be translated into modern Scots. Implicit in such anassumption is the presupposition that"linguistic utterances different utterances point to something beyond themselves,which can also be pointed to (in) wholly in ànother language. (Joseph: 1999) How can wejustify such assumptions? There is no question of Garioch deconstructing the Belli sonnets back to anèssential' meaning and then working outwards into Scots. If it were possible to posit such anèssential' meaning we would be forced to question whether Belli 's mentalese should be characterised as asemantic primitive based on standard Italian, and then question how many layers oftranslation precede the process of writingin Romanescho.

For Garioch what makes translation possibleand desirable is the ideal notion that,although meaning is not independent of culture as in the Platonicmodel, the schema or context ofsituation described in Belli can fit into the world knowledge ofmodern Scots readers. There is an urban'reality' that crosses national and linguisticborders. In Hogan's words, this type of stancecounters the idea of linguistic relativism: "if there are striking differencesbetween people's idiolects within languages or cultures and striking similarities across languagesand cultures if all this is the case, then there is and can be no special problem of intercultural orhistorical interpretation." (1996: 27) Such a set of `shared' notions makes the writing of Belli, evenconsidering distance over time and location,

34 relevant to Garioch and therefore, he must haveassumed, to his readers. As Bonnefoy states "Atits most intense, reading is empathy, sharedexistence."(in Schulte, 1992: 188)

3. The two poems

Up to a point, each translation is a creationand thus constitutes a unique text (Paz, in Schulte,1992: 154 )

Stylistically Garioch sticks very close tothe original. The development of the copularmetaphor that is central to Er Caffettiere Fisolofois handled using the same progression ofthe elements of the coffee-grinder schema. The rhyme scheme, whichsplits the sonnet into two partsdevelopment and is replicated. Garioch does not depart atall from Belli's structural organisation. It is conclusion in each is difficult to make a metrical comparisonbetween the two poems as the underlying rhythm timed. It is based on dissimilar principles: theRomano is syllable timed while the Scots is stress noticeable, however, that in both cases the'natural' rhythm of speech and a simple progressionof syntax preclude any obvious emotive orrhetorical metrical effect. result of In terms of lexis it is probablyparadoxical to speak of how the texts diverge in meaning as a Nonetheless, there are areas where the text of thetranslation strays outside any item of vocabulary. and this is to the bounds set by Nabakov in hisinjunction: "[the translator] has one duty to perform, reproduce with absolute exactitude the whole text,and nothing but the text." (in Schulte, 1992:132) wilful Garioch's verb phrase maun boun (must make(their) way) implies either outside imposition or implication and is in surrender into the hands of fate, whileBelli's vviveno ar Monno carries no such fact relatively empty in semantic terms.

Of course, lexical equivalence is anillusion in all parts of the translation. Takethe translation of Belli's word: vvaghi. In Italian editionsof Belli the noun is glossed in Italian as theplural of chicco. The Italian word has a much wider applicationthan bean, the word which Garioch usesin translation. associations. This It can also correspond to grain or seedand as such is likely to trigger a wider set of is central to the idea that the translationof poetry is impossible: the type of lexical 'impoverishment' mind in polysemy of poetry cannot be reproduced evenin texts written in the same 'language', never conceptualising differences between a foreign tongue. Translationis impossible not only because of cultures, but also because of the essentialidiosyncrasy of every unique utterance. Notranslator, ideal however, sets out to recreate the same utterance,the same words, the same context and the same addressee, just as conversationalists tend not torely on memorised stretches of speech.

4. Concluding Remarks

Claiming that there is a divergence of meaningbetween the two texts is dependent on theassumption points out "the that there is determinacy of meaning inboth of the languages concerned. As Joseph two meanings of words arc so weakly determinedby the language that we can never expect any of the speakers to conceive of them in the same way."(1998: 93) We can see this in the translation following phrase (linc B represents a word-for-wordgloss in English):

A) ss'incarzeno tutti in zu 11' ingrcsso (Belli, 7)

B) (they) press (themselves) in on the entrance

C) they croud the entrance, fechtan their wayin (Garioch, 7)

35 6 certainly concurs with the pessimistictheme of Belli's poem, but his Garioch's reading of this section interpreter. Of course, this role fechtan is an interpreted addition.Garioch here is visible in his role as But, at various points in thistranslation, Garioch seems tosurrender must precede that of translator. probably made in an attempt tofollow the translator's cloak of anonymity.The lexical choices are of the visual metaphor for theconcluding section. Garioch Belli in increasing the expressive power translator as a result of thedesire to the creator sticks his head outfrom his objective position as retain holistic meaning. writing to circle. Critics have claimed thatBelli used the mask of dialect In a sense this brings us full accomplished The speakers of his Sonetti arethe ordinary folk; thus Belli present controversial views. incur. from the probable repercussionshis radical views were likely to the trick of distancing himself translating a writer involvedin a Garioch also achieves the trick ofinternationalising Scots through language. But in terms of re-creatingBelli his translations are a similar 'struggle' against a dominant Belli's boast of illusion is at the heart not onlyof the translation, but also set of illusions. Such writing process of these two poemsis that mimetic representation. Perhapsthe only difference in the Belli began with an empty page.

References

Mondadori Editore. (Originalpubl. Belli, G. C. 1978. Sonetti. ed. P.Gibellini. Milano: Arnoldo 1833). H. Willis. Loanhead,Midlothian: Garioch, R. 1983. Collected PoeticalWorks. ed. G. Sutherland and Macdonald Publishers. Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. 1978. Language as aSocial Semiotic. London: Psychoanalysis and Literature. Hogan, P. C. 1996. On Interpretation:Meaning and Inference in Law, Athens and London: Universityof Georgia Press. `Sapir-Whorf hypothesis' ".Historiographia Joseph, J. E. 1996. "Theimmediate sources of the Linguistica. 23, 365-404. Impossible?" In Hunston, S. (ed.)Language At Work: Joseph, J. E.1998. "Why Isn't Translation Meeting of the British Associationfor Applied Linguistics Selected Papers from the Annual British Association for held at the University ofBirmingham, September 1997.Clevedon: Applied Linguistics in associationwith Multilingual Matters:86-97.

Joseph, J.E. 1999. UnpublishedLecture Notes. Gioachino Belli" in G. GirardelloLetteratura Merolla, R. 1995."1 sonetti romaneschi di Giuseppe italiana: Le Opere, Volume terzo.Torino: Giulio Einaudi editore. del Novecento. Parma: Garzanti. Pasolini, P.P. and M. dell'Arco(eds.) 1952. Poesia dialettale MA: MIT Press. Pumam, H. 1988. Representationand Reality. Cambridge, Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Schulte, R. and J. Biguenet. 1992.Theories of Translation: An Derrida. Chicago and London: Universityof Chicago Press. Oxford University Steiner, G. 1975.After Babel.. Aspects of Languageand Translation. London: Press.

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