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AUTHOR Farahzad, Farzaneh TITLE Plurality in Translation. PUB DATE 1999-00-00 NOTE 12p. PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Discourse Analysis; Interpretive Skills; Language Patterns; *Language Processing; Language Research; *Language Variation; *Linguistic Theory; *Semantics; *Translation
ABSTRACT This paper discusses factors contributing to differing translations of the same source text, arguing that translation occurs on a continuum rather than having absolute criteria and procedures. Issues examined include the formal properties of the text, the text's "invariant core of meaning," stability in the semantic elements of the text, the text as both product and process, sources of differing interpretations, socialization of the translator, and the varying translations' degrees of dependence on the source text. Contains 19 references. (MSE)
******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************************************** Plurality in Translation
Farzaneh Farahzad Allameh Tabatab a' i University
fe-krtyyt., eq-Al Any given source text induces numerous translations in any given target language. The cause for the plurality and diversity of these translations, no
matter whether they are recognized as inadequate, mediocre, Optimal,...etc., . is still an unresolved issue in translation studies; However, the existence, or the possibility of coming intO .existence, of several translations of a source text in a.. target language is an evidence of the fact-that translation, by nature, Possesses., among other things, the quality of being indeterministic, at least in certain respects. The issue of indeterminacy is best identifiable in the various dichotomies suggested by. translation scholars within the past few decades, for example Savbry's (1957) literal versus"free translation, Nida and. Taber's (1969) formal versus dynamic translation, Newmark's (1989) communicative versus semantic tranMation,Venuti's (1992) domesticated versus foreignized translation,...etc. The core of all these dichotOmies is that translation moves on a continuum rather than being absolute. . . . The. fact that translation moves on a continuum and therefore hardly yields itself to rigorous judgements adopted in empirical sciences, contradicts many
PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND EDUCATION U.S. DEPARTMENT OFand Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS Office of Educational Research BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has beenreproduced as received from the person ororganization originating it. 0 Minor changes have beenmade to improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Points of view or opinionsstated in this document do not necessarilyrepresent official OERI position or policy. 2 of the attempts made so far to come up with concretemd fixed criteria for judging the adequate translation fromthe inadequate. However, the adequate and the inadequate versions are allXranslations of a sinale-source text. What makes them pass astranslations, and what makes them distinct as different translations ?
Although not thoroughly explored in translationstudies, the above questions :have been tackled by very few translation scholars, amongwhom Popovic provides the most elaborate, yet disputable account.Under the influence of structuralism, and transformational "grammar in particular,Popovic (1976:6- 11) assigns the diversity of target .languageversions to formal properties of the text and justifies the possibility of severaktargetlanguage versions of a source text in terms of what hecalls "the invariant core of meaning" in the following way : In every translation there. is an 'invariant core'which is represented by stable, basic and constant semantic elements in the text.Their existence can be proved by an experimentalsemantic condensation.This core of standardizedmeanings makes areader's or translator's (or another )oncretization, i.e.
. transformations and variants, possible. These imply changes that do not modify the core of meaning but influence only the expressive form.
3 2 Popovic further claims that the invariant element of a translation is the relation between all the existing translations of the same original, in other words, what they have in common. Variants, as he defines it, is that part of a translation which is subject to substitution. This,he asserts, is the domain of transformations or"shiftsof expression",the domain of translation metacreation (see Van den Broeck 1978)..
Further, in discussing his four types of translation equivalence, Popovic describes'stylistic equivalence'asaninstancewhere " functional ;equivalence of elements in both original and translation aim at an identity With ari invariant of idthitical meaning".
Poovic's assumPtion is disputable in the following respects: a) Any change in what Popovic calls 'variants' or shifts of expression, affects coherence, which as a redder-motivated standard of texuality relates the elements of a text to each other, and thus affects and modifies the so-called 'invariant core of meaning'. Moreover, the so-called 'invariant' finds expression in the form of variants; therefore as the'form .of expression changes, the meaning changes as well. Such changes,. no matter how minor or,slightquestion the.possibility of assigning the quality of 'invariance' to any textual elements.
4
3 b) The assumption that the semantic elements in a text are stable and constant,has lead Popovic to seek 'aninvariant of identical
meaning' across languages. But identical meaning cannot be
.achieved and established across languages, unless a relation of symmetryholds between them, which is far from reality ( see Snell- Hornby (1988:16).
Popovic's assumption that the semantic elements in a text are stable and constant is a major tenet of the structuralist approaches to translation, including Nida's (1964, 1969), Catford's (1965), Larson's (1983) and many others'. The assumption bears three major implications: - that textis a finite product, -that meaning is stable and constant, and -that the semantic elements remain constant under translation.
All the implications are disputable and are denied in practice. Language in its essence is an interpretation of the phenomenal world. Thus any text revealsits writer's interpretation of the world or ofsome other verbal interpretation (see Fairclough 1989:80 ).
A text is both a product and a process at the same time. As a product, it
4 constitutes a point within the process of communication, where a given interpretation of either the phenomenal world of some other verbal interpretation (a priortext) is materialized in language and physically recorded. As a process, it is a communication between a writer and a. reader, an ongoing interaction in the form of what Bex (1996:53) calls a dialogue. As such,, a text is both dynamic and static at the same time. Texts are dynamic in that they initiate communication and extend to the reader, and at the same time create the conditions for their interpretation through their linguistic properties. They are static in that their -interpretation is controlled both, by their, linguistic properties and the situational and intertextual conditions under which they are to be interpreted. In Thaibault's (1991:13) words: 'Realization embodies the format copatterned lexico*- grammatical selections in textual production inthe
sense that these textual productions are.both the realization of something as the finished product and the process that enacts or realizes this product. (cited from Bcx 1996:55)
If a text is both a product and a process, at thesame time, then meaning becomes dynamic, starting with this product and extending beyond it. In other words,' meaning is not stable,nor constant. It starts with the text, 'bUt -does pot end there. Rather it extends to the reader and is partly assigned by
6 the roader, in the course of reading , and ascommunication proceeds. Thus meaning varies from one reader to another. In fact, eachtime a text is read, a novel iTiding of it is achieved and a new text thus emerges.
If there exist different readings of a text, it is becausethere exist different interpretations of it, which give rise to different targetlanguage versions. The plurality of the interpretations of a text, and theplurality of the .target versions thereof, results from the following: a) what each reader/translator brings with her to the text, orreads into the texi ; . . b) a basic quality inherent in any text, including the source text.The source tekt is not aself-contained, closed and solidified product with a singl.emeaning established or hidden in it. In the course of reading the source text;the reader/translator interprets the source text which is a writer'sinterpretation of the world, using the textual cues not only to make senSe of it, but at the same time to assign sense to it, and constructs the target text upon her personal interpretation of it. In this sense, translation is not a rewriting of the source text, .but as Derrida (1979:145) defines it, awriting in its own right: Translation is writing ; that is, it is not translation
. only in the sense of transcription. It is a productive
writing called forth by the original text. . -. (cited from: Chamberlain1992:70)
6 Every translation is therefore a unique creation, inspired by a unique interpretation., called forth by and derived from the source text. However, and paradoxically enough, each shares something with other target language versions of the same source text. There are two reasons for this. The first is that each unique interpretation is determined and controlled by the same social environment. In other words, translators as readers are not free to choose how to read and interpret the source text. As Fish (1980) argues: Since the thoughts an individual can think and the mental operations he -can perform have their source in some or other interpretiye community, he is muCha product of that community( acting as an eXtension of it) as the meanings it enables him to produce... Members of the sante community will necessarily agree because they will see ( and by seeing,.make )everythingin relationto that community's assumed purposes and goals... ( cited from: Taylor 1992:161)
The seCond reason is that linguistic signs are not totally indeterminate. A
Bex (1996:54) Puts .it: . Althoughthey[ linguistic signs ] may convey .different messages to different people indifferent
circumstances, thepossible rangeofthese . messages is constrained by a number of factors...
8
7 As Bex (ibid:55) further suggests, these factors irTlude "choosing one interpretation over another" and "reader's awareness of how other similar texts operate".
So all readers/translators socializing within the same interpretive eommunity interpret texts by the method which they acquire through the process of socializing (see Taylor 1992:163). And this is how each translation shares
.certain aspects with others, while at the same time contributing to the plurality of target language versions throUgh its uniqueness.
The plurality of target language versions contradicts the concept of 'the single correct translation', since following on from Birch (1989:25) : ....there is nothing inherently corrector right about anything ; there arelevels. ofappropriateness relative td particular ideas, theories and systems of classifying.
The different target language versions derived from a source text can be judged not in terms of equivalence, but in terms of degrees of dependence on the source text, as determined and controlled by particular norms0 and approaches to translation. Thus the targettexts which show greater dependence on the source text and at the same time meet the requirements of acceptability as.determined by the norms of the target language community .qualify as good/ad,-,quate translations.
9
8 Bibliography
Bassnett, S. 1980.Translation Studies. London, & N.Y.: New Accents,Routledge.
Bex, T. 1996. Varieties in Written English: Texts in Society and Societies in Texts. London & N.Y. : Rout ledge
Birch, D.1989. Language, Literature and Critical Practice. N.Y.: Rout ledge
Chamberlain, L.1992. Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation. In: ,Venuti,L. Rethinkthg Translatign. London & N.Y.: Routledge
Fairclough, N. 1989. Language and Power. Longman Group UK Ltd.
Fairclough, N. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis.Longman Group UK Ltd..
Farahzad, F. 1999. A Gestalt Approach to Manipulation in Translatio.n.
.Forthcoming In: Perspectives: Studies in Translatology,. University of Copenhagen Press
Hatim, B. and Ian Mason. 1997. The Translator as Communicator. London & N.Y. : Routledge.
Heimans, T. l.) 1985. The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary Translation. London: Croom
0
9 Larson, M. 1984. Meaning-based Translation. Boston: University Press of America Inc.
Newmark, P. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. Prentice Hall Inc.
Nida, E. And Charles Taber. 1969. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden : E.J. Brill
Popovic, A. 1976. Dictionary for the analysis of Literary Translation. Edmonton: University of Alberta
Snell-Hornby, M. 1988. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Taylor,T.J. 1992. Mutual Misunderstanding. London & N.Y.: Routledge
Thibault, P. J. 1991. Social Semiotics as Praxis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Toury, G. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia : John Benjamins
Van den Broeck, R. 1978. The Concept of Equivalence in Translation Theory: Some Critical Reflections. In: Holmes,J.C., Lambert, J. & Van den Broeck, R. 1978. Literature And Translation: New Perspectives in Literary Studies. Leuven : Acco.
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10 Venuti, L. 1992. Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London & N.Y. : Rout ledge
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