Loss and Gain in Translation from Hindi to English: A Stylistic Study of Multiple English Translations of Premchand’s Godaan and Nirmala
THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH
By TOTA RAM GAUTAM
UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF DR. MOHD. ASIM SIDDIQUI
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY, ALIGARH, INDIA. 2011
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children.
One is roots. The other is wings.
– Hodding Carter, Jr.
TO
My Mother and My Father
Loss and Gain in Translation from Hindi to English: A Stylistic Study of Multiple English Translations of Premchand’s Godaan and Nirmala
ABSTRACT
THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH
By TOTA RAM GAUTAM
UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF DR. MOHD. ASIM SIDDIQUI
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY, ALIGARH, INDIA. 2011
Abstract
Although translation is an old phenomenon, it is only after the 1970s that it develops as an academic discipline. Nevertheless in the comparatively short period of the last five decades, it has developed enormously. Today it is multi-disciplinary in nature and can boast many publications. Recent developments have also created formal training programs and translation associations. However, inspite of all these developments, its scope has mainly been superficial as most of the studies focus on general aspects of a translation.
That said, the present study specifically takes up Hindi English translation tradition and closely explores problems, issues and possibilities in translation from Hindi to English.
To accomplish this task, the researcher structurally divides the study in seven chapters.
The discussion in Chapter I historically surveys the beginning and the development of translation studies in India and the West. It indicates that historically the role of a translator has been seen differently in these two cultures. While the Indian tradition has appreciated a translator’s creative labor and sees him as a ‘co-creator’ of a new text in the target language, the Western tradition has seen him as a traitor, a bearer of a divine punishment or a mere scribe. The survey also highlights that with global change in the 1960s, these outlooks begin to change and the translators, translation theorists and scholars start to be taken more seriously. From the 1970s onwards, translation studies as an academic discipline is initially established as a field of study.
Further in the research, Chapter II shifts the attention from the history of translation studies to Hindi English translation. The chapter first discusses available English translations of Godaan and Nirmala, and then reviews available literature on four of them. Since there is not much literature available on these translations, it also discusses the translators’ own views expressed with the translations or somewhere else in the form of introductions, foreword,
notes, afterword, and interviews. By the end of this chapter, the researcher becomes well aware of the general opinion of the critics and reviewers of the translations.
Chapter III’s role in the research is centralized. It not only introduces a stylistic model to be applied throughout the research on the four translations, it also conceptualizes what can be considered loss in a translation. Under the stylistic model, it studies the loss of meaning in two translations of Godaan respectively done by Jai Ratan & P. Lal, and Gordon C.
Roadarmel. The stylistic analysis takes place in two major categories—textual and cognitive—and their six levels.
Chapter IV discusses another aspect of the translations i.e. gain. It first examines what can be considered gain in a translation and then applies those foundations to the two translations of Godaan. It points out the places, and the ways in which, the English translators of Godaan gain meaning. The study is again conducted under the same two major categories of the stylistic model; however the translators do not necessarily gain on the same levels.
Thus, while Chapter III talks about the issues and problems in Hindi English translation,
Chapter IV explores the possibilities involving translation from Hindi to English.
The next two chapters respectively parallel Chapter III and IV. Chapter V discusses the loss of meaning while Chapter VI the gain. They also use the foundations and the stylistic model of the previous two chapters. However, their contribution lies in the fact that they study two newer translations, accomplished by David Rubin and Alok Rai, of another source language text. The source language text under consideration in these chapters is Nirmala, also written by Premchand. The study in these two chapters not only provides validity to what has been concluded in the previous chapters but also adds new findings.
Thus, these four chapters altogether discusses how the four (five) English translators—two (three) domestic translators and other two foreign translators—lose and gain meaning in translating two different source language texts.
The final chapter, conclusion, sums up all the previous chapters. Towards the end, it also discusses findings and makes some general observations.
As for the findings, it states that the loss of meaning in Hindi English translation in
Chapters III and V takes place mainly because of three reasons:
The first and most important reason for causing the loss of meaning is the translators themselves. It appears that, at times, the translators do not take the act of translating seriously and see it as a task which only needs to be completed, regardless of its exactness. It is possibly because of this tendency that they do not revise the texts properly and leave words, phrases and sentences untranslated. In the study, it is also apparent that there are times when the translators do not understand some SL textual and cognitive references properly or if they do, they do not know how to recreate them in the TLTs. In such cases, they mistranslate those references.
The second reason, another important factor, which causes loss of meaning in the four translations, is the different natures of Hindi and English. In the stylistic study it appears that the translators do not have total control over this loss. Still, this loss is vital in Hindi English translation because it happens on a larger scale in at least three levels of the text: sound system, grammar and syntax, and semantics.
The third reason which makes the translators lose meaning in Chapter III and V is the almost untranslatability of the SL cultural setting and references in the TLTs. It is because of this almost untranslatability that the translators lose meaning in translating cultural terms and references, allusions, idioms and proverbs, slangs, and euphemisms in semantics. Their failure to recreate many ideological references in the cognitive part of the stylistic analysis also accounts for the same reason.
Furthermore in the findings, it is revealed that, unlike the three reasons which cause loss of meaning, there are only two reasons which make the gain of meaning possible in
Chapters IV and VI: translators’ creativity and imagination and the nature of the TL. These two elements together help the translators gain meaning not only in textual part of the stylistic model but also in cognitive realm. However, the gain in the cognitive part is independent and involves translators’ creativity and imagination.
In addition to the above observations about the loss and gain of meaning in translation from Hindi to English, the conclusion makes two more observations about Hindi English translation. Finally, it ends in a positive note expressing that, although Hindi and English are two different languages, their belonging to the same family group, Indo-European family, makes translation between Hindi and English possible. It also promises that the further research in the field can bring fruitful results not only for the translation studies in general but also for an English translator of Hindi texts and his readers.
Contents
Preface page i
Hindi Alphabet and Their Transcription into English v
List of Abbreviations vi
Chapter I: A Historical Survey of Translation Studies in India and the West 1
Chapter II: Review of Literature on the English Translations of Godaan and Nirmala 34
Chapter III: Loss of meaning in English Translation of Godaan 64
Chapter IV: Gain of Meaning in English Translation of Godaan 98
Chapter V: Loss of Meaning in English Translation of Nirmala 123
Chapter VI: Gain of Meaning in English Translation of Nirmala 159
Chapter VII: Conclusion 184
Appendix 193
Bibliography 226
Preface
It gives me immense pleasure to see that the research which my academic supervisor, Dr.
Mohd. Asim Siddiqui, encouraged me to do in late 2008 is now in its final form. Writing a preface seems to re-live the cherished memories which I enjoyed earlier.
When one opens one’s memory, it reveals pleasant things as well as things which are not so good. However, most of the memories which I have of this research have been pleasant ones, either be they related to working and writing the research or having conversations about it with my mentor, friends, family and many teachers.
But as it might have happened with most researchers, there were a few times in the beginning and towards the end of the research that I got frustrated. When I took over the task with the hope of contributing to the field of Hindi English translation, I had hardly any idea as to how I would finish the task. The absence of a stylistic model for the study of translations, and the volume of the six texts under review posed the main problem. However, the optimistic words of many, and the idea that I was writing the initial research, to my best knowledge, on the stylistic study of loss and gain in Hindi English translation helped me to continue the project. As happens in most narratives, after much struggle, I was able to frame a stylistic model and also fit that paradigm to the translations.
Towards the end of this research, the frustration mainly became synthesizing the material in the writing. Presenting the textual evidences so that they should not bore the readers was also no less a challenging task. Thankfully, my wife came to my rescue in this field.
Strange though it may appear, the research at times also affected me psychologically.
When I, at times continuously for seven to nine hours, was looking for the places where the translators lose meaning, there were minor things which annoyed me immensely. At such ii
moments, I even scolded my siblings, and became annoyed with wife, parents and Mamaji.
Looking back at those moments, I laugh at the interesting combination, and feel thankful for having these loved ones.
All is well if it ends well, as Shakespeare might have restated it. Now the research is complete, and it is like ending a conversation with someone very dearly known for three years.
Now I can clearly imagine Lord Byron’s position in “When we two parted” when he says, “If I should meet thee/ After long years,/ How should I greet thee?/With silence and tears.”
Structurally, this research is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter surveys the history of translation studies in India and the West whereas the second chapter first explores available English translations of Godaan and Nirmala, and then reviews available literature on four of them. The next four chapters comparatively study Godaan and Nirmala and their four translations so as to find out where the select four translations lose and gain meaning on the devised stylistic model. Chapter III and IV are original contributions where not only a conceptual framework of the stylistic analysis is proposed but also applied to the two translations of
Godaan. Chapters V and VI are an extension to Chapters III and IV. In order that they might work as an extension to what is being discussed and concluded in Chapters III and IV, they follow the same conceptual and analytical framework. They also highlight areas where the two translators of Nirmala lose and gain meaning.
Although in the analysis, I only refer to single Hindi imprints of Godaan and Nirmala, at places where the question of typographical and grammatical errors arises, I have consulted two more imprints of them by two other publishers, mentioned in the secondary sources. For those who are curious to comparatively study the translations, I have added first chapters of these texts in the appendix. iii
The aim of the present study is the improvement of Hindi English translation. I hope that future translators, translation theorists and scholars (and various academic programs in translation studies) will benefit from this research. Since continuation of this research is very important for the development of the emerging field of translation studies, I also hope that future researchers will continue the task.
Herein I wish to acknowledge all those who have made this project possible. First, I thank my supervisor for making this endeavor possible. I am also thankful to him for helping me emotionally with his ever encouraging words. It was always nice to hear from him that I write very well. Prof. A. R. Kidwai (and many other teachers), Department of English, AMU, also provided this kind of support.
I am also thankful to Dr. Ramesh Kumar, Chairperson, Department of Hindi, Sri
Varshney College, Aligarh, who helped me anytime I had queries about the Hindi texts. In the beginning of my research, I also had a few sessions with Prof. Pradeep Saxena (who also remained available during the research), Dr. Ashutosh Kumar (now in Delhi University) and Mr.
Ajay Bisariya of the Department of Hindi, AMU. I am also thankful of them.
During my Fulbright year, I had the privilege of two meetings with Prof. Tom Beebee,
Department of Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University, USA. These two meeting were very helpful, and it is he who suggested to parallel Chapters V and VI against Chapters III and IV. I am thankful of him too.
Without the help of many libraries and the persons who made that help possible, this research would never have been possible. Hence, I extend my gratitude to the staff of the libraries of Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh; Pennsylvania State University, USA; Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi; Delhi University, Delhi; Maulana Azad National Urdu University, iv
Hyderabad; University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad; Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New
Delhi; and Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. I am also thankful of the staff at the seminar libraries of the departments of English and Hindi, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh for similar assistance.
I feel fortunate to have Ashley as a companion for life. It is she who not only reviewed the writing but also helped me manage the Ph.D. stress. Though my parents and extended family did not directly participate in my research, if it were not for their support and understanding, I would never ever have been in the place where I am today. I owe them much.
I am privileged to have many friends in AMU and outside of AMU. Without naming any one, I thank all of them for their fruitful company and assistance. My special thanks go to Prof.
John C. Miller whose constant intellectual remarks were a great help. I also express my gratitude to Mr. Robert Bixler for similar reasons.
Finally, I am also obliged to all who have not been named here but, on different occasions, have assisted me in one way or another. I keep them all in my thoughts.
Tota Ram Gautam
December, 2011. v
Hindi Alphabet and Their Transcription into English
Vowels अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ ए ऐ ओ औ AN A:
A aa i ee u oo ri e ai o au an ah
Consonants
क ख ग घ ङ च छ ज झ ञ ट ठ ड k kh g gh n ch chh j jh n t th d
ढ ण त थ द ध न प फ ब भ म य dh n t th d dh n p f b bh m y
र ल व श ष स ह r l v sh sh s h ksh tr jn
Special Characters, Matras and Symbols
shr d rh n n/m h aa i ee u oo ri o
e ai o au r r r tr no “a” used after the consonant
Punctuation Marks
Period in Hindi ( [ ) is transcribed as “.” . Other Punctuation marks remain same.
Note: Transcription of proper nouns has been retained as they have been transcribed in any primary or secondary sources. vi
Abbreviations
NT Not Translated
SL Source Language
SLT Source Language Text
SLT1 Source Language Text 1 i.e. Godaan
SLT2 Source Language Text 2 i.e. Nirmala
TLT Target Language Text i.e. a Translation
TLT1 Target Language Text 1 i.e. Godaan’s translation by Jai Ratan and P. Lal
TLT2 Target Language Text 2 i.e. Godaan’s translation by Gordon C. Roadarmel
TLT3 Target Language Text 3 i.e. Nirmala’s translation by David Rubin
TLT4 Target Language Text 4 i.e. Nirmala’s translation by Alok Rai
TS Translation Studies
TVT Translation Views and Theories Chapter I
A Historical Survey of Translation Studies in India and the West
Translation Studies (TS) has emerged as a much sought after discipline in the present
time. Teachers, scholars and students from various disciplines have contributed to its growth.
Most of the major universities and institutions around the world also have established TS
departments/centers to promote research in the field. According to one study, in 1960 there
were 49 university-level institutions that offered degrees in translation and/or interpreting;
that number increased to 108 in 1980 and to at least 250 in 1994 (Caminade and Pym 283).
As a result of these developments and improved global communication, many
national and international associations of translators have been formed. These associations
bring their members together to facilitate dialogue about translation.
Publishers, too, consider TS a blooming discipline. Mona Baker says that in May
1991, she received a phone call from Simon Bell, former Language Reference Editor at
Routledge who wanted to know whether she had any suggestion for a reference work on TS,
possibly a dictionary because he, “among many others, had begun to see translation studies as
an exciting new discipline” (xiv). Today, there is hardly any publisher that has not published
some book(s) on translation.
However, it is only after the 1970s that TS became an academic discipline. Before
that, TS existed in the form of translation views and theories (TVT). A brief historical survey
of these TTV and TS in India and the West is as follows:
Historical Survey of TVT and TS in India
From antiquity to the present, most translation in India has been a kind of “new writing,” giving some creative liberties to the translator (Das 58). A translation may be considered fine if it preserves the sense of the Source Language (SL) text. Therefore, at times, adaptation, paraphrase and “transcreation” fall into the overall category of translation. From this 2 standard, a translator should preserve linguistic features but primarily, he should go for the soul (content and form/structure) of the SL text. If translation is performed carefully on these parameters, translation will be creative and the translator will become “co-creator.”
Anuvaad (Anuvaada) is the accepted equivalent of the English word, “Translation,” in Hindi. It comes from the Sanskrit word Anuvaadah which literally means “Repetition in normal use; Repetition in order to support, exemplify or explain; Explanatory repetition or mentioning of already said talk (message)” (Apte 41-42, my literal rendition).
Etymologically, the word Anuvaad is a combination of the root word “Vaad,” meaning a statement or argument, and the prefix “Anu,” meaning “After; following” (Apte 35).
There can be one more theory about the word, Anuvaad. In religious and philosophical tradition in India, scholars did intralingual and interlingual Teekaa [Hindi word meaning interpretation/explanation] of Sanskrit works in two ways: as a commentary and as an interpretation or paraphrase. For the latter, they used the term bhaashyaanuvaad where bhaashya meant ‘linguistic.’ Perhaps it is from this word that scholars dropped the prefix
‘bhaashya’—maybe casually in the beginning and willingly later—since interpretation or paraphrase is itself a linguistic activity.
Many Indian scholars believe that translation in India has been practiced “for a long time without giving it such a name or style” (Mukherji 25). In this line, Lachman M.
Khubchandan considers Narada, a character from Hindu mythology, as the first example of a transmitter of “the desired message” from one place to another without any distortion of the meaning (46). For him, Narada highlights “a subjective input in the role of an interpreter in intercultural settings” (ibid). Mr. Khubchandan also refers to another religious figure, i.e. “the image of evercontented Buddha, rejoicing with raised arms, in his role as a transmitter of message: ‘Yes, I know! It’s always a great feeling to have delivered the message one has come to deliver!’” (ibid). 3
Another Indian scholar, Sujeet Mukherji, believes that translation in India began from the telling or writing of literary compositions from one language to another. Usually it was from the master language, Sanskrit, to bhaashaas—modern languages like Hindi, Asamiya,
Bangala, and Gujrati. Unlike the Biblical translation tradition in the West [discussed later in the chapter], SL texts were not primarily religious scriptures like the Vedas or the Upnishads, but “Kavya [poetic] works such as the Ramayana, the Purana works such as the Srimad-
Bhagavat, and itihahasa-purana works such as the Mahabharata” (Mukherji 25-26). The best example of this tradition can be seen in Tulasi Das’ Ramcharitmaanasa (1575-1577), which is a poetic retelling/adaptation/translation of Valmiki’s Ramayana in Hindi from
Sanskrit.
Still this telling or writing “can only loosely be regarded as translation, because, while the basic story remained same, some of it was left out and a lot of new writing [was] done to fill it out again” (Mukherji 26). This view is also shared by K. Ayappa Panikar, another
Indian scholar, in his article, “The Anxiety of Authenticity: Reflections on Literary
Translation” (66-76).
During the Mughal period in India, translation practice shifted from Sanskrit-to- bhaashaas towards Sanskrit-and-bhaashaas-to-Persian as Persian was “the ruler’s language”
(Mukherji 26). Akbar in the 16th century “set up a maktab khana or translation bureau in order to make available the classics of Indian thought in Persian” and got translated the
Mahabharata, the Yogavasistha, the Harivamsa, the Srimad-Bhagavat, the Singhasan Battisi, the Ramayana, and many works on Indian music into Persian (Behl 92). Badauni translated the Ramayana into Persian in four years with much reluctance, but when the translation was complete, it was so good that Akbar gave him, again against his will, another task of the
“complete Persian translation of the Atharvaveda” (Behl 93). 4
After Akbar, his great grandson Dara Shikoh continued this tradition of translating
Hindu works into Persian. Dara Shikoh got fifty Upnishads (entitled Sirr-i-Akbar), the
Bhagvad Gita, and the Yogavashishtha Ramayana translated into Persian with the help of a team of translators. Aditya Behl notes that it is Sirr-i-Akbar that “became the basis of
Europe’s idealist philosophers’ discovery of the East after Anquetil-Duperron translated it into Latin in 1801” (91).
But, it was with the coming of East India Company in India that translation from
Indian languages (especially Sanskrit) to European languages (especially English) began. At first, Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of East India Company in India from 1773 to 1785, had Indian Dharamashaastraas, which were originally written in Sanskrit and then translated into Persian, translated into English. It was also with Hastings’ encouragement that
Charles Wilkins in 1785 translated the Bhagavad Gita first time into English; Hastings wrote the Preface to this translation (reprinted in Allen and Trivedi 170-74). Later, in 1789, William
Jones translated Shakuntala directly from Sanskrit into English.
During the reign of the East India Company, this translation tradition also gave rise to
Indology. In 1800, Fort William College in Kolkata (earlier Calcutta) was set up to teach
Indian languages and culture to the East India Company writers. “The first round of language to be cultivated included Hindi and Urdu, Bangala and Marathi” (Mukherji 27). Though the purpose of this learning was not academic but business, it must have helped the bhaashaas- to-English translation tradition. However, up until the late 18th and the 19th centuries, SL for
the translations of Indian literature into English still was mostly Sanskrit, and these
translations were usually accomplished by British and American scholars (Mukherji 28).
But by the latter part of the 19th century, many Indians had started translating from
Indian languages into English. Tagore’s 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature winner translation of 5
his own Gitanjali into English from Bengali is one example. In 1910, India’s first book on
translation theory, The Art of Translation by R. Raghunath Rao, also appeared (Sinha 256).
Even after India gained Independence from British rule in 1947, English continued to work as an official language (with Hindi) throughout India. Thus translation became more important in the post-independence period, and scholars started taking it more seriously and systematically. In the 1960s, things changed to the extent that translators and translation theorists like P. Lal declared that they “strongly believe that, all other things being equal, an
Indian is better equipped to translate India’s sacred works than a foreigner” (Transcreation
29)1.
Lal also suggested a new translation method which he called “Transcreation.” By
Transcreation, he meant “recreating an SL text in the target language taking absolute liberty
with it and yet being fidel with it” (Das 62). In other words, transcreation advocated fidelity
to the SL text as far as the soul (meaning/sense/information) and form is concerned but it also
gave much space for the translator’s creative faculties. Das quotes four famous works which
further bear this testimony of transcreating: the translations of The Ramayana and The
Mahabharata into English by R.K. Narayan and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari respectively;
and the two anthologies, New Writing in India (1974) edited by Adil Jussawalla, and Another
India (1990) by Nissim Ezekiel and Meenakshi Mukherjee (eds.) (ibid). Lal especially recommended this method when “the languages concerned are as distant as the Indian
languages and English” (Lal, “Preface” 5).
The 1980s was the first time that Sahitya Akademi, an Indian government
organization devoted to the development/preservation of languages and literatures in India,
felt a need to initiate a systematic dialogue among the various academic and non-academic
translators and translation theorists from all parts of India. To accomplish this project, it
1 Sujeet Mukherji not only agrees with P. Lal in this matter, but he also goes a little further and says that “Indians are better equipped to translate their profane texts as well” (Mukherji 28). 6
organized four workshops from 1986 to 1988 on literary translation for Indian translators
across India. The proceedings of these workshops were later published in 2007 (Panikar,
Making of Indian Literature).
As translation theories developed in the West, especially in the last thirty years, they
also affected TVT/TS in India. It is during this period that TVT/TS in India and the West
came a little closer. Though no significant research on the linguistic level has been
accomplished in India, interdisciplinary research focusing on theoretical frameworks and
power relations in translation marks its presence. Two major figures that are known
internationally as translators and/or translation theorists in this phase are Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak and Harish Trivedi.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has contributed to TS both as a translator and as a
theorist. As a translator, she has translated Jacques Derrida from French, and Mahasweta
Devi and some other writers from Bengali into English. Theoretically, she takes three stands on translation, one of a feminist and others of a poststructuralist and a postcolonialist. Her
1992 essay “The Politics of Translation” is one essay in which her all these three stands
appear. In the essay, she explicitly “outlines a poststructuralist conception of language use”
and “argues that translators of Third World literatures need this linguistic model” (Venuti,
“1990s” 338). In the essay, she also talks about her translation practices (187-88) and
considers translation as “the most intimate act of reading” (Spivak 178).
Harish Trivedi’s position on translation, on the other hand, is that of a theorist. He
judges translation primarily on the scale of postcolonial theory. For him, translation is a site
for postcolonial experiment. His first such experiment is his 1999 book (co-edited with Susan
Bassnett), Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, which contains nine essays by
theorists and translators from around the world. Kate Sturge notes that in his 2005 study
“Translating Culture vs. Cultural Translation,” he moves some more steps ahead in this 7 experiment. Here, he not only accuses Homi Bhabha, another critic of postcolonial theory,
“of marginalizing bilingualism and translation as specifically interlingual practices, the precondition for polylingual cultural diversity,” but also warns against the notion of cultural translation (Sturge 69).
While theorists hail the interdisciplinary development of TS, Harish Trivedi, in his
2007 article, sees this particular development as somewhat threatening to TS. He argues that
Given the usurpation that has taken place, it may be time for all good men and true, and of course women, who have ever practiced literary translation, or even read a translation with any awareness of it being translation, to unite and take out a patent on the word “translation”, if it is not already too late to do so (Trivedi 285; Baker and Saldanha xxi).
His warning is legitimate, especially when TS has entered a phase of a kind of
“Indeterminism” where TS has no single direction (Pym 1).
Apart from Spivak and Trivedi, there are two other translators/translation theorists who have also shown their presence internationally with their translation research/books.
They are Tejaswini Niranjana and Rita Kothari.
Tejaswini Niranjana is both a translator and a translation theorist. She translates from
Kannad into English, and her Siting Translation: History, Poststructuralism, and the Colonial
Context (1992) is a much appreciated poststructuralist and postcolonial intervention in the field of TS. In the last chapter of this book, she also opposes the translation theory of A. K.
Ramanujan, another well known translator from India, in his approach to translate a poem’s
“inner and outer forms” faithfully as he thinks it impossible to translate the syntax of one language into the other (Viswanatha and Simon 173; Dharwadker 114). For Ramanujan, translation means being a creative and well crafted piece while Tejaswini Niranjana, like a poststructuralist and postcolonialist, believes that the translated text should disrupt the text to show “the contemporary difficulty ... in modes of cultural exchange” (Noor 607; Viswanatha and Simon 173). 8
Like Ms. Niranjana, Rita Kothari is also a translator and a translation theorist. As a
translator, her translation of a novel by Joseph Macwan entitled The Stepchild: Angaliyat into
English was short-listed for the Crossword-Hutch Prize.
Her theoretical approach to translation, however, is multidisciplinary, and it is perhaps
because of this kind of critical approach that one reviewer in Meta expressed about her 2003 book, Translating India: the Cultural Politics of English, that “it is the most impressive book on translation in India I have [he has] ever read” (Jianzhong 173). In its innovative approach, the book uses both written documents and oral interviews to discuss TS in India.
Furthermore, it not only talks about translation history and translation in academia but also gives a voice to the publishers and many regional translators. In fact, it addresses many new questions about TS in India—production, reception and marketability; TS courses and class room teaching; and the issues of adaptation and transcreation are some of them2.
Thus, to conclude this historical survey of TVT and TS in India, it can be said that
TVT and TS in India has come a long way. As more and more scholars from different fields
of studies are taking scholarly interest in it, chances are that in future it may hike to a new
peak.
Historical Survey of TVT and TS in the West
Whereas India’s consciousness in translation has been dominated by a positive and creative
output of the SL text, the West’s consciousness in translation, in most cases, has been
dominated by the Hebraic story of the Tower of Babel where linguistic diversity is seen as “a
divine punishment and the translator is burdened with the task of reversing this curse”
(Khubchandan 46). In this consciousness, translation is seen as next to impossible and
always causing some distortion and/or loss of meaning—in the words of Susan Bassnett,
translation is “a low occupation” (3). It is perhaps because of this fear of “constraint” (Briggs
2 Her many papers on TS and 2009 co-edited book (with Judy Wakabayashi) Decentering translation studies: India and beyond bear this testimony further.
9
43) and loss in translation that “definitions of proper translating [in the West] are almost as
numerous and varied as the persons who have undertaken to discuss the subject” (Nida,
“Principles of Correspondence” 131).
The word “Translation” in English comes either from Old French, or from the Latin
translatio (noun) meaning “transportation/transference; transfer to another; change of venue”
(OED) and has been used interchangeably with the word “Interpretation” for a long time.
Alexander F. Chamberlain says that the word “translation” also has some connection with
English word—“talk.” Furthermore, he explains:
Our English word talk harks back to a translation-word. We borrowed it from the Icelandic túlka (Swedish tolka, Danish tolke), “to interpret, to explain, to plead one’s case.” This Icelandic word, in its substantial form túlkr (Swedish tolk), “an interpreter,” is of Slavonic origin, —Lithuanian tulkas, Lettic tulks, “interpreter;” Lithuanian tulkoti, Lettic tulkot, “to interpret.” To the same stock belong also Russian tolkovat, “to interpret, to explain, to talk, to speak of,” and tolk, “sense, meaning, doctrine.” The English interpret comes, through the French interpréter, from the Latin interpretari, the source of which last word is interpres, “an agent, broker, factor, go-between,” perhaps originally “a speaker between.” Besides translation and interpretation we speak of rendering, and we have yet another term, version. To render is properly “to give back, to restore,” and a version is “a change, a turning,” as the Latin original of the word shows. (166)
It is perhaps because of these meanings of this term, “translation,” that early in the 20th century Bennedecto Croce, as if paraphrasing the old Italian saying traduttori tradittori
(“Translators are Traitors”), declared that falsification in translation is inevitable (Kelly 216).
Though the first traces of translation appear in the East “in 3000 BC, during the
Egyptian Old Kingdom, in the area of the First Cataract, Elephantine” (Newmark,
Approaches to Translation 3), TVT in the West have been more systematic than in the East
(India) (Khubchandani 47). In the West, it began in ancient Rome where it appeared in “the
academic discipline of rhetoric” (Venuti, “Foundational” 13). Cicero, Pliny the Younger,
Quintilian—the distinguished Roman orators—and the poets Horace and Virgil were its first
influential commentators. 10
Since Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and Quintilian were all orators, for rhetorical
purposes they favored sense for sense (SS) or free and paraphrastic translations. Cicero, who
himself translated “Plato’s Protagoras and Xenophon’s Oeconomicus and the two most
beautiful orations that Aeschines and Demosthenes delivered against each other” (Jerome
23), wrote in De optimo genere oratorum (46 BC):
I did not translate them as an interpreter [nec converti ut interpres] but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and the forms, but in language which conforms to our usage. And in so doing I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language. (Cicero 365, Venuti, “Foundational” 13)
But at the same time in Rome, there were also grammarians who favored word for word
(WW) renderings. Horace was aware of this rivalry. Still, in his Ars Poetica, he advised a
good translator (interpretati) not to “strive to render word for word like a faithful translator
[interpres]’” (Jerome 23-24).
Virgil, too, belonged to the tradition of SS translation, but he also permitted a
translator’s creativity in it. He said that a “translator should be allowed to say what should be
said, or what he wants to say than what the source author intends” (d’Ablancourt, “Preface to
Lucian” 36).
Following the path set out by these Roman rhetoricians and grammarians, this debate
between SS and WW translation continued down to the 4th century, and it was first in St.
Jerome that a reaction to this rivalry in writing was found. Though Jerome advocated for SS translation in “Preface to Chronical of Eusebius of Caesarea,” “Preface to a life of St.
Anthony,” “Preface to the book of Job,” and “Letter to Pammachius,” he also made an exception for WW renderings for “the ‘mysterious order of words’ (ver-borumordom ysterium) in the Bible” (Derrida, “What is” 180).
However, he mostly favored SS translation; in “Letter to Pammachius” he declared,
“[L]et others chase after syllables and letters, you seek the meaning” (24). His advocacy for 11
SS was later fully expressed in his translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin titled Vulgate,
which replaced the Old Latin Bible and became the Church’s official version. Though
Vulgate was later replaced by Martin Luther’s version of the Bible (1522, 1532), today
Jerome is remembered with Luther as “one of the fathers of a certain translation ethics,” i.e. sense-for-sense (Derrida, “What is” 180).
What Jerome advocated in the 4th century continued through the Middle Ages and into
the Renaissance till the 16th century (Venuti, “Foundational” 15). In the 10th century, Aelfric
of Eynsham borrowed Jerome’s theory of translation in “Preface to Genesis” (c.955-c.1010)
and Preface to Pastoral Care (Minkoff 31-32). In the 14th century, the Prologue of the
Wycliffite Bible (c.1395) asserted that “the beste translating is, out of Latyn into English, to
translate aftir the sentence and not oneli aftir the wordis, so that the sentence be as opin either
openere in English as in Latyn” (Hudson 68; Venuti, “Foundational” 15).
In the 16th century, two stands evolved—one in Britain and the other in France. In
Britain, scholars started to see translation as a tool with which to build the national culture,
and thus favored domesticating the foreign text. Works translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt,
Henry Howard, Thomas Hoby and Philemon Holland were guided by this instinct. In France,
on the other hand, scholars like Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt adopted a slightly better
position. Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt focused on two things in translation; adequacy and a
kind of bowdlerizing. In his “Preface to Tacitus,” he said that it was very hard to translate a
writer who committed mistakes, therefore one should add to make meaning clear. In the
“Preface to Lucian,” he suggested to change what was obscene and lose, what was not pleasant or was boring.
English scholars like Abraham Cowley, Sir John Denham and Sir Richard Franshawe during the 17th century followed d’Ablancourt’s critical position in their translations (Venuti,
“Foundational” 17). But at the same time, John Dryden, another English scholar, deviated 12
from them and engaged in the old “classical distinction between rhetorical and grammatical
translation” (ibid). In this process, he divided translation, as in “The Preface to Ovid’s
Epistles” (1680), in three heads—Metaphrase, Paraphrase, and Imitation—and favored
“paraphrase with latitude” over Imitation (Dryden 40). Thus, he not only rejected WW renderings as “lacking fluency or easy readability,” but also imitations that “adapt the foreign text so as to serve the translator’s own literary ambitions” (Venuti, “Foundational” 18).
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, many German commentators presented “a
striking alternative to the French and English traditions” (Venuti, “Foundational” 19). These
commentators—which include Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich
Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—encouraged foreignness in translation.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, in his 1813 lecture to the British Academy of Sciences, said that in
translation, one could either make one’s language foreign or make the foreign language
familiar. In a final note, he suggested picking up the first choice as it would enrich both the
TL and TL readers with new concepts (61-62). Nietzsche, on the other hand, agreed with
Schleiermacher’s choice because he believed this to be beneficial in inferring out “the
historical sense of any age (67).
Around the same time in the 19th century, an independent translation tradition in the
US began with Margaret Fuller’s translations and TVT (Boggs). A proponent of universalism
and multilingualism, Fuller favored the paraphrastic method in her translations of Bettina von
Arnim’s Günderode (1842), Goethe’s Tasso Toquato and some articles from the New Yorker
Staats-Zeitung for the New York Tribune (Boggs 51). In this respect, she seemed to be influenced by British translator Sarah Austin and French novelist Germaine de Stael’s translation theories (ibid).
A little later in 1861, all these above Western approaches gave rise to an interesting but serious debate (1861-62) in Britain over choosing a domesticating or foreignizing method 13
in translation. This debate was between Matthew Arnold and Francis Newman. Newman
championed “the literal mode, the retention of all verbal singularities” in the translations of
the works of Homer to preserve his foreignness while Arnold advocated for “the severe
elimination of details that distract or detain” (Borges 36)3.
With all these theoretical developments in the West, TVT, now TS, finally entered in
the 20th century4, a century that Jumpelt calls “the age of translation” (qtd. in Newmark,
Approaches to Translation 3). In fact, it was the beginning of a systematic dialogue among
translators and translation theorists. However, it did not just become systematic out of wish; there were some external forces which worked behind it.
TS in the 1910s-1930s
One of these external forces was the need for a global understanding. Sigmund Freud, writing in 1915, some six months after the start of World War I, expressed that the loss of common cultural understanding made the world ripe for war (Apter 16). He also stated that a unity among people who could “feel at home in other nations and in other languages because of a common culture” was needed to establish international peace (Freud5 277; Apter 16).
Translation was seen as a powerful tool in this direction. This is evidenced by the following
four Western writers who, in one way or another, advocate for the accommodation of source
language and culture in translation.
In Germany, Walter Benjamin tried to revive Schleiermacher’s concept of
foreignizing translation. He implied that translation was autonomous (Benjamin 18).
Straightforwardly, he rejected those translations that either just provided information or were
3 See Venuti 1995: 118-47 for a comprehensive discussion of this debate. 4 For the sake of the clarity of understanding, development of TS in 20th century, taking the idea from Lawrence Venuti’s 2004 book The Translation Studies Reader, has been grouped in sub-headings, each sub-heading representing one or more decades. Venuti’s 2004 book also serve as a key text for this section. 5 Freud himself was a prolific translator translating rapidly with his “photographic memory” (Jones 55 qtd. in Mahony 837). As a translation theorist, he is one of the modern translation theorists who gave translation “a scope and depth unprecedented in history” and made it “a unified field concept that encompasses the interaction of intrasystemic, intersystemic, and interpsychic phenomena” (Mahony 837). 14
not able to provide something that was other than information (ibid 15-16). For him, the task
of the translator was mainly to preserve the echo of the source language in translation (ibid
19-20).
Ezra Pound in Britain, Jorge Luis Borges in Argentina and Jose Ortega y Gasset in
France also shared Benjamin’s idea of translation. Pound believed that translation should always provide something other than information. For him, this something was stylistic equivalence, “a verbal weight about equal to that of the original” (Pound 32). Borges, on the other hand, took a milder path and advocated for the “the retention [or suppression] of certain particularities” and “the movement of the syntax” of the SL text in translation (37)
And Gasset, the strongest advocate of the three, considered translation to be mainly “a distinctive linguistic practice” (Venuti, “1900s-1930s” 14), “a literary genre apart, different from the rest, with its own norms and its own ends” (Gasset 61). He even defended the translator against Italian proverb Traduttore, traditore by saying “Long live translation!”
(ibid 52).
TS in the 1940s-1950s
During the 1940s and 1950s, the issue of accommodating SL in translation deepened and
most theorists started considering whether translation could “reconcile the differences that
separate languages and cultures” (Venuti, “1940s-1950s” 66). In their speculations, they
divided themselves into two groups: one group thought that it could not; and the other that it
could.
Vladimir Nabokov and Willard Van Orman Quine were two influential figures in the
period who belonged to the first group. They saw the act of translation as almost impossible.
Nabokov believed that since any masterpiece was a result of many international influences,
these influences made an “ideal version” of translation almost impossible (Nabokov, “Art of
Translation” 161; Venuti, “1940s-1950s” 68). He believed that even if a translator put forth 15
his best efforts in translation, he could only get an imitated, adapted or parodied form of the
SL text (Nabokov, “Problems of Translation” 71-77). Quine went a little further than
Nabokov and, in his 1959 article, even questioned the empirical foundations of translation
(94-112).
Roman Jakobson, Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet, on the other hand, were three
other influential figures of the period who belonged to the second group. They believed that
translation was possible and that it could be achieved if a translator understood the linguistic
problems in translation. For Jakobson, translation meant a transfer of signs or signifieds
within one language or from one language to another. This transfer might also be among
“nonverbal system of symbols” (Jakobson 114). He named these three transfers intralingual,
interlingual and intersemiotic transfers. However, poetry, for him, remained untranslatable
(ibid 118). Vinay and Darbelnet not only advocated for the possibility of translation but in
their book, Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation
(1958; trans. 1995), also discussed seven types of direct and oblique methods through which
translation could be achieved.
TS in the 1960s-1970s
In the 1960s-1970s, TS witnessed a new development as translation theorists and scholars
started exploring specifically the problems in and methods/techniques to achieve the nearly
exact transfer of SL into TL. This equivalence was studied in two ways: pragmatically and
formally (Venuti, “1960s-1970s” 121). Eugene Nida, Peter Newmark, Julian House, J.C.
Catford, Jiri Levy, Katharine Reiss, James S. Holmes, Jacques Derrida, George Steiner,
Itamar Even-Zohar, and Gideon Toury were the major theorists of the period who talked
about translation equivalence. Out of these, Nida, Newmark, House and Catford studied
translation equivalence respectively in binaries: dynamic/functional and formal (1964, 1969);
communicative and semantic (1977, 1988a, 1988b, 1991); overt and covert (1977a, 1977b, 16
1997), and level and category shifts (1965). Each of these binaries divided translation in folds
and, depending on the type of fold, defined methods and techniques to achieve translation
equivalence in each.
Levy, Reiss, Holmes, Even-Zohar and Toury, on the other hand, focused on
translation processes. Most times, these processes connected themselves to the process of
proper decision making in translation in order to obtain the desired results. Among these decisions, a translator might need to choose a level of meaning—general or specific—in
order to translate properly (Levy), or might need to decide text type of the text first and then
mode of translation accordingly to accomplish his task (Reiss). The decision might also
involve making different choices in translation depending on the “polysystem” of interrelated
meanings and forms found in the SL text (Even-Zohar; Toury).
Nevertheless, Jacques Derrida and George Steiner’s position on translation was a bit
different from their contemporaries. Derrida, being the pioneer poststructuralist, applied
poststructuralist parameters to TS and saw translation as being in a complex position, a dual
position— translatable and untranslatable both (“Freud” 90; “Living On” 82). For him,
translation took place in “the open-ended conversation between texts, beginning now,
extending indefinitely” (Hayes 454). And therefore, he considered a good translation to be
“neither the life nor the death of the [SL] text, only or already its living on, its life after life,
its life after death” (“Living On” 82). Steiner, on the other hand, believed that translation started with “an act of trust” but at the same time, this “trust can never be final. It is betrayed
[…] by the discovery that ‘there is nothing there’ to elicit and translate” (312). However, like
Derrida, he also believed that genuine and authentic translation was possible but only if a
translator made “the autonomous virtues of the original more precisely visible” (Steiner 318).
17
TS in the 1980s
The 1980s is a major contributing period for TS. It is in this period that many new
perspectives to TS are added rapidly. On the one hand, it comes under the influence of
postmodern theories like semiotics, discourse analysis, and post-structuralism. On the other
hand, other theories like feminism and postcolonial theory also dominate. All of these
together give a new shape to TS, unprecedented in its history. Postmodern theories free
translation from its dependence on the SL text while feminist and postcolonial theories
strengthen and widen its scope as these use it as a medium to explore the voices of oppressed
and discriminated persons.
These postmodern translation theories as a whole further span themselves mainly in
two directions. One direction studies translation as a site of linguistic transfers. William
Frawley (and also Shoshana Blum-Kulka6) is one theorist who may represent this direction.
Frawley considers translation purely “a unique sign-producing act” and expounds the idea
that when a source code is translated into a target code, it is not the source code translated
into target code but a new third code which is independent of both matrix and target codes
(261). Therefore, for him, no translation is good or bad; it is just “either a moderate
innovation or a radical innovation” (ibid).
The second direction of these postmodern translation theories, however, sees
translation mainly as a site involving effects of many externalities like political agendas,
cultural influences, commissioning agencies and readership. Hans Vermeer, Andre Lefevere
and Antoine Berman may represent this direction in TS. Vermeer believes that a translation is
not only a linguistic transfer of SL into TL, but it is also affected by external forces like the
type of readership for which translation is being done and the agency which commissions a
translation (222).
6 As in Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. “Shifts of Cohesion and Coherence in Translation.” The Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 2000. 298-313. Print. 18
Lefevere agrees with Vermeer in this case. In one of his articles, he says that
translation is not a pure linguistic act; rather it is affected by patronage and the poetics of the
time (4-6). Similar is the position of Antoine Berman. He sees “translation as the trial of the
foreign” (Berman 284). The phrase ‘trial of the foreign’ clearly resound cultural and political
overtones involved in this act. In fact, he implies that since translation uproots both SL and
TL before it gets accomplished, many factors in this process should affect it. He also posits
that a translator cannot be free of them “merely by becoming aware of them” (ibid 286).
What is slightly hinted by postmodern translation theorists like Vermeer, Lefevere
and Berman becomes the main focus for feminist and postcolonial theorists in translation7.
Feminist theorists like Lori Chamberlain mainly see translation as a site canvassing women’s plight and/or compare women’s plight to the condition of translation or translators. Either way, translation becomes a way to give a voice to the weak—woman or translation itself— since in the patriarchal society both are judged inferior to their counterpart; woman to man, and translator to the original author (Chamberlain, Lori 456).
Postcolonial translation theorists like Vicente Rafael and Talat Asad, on the other hand, try to provide a “postcolonial reflection on translation in anthropology, area studies and literary theory and criticism” (Venuti, “1980s” 219). They, like Rafael (1988), either expose translation “to be the agent (or subverter) of empire” (ibid 220) or like Asad, try to find out
“asymmetrical tendencies and pressures in the languages of dominated and dominant societies” (Asad 164).
TS in the 1990s
As a result of all the above theoretical developments in the previous decades, TS in the 1990s becomes an autonomous field. It also deviates into two directions: academic and theoretical.
Academically, major universities and institutions around the world show genuine interest in
7 Though ‘postmodern theories’ is a wide concept which includes all theories of the time including feminist and postcolonial theories, they [feminist and postcolonial theories] have been discussed independently of postmodern theories here to make the point more clear. 19
and need for the field and start having translation degree and translator training programs in their campuses on either regular basis or through correspondence. The press in these universities and institutions, like the commercial publishing houses, also publish works on
TS, which include training manuals, encyclopedias, journals, conference proceedings, collections of research articles, monographs, primers of theory, and readers to name some
(Venuti, “1990s and Beyond” 325). Researchers in these universities and institutions also start exploring the possibilities of the use of machine in translation. They, relying on Noam
Chomsky’s concept of Universal grammar, also believe that a universal machine program for translation between languages is possible. Thus, academically, TS becomes “an institution authority” (ibid).
And theoretically also, TS achieves a new height as theorists from various disciplines bring new concepts and translation techniques to the field. These theorists mainly apply three approaches to translation: 1. linguistic 2. culturally oriented under the influence of post- structuralism and 3. politically inscripted approach (Venuti, “1990s and Beyond” 326-29).
Among these, theorists approaching translation from the linguistic point of view apply new or already existed but never applied theories on translation. For instance, Ernst-August Gutt takes a cognitive approach to translation and applies criteria of relevance theory to it (Venuti,
“1990s and Beyond” 326; Gutt). Similar is the approach of Basil Hatim and Ian Mason when they, in the fifth chapter of their 1997 book, The Translator as Communicator, use politeness theory to analyze film subtitling.
As opposed to the linguistic approach, the culturally oriented approach under the influence of poststructuralism uses already existing norms but for a different outcome. It
“suspects universals,” “emphasizes precisely the social and historical differences of translation,” and initiates “an incisive interrogation of cultural and political effects, the role played by translation in the creation and functioning of social movements and institutions” 20
(Venuti, “1990s and Beyond” 328-329). Annie Brisset, Lawrence Venuti and Jacques Derrida
are three major theorists who may be named to represent this stream in the period.
Brisset in her 1990 book, A Sociocritique of Translation, presents a social and
ideological critique of translation in Quebec and explores how translation of the major authors (dramatists) from dominant languages into Quebecois French helped it acquire a
cultural authority against North American English and Parisian French, and how translation
helped a “vernacular” becoming a “referential” language (140). Similarly Venuti in his 1995
and 1998 books studies translation historically to highlight how English translation, which
appears quite privileged to general readers, has been marginalized culturally, socially and ideologically. Derrida, mainly a poststructuralist translation theorist, also assigns cultural and social roles to translation in this period, as is the case in his lecture, “What is Relevant in
Translation?” In the lecture, he suggests that “when relevant translation occurs within an institution like the state, then, it can become the instrument of legal interdiction, economic sanction, and political repression, motivated here by racism” (Venuti, “Translating Derrida”
252).
In the third theoretical approach, theorists synthesize “various theoretical and political discourses, including Marxism and feminism, poststructuralism and postcolonial theory” in their study and show “how the identities constructed by translation are variously determined by ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, class and nation” (Venuti, “1990s and Beyond”
328). In this way, translation “goes beyond the communication of foreign meanings to encompass a political inscription” (ibid).
For instance, Eric Cheyfitz, in his 1991 study The Poetics of Imperialism “argues that strongly ethnocentric translating has underwritten Anglo-American imperialism, from the
English colonization of the New World in the early modern period to US expansion into
Indian [Native American] lands during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to current US 21
foreign policy in the Third World and elsewhere” (Venuti, “1990s and Beyond” 328). Similar
is the position of Kwame Anthony Appiah and Keith Harvey. Appiah, in his essay “Thick
Translation,” imagines a “frankly political” role for literary translation and advocates for the
need of annotations and glossaries with literary translation to highlight this role (818). Harvey
in his 1998 article “Translating Camp Talk: Gay identities and cultural transfer,” on the other
hand, “calls on the explanatory power of linguistics to analyze a particular literary discourse,
‘camp,’ and its homosexual coding in recent French and Anglo-American fiction” (Venuti,
“1990s and Beyond” 333). For him, translation is not “just about texts: nor is it only about
cultures and power. It is about the relation of the one to the other” (Harvey 466).
TS in the first decade of 21st Century
As a result of multi-dimensional development of TVT and TS in the 18 and 19th centuries,
one major change which comes to TS in the 21st century is in the perspective of scholars and
common people towards the role of the translator in translation, and the place of translation in
the field of language and literature. That said, today, most scholars sympathize with the
translators and realize that “the problem is not just that they are badly paid” and “their
contribution to culture is constantly slighted or overlooked” but that “their creative identity”
is often ignored (Ree 223).
And the reason that translator’s creative identity is being respected in recent
academics brings a different approach to TS too. Perhaps it is because of this that recent
research does not worry more about defining good or bad translations but about having better
translation technique(s) to transfer maximum meaning from SL text to the translated text. In
other words, TS in the present times is more concerned about either discussing those
approaches, techniques and methods (traditional or innovative; old or new) through which a
translator—experienced or amateur; literary or non-literary—can best perform his task and
loose minimal meaning, or locating those problems or linguistic variances between SL and 22
TL which can possibly cause loss of meaning. In turn, it is also trying to find a possible
solution for them.
For example, Chantal Wright in his 2010 article takes the problem of Exophony in
translation which can cause loss of meaning. He also provides possible solutions for the problem. Similarly, another theorist, Krisztina Karoly, in the same issue of the journal that publishes Wright’s above quoted article takes the issue of repetition in translation. He discusses how repetition distorts stylistic effects in translation and how a careful translator can best handle the situation.
Apart from these theoretical developments in TS about human translation, another
field, of TS, MT, which sprouted only in the 1990s, has also developed a lot and is still
developing. In fact, today, theoretical developments in the field have made translation,
especially day-to-day and conversational translation, so easy that one can translate, though
not always accurately, most of the languages—even entire websites and documents—with
just one click through machine programs. One such program changing the lives of people
around the world is Google Translate. The program can translate in seconds to and from
among 64 major languages. MT has also given rise to the ‘crowd-sourcing’ in translation.
*****
Thus, the above analysis of the translation tradition in India and the West shows that
TS in both cultures has experienced a great continuum of development. Indian translators and
translation theorists have come to the realization that translation is not just a Teeka or
paraphrase but an uphill task, that “it is probably much easier to rewrite the text in the other
language than to translate it” (Woolsey 166). Western translators and translation theorists,
following Noam Chomsky’s and M.A.K. Halliday’s theories, realize that translation is not
impossible, nor is it a curse on humanity as depicted in the story of Babel; rather, it is just 23
difficult. And since it is difficult, a translator should be given proper credit for his efforts and
creativity. In this way, the wide gap of the old time between the TVTs and TS of India and
the West has been decreased and TS in both cultures have come closer. This must be a good
sign for Translation Studies.
24
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Decentering Translation Studies India and beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2009. Print. Woolsey, Wallace. “The Art of Translation.” The South Central Bulletin 34.4 (1974): 166-68. JSTOR. Web. 19 Feb. 2009. 33 Wright, Chantal. “Exophony and Literary Translation: What It Means for the Translator When a Writer Adopts a New Language.” Target 22.1 (2010): 22-39. Print. Chapter II Review of Literature on the English Translations of Godaan and Nirmala Translation from Hindi to English is not, as is hinted in the previous chapter, an old phenomenon because Hindi comes into light as a major language only after Indian Independence in 1947. In addition, it took a while for India to break the inferior position of a colonized country to assert itself in the colonial world. Power contributes to the development of a language. Once the English world realized India’s importance in the global village, translation from Hindi, India’s official language with English, into English started. Herein, the translations of Godaan under discussion are one of the earliest and best adventures in the field, whereas translations of Nirmala represent recent practices in Hindi to English translation. It is not until towards the end of 20th century that Nirmala’s translations make their presence known. This chapter is solely devoted to the critical study of the available literature on the select four English translations of Godaan and Nirmala in order to know what other scholars think of these translations. The chapter also includes any commentary or statement about the translation practices of any of the four (+1) translators of these translations, which may directly relate to the translations or not. Prefaces and introductions provided by these translators as part of their translations have also been discussed here. English Translations of Godaan and their Translators Godaan, which was first published in 1936, is the best and last completed novel of Premchand, “the first major Hindi Novelist” (Bender 162). It enjoys a “canonical status in modern India” (Jha 931). Critics like Mahendra V. Desai also consider it “the finest of the century” (Desai 268). Prabhakar Jha points out three branches of the critics of Godaan: In the first branch, critics focus on Hori and his tragic end; in the second, they focus on the gap between rural and the urban settings; and in the third one, their main concern is to find its 35 political overtones. He also says that there has been “more critical discussion about this novel than any other single text in Hindi, be it poetic, dramatic, or novelistic” (ibid). About the language of the novel, he states that it is a novel, “expressing a Galilean perception of language, one that denies the absolutism of a single and unitary language, that is, that refuses to acknowledge its own language as the sole verbal and semantic centre of the ideological world (Bakhtin 366)” (Jha 933). Therefore, he suggests that the main concern in the reading of Godaan should be “the study of specific images of languages and the organization of these images into their dialogic interrelationships” (ibid). Prabhakar Jha in this suggestion is not absolutely correct because it contradicts the very aim with which Premchand wrote his novels. In his presidential address to the first conference of the Progressive Writers’ Association, India in 1936, Premchand said that literature is “the criticism of life” and the language used in it “is a means, not an end” (Premchand, “Aim of Literature” n. pag.). In the speech, he also says that “the same event or situation does not leave the same impression on everyone. Every person has a different mentality and point of view” (ibid). Here it seems that he himself is explaining why there should be more than one translator of his any single work. There have been six English translations of Godaan. First translation of Godaan was done by Jai Ratan Singh and Purushottama Lal in 1957 while the second translation was accomplished by Gordon Charles Roadarmel in 1968 when it was commissioned by UNESCO. Between these two translations appeared an incomplete but scholarly translation by S. H. Vatsyayan ‘Ajneya’, himself a Hindi novelist. This unpublished version, informs Peter France, retains “only the strand of the plot set in a village while leaving out altogether the subplot set in a city—which constitutes nearly half of the novel” (461). Peter France also informs that this incomplete version was later used by Roadarmel in his translation of Godaan (ibid). Roadarmel, too, acknowledges this source in his introduction to The Gift of a 36 Cow (“Introduction” xxv). In fact, Roadarmel “worked closely” with S. H. Vatsyayan ‘Ajneya’ in his translation of Godaan (Dalmia xvi). The fourth translation, an abridged one, of Godaan came out in 1996, produced by Dinesh Kumar and A.L. Madan. But this translation has not survived the test of time and is the least read by modern readers. It is also out of print. Despite its scholarly efforts, there is something in it which causes much loss of meaning in the translation, and also initiates readers’ disinterest. The fact that Ajneya could not complete his translation and Dinesh Kumar and A.L. Madan’s translation is not popular anymore seems to point out that being a scholar does not always mean that one is a good translator; translation is an art and a translator needs specific qualities to be a good translator. The failure of these translators may also point out that every good translator cannot be a good translator of Premchand, which has also been pointed out by Inge C. Orr. Writing in 1977 about Premchand’s technique of writing, she says that the reason that few of Premchand’s works have been “translated into other languages” is that they, when translated, “appear naïve, over-idealized, in short, unconvincing” (34). One reason which she gives for failures is that it is not easy to translate Premchand’s “reformist ideology” which not only inspires subordinate actions of Premchand’s characters but also his plot and story (ibid). Unlike the above mentioned four translations, the last two translations of Godaan by Mohd. Mazhar (2005) and Anurag Yadav (2009) are market oriented. They seem to have been written to make a profit from the English readers and from the students in the universities where these students read Godaan’s translation into English as part of their English curriculum. In these two translations, much of the literary quality and meaning of the SL text is at risk, leaving little hope for gaining any meaning from them. 37 Out of these six English translations of Godaan, only the first and the second (complete) translations of Godaan by Jai Ratan & P. Lal and Gordon C. Roadarmel are still popular among readers. In fact, they have been the most successful. Decades have passed since they were first published and they are still in print. In this period between initial publication and now, some critics also talk about these translations but the numbers of commentaries are not equal for both. In general, both translations suffer from the lack of sufficient critical evaluation. A brief survey of the available commentary on these two translations is as follows: Translation of Godaan by Jai Ratan and P. Lal Jai Ratan and P. Lal’s translation of Godaan is one of these two translations which has suffered the most from the casual approach of the critics towards TS in its early times. As a result, there is not a single article or review available on it and whatever is available is in the form of references as to compare it with Roadarmel’s translation. In such a situation, only things to discuss here in this section remain Jai Ratan and P. Lal’s own views about the translation. But one can be disappointed that Jai Ratan and P. Lal do not provide any preface or introduction to the translation even though they might be aware that their translation comes out in the early phase of Hindi English translation. Meenakshi Mukherjee in an article about P. Lal’s translations writes that P. Lal “began long before the translation boom happened in mainstream publishing” (n. pag.). For not providing an introduction or preface with the translation, Jai Ratan is more responsible than P. Lal because his name appears first on the title page of the translation, therein indicating that he is the primary translator. He has not tried to compensate for the lack of an introduction to the translation by any other publication either. It is not the case that Jai Ratan is not a good translator; in fact he is a prolific translator. Amrita Talwar states that for him, “translating literary works from languages such 38 as Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu is a passion,” and that he has translated more than 600 short stories and two Hindi novels into English (n. pag.). She also quotes Jai Ratan saying that “translation is an art” and also “rendering one culture into another” (ibid). “It is like mixing two cultures” (ibid). Through these statements, it appears that for Jai Ratan, transferring cultural elements is very important in a translation. That is why perhaps, in general, he uses foreignizing techniques in his translation and retains some cultural words from the source language but he also “provides [their] meanings... in the footnotes” (ibid). He believes that “translation is more difficult and laborious than original creative writing” (ibid). In this chat with Amrita Talwar, Jai Ratan also refers to the translation of Godaan. He informs Amrita Talwar that “P. Lal, the editor of Writers’ Workshop, suggested that I translate Premchand’s “Godaan” into English. The book had an interesting plot so the idea appealed to me. I translated the first two chapters and sent them to Jaico Publishers. They liked it and agreed to publish it. After that I never looked back”. (ibid) But this information is quite confusing (or bewildering) as it appears that he is the only translator of Godaan. It may be a mistake. But if this is true, the question arises why do the publishers list P. Lal as a co-translator of the book and why did Jai Ratan agree to it? Perhaps P. Lal helped Jai Ratan in reviewing and preparing final drafts of the translation. P. Lal’s position as a scholar of Translation Studies in India is that of a legendary figure because he not only translates Premchand’s Hindi works into English but also some Sanskrit texts. He is also remembered for his concept-cum-coinage “transcreation” which he uses as a substitute for the word “translation.” Keki N. Daruwalla, a renowned Indian English poet, defines this concept as “taking ‘justifiable liberties with the text, liberties suited to the target language” (Deshpande et. al 1). Yet, in spite of his recognized authority in the field of translation, he does not think it necessary to provide an introduction or preface to the translation of Godaan either. Nor does 39 he specifically write about it anywhere else, although he does write about his translation techniques in the translation of the Hindi works of Premchand in one source. This is in the section “The Style of Premchand” in the introduction to Twenty Four Stories by Premchand. Later, P. Lal publishes this section as a complete chapter in his book, Transcreation: Seven Essays, with the title “On Transcreating Premchand”. Thematically the essay, “On Transcreating Premchand,” has two parts: in one, P. Lal talks about his position as a translator of Premchand; in the other, he discusses Twenty-Four Stories by Premchand, a book which he translates with Nandini Nopany. In the second part, he refers to Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan too. In considering his position of a translator of Premchand, P. Lal implies that he follows some principles of translation but they may not necessarily match those of other translators. In fact, he believes that every translator has some “principles by which he tries to abide and there can be no such thing as an ideal translation” (“On Transcreating” 69). Towards the end of the chapter, he suggests that “in the hazardous field of translation, especially of major creative literature, it is always instructive to examine the manner in which different translators go about their work, since no single translation can ever be acclaimed as having the definitive last word” (ibid 74). For one who has read his statement in the preface to Transcreation: Seven Essays that “that, all other things being equal, an Indian is better equipped than a “non-Indian” to translate from the Indian languages into English” (Lal, “Preface” 5), this perspective comes as a surprise. But he fails to follow the same perspective for long. Soon he talks about Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan and indirectly criticizes him for translating the novel primarily for “non-Indian English reader, as do most of the other foreigners whose translations have appeared in the West” (Lal, “On Transcreating” 70). Technically, based on the above cited perspective, he should respect Roadarmel’s choice for the western readers; instead he 40 advocates superiority of his own translation of Godaan. Perhaps he would have avoided it if Roadarmel in the introduction to his translation of Godaan had not suggested to his readers that they may compare his translation with that of Jai Ratan and P. Lal. It appears to be a kind of intellectual argument between two scholars. This is perhaps the reason that right after the above statement about Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan, P. Lal discusses his (with Nandini Nopany) translation of twenty-four stories of Premchand and says in a rising tone that the translation aims at “Indian reader who has working knowledge of English” (ibid 71). In the discussion, he also says that the translation is “religiously scrupulous” with no “perversions”, “no paraphrase; no omissions of words or of phrases; no attempt to skip, evade, or bypass by giving approximate versions of difficult and obscure idiomatic lines or words and sentences in dialect’ no effort at improvement (which was often a temptation); only very occasional compression of two or more Hindi sentences into a single English sentence, or expansion; and absolutely no adaptation (except in A Tale of Two Oxens, the only story in this collection translated by P. Lal)” (ibid 71-72). Kathryn Hansen does not agree with P. Lal about his above appreciation of his own translation (Hansen 175). Instead she points out that the translation of these stories in Twenty- Four Stories by Premchand often digresses from “literalness into a morass of misconstructed idioms, improper usage, and grandiose images that are simply not in the original text” (ibid). Furthermore, she accuses the translators of using “catchy” phrases, “idioms gone awry” and “bad grammar” (ibid). She also feels uncomfortable with their fondness for “coining verbs” (ibid) and says that “unfortunately, at least fifteen of them have already been published into other translations, and a comparison of these with earlier efforts does not do much credit to the current translators” (Hansen 174). Later in her review, she specifically compares the opening line (s) of the translation of Premchand’s one story, “Shatranj Ke Khiladi,” as “The 41 Chess Players” by Nopany & P. Lal with that by P.C. Gupta and says that in the lines, “Nopany and Lal invent an image that is melodramatic and clichéd,” implying that P.C. Gupta’s translation is better (ibid 175). Since she provides specific evidences for her accusations, her judgment cannot be ignored completely. Translation of Godaan by Gordon C. Roadarmel When compared to Jai Ratan and P. Lal’s translation of Godaan, Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan has received wider acclaim in the English speaking world. Most of the critics also consider it a better translation. Ernest Bender’s statement in his review of Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan that Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan is “superior to the Jaico press edition of 1957” (162) is one such example. Like Jai Ratan and P. Lal’s translation of Godaan, Roadarmel’s translation of Godaan does not suffer from the lack of any commentary on it. There is some commentary available but certainly not enough, especially when compared with the efforts made by the translator in the translation. A brief discussion of this commentary follows: Ludo Rocher’s review of the translation in the 1969 issue of The Journal of Asian Studies is one of the earliest commentaries available. It is perhaps the most intensive and reliable too. He creates reliability by informing the readers that he is also a translator of Premchand and has translated some of his stories into Dutch and therefore is aware of the difficulties involved. He also informs the readers that his judgment is based on the comparative study of Roadarmel’s translation with the original Hindi text. Ludo Rocher comments that the Roadarmel translation that it is “an excellent translation” making a “very pleasant reading” (196). He observes that since “good translations of Hindi literature and of the literatures of other modern Indian languages are rare,” this translation “may be recommended as a model to be followed” (197). He also appreciates Roadarmel for providing a glossary of Hindi words with the translation. 42 This reviewer also points out some of the places where this translation fails in conveying the exact meaning. Among these, he tells that Varna has to be broader than jatí on page 82 and that he will prefer “this murderer” for “this fiend” on page 134 (Rocher 196). He is also correct in suggesting “Omkarnath” for “Onkarnath” as “Omkarnath” gives the religious connotation of the sacred syllable “Om” (ibid). There are four other places where, he thinks, the translation “deviates slightly” form the SL text. For the translation, “In some things she could have been a teacher; in others she was more ingenious than most students,” on page 50, he suggests “In some things she was more skillful than a graduate girl; in others she was more ignorant than a baby”1 (197). For “I” in “I suppose nothing was spent for all that!” on page 210, he suggests that it should be replaced by “You” as the original line reads “Kya ismem kuch kharc hi nahim hua?” Furthermore, he recommends that the word “girl” should be added after “brahmin” in “A brahmin [girl] would just play the bride” on page 303 of the translation because Hindi pronoun “Vah” in the previous sentence refers to a Brahmin girl (197). Finally in the fourth place, he recommends to replace “three people” in the following sentence by “three men,” and Mehta in “‘No, Govindi,’ Mehta interrupted” on page 359 by “Khanna” as this is misunderstanding on the part of the translator. As a result of this last correction, he informs, “Mehta” in “Without opposing Mehta” will also be changed by “him, i.e. Khanna” in the following line. In 1970, The Journal of Asian Studies published another review of the Roadarmel translation. In this review, Robert O. Swan writes that many translations of Hindi text, Godaan, were tried in the past and most of them failed, but this translation is of “highest order” because the language of the translation is “as clear and as stylistically suitable as can be expected of English” in the Indian setting (218). In addition, he defends the title The Gift 1 Here, the analogy between ignorance and baby is not correct for a baby is not always ignorant. 43 of a Cow for Godaan. He says that it has a “better chance of being understood in New York,” though it cannot carry the “connotation freight” of the original title Godaan (219). But soon after this critical move, Swan’s position becomes kind of blurry as he, instead of talking about the translation, starts talking about Premchand and the SL text. He says that “Godaan fails to be completely successful novel by its failure to interweave its idealism with its action” and that in the novel, Premchand fails to make “two worlds”—rural and urban—relevant to each other (219). Furthermore he also makes statements like “even when Premchand decides to build one of these elite persons into a worthy, sympathetic character, the result is hardly more than ink on paper” (220). Strangely, he concludes his review talking about the SL text and not about the translation of which review he is writing2. Contrary to these two reviews in The Journal of Asian Studies, one review of Roadarmel’s translation appears in July/ August 1969 issue of Choice in which the anonymous reviewer is a bit different in his approach because he not only talks about the strengths and weaknesses of Roadarmel’s translation (and Godaan) but also compares it with the Jai Ratan and P. Lal translation. This anonymous reviewer begins the review by telling, though in a kind of emotional tone, that Godaan is a “‘classic’ of modern Indian fiction” and, therefore, “an important novel to make available to American readers,” but soon he balances this kind of utopian position by a warning that this novel should not be mistaken as representing all of India (“Review: The Gift of a Cow” 655). About Premchand’s Godaan, he states that “although Premchand’s presentation of village life is accurate and convincing, his middle class Indians seem sometimes bookish and trite” (ibid). At this point, this reviewer becomes a little unreliable since he is quoting “Classic” for the SL text, and using pricking words like “bookish” and “trite” at the same time. In the same tone of appreciation and still pointing out 2 Perhaps Robert O. Swan had written a separate paper on Premchand and his Godaan. 44 problems (somewhat a denunciation), he says about the Roadarmel translation that it is “careful though a little pedantic” and that it “might have been improved by judicious cutting” (ibid). He explains this statement further by comparing it with Jai Ratan and P. Lal’s translation. He says that the translation by Jai Ratan and P. Lal, “which uses only about three- fifths as many words as this one [translation by Roadarmel], often seems to read better” (“Review: The Gift of a Cow” 655-56). He also says that though “the American translator [Gordon C. Roadarmel] is better with idioms and colloquial speech,” there are “occasional lapse” in it: “His face fell” in Jai Ratan and P. Lal translation becomes “the rather clumsy and unidiomatic ‘his face dropped’ in Roadarmel’s (“Review: The Gift of a Cow” 656). However, finally the reviewer concludes that the book deserves a place in college libraries3. Similar is the opinion of Michael Sprinker in the footnotes of his article, “Marxism and Nationalism: Ideology and Class Struggle in Premchand’s Godan,” about Roadarmel’s and Jai Ratan & P. Lal’s translations of Godaan. In the footnotes, Michael Sprinker says that he uses citation in the text from Roadarmel’s translation but he has also consulted another translation of the same text by Jai Ratan and P. Lal which “is generally thought to be inferior” (76). But at one point at page 68, he points out that here (page no. 414 in Roadarmel’s translation) “the Ratan-Lal translation is more emphatic: ‘In disgust, he turned a tiller of the soil’” (79). In addition to the three above cited reviews and one occasional reference on Roadarmel’s translation, there are three other reviews by Taya Zinkin, Donald Clay Johnson and an anonymous reviewer too but these are not as detailed. In these, the authors either review the two works of translation at the same time (and Roadarmel’s translation is one of these two works) or these reviews are very short, informative and, at times, casual. 3 Unfortunately by this time, he has confused the readers enough to wonder whether to believe his judgment or not. 45 Taya Zinkin in a one page (three paragraphs) long review discusses two works of translation: The Gift of a Cow by Gordon C. Roadarmel and Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhusan Banerji. In the review, she devotes one paragraph to The Gift of a Cow where she mostly appreciates it for its subject matter. Her final conclusion about the translation is that Roadarmel has translated the novel “into English with great skill” (190). Donald Clay Johnson’s twenty lines review, on the other hand, discourages any hope of a critical analysis and is just informative. He begins by telling that Premchand is “the best novelist in Hindi of the 20th century” and that this translation by Roadarmel is a UNESCO sponsored project (1163). He appreciates some of the features of the SL text, not of the translation, and finally concludes that “this is an absolute first purchase for any collection of world literature or for any India collection” (ibid). The approach of the unnamed reviewer in The Booklist and Subscription Books Bulletin is also similar wherein he says nothing about the translation except that this translation is “one of the first from the Hindi into English in the UNESCO translations series” (“Review: The Gift of a Cow” 1061-62). Most of the time, he just appreciates SL text and in this one paragraph long review, he even commits one grammatical mistake: he uses definite article “the” before the name of the source language i.e. Hindi. As opposed to the above commentaries on the translation, better commentary appears with the translation itself in the form of the introduction. In the introduction, Roadarmel explains why he takes on the task of translating Premchand’s Godaan, what translation techniques he employs while translating, and what liberties he takes and why. From these explanations, his discussion of the liberties taken is quite extensive, also indicating his concerns for the loss and gain of meaning in his translation. Two of the liberties, which he takes and accepts, are: 1. He does not use any explanatory notes or footnotes in the translation although he understands that “some readers may miss or misinterpret certain allusions” 46 (“Introduction” xxii). He believes that this risk is worth taking than “intruding of the author’s work and disturbing the pleasure of other readers” (ibid). 2. He improves on the “chronological and other inconsistencies” of the SL text (“Introduction” xxiii). But these liberties should not be understood to mean that he is not faithful in the translation. He remains faithful because he “follows the wording of the original” closely and lets the author “speak for himself as much as possible” so that “the readers can judge both the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s work” (“Introduction” xxiii- xxiv). In the section entitled “The Translation” of the introduction, he explains his liberties in more detail. Discussing these liberties, he accepts that he has made some deliberate changes in translation, those in style being primary, because there is difference between Hindi and English. In these stylistic changes, he, though sometimes, changes passive constructions into active constructions, rhetorical questions into direct statements, some short sentences into one combined sentence, and direct thought and conversation into indirect thought and conversation (“Introduction” xxiv). But he only makes these alterations if the alternatives sound unnatural to the English reader when they appeared natural to the SL reader. He uses the same theory for the translation of idioms and images (ibid). Furthermore, he informs the readers that he deliberately uses few Hindi words in translation if possible, italicizes them when they first show up, and provides their meaning in the glossary (ibid). Similarly, although he retains “the Indian coinage system,” he replaces the pie by pice or cowrie to avoid any confusion for some readers. He mostly retains “the terms of relationship which so commonly replace personal names in Hindi conversation” if they seem natural to the TL readers, and gives the “approximate English equivalents” to the “Indian weights and measures” (“Introduction” xxv). For the latter, he uses quarts for seers, acres for bighas, bushels or pounds for maunds, etc. Finally, he also informs that “consistency in transliterating the Hindi terms has been sacrificed at times for more conventional spellings” (ibid). 47 Apart from the above introduction, there is one other place where Roadarmel talks, albeit briefly, about some of his translation techniques in the translation from Hindi to English. This is in the introduction to A Death in Delhi: Modern Hindi Short Stories. Among his comments, he states clearly that he writes his translations for American readers. He says that in the stories, he has generally “tried to render equivalents for the Hindi originals as faithfully as seemed possible within the limits of modern idiomatic English and within the conceptual framework of the English reader” but the language of the translation is “closer to American English than to British English or to Indian English” (7). However, he assures the reader that he tries to avoid “heavy Americanism” (ibid). Vasudha Dalmia’s introduction to the New Edition of Roadarmel’s translation can also be discussed here. About Godaan, Dalmia points out two things in the introduction: 1. Godaan is a “vibrant” novel which “poses a challenge to the best of translators” (xiv) and 2. It is very “rich” in “speech types” which, and the tension between these, pose “more than the usual difficulties in translation” (xv). Departing from these two points, she comments about Roadarmel’s translation that it is because of these two points and his concern for the Western readership that sometimes he leaves some words and sentences untranslated. She specifies two such places. These places are: 1. when Dhaniya talks about “Swaraj” (Self or home-rule) with a corps and 2. when Gobar calls his father “gau” (cow). But in her final assessment, she concludes that Roadarmel’s translation is “fluent, readable and lively” (ibid). English Translations of Nirmala and their Translators After Godaan, Nirmala is another novel of Premchand widely known today. It is “a prime example of Premchand’s combination of social realism and drama” (Orsini xxii). It was published in Chand, a Hindi magazine, in twelve monthly installments, from November 1925 to November 1926 except that there was no installment in January 1926. In the book form, it was first published in January 1927 and had a subtitle which described it as a 48 “revolutionary social novel” (Rai, “Foreword” ix-x). Acknowledging the popularity of serialized Nirmala and the consequent rise in the sale of Chand, Alok Rai comments in the foreword that “actual circulation figures are hard to come by, but there is oral testimony that the monthly installments of Nirmala generated a great deal of excitement and anticipation. They were eagerly awaited, eagerly discussed” (ibid x). Nirmala is also the novel which, like Godaan, has been translated by more than one scholarly translator. First, David Rubin translates it as The Second Wife in 1988 and then Alok Rai as Nirmala in 1999. An analysis of the available literature on these two translations of Nirmala follows. Translation of Nirmala by David Rubin David Rubin is one of the best translators of Premchand. His career as a translator of Premchand begins with the translations of Premchand’s short stories. He translates these stories in three volumes—The World of Premchand4 (1969), Deliverance and Other Stories (1988) and Widows, Wives and Other Heroines: Twelve Stories5 (1998). All the three volumes have been very well received critically. In fact, it is only after his success in the translations of these short stories that he ventures to translate Premchand’s Nirmala. But, instead of David Rubin being one of the best translators of Premchand, the sad story of the discrimination of the critics towards translations is also repeated here. As a result, there is only one review (by Anjana Ranajan) which is available on the translation, excluding one M. Phil. dissertation completed in India. But one good thing about David Rubin is that he himself provides a well explained and informatory introduction with the translation. His introductions to the translations of Premchand’s short stories are also very good. Since the 4 In the introduction to A Death in Delhi: Modern Hindi Short Stories, Gordon C. Roadarmel calls it “the best collection in English” of Premchand’s short stories (3). 5 In a review of this collection, Carla Petievich remarks that “It is always a pleasure to read David Rubin’s translation” because he “[re]confirms his position as Premchand’s foremost translator in North America, if not of the entire Anglophone world” (555). 49 translations of the short stories are from Premchand, other critics’ one or two commentaries on them also provide some critical framework for the translation. David Rubin’s introduction to his translation of Nirmala is important because of his two theoretical stands. In one stand, he explains, though implicitly, why he decides to translate Nirmala and not any other Hindi work of Premchand; in the other, he tells at a great length about the liberties (and techniques) which he enjoys (employs) in the translation. About the question, why he decides to translate Nirmala and not any other Hindi work of Premchand, Rubin states three reasons. These are: 1. Nirmala is “a tale of woman’s tragedy,” “which nevertheless rises above the usual limitations of a roman a these in its dramatization of very specific and highly individualized private lives” (“Translator’s Introduction” 6). 2. It “makes its appeal on a basis of universal human experience that transcends any local peculiarities of customs and culture” (ibid 10). and 3. “The book is tighter in construction and less digressive” and the characters are “less idealistic” (ibid 6). However, these praiseworthy statements should not be mistaken for a belief that he is blind towards the problems and difficulties in the SL text. In the introduction, he also states them. Among the problems, he declares that there are “occasional inconsistencies” in the SL text and Premchand is “careless about questions of time and money” (“Translator’s Introduction” 7)6. Still, he tries to be “as faithful, as literal, as possible” (ibid). In order to remain faithful, he informs that he keeps chapters and paragraphs of the same length as they are in the original and retains SL names of the Indian sweets in the translation as it is. But since the SL text is difficult and has problems too, he has to take some “unfortunate” liberties in the translation. A brief account of these liberties is as follows: 6 Gulzar, a Hindi writer himself, explains these inconsistencies in Nirmala more openly. He feels that “the novel is a little outstretched and tends to repeat many an emotion” and it has “diversions and contradictions too” (124). 50 1. He recasts the dialogues which are typographically in the manner of a play in the SL text into the manner of ordinary English dialogues in the translation. He also changes the first person of the “interior monologue” in the SL text into a “conventional way of English fiction, that is, in the third person, changing present and future tenses to the appropriate past and conditional” in the translation (Rubin, “Translator’s Introduction” 8). 2. Since “the speech of Premchand’s characters drawn from old-fashioned middle-class society in Lucknow, Allahabad and Varanasi, is highly elliptical, metaphorical and allusive,” literal translation is not always possible (ibid). In such places, he replaces the literal translation by equivalents which “unhappily must sacrifice the salty character of the original” (ibid). 3. Usually he keeps the honorific or commonly used relational words in the translation and provides a footnote for clarification if needed; at times he changes these for the name of the characters for more clarity (ibid 9). 4. He emphasizes one aspect of Indian culture in the translation by stating that Indians are intensely concerned with self-respect, public image or “face” by translating sentences like “kisi ne kuch kaha tha” as “someone must have said something nasty or disgracing” (ibid). In the translation of this line, the words “nasty” and “disgracing” characterize this aspect. 5. Finally, “in translating Indian names he opted [opts] to dispense with diacritical marks and to use instead phonetic or conventional English spellings” (ibid 10). However, there is one thing about which David Rubin does not talk about in the introduction. This is the title: why has he replaced the original title of the novel¸ Nirmala, which is the name of the female protagonist, by The Second Wife? Since the question remains unanswered, his similar translation practice in the translation of Premchand’s short-stories 51 can be examined wherein he talks about his pattern of translating a Hindi title. About the choice of the title, Widows, Wives and Other Heroines, for the third volume of the translations of Premchand’s select stories, Rubin tells in the volume’s introduction that he bases the title on the main theme of the stories. But about the titles of individual stories, he chooses a different approach. For these, he gives “generally direct translations of the original” and “when this is not the case, there is a note to that effect” (Rubin, “Introduction” 15). There are other liberties which are just implied in the introduction to The Second Wife but are stated explicitly in the Introduction to Widows, Wives and Other Heroines. About Premchand’s style, he states that “as has often been the case with writers of voluminous fiction for publication in newspapers and journals, there are occasional errors or confusions in Premchand’s narrative” (“Introduction” 13). He corrects these errors in translation. He also writes that Premchand uses “rhetorical exaggeration” to convey his social idealism, and therefore, it should not be treated something melodramatic,” something very true about Nirmala too (ibid). About his style in the translation of these stories, he states that he tries to be faithfully literal, though frequently he combines short Hindi sentences or paragraphs into one sentence or paragraph with the help of subordinate conjunction (ibid). He applies the same approach in the translation of idioms (and proverbs), though he translates the direct discourse of Hindi into “the standard manner of indirect discourse” of English (Rubin, “Introduction” 14). He takes similar liberty in translating “the speaker’s name followed by dash” in the Hindi dialogues and the colloquial Hindustani of rural (and urban) characters into that of English (ibid). However, he retains Hindi, Urdu or Sanskrit words which can easily be found in most standard English dictionaries (ibid 15). He also provides footnotes and explanations when necessary. 52 Anjana Ranjan expresses a similar view about Rubin’s translation of Nirmala. About the translation, she says that David Rubin translates “the tragedy of Premchand’s classic as simply as the original” even though “some changes are inescapable, as the language of Premchand’s characters ‘is highly elliptical, metaphorical and allusive’—qualities that would be rendered meaningless in literal translation” (n. pag.). By this statement, she implies (and approves of) that Rubin’s translation is a literal translation. To support this argument, she gives two examples from the translation in which she appreciates Rubin for maintaining “the colour of ordinary Hindi” (ibid). In one example, in an exchange between Pandit Moteram and Bhalachandra, David Rubin uses “A man like him is one in a hundred thousand—two hundred thousand!” which would also have been expressed if he had just said “one in a million” as the English say. Referring to this example, Anjana Ranjan informs that here “Indian concept of 1, 00,000 (a lakh) is highlighted” (ibid). Another example which she quotes is a speech by Nirmala’s maid, Bhungi to her. She says that here David Rubin translates “main jhoot kyun bolun” in Bhungi’s speech as “why should I lie?” which can be mistaken at first to suggest that Nirmala is asking her to tell a lie when, in fact, she is trying to convince Nirmala of her sincerity (ibid). David Rubin risks this for the literalness and his promise to keep Indian color. From this example, Anjana Ranjan concludes that “such use of language gives readers a glimpse into the society in which the story is set, sometimes more effectively than anecdotes” (ibid). Ranjan also talks about the title of the translation but she neither appreciates the translated title, The Second Wife, for Nirmala nor does she deprecate it. She maintains a safe position in this matter as on the one hand, she says about the title that “it has a different feel when read with a Western sensibility;” on the other, she comments that it would be unacceptable in traditional Indian society where calling a girl a second wife would be equivalent to saying that “she was hurled into well” (ibid). Furthermore, similarly, on the one 53 hand, she says that the title phrase “hangs in the air like a warrant of doom”; on the other, she says that it “takes some understanding to catch those resonances” (ibid). Perhaps, she implies that the effort to give a different title is good but it would have been better if the same title were retained. In 2002, A. Sailaja submitted an M. Phil. Dissertation in the Centre of Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India on David Rubin’s translation of Nirmala under the title, “Problems of Translation of Hindi into English: with Special Reference to NIRMALA of Premchand”. Though the title indicates that the research is somewhat thorough and different, reading the dissertation does not fulfill the expectation. The researcher compares David Rubin’s translation with the original novel under three main headings: 1. Food Stuffs and Relations 2. Cultural Aspects and 3. Idioms, but she fails to make any significant research contribution. She conducts the comparative study on a facile level as well as fails in organizing her material. There are also many typing mistakes and her position about the translator is almost biased. Strangely, she, unlike a researcher of her position, reacts radically about the translation process of the translator. At one point in her second chapter, she says that “the translator did not think seriously about the rendering of terms denoting food stuffs” (9). She also uses harsh terminology like “ridiculous,” “certainly a bad translation” (8), “translator’s poor understanding,” “the great divide between the oriental and occidental cultures,” “the translator can/could not do well” (9) or harsh sentences like “the translator did not do the necessary homework before embarking upon the task or it happened due to inadvertence” (15), and “the translator had failed on both the cultural and semantic fronts” (22). Most of the time, she advocates for footnotes even though the translator has stated in the preface why he does not provide them as much as she wants. 54 Finally, two more available reviews by Ronny Noor and Bikram K. Das can be discussed here. Though these reviews are not about Rubin’s translation of Nirmala, these are about his other translations. Among these, Ronny Noor reviews Widows, Wives and Other Heroines but he says almost nothing about the language or quality of the translation or about the translator. Throughout he just discusses twelve stories of the book thematically into four groups. Though a bit different, he says in the beginning of the review that Premchand was not well- known in his time as “it is not easy to be noticed when a writer is contemporary of a great artist” (901). This contemporary of Premchand is Rabindra Nath Tagore who “dwarfed all writers of the Indian subcontinent”(ibid). This statement by Ronny Noor seems to reflect his personal liking of Tagore, and does not contribute much to the review. As opposed to Ronny Noor’s review, Bikram K. Das’ review of The World of Premchand is more extensive. In the review, the reviewer praises David Rubin highly for his translation practice, and calls his The World of Premchand “one of the finest English renderings,” especially because Premchand’s style is “particularly difficult to recreate on account of its adherence to the colloquial idiom (a far cry from the ornate and Sanskritized Hindi of today)” (199). Furthermore, he says that “Rubin’s translation preserves the earthy flavour of Premchand’s prose; at times, it is almost literal, and if it should sound alien and ungrammatical to purists, even they will concede that it has a richness that a more ‘correct’ translation might have missed” (ibid). He does not entertain any complaint against the translation either. The translation of Nirmala by Alok Rai Compared to David Rubin’s, Alok Rai’s translation of Nirmala is a recent venture which appears eleven years later. It was probably done to convey a better and modern understanding of the SL text to the contemporary English readers. To accomplish this aim 55 perhaps, Alok Rai not only includes foreword and Translator’s Note but also an afterword. Yet his translation has not received much attention from the critics. His position as a grandson of Premchand does not help his translation gain any added popularity and attention either. There can be many reasons for the lesser popularity of this translation, but one possible reason can be that the translation is done in India by an Indian translator for the Indian English readers. Most of these Indians can either read the novel in the SL text or they have access to Rubin’s translation. Whatever the reasons, Rai’s translation of Nirmala suffers from the lack of critical commentary. Excluding Alok Rai’s own foreword, afterword and Translator’s Note, there are only four commentaries available on it, including those which come out from the critics who review The Oxford India Premchand, an anthology of the select translations of Premchand’s works into English, where it is printed again. These four commentaries are an article by Pankaj Mishra and three reviews respectively by an anonymous reviewer, Harish Trivedi, and Daisy Rockwell. Again, among these four commentaries, two commentaries by Daisy Rockwell and Pankaj Mishra do not say anything specific about the features, success or failure of the translation, and the anonymous reviewer’s commentary is unreliable. In this case, only authentic commentary remains the review by Harish Trivedi. Though the article by Pankaj Mishra appears in The New York Review of Books (a fact accountable for the article’s quality), it does not give any substantial analysis of the translation. It does refer to it. It mainly discusses the translation from the thematic point of view, and this thematic analysis is, too, a part of a larger discussion which includes discussion of six other books. Similar is the position of Daisy Rockwell in the review of The Oxford India Premchand. In the review, she does not say anything specific about Rai’s translation of 56 Nirmala though she talks about his “Afterword: Hearing Nirmala’s Silence.” She calls it “the real gem of the volume” (232). At one point, she makes a general remark about the anthology that “the translations of the fiction, while unreadable, are uneven in their style and would benefit from some comprehensive editing” (ibid). Since Alok Rai’s translation is part of the anthology and the above statement is about all works of fiction in it, this also applies to his translated work. The anonymous reviewer’s position in the Virginia Quarterly Review is worse than that of Pankaj Mishra or Daisy Rockwell. The reviewer writes the review in the most careless manner as even to misstate the year of publication of the SL text as 1925. He misinterprets the story too and accuses the female protagonist, Nirmala, of being the source of the tragedy. Furthermore, he says that Nirmala is a “bitter melodrama” depicting Nirmala, “a fatherless young Indian woman forced into marriage with an elderly widower by a hideously selfish and shallow mother” (“Review: Nirmala” 135). By the end of the novel, Nirmala turns, he continues, from “a sullen innocent into a monster of a wife and stepmother” and “pulls her family into the nightmare of her own frustrated life as if destruction might bestow a semblance of agency” (ibid). Anyone who has read serious criticism on Nirmala in Hindi will feel cheated by this review. In addition, any female reader will find the choice of the adjectives in the above quotations for the women characters—Nirmala and her mother—of the novel objectionable. In contrast to the above mentioned three reviews, Harish Trivedi’s review of The Oxford India Premchand is the only review7 which provides some serious commentary, though not enough, on Alok Rai’s translation. About Alok Rai’s translation, Harish Trivedi says that Alok Rai “renders Nirmala with confident ease and flair and an occasional Indianism; he also provides a sophisticated discussion of the mode of melodrama which 7 He also discusses another book, Courtesans’ Quarter (a translation of Premchand’s another novel, Sevaasadan by Amina Zafar in Pakistan), in the review. 57 Premchand is said to resort to” (n. pag.). Trivedi intentionally quotes David Rubin’s statement that “it seems scarcely possible to do justice to Premchand’s style in translation” to contrast it to what he says above about Alok Rai’s success in the translation of Nirmala. Perhaps he implies that Alok Rai’s translation is better than that of David Rubin. Finally, Alok Rai’s own views and opinions about his translation of Nirmala in the foreword, afterword and Translator’s Note can be discussed here. Certainty, these three sources are important documents for the analysis of the translation as they not only explain the translator’s position but also provide first hand information about his critical framework. A brief discussion of these three follows: In the foreword, Alok Rai mainly appreciates Premchand for his contribution to the development of Hindi and Urdu and of the genre of fiction. He also values Nirmala highly. Most of the times, his appreciation is genuine though at times he becomes emotionally involved with the author, who also happens to be his grandfather. About Premchand, he tells the readers that Premchand is “unique” among his contemporaries because he writes both in Hindi and Urdu with equal mastery, and therefore “stands at the head of not one but two modern literary traditions” (“Foreword” viii). In a similar tone, he calls Nirmala “a classic text of the woman as victim, at least in Hindi” and chides those feminists who “find such texts quaint and sometimes even offensive” (ibid ix, x). He explains that “precisely such texts and their pioneering authors […] have made their modern critics possible” (ibid x-xi). This is a good observation but in the next comment—“after all, we often disapprove of those on whose shoulders we stand”—, he becomes somewhat passionate towards the SL author (ibid xi). Alok Rai uses a similar approach in the afterword too. Therein he mainly discusses Nirmala as one of Premchand’s best works. No doubt, his discussion of the features of melodrama and its application on Nirmala is a scholarly attempt to give a new perspective to 58 the text. But here, too, he becomes emotionally involved with Premchand and even defends the minor inconsistencies committed in the text saying that they are intentional and are part of the melodramatic techniques (204-05). In reality, these inconsistencies just happen to be, as is pointed out by David Rubin and Gulzar above, and are not intentional. His position in his Translator’s Note is not, compared to his critical positions in the foreword and afterword, as clear and concrete. However, he explains some important things about his translation and translation techniques. He states in general that all translators try to maintain “some balance between the poles of exoticism and domestication” and so does he (xii). But he has translated the novel for an Indian English reader. He confesses that it is because of this reader—the reader which “is notoriously prone to the suspicion that it is not he that is being addressed, but an international reader, somewhere behind his right shoulder”—that he has left “certain things” untranslated and un-transcribed (ibid). In other things, he expresses a hope that perhaps “a gifted teacher” will be able to engage students with his translated text and its culture, the culture which is “simultaneously understandable— i.e. not exotic—and also different—i.e. not domesticated, common or garden” (“Translator’s Note” xiii). He also assures that his three pages long glossary (which he provides at the end of the translation) will help the students in this direction. ***** Thus, the above discussion of the criticism of the four translations shows that all of these translations are genuine translations showing the difficult and scholarly efforts of their translators. The discussion also points out that each of these translations also suffers from some kind of lacuna or problem. To state it another way, the discussion reflects that each translator has some special qualities which help him to complete the translation of the SL text in a most fruitful way. With the help of these qualities, the translator gains meaning in the translation. But he does not always reach it; there are times when he fails to transfer the 59 meaning accurately and most faithfully. This failure initiates a loss of meaning. There can be many reasons; language difference, cultural gap and translator’s personal (mis)understanding are some of the main reasons which the critics of these translations point out. 60 Works Cited Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981. Print. Bender, Ernest. “Review: The Gift of a Cow. A Translation of the Hindi Novel, Godaan, by Premchand.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 91.1 (1971):162. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2009. Dalmia, Vasudha. “Introduction to the New Edition.” The Gift of a Cow. Trans. Gordon C. Roadarmel. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. V-xvii. Print. Das, Bikram K. “Book Reviews: The World of Premchand.” Asian Affairs (Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society) 1.2 (1970): 198-99. Print. Desai, Mahendra V. “Literatures of India.” Books Abroad 28.3 (1954): 261-80. JSTOR. Web. 9 Dec. 2010. Deshpande, Shashi, Keki N. Daruwalla, and Gopikrishnan Kattoor. “A True Pioneer.” The Hindu: Literary Review 5 Dec. 2010: 1. Print. France, Peter. “Indian Languages: Modern Indian Languages.” The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. 459-66. Print. Gulzar. “Living with Munshi Premchand.” Indian Literature XLIX.2 (2005): 119-25. Print. Hansen, Kathryn. “Review: Twenty-Four Stories by Premchand and Premchand: His Life and Works.” Pacific Affairs 56.1 (1983): 174-176. JSTOR. Web. 9 Dec. 2010. Jha, Prabhakara. “The Moment of Godan.” Economic and Political Weekly 18.19/21 (1983): 931-36. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2009. Johnson, Donald Clay. “Review: The Gift of a Cow.” Library Journal (15 Mar. 1969): 1163. Print. Kumar, Dinesh and A. L. Madan trans. Godan. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1996. Print. 61 Lal, P. “On Transcreating Premchand.” Transcreation: Seven Essays. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 1996. 69-83. Print. ---. “Preface.” Transcreation: Seven Essays. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 1996. 5. Print. Mazhar, Mohd., trans. Godan: A Masterpiece of Peasant India, by Premchand. Agra: Harish Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, 2005. Print. Mishra, Pankaj. “A Spirit of Their Own.” The New York Review of Books 46.9 (20 May 1999). Web. 25 Mar. 2010. Mukherjee, Meenakshi. “Milestones: Writers Workshop @ Fifty.” The Hindu 1 Mar. 2009. The Hindu: Archive. Web. 14 Feb. 2011. Noor, Ronny. “Review: Widows, Wives and Other Heroines.” World Literature Today 72.4 (1998): 901. JSTOR. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. Orr, Inge C. “Premchand’s Use of Folklore in His Short Stories.” Asian Folklore Studies 36.1 (1977): 31-56. JSTOR. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. Orsini, Francesca. “Introduction.” The Oxford India Premchand. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2004. Vii- xxvi. Print. Petievich, Carla. “Review: Widows, Wives and Other Heroines: Twelve Stories by Premchand.” The Journal of Asian Studies 58.2 (1999): 555-56. JSTOR. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. Premchand, Munshi. “The Aim of Literature.” Trans. Francesca Orsini. The Oxford India Premchand. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2004. N. pag. Print. Rai, Alok. “Afterword: Hearing Nirmala’s Silence.” Nirmala. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1999. 197-211. Print. ---. “Foreword.” Nirmala. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1999. Vii-xi. Print. ---, trans. Nirmala. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. ---. “Translator’s Note.” Nirmala. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1999. Xii-xiii. Print. 62 Ratan, Jai and P. Lal, trans. Godan: A Novel of Peasant India. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House, 2008. Print. “Review: The Gift of a Cow.” Choice (July/August 1969): 655-56. Print. “Review: The Gift of a Cow.” The Booklist and Subscription Books Bulletin (15 May 1969): 1061-62. Print. “Review: Nirmala, by Premchand, translated from the Hindi by Alok Rai.” The Virginia Quarterly Review 76. 4 (2000):135. ProQuest. Web. 25 Mar. 2010. Roadarmel, Gordon C., trans. The Gift of a Cow: A Translation of the Classic Hindi Novel Godaan. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. Print. ---. “Introduction.” A Death in Delhi: Modern Hindi Short Stories. Berkeley: U of California P, 1972. 1-8. Print. ---. “Introduction.” The Gift of a Cow. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. Xvii-xxv. Print. Rocher, Ludo. “Review: The Gift of a Cow: A Translation of the Hindi Novel, Godaan by Premchand.” The Journal of Asian Studies 29.1 (1969): 196-97. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2009. Rockwell, Daisy. “The Oxford India Premchand.” Journal of Asian Studies 1 (2005): 232. eLibrary. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. Rubin, David. “Introduction to Widows, Wives and Other Heroines.” The Oxford India Premchand. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2004. 10-16. Print. ---, trans. The Second Wife. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 2010. Print. ---.“Translator’s Introduction.” The Second Wife. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 2006. 5-10. Print. Sailaja, A. “Problems of Translation of Hindi Novel into English: with Special Reference to ‘NIRMALA’ of Premchand.” Diss. University of Hyderabad, India, 2002. Print. 63 Sprinker, Michael. “Marxism and Nationalism: Ideology and Class Struggle in Premchand’s Godan.” Social Text 23 (1989): 59-82. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2009. Swan, Robert O. “Review: The Gift of a Cow: A Translation of the Hindi Novel, Godaan by Premchand.” The Journal of Asian Studies 30.1 (1970): 218-20. JSTOR. Web. 3 May 2009. Talwar, Amrita. “From Culture to Culture.” The Hindu 12 Apr. 2007. The Hindu: Archive. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. Trivedi, Harish. “The Power of Premchand.” The Hindu 2 May 2004. The Hindu: Archive. Web. 8 Sept. 2010. Yadav, Anurag, trans. Munshi Premchand’s Godaan: Masterpiece of Hindi Literature. Delhi: Cedar Books, 2010. Print. Zinkin, Taya. “Book Reviews: The Gift of a Cow and Pather Panchali.” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 56.2 (1969): 190-91. Print. Chapter III Loss of meaning in English Translation of Godaan In Chapter I, translation theorists (who are also translators at times), scholars and reviewers consider whether a faithful translation is possible or not. Some say yes and others deny it. But one thing on which there is almost unanimity is that translation is not an easy task. It is an intellectual act which demands not only creativity on the part of the translator(s) but also good linguistic competence in both SL and TL. Hence most of them perceive translation as a Target Language Text (TLT) in which a lot of the meaning of the Source Language Text (SLT) gets lost. The reviewers of the select two translations of Godaan—the first by Jai Ratan Singh and Purushottam Lal (onwards referred to as TLT1) and the second by Gordon Charles Roadarmel (onwards referred to as TLT2)—in Chapter II also bear testimony to the above observation when they accept that both translations try to be faithful but fail in their efforts in one way or another. This failure which they talk about is, in most cases, semantic and cultural loss of meaning. They hold the intricate language of Godaan and the translators’ own incompetence either in the SL and or in the TL accountable. When the reviewers hold the intricate language of Godaan (onwards referred to as SLT1) responsible for the loss of meaning in translations, they unconsciously refer to the specific style which any language has, the style which a language adopts when it is born, and which gradually changes and refines itself as it comes into contact with new thoughts and cultural changes both in and outside of the society where the language is spoken. In this way, each language inherits some essence, “its soul” (to adapt Prof. Mehta’s terminology from Godaan (TLT2: 399)), which cannot be expressed in any other language; and if it could, it would be a herculean task. It is in accomplishing this task of recreating the style of the SL (T) 65 that loss of meaning in translation may occur, even though translation succeeds in transferring the sense exactly. But one may say that a translator will not have as much difficulty in translation since he just needs to translate one style—that of the writer whose text he is translating. This may appear true on the surface, but such focalization actually would make a translator’s task more difficult because the author of the text to be translated will not only be a refined master of the language of his time, as is Premchand, but he may also utilize any novel linguistic experiments of his contemporaries. Apart from this, what will make his writing lively and unique is his own style, the individualized style which is an outcome of the social and cultural settings in which he was born, brought up and has lived. If this author is also a voracious reader (and translator) of foreign texts, as Premchand is, his style will also be diversified by the styles of foreign authors. There are three facts about Munshi Premchand’s language and style which deserve mention here: One. Munshi Premchand began his writing career not in Hindi but in Urdu. It was only after the ban on his Soz-e-Vatan, a collection of short stories in Urdu, by the British that he began writing in Hindi. Thus, his Hindi writing also has Urdu influences. Two. After he started writing in Hindi, he also continued in writing in Urdu. Most of his works were published in both languages simultaneously, one of them being original writing and the other its translation by him or by someone else whom he commissioned. There is debate among scholars about whether Godaan was first written in Hindi or Urdu. Three. His Hindi also inherits influences of the colonial period in which he is writing. In fact, it is what Mahatma Gandhi called, Hindustani— conversational Hindi of the time which is regional in nature (dialectal) and uses words from Urdu and English. All these facts about the style of a language in general and of Premchand in particular should pose serious challenges for the translators of Godaan. And they do. These challenges 66 are also the reasons for the loss of meaning in the translations. A stylistic analysis1 of the places in TLT1 and TLT2 where loss of meaning occurs even though the sense is preserved follows in two parts—Textual and Cognitive—and their six sub-heads: Sound System, Grammar and Syntax, Semantics, Narrative, Ideology, and Readers’ and the Translators’ Idealized Cognitive Models. 1. Textual Part Textual part is the part which directly relates to the text and its various dimensions. This is also the part, especially the semantics sub-part of it, which has been under scrutiny since TS came into existence. Nevertheless, stylistics upholds, and most scholars agree, that meaning does not exist only in semantics; it also arises from the sound system—the phonological tools a writer uses, from the type of syntax and grammar he employs, and in the case of a novel, from the type of narration the author weaves. Both TLT1 and TLT2 translators use different creative techniques to recreate these sub- parts in their TLTs. However, TLT1 translators give up easily against the difficulties posed by these sub-parts, and it is only the TLT2 translator who seriously persists in this regard. Either way, regardless of the genuine efforts of TLT2 translator or insincere efforts of TLT1 translators, loss of meaning occurs. 1.1 Sound System Prose texts, like poetic works, also have their own distinct sound system. In fact, in lengthy works of prose, like the novel, it is the sound system (rhythm, rhyme, accents, alliteration, homonyms, onomatopoeia, and euphonic effect) which consciously and unconsciously holds the reader’s interest in the text. In Godaan, Premchand uses a variety of phonological tools 1 The model for stylistic analysis in this and the following three chapters has been adapted from Paul Simpson (2004), Peter Verdonk (2002), Peter Newmark (1988) and some general reading from other secondary sources. 67 available in Hindi (plus narrative tones2 and one time use of a local song in Chapter 233) to make his story lively and interesting. These phonological tools, narrative tones and the song also help him express his intended message in the best possible way, especially at the emotional moments. Most times, both TLT1 and TLT2 translators, even though they preserve sense, fail in creating equivalent sound systems in their TLTs. Rhythm and Euphonic Effect Rhythm plays an important role in SLT1. At times, it is created among ideas or within sentences; other times by the use of compound words, same sound endings of the verbs, anaphora, epistrophe, symploce, cataphora, stylistic inversions, polysyndeton, chiasmus, parallel clauses, repetition of words and sounds, rural versions of standard Hindi words, idioms, and proverbs. Loss of meaning occurs in TLTs on these levels (some of these are discussed in the second and the third sub-parts). Premchand uses compound words in three forms: One. rhyming words like saani- paanee (5, 191), saadi-gamee (21) lallo-chappo (35), kahanaa-sunanaa (117); Two. words with same vowels like ras-paanee (9), shaadi-byaah (16), bholaa-bholee (18), daanaa- paanee (216); and Three. same word repeated twice like do-do (20), khare-khare (69), aage- aage (117), saari ki saari (132). These compound words are either left untranslated in TLTs or their equivalents do not create equal rhythmic effect. In TLT1, seven of these compound words are not translated; another seven words are either translated as single words which do not create any rhythmic effect or only their senses are preserved. In TLT2, all these words are 2 Tones—which result from a variety of positions the narrator takes with his listeners, and characters’ changed relationships with other characters—create a major internal sound system, usually affecting readers unconsciously. Most times, TLT1 and TLT2 try to preserve the tones in the text but at the time when the narrator swiftly changes his tones in a single paragraph or line—mostly visible in SLT by honorific verb and noun use, pronoun change, stylistic inversions and omission of a subject or verb, etc. — TLT1 and TLT2 seem to give up or have no choice left. 3 Though the song (216) is a poetic work, it plays an important role in SLT1. Its dialectal wording not only gives a local color to SLT1, it also gives a natural representation of Hori’s anguished life and his temporary happiness and hope. TLT1 and TLT2 only translate its sense and fail in recreating its (dialectal) rhyme and tone (with TLT1, focalization also) (TLT1: 229, TLT2: 298). 68 translated but by equivalent single words which do not preserve the rhythmic effect of these compound words either. Premchand uses repetition of words and sounds in sentence(s) at definite intervals to create rhythm. For instance, in the following three examples: a. Laad de… kar de (20). b. Agar mere paas… kar deta (56). c. Khanna garajane lage. Govindi barasane lagee (169), Premchand creates rhythm with three different kinds of repetitions. The first example is a proverb which creates rhythm by the repetitive use of rhyming words laad, ladaa and laadane. The second example uses a compound word, ek-ek, two times in between to recreate rhythm. In the third example, it is the similar consonant and vowel sound endings of the two parallel clauses which create rhythm. The rhythms like these also get lost in the TLTs. In TLT1, the first example is left untranslated (18), and only the sense of the second and third (54 and 176) is preserved. TLT2 also preserves sense but loses rhythm (34, 88 and 235). Like rhythm, euphonic effect also plays an important role in SLT1 as it not only creates a kind of internal rhyme and makes the reading smooth, but also attracts readers’ emotional involvement. To create this, Premchand uses some explicit techniques which would also create similar effect in TLTs if those techniques were recreated. For example, in Lambaa, rookhaa… baunaa kar diyaa ho (31), Premchand creates euphonic effect by first using a set of adjectives separated by commas, then using a single letter word na (meaning “no”) before four minor clauses, and finally closing the example with a simile. All this happens in one sentence. TLT1 translates it as “Her face…her exuberance” (29) which does not recreate any of the SLT1 euphonic devices. It also divides one SLT1 sentence into two which decreases its urgency and pace. TLT2’s translation “her long face…her development” (50) reads smoothly but it also fails to recreate the euphonic effect. It also divides one sentence into two. It does not translate the simile either. 69 Alliteration, Assonance and Homonyms Unlike rhythm, the use of assonance, alliteration and homonyms is language specific. And, therefore, their equivalents in TL do not create similar sound effects. Thus, recreating them in TLT poses a real (almost impossible) challenge to translators. For instance, in Bebaat kee baat mat bako (105) and Paanee marate hi marate to maregaa (182), SLT author creates alliteration by using the consonants “b” & “t” and “m” & “r” respectively. The first alliteration is used at a time when Dhaniya has just started talking to Hori after her fight, and the second when Hori has fainted. In both cases, it represents urgency of the emotions. TLT1 translates these as “don’t say such terrible things” (99) and “he is not used to this kind of work” (190) while TLT2 translates them as “don’t talk so lightly about such evil-omened things” (145) and “self-respect takes a long time to die” (253). Not only do these translations fail in preserving the above alliterations, they also read uninterestingly. A similar case also happens with the use of assonance. When Roopa’s wedding has been fixed and Hori, unconsciously scared of Dhaniya’s reaction, suggests Dhaniya to invite Gobar to the wedding, he uses an assonant sentence: aane na aane kaa use akhtiyaar hai (312). Both TLT1 and TLT2 fail in recreating this assonance as they respectively translate it as “whether he came or not—that was his look-out” (329) and “whether he came or not was up to him” (425-26). Unlike the conscious use of assonance and alliteration in SLT1, homonyms are usually unintentional and only intelligible to SLT1 readers. For example, the word haraa in paanv mein mote chaandee ke kare the, gale mein mote sone kee hansalee, cheharaa sookhaa huaa; par dil haraa (216) is used to mean “gay,” or “happy”; but it also creates an internal rhyme by connoting its other homonymic meaning, the color “green”. The connotation “green” contrasts with other color combinations, white and yellow (chaandee meaning “silver” is white and sona meaning “gold” is yellow). Also, while white and yellow 70 symbolize fadedness and paleness; green represents liveliness, thus happiness and gaiety. TLT1 and TLT2 translate haraa as “gay” (229) and “young and luxuriant” (298) respectively; neither of which captures its homonymic meaning4. However, there are some places where homonym usage is intentionally used by the author as a stylistic device. For instance, in Chapter 3, page 16 of SLT1, Hori tries to create an analogy of gold and silver with the names of Sona and Roopa. Sona in Hindi also means gold but Roopa means someone beautiful. However, Roopa (and her endearment name Roopiyaa) homonymically refers to the Indian currency, Rupee, which is Rupiya/Roopiyaa in Hindi. Rupee in 1930s was made of silver. This homonym is intentional and intelligent to SLT1 readers but there is no way to recreate it in the TLTs. Thus loss of meaning occurs.5 Accents and Onomatopoeic words Each character in Godaan speaks words and sentences representative of his creed, class, caste and social status. His rural low-caste characters speak in colloquial Hindi and its dialects and use distorted forms of words borrowed from other languages; his rural upper class characters speak a mixture of standard and colloquial Hindi dipped in dialects; and his urban characters use standard Hindi mixed with words from other languages. Furthermore, in the urban characters, Mehta and other Hindu characters use a lot of English words and terminology while Mirza uses Urdu and Persian words. All of these various usages together give these characters their personal accents. In this way, just preserving the sense of their accented speeches in the translation would not be enough; it will be preservation of the sense plus the stylistic features of these characters’ language that will make a translation faithful. TLT1 and TLT2 translate all these accents in plain Standard English. 4 Some other homonymic uses like these are: Heera in haay re mere heera!...heera,heera (182-83)-- “diamond” and the name of Hori’s brother; gaahak (243)—“customer” and a colloquial slang word expressing frustration; gaalib (254)—“overshadowing” (TLT2 352) and the name of a famous Urdu poet; joon (181)—“month of June” and “meal”; and sanskrit (146)—“refined” (TLT1 147, TLT2 203) and ancient language, Sanskrit. Only denotative uses of these homonyms are preserved in TLTs. 5 Similar is the case with the word mangal which is used in the sense of “happiness” on page 302 but which is also the name of Gobar’s first son who causes unhappiness to his mother after his death. 71 Apart from these, there are two explicit places where the recreation of the SLT1 accent in TLTs is especially important. These are when Omkarnath is drunk (Chapter 6: 62), and when Mehta disguises himself as an Afghan (Chapter 6: 62-66). In Omkarnath’s drunken accent, all aspirated Hindi alphabets change to their unaspirated predecessors while “h” consonant sounds become “ee” and “o” vowel sounds. Mehta’s speech includes more accentual changes to suit his Afghani identity. In his accent, “h” consonant sounds become “a” vowel sounds if they come in the beginning of a word and “ee” vowel sounds if at the end of a word. In other changes, the pronoun tumhain becomes tumako, the postposition ke becomes “kaa”, and changes which happen in Hindi plural nouns when a postposition is used do not happen at all. Furthermore, on the one hand, he uses many Urdu words in his speech, on the other hand, at times, he also changes these and Standard Hindi and English words into their conversation forms like katl and shakl, kahaan and yahaan, “fire” and “council” become katal and sakal, kaan and yaan, faer and kaansal respectively in his speech. In Afghan’s accent, proper gender is also changed as loot (feminine in Hindi) becomes masculine in his speech. In TLT1 and TLT2, none of the above changes in Omkarnath’s and Mehta’s accents are recreated; these accents are translated into plain Standard English. Godaan’s narrator uses onomatopoeic words for two purposes: as imitative of natural sounds which give an air of naturalness to the text, and as a stylistic device to convey some particular meanings. For the first purpose, he uses onomatopoeic words like hush (56), kai (255), gap-shap (259), gad-gad (274) and chataak-chataak (257), and for the second, dhak- dhak (117), dhar-dhar (66), choon (222) and cheen (87). In both cases, TLTs fail in preserving their onomatopoeic nature (except in one usage by TLT1, “pit-a-pat”) and 72 translate their senses only.6 For the second purpose, Premchand uses dhak-dhak (117, 265) and dhar-dhar (66) to depict a feeling of suffocation, pace or running; choon (222) to depict a sense of objection, opposition or complaint; and cheen (87, 128) to depict a sense of defeat (Kumar 27-31). 1.2 Grammar and Syntax Grammar and syntax here refer to the way words combine with other words to form meaningful phrases and sentences. It mainly includes sentence, tense and voice type in grammar; and peculiar syntactical arrangement in syntax. Sentence, Tense and Voice Type It cannot be denied that each sentence structure—simple, compound, complex, imperative or optative plus their affirmative, negative and interrogative categories; tense (Present, Past and Future and their four other types) and voice—active and passive—types have a specific function in a language. E.g. a simple sentence gives a plain and direct statement; compound sentence gives a flow of thought. Since a complex sentence comprises one principal clause and one or more sub-ordinate clauses, it helps in expressing the action and the idea(s) together. Similar is the case with tense and voice types. While the use of present tense in a narrative gives urgency and speed, past tense gives a sense of something which is over and is a plain fact. Future tense usually depicts a hope and will. Passive voice is not only different in grammar from active voice but it also changes the focus from the subject to the object, and vice versa. Thus any change in these in a TLT will result in a different focus and meaning. Still this happens in TLT1 and TLT2 and therefore, even when they recreate the intended 6 These onomatopoeic words are translated as Not Translated (54), “retching” (274), “chat” (277), “happy” (291), Not Translated (276), “uneasy” (113), “pit-a-pat” (60), Not Translated (236), “have had” (80) respectively in TLT1, and “what” (83), “retching” (353), “chat” (357), “pounded” (378), “crashing down” (356) “pounding” (163), “pounding” (95), “a peep” (306), “quits” (121) consecutively in TLT2. 73 sense, meaning is lost. Here are six examples respectively exemplifying the above three points: 1. Hori Gobar…bolaa (25)—NT7 (TLT1: 23), “Hori looked…man” (TLT2: 42). 2. Heera-bahoo…jaataa thaa (27)—“The privatizations…in here” (TLT1: 25), “Hira’s wife…off her” (TLT2: 44). 3. Bheetar hee baadhoonga (24)—NT (TLT1: 23), “Better tie up the cow inside” (TLT2:42). 4. Lekin baalbrind…karate hai (32)—“The children were…topic herself” (TLT1: 29), “They were …the possibilities” (TLT2: 50). 5. Holi ka program banane lagaa (188)—NT (TLT1:195), “They began making plans for the festival” (TLT2: 261) 6. Yahaan baans na katenge (26)—NT (sense is given) (TLT1: 25), “Those are not to be chopped down” (TLT2: 43). The first example grammatically comprises two participles—participle gives a sense of things continuing endlessly—and one conditional sentence, whereas the second example has three short simple sentences followed by two complex sentences. TLT1 does not translate the first example at all and loosely translates the five sentences of second example in one plain sentence. In translation of the first example in TLT2, when the verb, bolaa, is not translated, the participles and the conditional sentence become one plain sentence followed by one participle in the end. As a result of this change, stylistic suspense of SLT1, which arises by an extended predicate (two participles and one conditional sentence) and shows direct action in Hori’s mind, and which creates a sense of curiosity in the beginning and relief when the long sentence is finally completed, becomes a plain narrative report in TLT2, arousing no such effect. However, TLT2 works better with the second example as it recreates complex 7 NT (Not Translated) is uses as an acronym to refer to the expressions which are not translated in TLTs. 74 sentences but here too it combines three short sentences into one sentence with parentheses. This combination recreates the sense but loses the calmness and urgency in the SLT1. The third example is again left untranslated in TLT1 while TLT2 translation not only changes the sentence type but the tense also. The SLT1 sentence is a plain affirmative sentence in future tense where the subject “I”—clear from the form of the verb—is omitted to give depth to Hori’s resolution, the resolution which comes after much thinking. In TLT2, it becomes an imperative sentence (Present tense) which does not convey the strong determination of the SLT1. The imperative sentence of TLT2 becomes suggestive implying that Hori decides that he should do that for now, not that this is the only thing which he would do. The fourth example is a part of a narrative paragraph comprising four sentences. Out of these four sentences, the first sentence is in past tense, the second in present, the third in future and the fourth initially in past and finally in present tense. This tense variation creates an up and down beat in the paragraph which is completely lost in TLT1 and TLT2. Both translate this narration in plain past tense. In the last two examples, the first one is a clear passive voice and the second one a passive voice in the grammatical form of active voice. TLT1 translates neither of the two voices though it incorporates the sense of the second example. In TLT2, the passive voice of the first example becomes active voice which foregrounds the real subject “they” (omitted in SLT1) and also makes the subject of the passive voice an object. In the second example, even though the translation preserves both sense and the grammatical form, the passive voice, still the stylistic effect gets lost as there is no way to recreate the inverted passive voice of the SLT1 here. Peculiar Syntactical Arrangement In order to narrate his story properly, express what he wants to express through his characters, and keep his narrative intact and lively, the narrator uses a variety of syntactical 75 devices in Godaan. Some of these syntactical devices which pose a challenge to TLT1 and TLT2 translators are: detached construction, stylistic inversion, parallel and minor clauses, suspense8, and asyndeton and polysyndeton. Even though all of these syntactical arrangements exist in the English language, both TLT1 and TLT2 translators fail in recreating these (stylistic effects) in their translations. A description of these syntactical devices is as follows: Detached Constructions In Godaan, when the characters want to maintain some distance from what they personally think or say, they use detached constructions. For this, they address themselves by the first person plural pronoun “we” in place of the first person singular pronoun “I” and may also change the verb accordingly. At times, when they omit pronouns in their speech or thought, the change is still visible in the verb form which corresponds with the omitted pronoun “we”9. Neither of the translations succeeds in recreating these constructions because they change the pronoun “we” to pronoun “I” and then have to change the verb accordingly too. This is evident in the following two examples and their translations. In the first example, the pronoun “we” is used and in the second the plural verb. Both TLT1 and TLT2 change these to the pronoun “I” and its corresponding verb. This change makes the detached (distant) effect and meaning of the SLT personal and individualized. The translations also lose the emotional reaction which is created in readers’ minds by the speaker’s detachment in speech and attachment in action. 8 Discussed in section “Sentence, Tense and Voice Type.” 9 At times, they also use “one” or “someone” to create this effect. In Chapter 1, Dhaniya uses such construction in a dialogue which she shares with Hori. She says “Tumase koee achchhee baat bhee kahe, to lagate ho kosane (6). TLT1 fails in translating this and replaces koee (someone/one/anyone) by first person singular and intimate pronoun “I” (2-3). However, TLT2 preserves it (16). 76 1. Hamein inheen paanch saat dinon mein bees hajaar kaa prabandh karanaa hai (12)—“I require Rs. 20,000” (TLT1: 11), “In the next week I have to scrape up twenty thousand rupees” (TLT2: 24). 2. [ham] seint mein naheen kaat rahe hain (26)—NT (TLT1:25), “I’m not getting it for nothing” (TLT2: 43). Stylistic Inversions Characters in Godaan use stylistic inversions all the time, especially in emotional moments to emphasize a select word, phrase or thought. These inversions do not follow a strict grammatical structure and use subject, verb and predicate in any order depending on their needs. These inversions not only express characters’ ideas best but also create a new effect in the novel. Both TLT1 and TLT2 translate these into the English language SVO format which conveys the sense very well but loses the proper emphasis placed on the select semantic units. For example, the SLT1 expression Naheen denaa hai hamein bhoosaa kisi ko (18) gives a sense that “we’re not about to give straw to anyone” (TLT2:32, NT in TLT1: 17) but puts (emotional) emphasis on the action or verb “not giving” by stylistically inverting it to the first place and placing subject after it. This emphasis is absent in the TLT2 translation. To highlight its role in emotional moments, a dialogue between Dhaniya and Hori from Chapter 4 can be quoted. In “Dhaniya ne poochhaa—kahan…kyaa karogee poochhakar?” (38, ten lines), stylistic inversions are used five times which finely express general agitation and emotional ebbing of Dhaniya and Hori when Hori wants to return the cow. Since TLT1 and TLT2 use no stylistic inversions and translate them in SVO format, the agitation and emotional ebbing of SLT1 are lost (TLT1:34, TLT2:58) even though TLT2 tries to recreate this atmosphere by the use of vocabulary which connotes agitation. 77 Parallel and Minor Clauses Parallel and minor clauses are used by both the narrator and the characters in Godaan. When parallel clauses create an internal rhythm in the text; minor clauses with their verbs missing give speed and urgency to the narration and dialogues in the text. They also work as intensifiers in the mind of the readers. At times just a combination of words or a phrase also works as a minor clause. Minor clauses, in addition to the above role, also quickly describe emotional reactions and provide transition to both the characters’ ideas and the narrator’s narration. Although these could be recreated in TLTs with a little effort, as TLT1 and TLT2 translators do at times10, overall none of the translators seems to put genuine efforts. For evidence, one such place where four parallel clauses and one minor clause are not translated well is: Vrikshon mein fal…tript hotee hai (10). The four parallel clauses (separated by semi-colons and each having one sentence for principal action and another sentence for its reaction) are followed in the end by an interrogative minor clause—also a rhetorical question. Again in minor clause, isthaan kahaan is stylistically inverted to create emphasis. TLT1 fails in translating the parallel clause format and also makes the interrogative/rhetorical minor clause a statement. Stylistic inversion is also lost in TLT1 (8). In TLT2, parallel clauses are made independent complex sentences and it is only in the penultimate sentence that parallel clause format is preserved, which is good. Like TLT1, it also makes rhetorical minor clause a statement and loses the stylistic inversion (21). Instances like this occur many times in TLT1 and TLT2. One instance of minor clauses which shows emotional involvement is as follows: Bachchon se kyaa bair! (36). This minor clause is again a rhetorical minor clause which has interjection in the end. The interjection shows narrator’s emotional involvement in Hori’s happiness and tragic plight. TLT1 does not translate this (33) while TLT2 translates it as a plain statement, “there could 10 Discussed in the next chapter. 78 be no quarrel with children, after all” (56). Apart from losing rhetorical minor clause format, it also loses emotional involvement as it does not preserve the interjection either11. Asyndeton and Polysyndeton Asyndeton and polysyndeton respectively refer to the deliberate avoidance of the use of a conjunction and the identical repetition of a conjunction in a sentence or chain of sentences. Though they do not directly create any semantic meaning in the text, they have stylistic importance as both of them mark variance from the standard grammar. This variance gives newness in the reading and at times helps the text to achieve connotation (asyndeton) and a rhythmic narration (polysyndeton); thus not preserving them in translation will mean losing this newness, connotation and rhythm of the narration. The narrator uses both asyndeton and polysyndeton in Godaan and though preserving them just means imitating their usage in TLTs, TLT1 (most times) and TLT2 (at times) translators do not do so. For instance, on page 7 of SLT1, the narrator uses asyndeton five times. Out of these, one use is usake jee mein aayaa, kuchh der yaheen baith jay [It came into his heart/mind, he should sit here for a while]. In a sense, the above use is one complex sentence but the use of asyndeton (deliberate avoidance of the use of conjunction “that”) projects the two clauses of the complex sentence as two separate sentences. Asyndeton also makes the first sentence a narrative report and the second sentence a free direct thought. TLT1 and TLT2 replace the use of comma with the implied conjunction “that” which makes the translation a complex sentence, a simple narrative (TLT1: 4, TLT2: 17). When Gobar goes to the city to work and sees hundreds of people standing there in Aminabad bazaar, the narrator narrates the number of workers in this way: Raj aur baraee 11 Loss of meaning because of the change of SLT1 punctuation marks in TLTs occur many times in TLT1 and TLT2. Out of these, the loss of SLT1 interjections is vital as the SLT1 narrator uses them to indicate any emotional involvement. TLT1 and TLT2 use periods or question marks for the interjections. For instance, at the end of Bank ke sood…samaatee (6), the narrator uses interjection to show an emotional reaction but this interjection is changed to a period in TLT1 and TLT2. In other punctuation changes, they sometimes change the period at the end of a rhetorical question to a question mark (as on page 5 of the SLT1). 79 aur lohaar aur beldaar aur khaat bunane vale aur tokaree dhone vale aur sangataraash sabhee jamaa the (124). In the sentence, aur is the conjunction “and” which connects the nouns that could otherwise be joined by commas and a single “and” in the end. This repetition of “and” increases the intensity of numbers and at the same time creates a rhythmic effect. TLT1 translation, “some four…plain mazdoors” (121), neither preserves this sense genuinely nor tries to preserve polysyndeton. TLT2 translation, “there were…stone cutters” (174), is a good translation as far as the sense is concerned, but it also fails in preserving the additional effects. 1.3 Semantics Semantics here denotes to the meaning of words and sentences in a text. This meaning is not only a dictionary meaning, the sense of the words and sentences, but also overall meaning in context which is at times transferred, other times referential (encyclopedia), subjective, intention, performative, inferential, cultural, code, connotative and semiotic. It is also the meaning which is at times created by ambiguities, other times by interplay among abstract and sensual images and feelings, narrative report of speech and free direct speech, colloquial and standard usages. It is also the meaning which is created by the use of proverbs, idioms and synonyms in a text. A discussion of the loss of these meanings in TLTs is as follows in three categories—lexical, culture specific, and transferred meanings. Lexical Meaning The narrator’s vocabulary in Godaan is vast. It includes Tatsam12 and Tadabhav13 words and phrases from Standard Hindi, their rural versions, and words from Hindi’s three dialects (Awadhi, Bhojpuri and Brij) as well as common words from Urdu, English and Persian. In fact, it is this complex arena of words and phrases which gives life to the characters, literary quality to the text. But TLT1 and TLT2 translate all of these words into Standard English 12 Derived from Sanskrit and used as it is in Hindi now. 13 Originally derived from Sanskrit and changed in Hindi now. 80 where this variation and real-life effect is lost. Some examples of the lexical usages and their translations in TLT1 and TLT2 (in the format of SLT1—TLT1, TLT2) are as follows: Sanskritized/Hindi Words and their Translations Istambhit (20) stupefied (19) astounded (35) Aart (41) NT (36) injured (62) Shataansh (47) flopped (45) hundredth (72) Tilaanjali (47) NT (45) eliminate (72) Shishtaachaar (52) dignity (51) courtesy (79) Mukh-mandal (60) NT (57) face (88) Purushaarth (80) NT (74) energy (112) Paapishtha (109) her (103) offender (152) Gyanendriyaan (117) senses (114) senses (164) Rural Terms and their Translations Aber (5) delay (1) late (15) Mirjaee (5) quilt (2) jacket (16) Posaak (6) finery (2) outfit (16) Darsan (6) see (3, 17) see (17) Lilaam (10) auction (8) auction (22) Suphed (16) white (15) white (30) Pauraa (33) NT (30) luck (52) Arath (45) NT (39) means (65) Baaeeji (76) Baijee (70) NT (108) Tai (92) decided (86) decided (128) Urdu and Persian Words and their Translations Khasam (23) NT (21) husband (38) Albatta (41) NT (37) of course (63) Mehmaan (46) NT (44) guest (71) Taallukedaar (46) Zamindar (44) Zamindar (71) Raees (47) princes (45) princes (72) Murdaa-dil (50) dry as dust (49) lifeless souls (76) Liyaakat (55) can (53) abilities (82) Kaseedaa (61) ode (58) ode (89) 81 Proper/Adapted English Words and Sentences and their Translations Graduate (31) NT (29) NT (50) Kaalij (44) college (41) college (68) University (46) University (44) university (71) Hiyar, hiyar (49) NT (47) Bravo! (74) Make-up (50) NT (48) repartee (76) Government (52) authorities (51) government (79) Motar (53) car (51) car (79) Hat (55) sola topee (53) Muslim cap (82) Drame (67) NT (61) play (96) Business is Business (208) business is business (219) business is business (288) Three cheers for Rai Sahib, NT (222) Three cheers for you—hip, hip, hip, hurrah! (211) hip, hooray! (291) Apart from the loss of this word variation, TLT1 and TLT2 also fail in transferring many complex words. For instance, in Chapter 1 Hori thinks to buy a pachhaaee gaay (6). In TLT1, this becomes a “foreign pedigree cow” (3) and in TLT2 a “Punjabi cow” (17). Though the TLT1 translation is close to the SLT1 word, TLT2 badly loses the meaning as Hori does not think of any Punjabi cow. For another example, chhichhore (76) meaning flirtatious becomes “shameful” (69) in TLT1 and “despicable” (106) in TLT2. The list continues this way till the end. In the case of translating the names of characters, too, loss of meaning occurs in TLT1 and TLT2, mainly because of the lack of genuine efforts on the part of translators. Names of the characters in SLT1 appear in two ways—proper names and their inverted endearing names: Gobar and Gobardhan; Sona and Soniya; Roopa and Roopiyaa; Puniyaa and Punnee; Jhuniya, Jhunnaa and Jhuna; Siliyaa and Sillo; and Matadin and Mataee. For these, TLT1 mostly uses their proper names, except in the case of Gobar and Sillo. TLT1 also replaces proper names Sundariyaa (94) with “our cow” (88) in Chapter 8. TLT2, however, usually retains both types of name usages yet it, too, at times uses proper name instead of its endearing name. On page 252, Premchand uses Jhunna for Jhuniya which becomes Jhuniya in both TLT1 and TLT2 (270, 349). 82 Meaning is also lost in TLTs in the translation of relationship terms, this time because of the linguistic nature of Hindi and English: Hindi has a separate name for every relationship, and English does not. In Chapter 2, the Rai Sahib says that all of his chachere, phuphere, mamere, mausere bhaee (brothers), who are enjoying their time because of his estate, envy him (12-13). In TLT1, these become “cousins” (11) and in TLT2 “uncles and aunts” (25). TLT1 and TLT2 both translate the titles of the newspapers and magazines. This also causes loss of meaning as their translated equivalents, even though italicized, do not give a sense of a proper name and read like common words. The names of the newspapers and magazines are Omkarnath’s daily newspaper, ‘Bijalee’ (46) and its rivals ‘Swaraajya’ (58), ‘Swaadheen Bhaarat’ (58) and ‘The Hunter’(58) (magazines). TLT1 only translates ‘Bijalee’ as “Flash” (44) and leaves the others untranslated (56). In TLT2, these become “Lightening” (71), “Independence” (85), “Free India” (86), and “The Hunter” (86) respectively. Like the failure in preserving the meaning of some common words and the variety of words, TLT1 and TLT2 also fail in preserving the use of synonyms. Sometimes these synonyms are from Hindi and its dialects, at other times from Hindi and Urdu. In both cases, TLT1 and TLT2 replace them with a single Standard English word. For example, the narrator uses three synonyms for the word “cow”— gaoo(6), gaiyaa (67) and gaay (84); six synonyms for the word “wife”—istree(5), gharavaalee (73), mehariyaa (121), lugaaee (122), bahoo (233) and beebee (249); and five synonyms for “God”— Eeshwar (57), Khudaa (57), Allaah (179), Bhagavaan (248) and Paramaatmaa (288). TLT1 and TLT2 replace these synonyms with “cow”, “wife” and “God” respectively; even though each of these synonyms creates different effect in SLT1: Hindu characters in the novel use Eeshwar, Bhagvaan and 83 Parmaatmaa for God, and Muslim characters Khudaa and Allah; but when Mehta in Chapter 32 uses Khudaa instead of Eeshwar, Bhagvaan and Parmaatmaa, it creates a unique effect14. In the case of Hindi, words made by adding prefixes and suffixes, adjectives and epithets play a very important part. They not only save sentences from being very long but are also quick and effective. The SLT1 exploits this quality of Hindi language. In the case of words made by prefixes and suffixes, there is not much that TLT1 and TLT2 can do. They preserve the sense, but the effect created by them is lost. But in the case of adjectives and epithets, they not only fail in capturing their exact sense but also make them adverbs or full sentences. Some examples: • Meethe, chikane shabd (42)—“even softer, even sweeter” (TLT1: 39), “more sweetly and smoothly” (TLT2: 65); • Eershyaa-mishrit vinod (52)—NT (TLT1:50), “a mixture of amusement and envy” (TLT2: 78); • Sajal netra (69)—“small tears came to her eyes” (TLT1:63), “tearfully” (TLT2:100); • Sajal krodh (97)—“tearful eyes” (TLT1: 90), “angry tears” (TLT2: 134). Culture Specific Meaning Culture specific meaning here refers to the meaning of the words, phrases and sentences which are direct or indirect references to the culture from which they are derived, and are most familiar to its culture specific readers. In the case of Godaan, culture specific meaning marks its presence in five ways—cultural terms and references, allusions, idioms and proverbs, slangs, and euphemisms. In all these categories meaning gets lost in both TLT1 and TLT2. Cultural terms are words which carry cultural associations with them. For instance, in the very first line of the SLT1, the narrator uses apanee istree for Hori’s wife Dhaniya. Istree literally means “woman” which is translated as “wife” in both TLT1 and TLT2 (1, 15). 14 Some other synonym usages which TLT1 and TLT2 fail in recreating are doodh and goras; khasam, pati, bhataar and marduaa; deen, eemaan and dharma; and shaayaree and kavitaa. 84 Though the translation “wife” is closest in sense, it loses the cultural meaning associated with the usage. The use of istree rather than patni (meaning wife) reflects Indian patriarchal culture where a woman’s or wife’s position is lesser than her counterpart. Similar loss can also be seen in the following three words: Ram-Ram (7), Vaitaranee (205) and kanyaa-rin (225). In these three terms, Ram-Ram is a greeting which is religious and allusive (Ram, one of God Vishnu’s incarnations according to Hinduism) in nature and is used in north Indian villages; Vaitaranee (also illusive in nature) is a Hindu mythological river between earth and hell, which every sinful soul has to pass after death; and kanyaa-rin denotes a religious duty assigned by Hindu scriptures to a father toward his daughter. In TLT1, the first term is transcribed (4), the second term is translated as “salvation” (216) and the third term is left untranslated (240). In TLT2, the first term is left untranslated (18); the second and the third terms respectively become “the river of hell” (284) and “his duty to the girl” (311). Thus, none of the translations captures the cultural meaning. A similar case also arises in the translation of cultural references in which meaning is produced in context and is sensible to SLT1 readers. Two such references, which are grammatically translated in TLT1 and TLT2 and may not be sensible to a TL reader without extra information, are: 1. In Chapter 1, Hori amusingly says that he has no reason to dress in fine clothes as he is not going to his father-in-law’s village nor is there a young sister-in- law there (6). 2. Kodai’s wife in Chapter 12 sprinkles drops of water on Gobar because he is her supposed Nandoee (husband of her husband’s sister) (123). As opposed to the loss of culture-related meaning of cultural terms and references, meaning badly gets lost in the translation of allusions. Godaan is full of all sorts of allusions—religious, social and historical. At times these illusions stand separate, and at other 85 times they come as a part of a continuous narration or speech. In both cases, they are easily identifiable by SL readers. But in the case of TL readers, these need to be explained in footnotes, endnotes or glossary, which is only done in TLT2 and only for some of them. Other times, TLT1 and TLT2 either leave them untranslated or just translate them as vocabulary words. Three such illusions and their translations are: Dhanush-yagy (12) NT (TLT1:10) NT (TLT2: 23) Maansarovar (144) mansarovar (TLT1:144) mansarovar (TLT2: 200) Sheshanaag (258) cobras (TLT1: 276) cobra (TLT2:356) Idioms and proverbs are also culture specific as they have much cultural wisdom imbedded in them. Not only do they help the narrator say complex things easily, they also give a local color and rhythm to the text. Godaan is full of idioms and proverbs. TLT1 and TLT2 at times translate these idioms and proverbs sense for sense which, compared to the quick, emphatic and rhythmical effect of the SL usage, reads dispassionately; at other times they are left untranslated. Some examples: Idioms (SLT1) (TLT1) (TLT2) Paanv mein Sanichar Have an itch to move around ‘Saturn’ in my feet (29) hona(15) (14) Aare haathon liyaa (18) Caught on quickly (17) Sneered (32) Naak katanaa (26) NT (24) Disgrace (43) Be per ke uraanaa (34) NT (31) NT (54) Khule khajaane public ko You can make plenty (47) You can easily hoodwink the lootanaa (49) public (75) Proverbs Mard saathe par paathe hote Men are not men before sixty Men are still lusty as bulls at hain (6) (2) sixty (16) Naatan khetee bahuriyan NT (21) A daughter-in-law in the ghaat (22) house is like a dwarf bullock in the field (38) Naam bare darshan thore NT (54) A big name but nothing to (56) show for it (83) Kaajee ke ghar choohe bhee In the house of priest even In the house of a judge even sayaane (57) the rats are clever (53) the rats are clever (84) Jaisee rooh vaise fariste (76) NT (69) Well, people are attracted by their own kind! (106) Euphemistic expressions and slangs are also culture specific. Since Indian culture accords a lot of importance to things like modesty and politeness (modesty in dress, in 86 manners), the characters and the narrator in Godaan use many euphemistic expressions. It is for these reasons that slangs used in the text are also indirect and milder. Since the TL culture is much more direct, euphemistic expressions become direct expressions and slangs become harsh. For instance, shareer (69), harjaaee (113) and has-vilaas (243) are three euphemistic expressions used by Godaan’s narrator. TLT1 does not translate the first expression, and the other two expressions become “slut” (109) and “diversion” (243). Here, when “slut”, compared to harjaaee, is harsh, “diversion” does not convey the intended sense exactly. In TLT2, these three words respectively become “evil” (99), “common adulteress” (158) and “making love” (TLT2: 337), which do not preserve the euphemism either, except in the last word but it does not give the exact sense. Regarding slang, SLT1 uses slangs like Laalaa (29), Raachchhasin (39), laahaul vilaa koovat! (56) and sasur (89). As usual, TLT1 only translates the last slang word: “the swine of a deer” (82) and leaves the others untranslated. TLT2, too, does not translate the first slang word and translates the other three slangs as “hellcat” (62), “disgraceful!” (83), and “the damn thing” (123). All these three equivalents not only fail in recreating the exact sense but also lose the cultural context of the SLT1 words. Transferred Meaning Here, transferred meaning mainly includes the meaning which is produced by the figures of speech and the verbal humor. Both of these kinds of meaning are vital to the SLT1 as they not only make it pleasurable reading but also help to express the meanings which could otherwise not be expressed. Out of these two categories of transferred meaning, figures of speech live through the words while the verbal humor appears both in the words and the context. However, it is only in some special circumstances that meaning is lost in TLTs in these categories. 87 In the figures of speech, TLT1 and TLT2 translators appear to be fine with simile, metaphor, personification and hyperbole but lose meaning, as they either do not translate the expression or only preserve sense, if metaphor or personification arises from a single word or phrase. They also lose meaning if a single sentence incorporates more than one figure of speech. Two examples: 1. Chaudharee ne Hori kaa aasan paakar chaabuk jamaayaa (metaphor and oxymoron) (26)—“Damri cornered Hori” (neither preserved)(TLT1: 25), “Having discovered Hori’s weakness, Damari started exploiting it” (oxymoron lost) (TLT2: 43) 2. Aur krodh ab rassiyaan turaa rahaa thaa (Metaphor, hyperbole and personification) (30)—NT (TLT1: 28, TLT2: 49). Similarly, the translators translate well if verbal humor—humor, irony, satire, and parody—arises from a situation; translating this only demands translating the context well. For instance, in Chapter 21, Gobar and other village people mimic events from Jhinguri Singh, Datadin and Pateshwari’s lives. This mimicry is humorous in nature but it also serves as a vitriolic satire on their life styles. TLT1 and TLT2 translate these parodies well. But if this verbal humor arises from a single word or phrase, the translators stumble in their translations. For instance, in Chapter 9, the narrator uses three positive words, shisht janon (99), netaaon (100), netaagan (102) for the village people like Jhinguri Singh, Datadin and Pateshwari, but these words become ironical /satiric because none of them deserve these. TLT1 uses the pronoun “they” for all the three words while TLT2 respectively translates the first two words as “the village leaders” and “the leaders” and uses the pronoun “they” for the third. Thus, neither of the translations captures the specific irony/satire intended in the SLT1. Loss of meaning in TLTs also occurs in transferring puns, the puns which are produced in SLT1 by the use of single words in different senses. For instance, in Chapter 21, 88 the narrator uses pun on the word paanee as he uses it two times in two different senses: water and being scared (110). But there is no way to preserve this pun in TLT1 and TLT2, even though they preserve well the meaning (105, 153). A similar case happens in the translation of the same word, paanee, later on page 186, where the narrator uses it in two different senses: self-respect and water. Hori is working in Datadin’s fields. Datadin asks him to work faster; it is paanee in him that instigates anger. Though Hori is tired and hungry, he works hard because paanee will only die gradually. As a result of this hard labor, when he faints, Dhaniya sprinkles paanee which brings his consciousness back. 1.4. Narrative Narrative here refers to the narrator and his techniques—characterization, textual structure, points of view, analepsis and prolepsis, acceleration and deceleration, etc.—which he employs to weave Godaan’s story. In the translations of Godaan, translators do well in translating Godaan’s textual structure, analepsis and prolepsis, acceleration and deceleration, but they fail in reproducing characterization (because TLTs fail in translating characters’ individualized languages); points of view (since they arise from individual speeches and thoughts at times) and the narrator. Of all these, the loss of the SLT1 narrator in TLTs is the most important and crucial loss. The narrator of Godaan is a heterodiegetic omniscient narrator. He also directly enters in the narrative whenever and wherever he deems it necessary. For instance, he begins the story of the novel as a heterodiegetic omniscient narrator, but on the very first page (and third page) he enters into the story and directly expresses his opinions and thoughts. This kind of shift is usually preserved in TLTs. But when the narrator becomes somewhat homodiegetic and addresses the readers and himself with the pronoun “we”, loss of meaning occurs because the TLTs do not reproduce the changed position of the narrator. For example, in the beginning of Chapter 18, the narrator speaks as if he is a character in the novel. He uses the 89 pronoun “we” to address readers. But in the TLTs, no such change happens and they translates the personal address “we” as detached narrative words “but the fact” (TLT1:174) and “all that was evident” (TLT2:233). Another feature of Godaan’s narrator is that, although he mostly maintains a higher position or a position of a judge over the characters, he is also affected by the happiness, pain and other events of their lives. At such moments, he either directly expresses his reaction of events as he does on the last page of the novel, Jo kuchh apane…pooraa na kar sake (320), or uses locative expressions like is, idhar, inhen, ye (this, hither, him, these in place of that, thither, him (distant), and those) which show his emotional involvement. At times, he is totally moved by the event and starts mentally participating in it. One such instance in Godaan is the fire incident in Chapter 28. In narrating the event, he seems so emotionally overwhelmed that he not only commits an error but also uses long figures of speeches, many aphorisms, alliterations, onomatopoeic words, homodiegetic locative expressions, allusions, repetitions, chiasmus, colloquial terms, and stylistic inversions. Both TLT1 and TLT2 translators fail in recreating narrative variance like this, at times because they do not preserve them, other times because there is no equivalent available in TL for SL expressions. One such expression for which TL has no equivalent is the locative expression inhen (257)15. Another kind of loss occurs in TLT1 and TLT2 in translating characters’ speech and thought processes which the narrator represents in a variety of ways: free direct speech and thought, free indirect speech and thought, just direct/indirect speech and thought, and as narrative report of speech and thought. These variations play a crucial part in the reported speech of the dialogues as well as in the narration. These stylistic variations also create an up and down beat plus liveliness in the narrative. In TLT1 and TLT2, the sense of these remains 15 This kind of the loss of meaning also occurs in TLTs when it comes to translate gender specifications; to, hee, na, kitanaa intensifiers, honorific suffix jee, and sentences which have their subjects omitted because their subjects are easily identifiable from the verbs. 90 intact. Yet many times, their stylistic form changes, thus changing the focalization in the narration and causing loss of meaning16. For example, in Chapter 2, when a peon comes to inform the Rai Sahib about his workers’ denial to work without proper food, he reports the workers’ combined statement as a free direct speech, kahate hain, jab tak hamein khaanaa na milegaa, ham kaam na karenge (They say, until we shall not get food, we will not work) (14). In TLT1, this becomes a narrative report of speech, “a chaprassi came with the news that tenants who had been put on forced labour had refused to work. They were insisting upon being fed (13)”. In spite of the fact that TLT2 translator translates the expression in the dialogue form, he too changes it into a narrative report: “Sir, the men on forced labour have refused to work. They say they won’t go on unless they’re given food (27)”. Although the sense of the above expression in SLT1 and TLT1 and TLT2 is similar, loss of meaning occurs as shifting from free direct speech to (indirect) narrative report makes speech more distant and also changes pronoun from first person to third person. In the case of TLT1, it also shifts from the present tense to the past tense. 2. Cognitive Part Apart from the meaning which is solely produced by the linguistic units, some meaning in any text is always produced by and is dependent on more than textual units. This meaning arises from cognition, and therefore its loss in translation is almost inevitable (thus a translator cannot be accused for this loss), however at times the translators are also responsible for this. In the case of Godaan and its translations, this meaning can be studied in two sub-heads: Ideology; and Readers’ and the Translators’ Cognitive Models. 16 TLT2 translator seems careful about this and therefore, at times, preserves this variation in the translation. For instance, he does so in the translation of the last paragraph of page 117, Chapter 12 in SLT1 (164). 91 2.1 Ideology In Godaan, ideology plays its role on many levels. Everyone and everything, including the author in the disguise of a socialist narrator, work with some kind of inherent ideology. In fact, it is this complex nature of the ideological system in Godaan that poses challenges to the translators. In addition, this system often is only meaningful to SL readers and non- transferable in TL. For instance, characters in the text follow a certain power structure in which the elders within a family and caste, the rich and everyone from the high caste are given respect. This respect is visible in Godaan in the use of honorific verbs and pronouns. Since there is no way to translate these honorific verbs and pronouns (too, tum and aap) in TLTs, they translate these in Standard English, and thus lose the meaningful ideological system. Apart from this, there are also other ideological references in SLT1 which are translated well in TLTs, but the TLT readers may still not make sense of them. Three such references are: 1. In Chapter 4, Damri innocently accuses womanhood of frailty because his daughter- in-law decides to do whatever her husband does somewhere in a foreign land. Damri does not accuse his son (a man) of the frailty though. Hori also agrees with Damri (26). 2. In Chapter 21, Hori promises Datadin, even though Gobar opposes it, to pay off his debt and its cumulative interest because it is a Brahmin’s money and not paying this will take him to the hell (195). 3. In Chapter 24, Gauri Mahato agrees not to have any dowry but Dhaniya insists on giving it because she thinks it her duty (232-33). 2.2 Readers’ and the Translators’ Cognitive Models In general, meaning arises as a result of interplay between the textual units and the readers’ cognitive models. Cognitive model here refers to a person’s cognition (the psychological 92 result of perception and learning and reasoning) which is a result of his social, historical and cultural background knowledge. Thus, different persons will have different cognitive models. In fact, it is this difference in cognitive models that can allow two readers (a SL reader and a TL reader) to interpret the same line/text in two different ways. In Godaan, there are social, historical and cultural references which do not appear to be intentional references or allusions but may still fire up the SLT1 readers’ cognition. This cognitive stimulation will give an extra meaning to what is being written on the page. Since TLT readers do not have a similar cognitive framework, even the faithful and exact translation of these references in TLTs may not evoke the same responses from TLT readers; thus this extra cognitive meaning of SLT1 will be lost in translations. For example, in Chapter 4, the narrator amusingly reports that Roopa could not deny Hori’s request to go to his brother’s house because she could not afford to lose the honor of eating in Hori’s phool kee thaalee (36). This simple information represents a patriarchal system in any Indian family in which the bread-winning father is also the power-figure: there is only one “fancy plate” in the house, on which only the father (and his dear daughter by his permission) can eat. This information will easily ignite the SLT1 readers’ cognition which is well informed about such power structure. A reader of TLT2, likely having no such exposure to patriarchy and its power structure, may not grasp the cognitive meaning17. This kind of loss is also evident in the translation of the SLT1 expressions, which are not allusions but are allusive in nature. For instance, when Bhola abuses Jhuniya in Chapter 14, Jhuniya thinks of death in these terms: Dharatee is vakt munh kholakar use nigal letee, to vah dhany manatee! (137). Though this is not an allusion, it still alludes to a similar mythological episode of Seeta entering into the earth in Ramacharitmanas. TLT1 and TLT2 17 Therefore, perhaps TLT2 translates the reference as “fancy plate” and also transcribes “thaalee” in italic (56). TLT1 does not translate the reference. 93 translate the line faithfully (135, 191); yet this translation may not have any cognitive meaning to a TL reader. There are also historical references in SLT1 which are easily comprehensible to a SLT1 reader but may require additional historical knowledge from a TLT reader. For example, in Chapter 6, the Rai Sahab and his friends exclaim that Malti has broken Namak ka kaanoon by making Omkarnath drink wine (61). This usage is historical in nature and may not be meaningful to a TL reader unless he is historically aware or it is somehow specified by translators. TLT1 does not translate the reference (57) while TLT2 just uses “salt laws” (89). Like many readers, a translator is also a reader who reads the text, re-reads it, and interprets it from his own perspective. It is from his understanding of a text through his cognition that a TLT appears. Thus, in this process, it may happen that he, as a result of his limited/incorrect background knowledge, may misunderstand something in the SLT1 or may not understand it at all. In both cases, loss of meaning will occur. In the case of the translators of Godaan, Jai Ratan and P. Lal are domestic readers and Gordon C. Roadarmel is a foreign reader; thus they also have two different cognitive models. It is perhaps because of these varied cognitions that their translations, at times, vary at great length, and that they use different techniques to express their grasped meaning. It is also because of their cognitions that they, at times, are inconsistent about some usages, commit grammatical errors and misunderstand some SLT1 expressions18. All of these elements together cause loss of meaning in translation. Inconsistency There are places in both TLT1 and TLT2 where the translators are inconsistent with some usages. The absence of a single usage confuses the readers and thus causes loss of meaning. 18 Most of these could be removed by one or two serious reviews. 94 The usages about which TLT1 is not consistent are monetary system19, capitalization and italicization of SL words20, punctuation21, and some particular words22. However, TLT2 is only inconsistent about three usages: measurement system23, calendar24, and italicization25. Errors TLT1 and TLT2 also make non-grammatical and grammatical errors. In the non-grammatical errors, the errors are usually wrong usages26. Some of these wrong usages in TLT1 and TLT2 are Matadin for Datadin (TLT1: 32), “three girls” for two girls (TLT2: 251), “bitch” for witch (TLT2: 305), Dhaniya for Puniya (TLT2: 375). Likewise, both TLTs also commit grammatical errors. Some of these errors have been underlined in following expressions: “Both the daughters-in-law of the house were busy at cow-dung cakes” (TLT1: 21), “To soften life’s oppressiveness of life” (TLT1: 138), “Her father was…who earn” (TLT1: 138), “People of this gifted class of people” (TLT2: 194), “He had been trembling as though taking a move that would…” (TLT2:163), “Tickets were selling from two…” (TLT2:176), “The night was late” (TLT2:343). Translators’ Incompetence and Misunderstanding Apart from these inconsistencies and errors, incompetence and misunderstanding on the part of the translators also contribute to the loss of meaning. While TLT1 translators come out as incompetent in translating some SLT1 expressions into TLT because English is not their first language, TLT2 translator misunderstands many SLT1 expressions because he is not well- versed in the SL culture. In fact, it is because of TLT1 translators’ incompetence that they 19 twenty rupees (17), Rs 20/- (24); Rs 500/- (13), five thousand rupees (19) 20 bhai (20), bhai (20); thakurs (39), Kayastha (250); The Geeta (106), Satya Narain (106) 21 In Chapter 11, the translators commit inconsistencies: they translators frequently use colon, sometimes in dialogues, other times within dialogues; and they start putting words in inverted commas. 22 Hira (20), Heera(25); King Janak (11), Raja Janak (44) 23 The translator uses varied amounts for a bushel and a pound in the text (discussed in the ‘errors’ section). 24 The translator uses sun calendar in the translation but in Chapter 10, moon calendar month “magh” is used (146). 25 In the beginning of translation, the translator informs that he will only italicize a word first time to give its meaning in the glossary but he italicizes Mahabharata two times (38, 165). 26 Both TLT1 and TLT2 also commits spelling errors which, though they do not cause the loss of meaning exactly, are still not good. TLT1 also commits error concerning space between words from page 194 onwards. 95 leave lines and paragraphs untranslated27 and also translate some expressions incorrectly and ineffectively. In Chapter 1 itself, they translate the habitual past tense in aas-paas ke gaavon kee ga-u-ain yahaan charne aayaa karate theen (7) as past indefinite tense in “the cattle from the surrounding villages came to graze here” (4). Similarly, they translate to chaliye hamaaree aur aapakee ho hee jaay (125) as “I’m game. I’m pitted against you” (123) which compared to SLT1 expression makes no sense. As opposed to TLT1 translators, Roadarmel does not have any problem in translating the above expressions correctly, even though he also leaves words and sentences untranslated28. Nevertheless his limited knowledge of the SL culture makes him misunderstand some SLT1 expressions. One such clear example occurs in Chapter 35 when Datadin prepares a background for his proposal for Roopa’s marriage with Ram Sevak Mahto. He says that there is no discrimination in Jagannathpuri (309). Roadarmel translates the illusion as “the Jagannath temple in Puri” which is not correct (421). In Indian culture, Jagannathpuri is synonymously used for heaven or God’s place and it is in this sense that Datadin uses the word. Apart from this misunderstanding, there are many allusions/references in the Glossary which he explains incorrectly and incompletely. These incomplete and incorrect explanations are about Amma, Draupadi, Durga, Hanumaan, Radha, Mahabharata, Rupee, Shiva and Vishnu. ***** Thus, it can be said that the meaning in a text is multi-level, and all these levels of meanings—sound, syntax, grammar, semantics, narrative, ideology, cognitive models— together produce an overall meaning in the text. Therefore, a translator has to translate all 27 This can be easily noted on pages 11, 15, 21 (one paragraph), 24, 25, 26, 30, 30-31 (two paragraphs), 31, 32 (one paragraph), 35 (one paragraph), 38, 39, 40, 44, 45(two lines), 46, 48, 53, 54, 57 (seven paragraphs), 60, 62, 68, 69, 70, 77, 81, 83 (twelve lines), 89, 99, 101, 102, 110, 111, 136, 149, 193 (thirty one lines), 196, 226, 257, 275, 283 (three lines), 302, 304 (eighteen lines), and 320 (one paragraph). 28 These instance are on pages 18,128, 132, 152 (though on this page just one word, baabaa), 184, 185, 230, 231, 232, 240, 243, 247, 285, 290, 293, and 435. From page 192 to 196, it gets worse as on page 192 and 193, translator leaves one-one paragraphs untranslated, and on page 196 complete four lines together. 96 these levels properly; failure to do so results in the loss of meaning. Therefore, both TLT1 and TLT2 lose meaning on these levels, mostly because of the lack of proper attention and effort. It also appears that some loss of meaning occurs because of the publishing companies as the TLTs have poor editing, and the translators, at times, seem to be in hurry to finish the task. The different natures of Hindi and English and their cultures also add to this loss. 97 Works Cited Kumar, Suresh. Shailyvigyan Aur Premchand ki Bhasha. New Delhi: Macmillan, 1978. Print. Newmark, Peter. Approaches to Translation. New York: Prentice Hall, 1988. Print. Premchand, Munshi. Godaan. New Delhi: Bhartiya Jnanpith, 2011. Print. Ratan, Jai and P. Lal, trans. Godan: A Novel of Peasant India. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House, 2008. Print. Roadarmel, Gordon C., trans. The Gift of a Cow: A Translation of the Classic Hindi Novel Godaan. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. Print. Simpson, Paul. Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge, 2004. PDF. Verdonk, Peter. Stylistics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print. Chapter IV Gain of Meaning in English Translation of Godaan Unlike the large amount of attention given to the loss of meaning in translation, gain of meaning in translation has theoretically, practically and analytically received relatively little attention from the translation theorists, scholars and reviewers. Most of the translation theorists, scholars and reviewers believe, as is evident in Chapters II and III, that a translator’s awareness of the ways he can possibly lose meaning and then avoiding those problems in his translation is enough to make his translation a good one. Thus they imply that a translator can either succeed in transferring the SLT meaning into TLT or he may not. When he cannot transfer the SLT meaning into TLT, or if he improves upon it (i.e. creates a meaning which is not present in SLT), it is considered loss of meaning in translation. With this analogy, every place where he succeeds in preserving the meaning can be considered gain of meaning. But since it is a translator’s job to preserve meaning, the present study does not consider the mere fulfillment of this duty as gain of meaning in translation. However, this does not apply to the places where possibility of the loss of meaning in translation is most prominent but a translator, with his creative techniques, succeeds in preserving exact or even partial meaning. Such specific places fall under the category of the gain of meaning in this chapter. Difference in the natures of the SL and TL is identified as causing loss of meaning in the last Chapter. But there is a positive side too. Some expressions in SLT1 can be simple informative sentences or syntactically too long, but their chosen equivalents in TLTs can be both informative and emotionally involving, or syntactically concise and thus more effective. Such places—where either of the TLT1 and TLT2 translators replaces a normal semantic 99 SLT1 construction with a TLT construction which preserves the SLT1 semantic meaning but also adds to its expressive power—are also considered as gains in this chapter. A translation is written for TL readers, and it must be comprehensible to them. Hence, any creative use which, without losing any SLT meaning, helps a TL reader to comprehend TLT clearly is also considered gain in translation. Furthermore, a translator may also devise techniques to engage his readers in, or to gain wider readership of, his translated text. Any such technique, which does not affect the SLT meaning but makes the TLT a smooth and interesting reading, is also considered gain in translation. Both TLT1 and TLT2 translators, though not always at the same time, gain meaning on these parameters. In fact, they use their creativity throughout the translations to make their TLTs better and more comprehensible (even though not always successful). A stylistic analysis of these gains (following the analytical structure of the last Chapter) is as follows in two major parts—Textual and Cognitive— and their many sub-heads. 1. Textual Part Though this part contains most of the meaning, it does not provide much space for the translators to gain. Unlike the loss of meaning in the four categories—sound system, grammar and syntax, semantics and narrative—of textual part in the last Chapter, the gain of meaning only occurs, in varying degrees, in the first three categories. In the fourth category, TLT1 and TLT2 translators preserve some parts of the narrative (plot, story, chapter division, acceleration and deceleration, flashback and flash-forward) and lose others (discussed in the last Chapter). So if they gain anything in the narrative category, they gain in preserving the in-bracket narrative units. A discussion of the other three categories follows. 1.1 Sound System In the last Chapter, it is discussed that both TLT1 and TLT2 translators mostly lose meaning on this level. However, since the sound system makes the text emotionally appealing and the 100 translations have to be appealing in order to be read thoroughly, TLT1 and TLT2 translators also try to create a sound system in their TLTs in which they succeed at times1: they either recreate a part of the SLT1 sound unit or compensate the loss with some other kind of sound system. This mainly happens in recreating/using rhythm, euphonic effect, assonance and alliteration, and some onomatopoeic words. Rhythm As TLT1 and TLT2 translators fail in exactly recreating most of the SLT1 rhythm, they create their own rhythmic patterns in the TLTs. However, this compensatory rhythm is not same and exact all the time. It is almost equivalent to the rhythm of the SL compound words when this is created with TL rhyming or compound words, but partial all other times. TLT1 and TLT2 translators produce a compensatory rhythm with TL rhyming or compound words when they replace one or more non-rhyming SL words with a TL rhyming word. Furthermore, TLT2 translator also creates compensatory rhythm when he uses two (usually) rhyming words combined with the conjunction “and” for a SL compound word. Here are some examples: SLT1 TLT1 TLT2 Tamaashaa (34) hubbub (53) Kamar tak (70) hip-deep (100) Munh fer lainge (152) browbeat (155) Saadee-gamee (21) weddings and funerals (36) Jyon-jyon (70) deeper and deeper (100) Bak-bak (84) raving and ranting (117) Paanee-vaanee (89) water and things (124) Saanee-paanee (191) feeding and watering (265) Here are two more examples that illustrate how TLT2 translator partially gains (TLT1 translators do not) meaning by successfully creating an alternate rhythmic pattern in TLT for a SLT1 rhythmic pattern: 1 One thing which has to be kept in mind throughout this part is that there are a few places where the gain of meaning occurs, at times only the examples used in the discussion. But still these few places are treated respectfully because they are the ones which can open doors for others. 101 Hamamein se kisee…kil gaee hai (12)—“That’s how…to us” (24-25). Rahatee hai… chal detee hai (230)—“Sometimes…knows” (318). In the first example (one long sentence), the SLT1 author creates rhythm by repeating the word jaay at the end of eight consecutive parallel clauses, by using verb ending ainge at the end of two more clauses, and finally closing the sentence with a simile. In the second example, he creates it by the two times use of rah and three times use of tee hai sound pattern in a sentence. TLT2 translator creates alternate rhythmic patterns for these but they only compensate the SLT1 rhythm partially. In translating the first example, he fails in preserving the SLT1 rhythm but partially creates a compensatory rhythm by using words with “s” and “or” sounds plus two idioms. He also preserves the simile. In translating the second example, however, he employs a different technique. He creates rhythm by using “sometimes she’s” at the beginning of the two consecutive clauses. The verbs “goes” and “knows” in the other two clauses also resound to each other. This also results in alliteration as each one of the words exercises the “s” consonant sound. Use of locative expressions “here”, “there” and “where” in the first three of the four clauses also creates a distinct rhythmic pattern. Euphonic Effect In reproducing euphonic effect in TLT1 and TLT2, the translators mostly lose meaning and there are only a few places in TLT2 (none in TLT1) where the translator manages to preserve it. Two such places where he does not lose meaning but creates a similar, not exact, euphonic effect are the translations of teree mittee …kat-kat giren (28) in Chapter 4, and use dabe paanv…aadamee mare (319) in Chapter 36. At the first place, SLT1 author creates euphonic effect by using five short and same length clauses, which also end with “ae”, “o”, “aay”, “ae” and “aay” sounds respectively. Since this is an outburst of Puniya against her husband when he is beating her, these short clauses and the vowel endings also add intensity to her cursing 102 outburst. Something similar also happens at the second place, which is a narrative report of Dhaniya’s inner thoughts when Hori is dying. In the three lines, the SLT1 author creates euphonic effect by ending the two clauses of the first sentence with aate bhee dekhaa thaa and the other four clauses of the second sentence with rhyming words maree, maraa and mare. TLT2 translator uses his creativity in translating both of these places, and therefore succeeds in recreating a similar euphonic effect in his translation. He translates the first place as “May they…fall off!” (45) and the second place as “she had…died” (435-36). At the first place, he recreates euphonic effect by beginning each clause with the word “may” and also punctuating each one with an exclamation mark at the end. Translated clauses are also almost of the same length2. His approach at the second place is similar; he recreates euphonic effect by using “had seen it” in the two consecutive clauses of the first sentence, and by ending the four clauses of the other sentence with verb “died.” Alliteration and Assonance Alliteration and assonance are undoubtedly language-specific. Therefore, it is seen in the last Chapter that none of the translators could reproduce the SLT1 alliteration and assonance. However, this does not mean that TL does not support alliteration and assonance. In fact, English is richer on this level because, compared to fifty two letters in SL alphabet (in which eleven are vowels), it has only twenty six letters in which there are five vowels plus one semi vowel. This phenomenon of TL initiates more frequent repetition of letters in a TLT word, phrase or sentence than it happens in those of SLT. And alliteration and assonance are created by the repetition of consonants and vowels. Furthermore, in the SL (Hindi), when a word can be written without a vowel (other than implied vowel sound “a”), in English, no word is framed without one or more 2 He also follows similar technique in translating another expression aur Jhinguri singh…lag jaay aadi (91) in Chapter 8 (126). TLT1 does not translate this expression (85). 103 vowels/semi-vowel from a list of just five vowels plus one semi-vowel. This helps TLT1 and TLT2 translators to create alliterative and assonant effect when the SLT1 expression is an otherwise plain expression. As a result, at times, they also gain meaning in translations3 if the alliterative and assonant effect increases the readability of the text without affecting the meaning. To explicate it further, one example from Chapter 16 can be used. This is a non- alliterative but assonant expression: aap bhee sansaar mein sukh se rahanaa chaahate hain, mein bhee chaahataa hoon (155). Both TLT1 and TLT2 translators create alliteration and assonance in reproducing it. TLT1 translators translate this as “live and let live, my friend, live and let live” (157) in which alliteration is created by the repetitive use of consonant “l” and assonance by the use of “i” and “e” vowel sounds. However, this can only be considered partial gain because the meaning which this expression creates in TLT does not exist in SLT1. SLT1 speaker does not address the addressee as “my friend.” Nevertheless, TLT2 translator sticks to the SLT1 meaning and also creates alliterative and assonant effects. He translates the expression as “look—you want to lead a good life and so do I” (215)4, in which he creates alliteration by the use of the consonant “l” in “look”, “lead” and “life”; of the consonant “t” in “want” and “to”; and of the consonant “d” in “lead”, “good”, “and” and “do”. He also creates assonance in the sentence. He does so by the use of (the unstressed and stressed vowel) “u” sounds in “look”, “good”, “you”, “too” and “do”; of “o” sound in “want” and “so”; of “a” sound in “a” and “and”; and of “i” sound in “life” and “I”. 3 This feature of the TL is also dangerous as a little carelessness on the part of the translators can create a meaning which is not in SLT. Therefore, they have to be very careful in using the English vocabulary in such situations. 4 In the line, though the word “look” is added, this does not create any extra meaning. This addition only makes the annoyance of the Rai Sahib foregrounded. 104 Onomatopoeic Words There are a few places in TLT1 and TLT2 (they can be counted on one hand) where the translators gain meaning on this level. However, these few places and the techniques with which they gain meaning are important. The techniques are three: one, they use an equivalent TL onomatopoeic sound for a SL onomatopoeic sound; two, TLT2 translator (no instance like this in TLT1) transcribes the SLT1 sound in his TLT; and three, they translate a non- onomatopoeic SL sound with a TL onomatopoeic sound. Following are the only examples where TLT1 and TLT2 translators gain meaning (gain in bold). Equivalent onomatopoeic sound Dhar-dhar (66)—“pit-a-pat” (TLT1: 60); “pounding” (TLT2: 95). Jhankaar (106)—“Jingle” (TLT1: 100); “Jingling” (TLT2: 147). Onomatopoeic sound transcribed Bhaun-bhaun (303)—“bark” (TLT1: 319); “Bhau-Bhau” (TLT2: 416). Non-onomatopoeic expressions translated as onomatopoeic sounds Achchhaa chup raho (105)—“hush” (TLT1: 99); “That’s enough now” (TLT2: 145). Dabe paanv (117), Paanv dabaate hue (284)—“tip-toed” (TLT1: 114, 301); “tip-toeing” (TLT2: 164, 390). 1.2 Grammar and Syntax The last Chapter witnesses that both TLT1 and TLT2 translators badly lose meaning in this category because they fail in recreating the SLT1 grammar and syntax usages in their TLTs. Translators’ casual approach to these units at times and the SL’s nature to use more than one grammatical unit and syntactical device in a sentence are responsible for this.5 However, there are times when both TLT1 and TLT2 translators (mostly TLT2 translator) genuinely try to recreate the meaning which arises from the grammatical and 5 For example, the SLT narrator mostly incorporates participles in reporting clauses. For instance, even in such a small reporting clause like Hori ne haarkar kahaa, haarkar is a participle use. TLT1 does not translate the whole reporting clause (17), while TLT2 translates it as “Hori could argue no more” (31)—hence both lose the meaning of the participle. 105 syntactical usages in SLT1. And even though they do not completely succeed in the recreation, they do not completely lose the meaning either: they succeed in preserving the meaning partially. For this, they employ many creative techniques—those which preserve the grammatical and syntactical effect of SLT1 in their TLTs, as well as those which preserve the SLT1 meaning in their TLTs not by preserving its grammar and syntax but by changing it. With both kinds of techniques, TLT1 and TLT2 translators gain meaning, as is discussed in the following seven headings: Voice and Tense Type, Punctuation Marks, Intensifier “do”, Gradation and Polysyndeton, Apposition and Parenthesis, Devices of Emphasis: Italic and Capitalization, and Target Language Expressions (the first three refer to Grammar, the other three to Syntax and the last one to Grammar and Semantics). Voice and Tense Type On this level, TLT1 and TLT2 translators gain meaning when they do not preserve the voice and the tense type. By nature, Hindi (i.e. SL) prefers the use of active voice even when the conveyed message is that of a passive voice. In such a case, since English has no such preference, a translator must forget about the voice type and go with the intended message to gain meaning; otherwise meaning will be lost. This is evident in the following two examples; in each, one of the translations loses meaning, and the other preserves (gains) it. In the first example, it is TLT2 which loses meaning as its active voice translation appears an odd translation; and in the second example, it is TLT1 which distorts meaning as its active voice construction is neither semantically nor grammatically correct. Thus at both places, changing the voice type is the only way to preserve (gain) the meaning. Two examples: Mujhe yah chintaa hai (5)—“I am worried” (TLT1:1); “I have to worry” (TLT2: 15). To phaansee paaoge (120)—“You’ll hang for it!” (117); “Then you’ll be hanged” (169). 106 In recreating the SL tense type into their TLTs, TLT1 and TLT2 translators do not experiment much. There is, however, one place which deserves mention here, and that place is in TLT1. Toward the end of Chapter 25, Bhola wants to go back to his house from Pateshwari’s but Nohari, his wife, denies it. At that point, he says Main to apane ko kahataa hoon (238) which is a speech in the present tense. TLT1 translators willingly translate this in past tense as “I was talking about myself” (254) (willingly because they translate the preceding sentence in present tense). This usage is important as this helps the translator to convey a hidden message, i.e. the lack of confidence in Bhola in front of his wife. This can best be done by the use of the past tense. TLT2 translator translates this in the present tense, “I’m only speaking for myself” (328), which grammatically corresponds to the SLT1 sentence but does not capture the effect which TLT1 translation does. Punctuation Marks In a written text, punctuation marks give meaning to a group of words, phrases and sentences by clearly showing their territories. They also visually help a reader to grasp the intended message in its proper tone and mood. That said, punctuation marks can distort meaning if they are misused by a translator, but a translator can also reap good results if he uses them creatively. TLT1 and TLT2 translators appear to be casual in using these and badly lose meaning.6 However, there are a few places in TLT2 (no instance in TLT1) where its translator uses punctuation marks, especially three of them, creatively and reaps favorable results. These three punctuation marks are exclamation mark, question mark and ellipsis. There are instances in SLT1 where its author prefers to use a period in place of exclamation and question mark, even when their use could have been easily justified. Though this use does not affect the meaning, it still overshadows the clarity of the SLT1 expression. 6 This has been discussed in the eleventh footnote of the last chapter. 107 In translating such expressions, TLT2 translator usually replaces the periods with exclamation or question marks. This way, he removes the minute obscurity and gains meaning. The use of these two punctuation marks by the translator also helps him foreground (respectively) the emotional touch and interrogative sense for his readers. Below are the four examples representing the places where the use of these two punctuation marks by the translator helps him gain meaning: Exclamation marks Achchha rahane do. (6)—“All right now, that’s enough!” (16). Mere jeete jee sab ho gayaa. (21)—“That I should have lived to see all this!” (36). Question marks Usakee khushamad kyon karen, usake talave kyon sahalaayen. (5)—“But why should they have to flatter the landlord or lick his feet?” (15). Kisake palle paratee, kaun jaane. (9)—“Who knows where she’d end up?” (20). With ellipses, TLT2 translator gains meaning in a different way. He uses ellipses (and frequently) in the translation in two ways: in the middle of a paragraph and at the end of a paragraph. In the first kind of usage, he gains meaning a few times but in the second kind of usage often. In the first kind of usage, he gains meaning a few times because he only gains meaning when he uses ellipses as a way to connect two SLT1 sentences or ideas as he does in the following two examples: To ek gaay…hon (6)—“He’d certainly…press” (17). Baal bachchaa…lo (8)—“No children…a real goddess!” (19). The first SLT1 example consists of two sentences and the second example three; and none of these uses any ellipses. However, TLT2 translator uses ellipses in translating both of these examples to make each one a sentence. In both cases, ellipses not only create a good emotional affect but also increase the urgency of the speech. In the second kind of usage, he does not use ellipses as a way to connect two SLT1 sentences or ideas but as a way to break one long SLT1 paragraph into two or more in his 108 TLT. In such a situation, the ellipsis works as a stylistic marker to represent a break of one SLT1 paragraph into two or more paragraphs in the TLT. Unlike its grammatical usage, it does not mean that something has been omitted or left untranslated; it works as a transitional device between two paragraphs, between two thoughts. The first instance of such usage is seen in Chapter 4 of TLT2 (and continues to be seen throughout the translation—the reason that TLT2 translator gains often in this kind of usage) when the translator translates one long paragraph of SLT1 as four comparatively short paragraphs and uses ellipses at the end of the first two to provide transition. These short paragraphs definitely read smoother than one long paragraph of SLT1. Intensifier “do” Hindi has many intensifiers, which help a Hindi speaker to deliver depth of his intended message clearly and accurately. English does not have equivalents for any of these, and therefore, this lack is discussed as causing loss of meaning in the last Chapter. However, English has one intensifier: “do” which functions in the same way as any of the Hindi intensifiers. But there is only one place where only TLT2 translator uses this intensifier. This is in Chapter 3 when the translator translates to kal Gobar ko bhej denaa (no intensifier used in this SLT1 expression) (23) as “Then do send Gobar tomorrow” (“do” in the translation is used as an intensifier) (39). This use of intensifier helps the translator to best convey (gain) his message. Gradation and Polysyndeton As has been the case till now in other categories of this chapter, TLT1 translators also take the use of gradation and polysyndeton casually. They translate the clauses, which syntactically use gradation, plainly and neither preserve the SLT1 polysyndeton nor try to 109 create a compensatory polysyndeton effect in their TLT. TLT2 translator, however, approaches both gradation and polysyndeton creatively and preserves/gains meaning. TLT2 translator translates gradational clauses in two ways: at times he uses an equivalent TL grammatical unit repetitively, at other times ellipsis, parenthesis or apposition. As a result, mostly his translated expression is even more forceful than the SLT1 expression. E.g.: Kaheen maarapeet ho…mil jaay (39)—“A fracas…went to hell” (60). Hans ke paas…naheen hain (144)—“A swan…for blood” (200). In these examples, the SLT1 author creates gradation by using short and same length clauses, which explain and extend the idea, one after another. But TLT2 translator uses two different techniques to create this effect in his TLT. In translating the first, he uses ellipses three times in a sentence and one target language expression, “went [go] to hell”, which beautifully capture the gradation effect.7 In translating the second, he creates the same effect by using an equivalent TL grammatical unit “nor” four times for the negative expression naheen hain of SLT1. The “nor” not only creates the SLT1 effect, it also makes the TLT expression more forceful. In the case of polysyndeton, TLT2 translator gains meaning in a different way: he uses polysyndeton as a technique to preserve meaning which arises from some other kind of syntactical arrangement. This is illustrated in the following example: Mirzaji! Mis…hain (130)—“Listen, Mirza—…virtues (182). The example employs enumeration in parallel clauses which TLT2 translator preserves by making parallel clauses as one compound sentence (two clauses) in which the first clause uses polysyndeton (conjunction “and” three times). This way, he uses polysyndeton to preserve meaning which arises from enumeration. 7 However, his translation changes the conditional sentence of SLT into a statement. 110 Apposition and Parenthesis Apposition and parenthesis are usually seen as two different syntactical devices; one giving weight to the noun it follows, the other as a thing which stands disconnected from its preceding thought and is usually disrupting. But TLT2 translator is creative in using both (TLT1 translators are not), and it is because of his creativity that he not only preserves the SLT1 meaning, but also gains some at times.8 The translator’s use of appositive expressions in his translation serves two purposes: he either uses it as a replacement for a SLT1 appositive expression or as a device to condense the number of SLT1 sentences into a few TLT sentences. While the first kind of usage helps him preserve SLT1 meaning in his TLT, the second kind of usage helps him gain because the translated expression is not only short in construction but also more effective. In the case of parentheses, there are instances in TLT2 when they do not disrupt the flow of the thought, rather makes the thought more effective. Here are three examples representing the three situations: Replacement of SLT1 appositive clause with appositive clause in TLT2 Poonjee aur shikshaa…achchhaa hai (48)—“The sooner…the better” (74)9. Apposition as a device to condense number of SLT1 sentences Sahasaa usane…bech bhee detaa thaa (7)—“Suddenly Hori…to the villagers” (18)10. Effective use of parenthesis Par Eeshwar bhalaa..uthaayee jaayegee (7)—“The Rai Sahib…price” (17)11. 8 Generally since he uses appositive and parenthesis once in a while, they usually create a novel effect whenever they are used. 9 TLT1 translation of the expression “the sooner…us all” (46) also preserves the appositive clause structure but this does not create an equivalent effect. 10 TLT1 translators do not use any appositive clause in “suddenly Hori…peasants” (4). They replace three sentences of SLT with three sentences in their TLT. 11 The SLT narrator does not use any appositive in this expression But TLT2 translator does. He uses “God bless him” after “the Rai Sahib”. 111 Devices of Emphasis: Italic and Capitalization TLT1 and TLT2 translators approach devices of emphasis—italic and capitalization—very differently: TLT1 translators usually treat these casually and therefore at times their use of these not only makes the translation monotonous12 but also appears unnecessary13. However, there are also places where they use these as a device to emphasize a particular word, phrase or sentence (of course intended in the SLT1 context) and thus preserve (gain) meaning but only partially because when they preserve some meaning by the use of these devices, they also leave some of the expression untranslated. One such example where they preserve meaning partially is the translation of yah kisakaa ghar hai? Log kahen—Hori mahato kaa (33). They translate this as “he wanted people to point at his house and say: There, that’s Hori Mehto’s house” (31). Opposed to the casual approach of the TLT1 translators, TLT2 translator’s approach to these is carefully considered and creative. He uses these devices sparingly, and therefore, most of the times gains meaning. Their lesser frequency of use14 also creates a novel effect whenever they are used. TLT2 translator usually capitalizes the first letter of all the proper nouns and italicizes the words whose explanation he provides in glossary or footnote. But he also uses capitalization and italicization specifically. He (or his typist) capitalizes all letters of the first word of every chapter, e.g. HORI RAM in the first Chapter. This “all caps” approach works as an attention grabber technique. Similarly, at times he italicizes one or two words in a 12 TLT1 translators transcribe many key terms from SLT, sometimes in italic and capital and other times as if they are English vocabulary words. Such key terms are chelum (4), kothi (11), takhtposh (21), rishis (56), lala (136), Bania (204), golmal (235), chunari (337)—Italic transcription; Panchayat (109), Raja (196), Kajri songs (200)—Capitalized transcription; ghee (3), gur (27), kajal (167), puja (172)—transcription as if the words exist in English vocabulary. Though all of these usages appear to be translators’ techniques to give a color of SLT settings in their TLT, it is not successful. Rather it makes reading of the translation pompous and boring. TLT2 translator provides TL equivalents for these. 13 E.g. they unnecessarily italicize “something” on page 1, “now what have you to say to that” on page 32, and “what a devil of a woman!” on page 119. They also unnecessary capitalize the word “master” two times on pages 1 and 14. 14 When in translating yah kisakaa ghar hai? Log kahen—Hori mahato kaa (33), TLT1 uses italic; TLT2 translator prefers to use inverted commas instead. 112 sentence to put emphasis. One such example is seen on page 59 when he italicizes “we” in “It’s we who are dishonest” to put emphasis on the pronoun “we”. This italicization not only preserves the contextual meaning but also creates a novel effect. Target Language Expressions Target language expressions here mean the expressions which are target language specific and do not necessarily correspond to the source language. At times, they cannot even be translated back into SL. Since these expressions are familiar to TL readers, and are also the best and the most natural TL equivalents for any SL expression into TLT, they not only make TLT a natural and smooth reading, they also create a novel effect whenever they are used. This way, these expressions also stimulate TL readers’ cognition, just as some SL expressions do with SL readers’ cognition, and thus enhance their interest in the text too. These expressions, which give a feel of familiarity to TL readers, are mainly visible in TLT1 and TLT2 in two forms: use of verb contractions, and use of a word or a set of words which are TL specific. Verb contractions do not exist in SL but in TL, they have a specific role to play: they provide naturalness, colloquialism and smooth flow to the speech or narration. Therefore, TLT1 and TLT2 translators use these extensively in their translations. These verb contractions are (verb contraction—proper grammatical form): ’ll will won’t will not ’ll shall shan’t shall not ’s is/has/us doesn’t does not ’m am don’t do not ’re are can’t cannot n’t not ’ve have In addition to providing natural flow to the speech in which they are used, at times these verb contractions also increase and clarify the intended urgency and speed of the SLT1 action. For example, in translating Hori’s speech to Dhaniya in the very first paragraph of SLT1, TLT2 translator uses “don’t” and “’ll” verb contractions. These contracted verbs not 113 only give naturalness to the dialogue but also provide speed to the action which is happening in Hori’s mind (Hori is in haste to go to meet his landlord). One more such effective use of verb contraction can be seen in the following example, where “won’t” in both TLT1 and TLT2 gives an air of naturalness and speed to the speech, reads smoother, and also suits the atmosphere: Tumhaare bail bhookhon na marenge! (10)—“but won’t your bullock starve? (TLT1:8); “but won’t your own bullocks starve? (TLT2: 21) Like verb contractions, TLT1 and TLT2 translators also use some word or a set of words which are TL specific and also work like verb contractions in that they not only preserve SLT1 meaning but also capture TL readers’ attention. Some such usages (word(s) underlined) are as follows: TLT1 God knows (7); God willing (19); Oh come! You are flattering me (50); The game is a tie (181); Malti had a call to make (182); I don’t think we can bring round Malti without—er—you know— (299); It’s a damned lie! (299); It’s a damned fact (299). TLT2 Fifteen years ago it was worth a hundred and fifty thousand (178); No thanks. Please excuse me (179); Mirza’s a first class player (179); I want their share, mind you (243); I told her to go to hell, that I’d take care of it myself (342); She’d sue him for maintenance (362); My days are numbered (385); An ex parte decree was granted (401). 1.3 Semantics Since Semantics does not allow much space for TLT1 and TLT2 translators’ creativity, it is difficult enough to preserve meaning, as is evident in the last Chapter, on this level (except at the places where the SL words, phrases and constructions are not peculiar and do not have 114 specific associations). However, this does not mean that TLT1 and TLT2 translators never gain anything. In addition to their successful transfer of vocabulary or normal SL words, phrases and constructions, there are three more creative conditions in which they successfully preserve SLT1 meaning or preserve meaning plus add some new effect. One of these conditions, use of target language expression for a SLT1 word or phrase, has already been discussed in the grammar and syntax section. However, there is one addition to the previous description which is required, and it is TLT2 translator’s decision to replace SLT1 measurement units and the Hindu lunisolar calendar with TL measurement units and the English Roman calendar (this change does not occur in TLT1). This replacement of the measurement units and the names of the months not only avoids confusion in the minds of the TL readers, it also makes the TLT reading smoother. The second condition: TLT1 and TLT2 translators usually lose meaning when they translate the SL idioms and proverbs. But there are also places in TLT1 and TLT2 where they do not. This happens when they replace a SL idiom or proverb with an equivalent TL idiom or proverb. Though this does not happen often, especially in the case of proverbs, whenever it does, it saves the TLT from losing SLT1 meaning. Here are some examples: Idioms SLT1 TLT1/TLT2 Mutthee garm hona (25) to warm hands with (TLT2: 42) Baajee haath mein hona (30) to hold a trump card (TLT2: 48) Nas pahachaananaa (40) to be familiar with every hair on the head (TLT2: 61) Khodakar jameen mein gaar denaa (43) to skin [him] alive (TLT1: 40) [khaal]Bhaar mein jaanaa (70) to hell with [skin] (TLT2: 100) Aag mein koodanaa (90) To jump into the fire (TLT2: 125) Naak mein dam karanaa (243) to plague the life out of [me] (TLT2: 335) Apane munh miyaan mitthoo banana (291) to blow your own horn (TLT2: 399) Mansoobe baandhanaa (312) to build great castles in the air (TLT2: 425) Proverb Akelaa chanaa bhaar naheen phor sakataa one grain of popcorn can’t blow the lid off (49) the pan (TLT2: 74) 115 Apart from saving the TLT from losing meaning, TLT1 and TLT2 translators also gain meaning in this condition. Since idioms are culturally specific, whenever either of the TLT1 and TLT2 translators uses a TL idiom for a normal construction in SLT115, they gain meaning because this usage not only helps them to create an atmosphere which is TL specific but also captures the SLT1 message in TLT most effectively. Here is a list of some idioms which TLT1 and TLT2 translators use in their translations for a normal SLT1 construction: TLT1 To get in the neck (11) to have for a song (17) wash hands of the idea (24) A red-letter day (31) to take courage in both hands (40) by hook or by crook (47)16 Drive the last nail in the coffin (92) cut no ice (256) at the end of tether (287) Tables [were] turned (312) TLT2 To get a big kick out of [it] (25) to get for nothing (32) be asleep on the job (49) To make [yourself] the laughing stock (156) Tooth and nail (285) hand and foot (325) To cry [his] eyes out (342) to set hair on end (363) work heads off (372) To be left beating breast (388) to put an axe to the roots (398) The third condition: In TLT1 and TLT2, there are two peculiar usages which not only capture the SLT1 meaning exactly but are also creative. These two usages are “lotaful” (16) for lota-bhar (16) in TLT1 [“jugful” (30) in TLT2)] and “sweet slumber” (285) for meethee neend (206) in TLT2 [“fast asleep” (217) in TLT1]. The first use is technically an example of coinage (since “lota” is not still part of regular English vocabulary as none of the Oxford dictionaries has the word entry), which is very effective and also captures the meaning of the SL word lota (jug is different from lota) most accurately. In the second example, the word “slumber” is an archaic word which not only best fits in the context but is also poetic. Thus both of these, coinage and poetic usage, can also be considered good techniques to preserve or gain meaning in translation when used sparingly. 15 There is no such use of proverbs in TLTs. 16 However, use of this idiom is unnecessary. 116 2. Cognitive Part For the reason that a translation is written for TL readers through the cognition of a translator, it involves some major decisions in translating. In the last Chapter, it is discussed how some of these less desirable decisions by TLT1 and TLT2 translators cause loss of meaning. However, there are some decisions which TLT2 translator (TLT1 translators only gain a little meaning in the cognitive category) makes and which help him better present his translation to his readers. These cognitive decisions on the part of TLT2 translator are here considered gain because in their absence, TL readers may most likely misunderstand some parts of the SL text or may not understand those at all. In the absence of these decisions, TL readers may also become frustrated with the TLT reading simply because: first, the TLT is a foreign text having everything foreign for them, and second, textual references and meanings may not be clear in their mind. In such a position, they may even stop reading the translated text halfway. In order to avoid any of the negative situations mentioned in the above paragraph, and to create a proper and favorable atmosphere for TLT reading, a translator has to make certain creative decisions, and add something in TLT which is not in SLT1. Though these additions do not exist in SLT1, they cannot be considered loss of meaning because they are important components from a translator’s and his readers’ point of view17. A discussion of these cognitive decisions by the TLT1 and TLT2 translators is as follows in the five sub-headings—Error Correction; Foregrounding: Addition of Words and Phrases; Introduction, Dramatis Personae, Footnote and Glossary; Structural Changes; and Translation of the Title and its Visual Presentation. 17 However, a translator has to be careful about that he should not create a meaning which is not available in SLT at all. He should only foreground or manipulate the existing meaning for his purpose. If he creates his own meaning, supposedly if he adds a character or an event, it will fall under the category of the loss of meaning. 117 Error Correction Possibly there can be two opposing viewpoints about error correction in translation; the first is that errors should be preserved, and the second is that they should be corrected. Advocates of the first viewpoint may argue that errors should be preserved because 1. It is not a translator’s task to make changes in the narrative of the SLT. Rather, his task is to present whatever is available in SLT and in the same form. Recreating both the good and bad aspects of SLT is the only way to produce a faithful translation. 2. These errors may not even be identified by an average reader. And should they be identified by a serious reader, they will create a distinctive effect—a feeling of responsibility, a sense of reward—in him: “Even a great writer can commit errors, and, yes, I have the caliber to detect these!” However, pleaders of the second viewpoint could argue against both of these points. They may refute the former arguments with their own. 1. A translator is not a mere copier of the SLT. In fact, to be faithful in translation means to preserve whatever is good in SLT and to creatively correct whatever is wrong. 2. Preserving errors in TLT is a good point from SL readers’ point of view18 but not from TL readers’ point of view because these errors may not only interfere in TLT reading but also confuse the readers. Since these readers may have high expectations from their translator and high faith in him, finding these errors may slightly erode their faith in his (creative) abilities and also frustrate them with the translation. Again since the translation is written for TL readers, the second position is more valid. And since it involves creative changes on the part of the translators, it will be their gain in translation. The SLT1 author commits errors on two levels: grammar and plot. On the level of grammar, he commits many grammatical errors (the present study uses just two), but on the 18 Because these readers are native speakers of the SL. They will enjoy finding these errors and correct them for themselves. 118 level of plot, he explicitly commits only two errors. These four errors (and the translated versions of grammatical errors) are as follows: Grammatical errors Dulari vidhavaa sahuaain thee19 (32)—NT (TLT1: 29); “As for Dulari, the widowed shopkeeper” (TLT2: 51). Govindi ne taangaa rok diyaa20 (171)—NT (TLT1: 178); “Govindi told the tonga driver to stop” (TLT2: 238). Errors of Plot 1. Malti dauree huee bangale mein gayee aura apane joote pahan aayee (257): In the context, Malti has just arrived and does not go inside the bungalow. She will not come barefoot, and she does not go inside to get her shoes either. Therefore, the narrative report that she went inside to get her shoes is an error. 2. In the beginning of Chapter 34, the narrator commits another error of plot. He misplaces the order of events related to Ramu’s birth, life and death. In SLT1, the order of events is: Ramu is two years old and makes everyone in the village happy with his lisping sounds and playful activities; then he is born, starts sitting; and then suddenly dies. In translating these four errors, TTL1 translators’ position is casual because they do not translate at all the two expressions which have grammatical errors plus the first error of plot, but preserve the second error of plot. Nevertheless TLT2 translator follows the second stand and gains meaning on both these levels of errors. He corrects the two grammatical errors, leaves the first error of plot untranslated (perhaps because the information is incorrect and not so important for the story), and corrects the second error of plot. In correcting the other error of plot in Chapter 34, he makes the order of events logical in the translation: first Ramu is born, then he starts playing, and then he dies (414-16). 19 Here there is an error of the use of adjective; the adjective vidhavaa should come after sahuaain. 20 Here there is an error of verb usage; the verb should be rukavaa diyaa. 119 Foregrounding: Addition of Words and Phrases There are times when some expressions, if translated literally, do not create an equivalent effect in TLTs. In these situations, translators add words and phrases to the literal translations of these expressions to foreground the SLT1 meaning. Since such additions (foregrounding) are only used to make meaning clear to the TL readers, to make their reading of the text smoother, they can be considered as techniques to gain meaning in translation, given the condition that they should not be unnecessary and should not change the contextual meaning.21 Some examples where TLT1 and TLT2 translators add words or phrases (additions underlined): “Like other noveau riche, it was his belief…” (TLT1: 138), “Go swear that on your son’s head, you liar” (TLT2: 45), “Not at all. I’d feel sorry for the old man” (TLT2: 224), “Why, this is a question of your prestige” (TLT2: 388). Introduction, Dramatis Personae, Footnote and Glossary Introduction, dramatis personae, footnote and glossary are four things which are only found in TLT2 and are very effective means to assist the translator and his readers in achieving understanding. Out of these, the first two precede the core text and set out a favorable and knowledgeable background for the TLT readers. The introduction (also discussed in Chapter 3) provides information about SLT1 and its author, and also about the translation techniques of the translator; dramatis personae, a technique from play writing, which is entitled as “Principle Characters” and separately describes village and city characters, familiarizes TL readers with the foreign characters of the SLT1. These two things also reduce chances of any misunderstanding. TLT2 translator uses footnote and glossary as a device to explain individual words, concepts and references. Though he uses footnotes only two times, once to indicate that 21 Examples of unnecessary usages are found in TLT1 many times. E.g. the word “own” in “take your own time” (6) and the whole tautological sentence “after all, boys will be boys” (23) are unnecessary additions. 120 italicized words have been explained in glossary (15) and another time to explain a word i.e. saalaa (416), it is equally effective as it not only explain something semantically, it also gives a fresh touch to the text. However, his glossary, though at times with incomplete or incorrect information (discussed in the last Chapter), is four pages long and intensive. It also deserves credit. Structural Changes In order to better present his translation to his readers, TLT2 translator (TLT1 translators do not) also creatively experiments with the structure of the SLT1. In this experiment, he changes the structure in two ways: first he often breaks one long paragraph into two or more short paragraphs, and second, at times he reverses the order of SLT1 sentences/thoughts in a TLT paragraph. When the short paragraphs have better readability, the reversal of the SLT1 sentences/thoughts helps him gain an analogical order in a TLT paragraph.22 One example of the second situation can be seen in the second paragraph, “the Rai Sahib…greed for wealth and fame,” on page 385 (Chapter 31). Translation of the Title and its Visual Presentation Translating the SLT1 title and its visual presentation on the front page is also important as it works as a first-impression-on-the-reader technique. It also gives a sense of what the translation is about. On this level, too, TLT2 translator gains meaning (TLT1 translators do not23). On the front page, he translates the title as “The Gift of a Cow” and also uses the SLT1 title “Godaan”. Since he is aware that his translation of the SLT1 title does not capture exact meaning, he creatively gives bigger font size to the SLT1 title, as if visually foregrounding it. Later in the last Chapter, he also testifies to the present situation where he translates three 22 This does not happen always. In fact, he distorts meaning more times than he gains. 23 TLT1 translators’ presentation of the title does not show any creativity in translating. Neither they provide translation to the SL term (the title) Godaan nor uses it in the last Chapter from where the SLT author picks it up. On the front page, they keep it in its SL form, but in the last Chapter change it to “a cow in charity” and “in place of the cow” (339). Even consistency to one kind of usage would have worked better. 121 times use of the term Godaan in three different ways: “the gift of a cow” (436), “godaan” (436) and “godaan, his gift of a cow” (437). Thus, even when there is no equivalent available in TL for the SLT1 title, he succeeds in preserving the meaning. ***** Thus, it can be said that if TLT1 and TLT2 translators lose meaning in translating, they also gain it. They gain meaning on both textual and cognitive levels. Through discussion, it also becomes apparent that this gain of meaning in translation is important because: 1.) It has the ability to compensate for the loss of meaning; 2.) It provides space for the translators’ creativity, which is how they establish their identity and visibility in the translation against the coercive force of the source author; and 3.) It holds hope for the betterment of a translation. 122 Works Cited Premchand, Munshi. Godaan. New Delhi: Bhartiya Jnanpith, 2011. Print. Ratan, Jai and P. Lal, trans. Godan: A Novel of Peasant India. Mumbai: Jaico Publishing House, 2008. Print. Roadarmel, Gordon C., trans. The Gift of a Cow: A Translation of the Classic Hindi Novel Godaan. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. Print. Chapter V Loss of Meaning in English Translation of Nirmala After intensively discussing loss of meaning in two select English translations of Godaan in Chapter III, the shift to the discussion of the loss of meaning in two select English translations of Nirmala in this chapter serves two purposes. First, the coming discussion provides a testimony to what is being discussed in Chapter III, to whether the grounds on which TLT1 and TLT2 translators lose meaning make the two translators of Nirmala lose meaning too. Second, it expands on the previous discussion to include the stylistic analysis of the select two translations of Nirmala. To accomplish both tasks, it uses the same conceptual framework as Chapter III. The first two pages of Chapter III put forward three key points about the loss of meaning in Godaan: 1. The loss of meaning occurs because the act of translating is a herculean task; 2. because the language of Godaan is intricate, and the translators are not competent enough at times; and 3. because it is not easy to translate the styles of Premchand, his text and the source language. While the first and third points also apply to the two translations under review in this chapter (one translation by David Rubin, henceforth referred to as TLT3 and the other translation by Alok Rai, henceforth referred to as TLT4), the second point does not apply entirely to them because the language of Nirmala is not as intricate as that of Godaan. The simple reason for this is that Nirmala (henceforth referred to as SLT2) was written almost ten years before Godaan. The fact that Nirmala was written in serial installments for a magazine called Chand may also add to this. Nevertheless, the language of Nirmala is literary and uses many techniques, though on a lesser scale, which Godaan employs. The less intricate language of Nirmala does not provide any concession for TLT3 and TLT4 translators; they face the same problems that TLT1 and TLT2 translators do. Furthermore, there is one more thing which makes TLT3 and 124 TLT4 translators’ task more difficult (or easy, depending how they approach it). This is the availability of new research in TS, which did not exist at the time TLT1 and TLT2 translators translated Godaan, and which TLT3 and TLT4 translators may apply in their translations to gain meaning. Ideally they should utilize the available resources, at least the creative techniques which TLT1 and TLT2 translators employ to transfer and gain meaning in their TLTs, because they are supposed to be better informed translators, as their publishers would never miss to imply, than their predecessors. If they do not utilize, they cannot be appreciated. That said, a stylistic analysis of the places in TLT3 and TLT4 where the translators lose meaning is as follows in two parts—Textual and Cognitive—and their six sub-heads: Sound System, Grammar and Syntax, Semantics, Narrative, Ideology, and Readers’ and the Translators’ Idealized Cognitive Models. 1. Textual Part Textual part is the part which consists of most of a text’s meaning, and even the cognitive part gets its expression through it. Considering its importance, it is no wonder that a translator mainly struggles with it. Therefore, in dealing with this, a translator has to make decisions how he wants to recreate SLT into TLT. TLT3 and TLT4 translators also go through this process, and as a result, TLT3 translator mostly prefers to translate SLT2 literally for foreign or global readers while TLT4 translator prefers sense for sense primarily for English speaking domestic readers (he indicates it in his Translator’s Note). However, regardless of their varied decisions, they lose meaning in their translations, at times badly, in all four categories of the textual part: Sound System, Grammar and Syntax, Semantics and Narrative. A discussion of the loss in these four categories follows. 125 1.1 Sound System Although SLT2’s sound system is not as vast and vivid as SLT1’s, it incorporates almost all the sound elements of SLT1: rhythm, euphonic effect, accents, alliteration, assonance, homonyms, onomatopoeia, and narrative tones1. These elements help SLT2 author express his intended message most effectively and clearly, and also keep his readers’ interest by heightening the melodramatic, tragic atmosphere of the plot. At times TLT3 and TLT4 translators preserve a part of this sound system in their TLTs (discussed in the next Chapter), and at other times fail in doing so. When they do not succeed in recreating an equivalent sound system in their translations, meaning is lost. Rhythm and Euphonic Effect In Nirmala, as in Godaan, Premchand creates rhythm in a variety of ways. At times he creates it among ideas and concepts, other times primarily by the use of compound words, rhyming words, same sound endings of the verbs, stylistic inversions, repetition of words and sounds, rural and foreign versions of standard Hindi words, synonyms, idioms, and proverbs. TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose some meaning in translating all of these. Like SLT1, SLT2 uses compound words in three forms: One, rhyming words like aadar-satkaar (5), sankalp-vikalp (7), chhinn-bhinn (61) kharch-barch (48); Two, words with same vowels like paanee-vanee (14), shaadi-vivaah (16), salaam-valaam (32), hare- vare (53); and Three, same word repeated twice like haan-haan (3), aise-aise (3), jaraa-jaraa (5), khare-khare (7). These compound words either are not translated by the translators or their equivalents in the TLTs do not create equal rhythmic effect. In TLT3, one of these twelve compound words, aise-aise, is not translated (16); the other eleven words are either translated as single words which do not create any rhythmic effect or as two words which only capture their senses. Similar is the case with TLT4 where two compounds words, haan- 1 Foot note 2 of Chapter III is also applicable here. The only difference is that there it is TLT1 and TLT2; here it is TLT3 and TLT4. 126 haan and hare-vare, are not translated (4, 78) and other words are translated by one or more words which do not recreate the rhythmic effect of these compound words. Premchand also repeats words and sounds in a clause or sentence to create rhythm. He does so in Nirmala in three ways: First, he uses one compound word repetitively or more than one compound words successively; second, he repeats a single word in between or at the end of a clause or clauses; and third, he makes a character repeat the preceding speech, except a change in the key words, by his or her counterpart. The third case happens when two characters are in an agitated state. Following are three examples from Nirmala that represent these three situations; two examples are from Chapter 2 and one is from Chapter 8: 1. Yah prabandh…ek mej ho (4)—“It was set up…and a chair” (TLT3:19); “Arrangements are…and a chair” (TLT4:6). 2. Nirmala chalee…chalee (49)—“Nirmala went…husband’s wish” (TLT3:84); “Nirmala decided… husband’s wishes” (TLT4:73). 3. Udaybhanu—to… meree koee pooch naheen (6)—“Do you think…I am not respected” (TLT3:22); “Udaybhanulal—I am…without respect” (TLT4:9). In the first example, SLT2 author creates rhythm by repeating a compound word ek-ek three times before three nouns: charpoy, chair and table. In the second example, rhythm is created by the use of chalee at the end of two consecutive sentences in which the first just has two words. And in the third example (eight lines) rhythm is created by the repetition of the preceding speech with changed key words by Udaybhanulal or Kalyani. In translating these instances, TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning. In translating the first, they make the compound word a non-compound word “a”; in translating the second, TLT3 translator makes two sentences one sentence and TLT4 translator’s translation is too long. In translating the third instance, however, they lose meaning partially: TLT3 translator 127 preserves rhythm but distorts and foregrounds semantic meaning while TLT4 translator’s meaning is fine but rhythm is ineffective. Like rhythm, Premchand also utilizes euphonic effect in Nirmala to express its melodramatic messages. Though this does not happen frequently, whenever it does, it creates a kind of harmonious sound which makes the reading pleasant. To create this, he uses some explicit techniques, usually more than one phonological tool, which would also create similar effect in TLT3 and TLT4 if those techniques were recreated. For example, in use aare haathon… na detee thee (31), he creates euphonic effect by using four adjectival clauses in the first sentence and three small clauses in the second sentence. While these two sentences are parallel to each other, the parallelism is used to create a contrast between two thoughts. TLT3 translator translates the instance as one sentence with three infinitive clauses, “She was not…her weep” (70), which does not recreate the euphonic effect. TLT4 translator’s translation, “She could hardly…make her weep” (58), however, creates euphonic effect partially with its five parallel clauses in a sentence, but it also fails to recreate it completely. Alliteration, Assonance and Homonyms Alliterative and assonant expressions play an important role in expressing the mood of the characters in SLT2, and also setting its atmosphere. But TLT3 and TLT4 translators also lose meaning in translating alliteration, assonance (and homonyms), mainly because these are language-specific and therefore almost untranslatable. For instance, in van men vany jantu…firate the (9) and Rangeelibai ne paan khaakar khat kholaa (15), Premchand creates alliteration by using the consonants “v” & “n” in the first and “kh” in the second. The first alliteration is used just before Udaybhanulal is murdered, when he leaves the house in the night to show his wife his importance; and the second just after Rangeelibai declares her rejection of her son’s wedding with Nirmala and just before she changes her position about it. In both cases, it helps the author to create an atmosphere, a feeling of pace and urgency. 128 TLT3 translator translates these as “in the forest...sinking about” (25) and “Rangilibai chewed a pan and began to read the letter” (35) while TLT4 as “in forests…dark alleys” (12) and “Rangilibai packed a paan into her mouth diligently, then opened the letter” (22). Thus, neither translation preserves alliteration, and on the top of that, TLT4 translations read uninterestingly. A similar instance occurs when the translators translate sentences with assonance. In Chapter 7, when Mansaram is pondering over changed behavior in his house towards him and consequently misses his mother, he, being emotionally overwhelmed, uses an assonant expression (vowel “e”): Kise mere khaane-peene ki, marane jeene ki sudh hai (44). Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators fail in recreating the assonance in their TLTs. They respectively translate it as “who cared about his eating and drinking or whether he lived or died?” (TLT3:76) and “who cares what I eat or drink or whether I live or die?” (TLT4:65). The statement in Chapter III that “homonyms are usually unintentional and only intelligible to SLT readers” also applies here. Since homonyms are language specific too, both TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in translating homonyms even though there are a few instances where Premchand employs them. For example, the word haraa in kuchh man haraa ho jaataa (27) and joon in unhone ek joon bhee khaanaa nahee khaayaa (56) are used to respectively mean “happy” and “meal”, but they might also create an additional effect in the mind of the SL readers by connoting their other homonymic meanings, the color “green” and the month “June”. TLT3 translator does not translate the first expression (52) and translates the other as “meal” (93). TLT4 translator translates these as “cheer up” (40) and “meal” (82). Thus, neither of these translations captures the homonymic meanings. But there is one place where homonym is intentionally used by the SLT2 author as a stylistic device. This is in Chapter 19, page 103 of SLT2 where the narrator tries to create an analogy between Asha, the name given by Sudha for Nirmala’s daughter, and its literal 129 meaning, “hope”. The narrator reports that the name “Asha”, given by Sudha to the girl, suits her: she gives (or is) hope for other sad characters in the novel. Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators try to recreate this in their translations but fail in naturalizing it2. Thus loss of meaning occurs. Accents and Onomatopoeic words Just like the characters in Godaan speak words and sentences representative of their creed, class, caste and social status, so do the characters in Nirmala. Since most of the characters in Nirmala are middle class characters belonging to Kayastha caste, however, the language of Nirmala appears more standardized than Godaan. But on a minute level, even these characters’ accents vary from each other because they belong to different locations, have different education levels and work in different professions. For instance, at Udaybhanu’s place, most characters speak colloquial and standard Hindi; at Lucknow or Bhalchandr’s place, the characters still speak colloquial and standard Hindi but their vocabulary also includes words from Avadhi dialect; and at Banaras, since the characters are mostly educated, their vocabulary contains English words. Beneath these middle class characters sociologically come their servants, especially Bhalchandr’s unnamed3 one-eyed servant and Nirmala’s housemaid Bhungi. Bhalchandr’s servant only appears in Chapter 3 of SLT2, but even in his short appearance, he leaves his mark. On pages 12 and 15, when he appears before his master, he talks in Avadhi dialect, which not only helps the narrator give a touch of originality to his story but also a bird’s eye view of inherent sociological order in India, especially when compared to his standard Hindi 2 TLT3 translator explains the homonymic usage in the footnote, which is good (160). Compared to this technique of TLT3 translator, TLT4 translator’s translation “Sudha had named the daughter Asha, or Hope. And she did appear the very image of hope” (149) not only distorts meaning, as Sudha does not name the girl “hope,” but also reads uninterestingly. 3 Maybe here Premchand is unconsciously guided by the inherent feudal power structure of his time, an unconscious ideological control over him, where a weak (or a subaltern as Spivak would put it) is not to be named. 130 on page 19 with Moteram4. Unlike this servant, Bhungi’s accent is not usually dialectal5, except in Chapter 19 page 104: kaahe bigarat ho babu, in Chapter 20 pages 110: tum gair kaahe ho bhaiyaa and 111: thetar, and in Chapter 23 page 123: aur ham naaheen jaanit. But her accent is still different from other characters. It has a pet phrase jhoont kyon bolun. Alongside these accents which are sociologically decided are two more accents, one of a Muslim character, Alayar Khan, and other of a fake saint, Paramanand. Inspector Alayar Khan’s accent is different from other characters in the sense that he uses many Urdu words in his speeches and swears khudaa kee kasam6 almost before every statement. In a similar way, Paramanand’s accent bears words from Avadhi dialect as in ghee le java bachchaa (178) and repeats bachchaa after almost every statement7. Apart from these, there are two more explicit places where accents are foregrounded. These are the child accents of Suryabhanu in Chapter 2 and of Asha in Chapter 24. In Chapter 24, in order to imitate Asha’s accent, Munshiji also talks in a child’s accent. In this kind of accent, the vocabulary remains same but their letter sounds change from one to another. In TLT3 and TLT4, none of these accents have been preserved. The translators translate these inconsistently and in regular English, and thus incur loss of meaning. Like the narrator in Godaan, the narrator in Nirmala uses onomatopoeic words for two purposes: as imitative of natural sounds which give a feel of naturalness in the text, and as a stylistic device to convey some particular meanings. For the first purpose, he uses 4 In Indian sociological order in 1936 (and even today), a servant was not supposed to talk with his master in standard Hindi, but in his local dialect. If he did, it was considered a kind of insult to the master. Therefore, when the servant talks to the master, he talks in dialect but when he talks to Moteram, he talks in regular Hindi (Khariboli). By talking with Moteram this way, he not only tries to impress him but also shows the breaking of that master-servant relationship [Courtesy: Dr. Ramesh Kumar, Department of Hindi, Sri Varshney College, Aligarh]. 5 Her accent not being dialectal will also give an idea to some SL readers that her position in the house is more of a family member than a servant. 6 TLT3 translator translates the use of this oath by Alayar Khan at different times as “on my oath” (169), “believe me” (169), “I swear” (170), “God’s oath” (170); and TLT4 translator as “in the name of Allah” (159), “I swear to you” (159), “I’m certain” (159), “by Allah” (159), NT (159). 7 The word becomes “my child” (178) and “child” (179, 180, 181, 185) in TLT3, and “child” (168, 174), “o my son” (169), “my son” (169, 170), and “my child” (171) in TLT4. 131 onomatopoeic words like dham-dham (3), gad-gad (8), khat-khat (61), oho, ho (61), and thar- thar (133); and for the second, choon (18, 46), hain-hain (34), dhar-dhar (35), dhak-dhak (59), and dhak (105)8. In both cases, the translators fail in preserving the onomatopoeic nature of these words and translate their senses only. These onomatopoeic words become, consecutively, “great clutter” (16), “overwhelmed” (23), “pounding” (100), NT (100), NT (202), “objections, slightest protest” (39, 79), “Good God” (63), “pounding” (63), “to pound” (98), and “pounding” (164) in TLT3; and “noisily” (4), “overwhelmed” (11), “loud discomfiture” (89), NT (89), NT (192) “complain, nothing” (26, 68), “shame on you” (51), “beat wildly” (51), “beating wildly” (87), NT (153) in TLT4. 1.2 Grammar and Syntax As has been pointed out in the last two chapters, grammar and syntax account for a good amount of meaning in a text. In fact, it is the availability of various grammatical and syntactical units to an author, and his surgical use of them, which helps him express his message in the best way. These units also work as formulae through which readers decipher the intended message. Therefore, any failure in recreating these formulae will result in a loss of meaning. Unfortunately, like TLT1 and TLT2 translators, both TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning on this level. They lose meaning mainly in recreating sentence, tense and voice types; punctuation marks in Grammar, and various peculiar syntactical arrangements in Syntax. Sentence, Tense and Voice Type Though in translating Nirmala, TLT3 and TLT4 translators do not encounter the same complex use of language in which sentences, tenses and voices intermingle with each other (as Premchand at times uses in Godaan), they still lose meaning. Like TLT1 and TLT2 8 Premchand uses choon to depict a sense of objection, opposition or complaint; dhar-dhar and dhak-dhak to depict a feeling of suffocation, pace or running; dhak to depict a sense of shock (Kumar 27-31); and hain-hain to show a mockery of a character. 132 translators, they also fail in recreating proper sentence, tense and voice type, which they could have recreated if they willed or had been a little more serious9. In translating a sentence type, they lose meaning because they make two or more simple sentences a compound or a complex sentence. This loss also occurs when they do not preserve conditional, exclamatory, positive, negative or interrogative nature of a sentence and changes it some other. Since each sentence type creates a distinct effect and meaning (for detail, see Chapter III), they lose that distinct effect and meaning and create a different effect and meaning in the TLTs. It is because of these reasons that both TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in translating the following two expressions: baag mein…rahee thee (3) and Udaybhanu—to aaj maraa…karatee ho (6). TLT3 translator translates these as “In the garden…early April” (17) and “‘My death…what to do!’” (21); TLT4 translator as “The garden…blowing softly” (5) and “Udaybhanu—I’m hardly…planning for?” (8). Explanation: The first SLT2 expression consists of three short simple sentences, which give a sense of peace and graphic representation of nature in the narration. On a deeper level, the fact that even though the action in three sentences is possibly interconnected (Garden—flower—fragrance in air—cool breeze) yet these have independent existence in three separate sentences creates a kind of contrast between their dependence on each other and their independence in the text. This can also be the symbolic independence of each natural element, and at the same time dependence on each other. TLT3 translator translates these three simple sentences as one sentence, which not only ruins the above meaning but also distorts the literal meaning of the sentences as SLT2 author does not define that the sweet fragrance is of flower, or that it is mixed in the breeze. Similarly, TLT4 translator makes these sentences two sentences, which do not capture the SLT2 effect. Furthermore, in 9 “Willed or had been a little more serious” because there are instances in TLT3 and TLT4 where one of these lose meaning because of a distortion in these grammatical units while the other preserves it. One such instance is the translation of nau baje kee gaaree milegee na? in Chapter 3. TLT3 translates this interrogative sentence as a statement: “I can get a train at nine, I believe” (42) and loses the interrogative meaning. This does not happen in TLT4 as the translator translates it as an interrogative sentence: “I’ll get the nine o’clock train, won’t I?” (30). 133 these two sentences, the first sentence also changes the subject from “flowers” to “the garden”. The second expression is a three-sentences long dialogue between Udaybhanulal and his wife Kalyani, in which the first sentence is an interrogative sentence, the second a positive statement, and the third again an interrogative remark. Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in their translations of this dialogue because they do not preserve the same sentence form. TLT3 translator translates these three sentences respectively as exclamatory, positive, and exclamatory, while TLT4 translator translates them as positive, interrogative, and interrogative. On the level of tense too, TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning because they do not preserve SLT2 tense type. In the case of Nirmala, this loss is vital because SLT2 author uses shifts in tenses from present and future to past, past and present to future, future and past to present as a rhythmic medium to engage his readers actively in the text. It is also important because this is one of the few techniques which the author uses to make the narration and atmosphere lively and engaging. For example, the first long paragraph of Chapter 2 in SLT2 is mainly in present tense which is followed by a paragraph in past tense. This shift in tense will also reflect in readers’ minds as they might feel that they have journeyed from the present back to the past. The use of present tense in the first seven lines of the first paragraph (4) may also create suspense (an important technique to grab readers’ attention) as the readers do not have any information about the wedding day, which is being talked about in the context. Thus, they may think that ‘the author has accelerated the plot and today is the wedding day,’ only to realize later in the eighth sentence that the wedding is still one month away and that there is no acceleration of events. Since TLT3 translator translates this and the next paragraph into past tense, all this meaning is lost by him. However, TLT4 translator successfully preserves it. 134 But with TLT4 translator, there is another problem. At times when there is a sudden shift from past to present (or present to past), TLT4 translator does not preserve the shift in the corresponding sentence but in the sentence that follows it. One such example is his translation of the dream narration in Chapter 1. The narration in SLT2 is in past tense before the dream, changes to present tense during the dream, and comes back to past after the dream is over. The same does not happen in TLT4. The translator has pre-dream narration in past tense, but he also translates the first sentence of the dream in past tense, meaning that he shifts to present tense one sentence later. He also repeats a similar situation at the end of the dream as he shifts to the past tense of the after-dream narration one sentence later. TLT3 translator translates this fine. Apart from these, here are two more instances where both TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning. 1. Usake hriday main ek vichitra shankaa samaa gayee hai (1)—“A peculiar doubt had entered her heart” (TLT3:14), “There is a strange fear that fills her heart” (TLT4:2)10. 2. Kaisee thandee-thandee…chal rahee hai (2)—“Just feel how cool the breeze is” (TLT3: 15), “See how pleasant the breeze is” (TLT4: 3)11. TLT3 and TLT4 translators also lose meaning because of their improper handling of the SLT2 voice type. They lose meaning because they change one SLT2 voice to another, as is the case in the following three examples: 1. Donon guriyaa…karate theen (1)—“Both married off…circumstances” (TLT3:13), “Their dolls would frequently be married…extravagance” (TLT4:1)12. 10 Here the SLT2 sentence is in present perfect tense, which becomes past perfect in TLT3 and simple present in TLT4. 11 Tense in this SLT2 sentence is present continuous which becomes simple present in both TLT3 and TLT4. 12 This habitual sentence is a past tense active voice. It’s translation as a future tense passive voice in TLT4 completely distorts the SLT2 meaning. The meaning is also lost in TLT3 but not because of voice change but because of the change of sentence type from habitual to regular. 135 2. Bagghee taiyaar karaa aayee hoon (2)—“I’ve arranged for the buggy” (TLT3:15), “The carriage is ready” (TLT4:3)13. 3. Babu Udaybhanulal…huaa hai (4)—“Babu Udaybhanu’s house…market-place” (TLT3:19), “Babu Udaybhanulal’s house…market” (TLT4:6).14 Punctuation Marks TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning with punctuation marks in their translations many times because they change SL punctuation, especially from exclamation mark to period, question mark to exclamation mark or period; and with that change also the associated meaning: an exclamation mark denotes an emotional response, a question mark a sense of enquiry, and a period a normal stop. Most times this change is unnecessary, which means that the meaning would have easily been preserved if the translators were a little more careful. Following are some examples representing these changes: SLT2 SLT2 TLT3 punctuation TLT4 punctuation Who had...her alone. (17) ! Gradually…all gone. (16) ! Is there…life! (27) ? All of…same time! (17) ? If I…the boys. (67) ! Return? ! How thin…gone! (74) ? Because…boys. (182) ! Do you…mother? (160) ! The body…outside. (196) ! Apart from the above punctuation marks, TLT3 translator also loses meaning when he does not preserve ellipses (TLT4 translator does preserve them). For example, he does not preserve them in “The penniless…their status—” on page 39; “no, sir, I’m not crying” on page 77; and “there you have…any help” on page 87. 13 This is not exactly passive voice but very close to it as the buggy has been arrangement by someone on the instructions of the speaker. TLT3 and TLT4 translate this in active voices which do not capture this sense. 14 It is an active voice which is metaphorical in nature. TLT3 translator preserves the voice, makes metaphor a simile but loses meaning as the tense is shifted back to past. TLT4 translator translates this as a passive voice which distorts the metaphor. 136 Peculiar Syntactical Arrangement Like the narrator of Godaan, the narrator of Nirmala also employs a variety of syntactical devices, but not frequently, to narrate his story. He primarily employs devices like detached construction, stylistic inversion, minor clause, suspense, asyndeton and polysyndeton, and parentheses to enliven his writing and to convey the message which could otherwise not be expressed without these devices. TLT3 and TLT4 translators, like TLT1 and TLT2 translators in Chapter III, fail in recreating these in their translations; at times both translators at the same time, at other times one of them. Detached Constructions As is the case in Godaan, when the characters in Nirmala (and at times the narrator too15) wish to maintain some distance from what they say or think, they use detached constructions. For this, they replace the first person singular pronoun “I” with the first person plural (collective) pronoun “we” or second person pronoun “you”. They may also change the verb accordingly. Should they omit pronouns in their speech or thought, the change is still visible in the verb form which corresponds with the omitted pronoun “we”. At times, they also use generalization or a passive voice to create this effect16. TLT3 and TLT4 translators do not always succeed in recreating these constructions because they, at times one of them and other times both, change the pronoun “we” to pronoun “I” and then have to change the verb accordingly too17. This happens in the following two examples and their translations. The first example uses plural verb; while the second example 15 This happens in the beginning of Chapter 1 when in lekin yahaan hamein unase koee prayojan naheen he uses “we” for “I” to say that he doesn’t have anything to do with Udaybhanulal’s family members. 16 In Chapter 2, Udaybhanulal says sarcastically about his wife’s behavior that randaape main bhee koee sukh hogaa hee! (6), which is willingly made a general remark to create a distant effect. TLT3 makes this personal as he changes the subject from “some joy” to second person pronoun “you” (21). However, TLT4 preserves it (16). 17 There are instances in TLT3 and TLT4 when the translators also lose meaning because they make a SLT2 personal construction a detached construction. This happens in the following two examples where TLT3 and TLT4 translators change SLT2 pronoun “I” to “one”: “Ah Babuji, how can one talk of being well” (TLT3:31), “One must play a snake properly before killing” (TLT4:52). 137 employs pronoun “we” in place of pronoun “I”. Both TLT3 and 4 change these to “I” and its corresponding verb. Thus, this change individualizes the distant effect and meaning of SLT2. 1. [ham] bhaagy…baithe rahain to bhookhon mar jaayenge (19)—“If I just stay up…I’ll die of starvation (TLT3:39), “If I keep…I’ll die of starvation” (TLT4: 27). 2. Hamane kah diyaa thaa ki ham saudaa vaapis naheen lenge (116)—“I told you not to bring anything back” (TLT3: 178), “I’d told you I wouldn’t take back goods that had been sold” (TLT4: 167). Stylistic Inversions Since stylistic inversions do not follow a strict grammatical structure and one can use subject, verb and predicate in any order depending on which unit one wants to emphasize, characters (and the narrator18) in Nirmala use stylistic inversions abundantly. These inversions serve two purposes in the text: they help characters express their thoughts effectively, and they create a touch of novelty in the text. TLT3 and TLT4 translators translate these into the English language SVO format which conveys the sense well but loses the proper emphasis placed on the select semantic units. In Chapter 3 of SLT2, when Moteram visits a sweet shop, he asks Sahji, “should he come up on the shop” but uses a stylistic inversion which changes this meaning completely. He says aa jaaoon, vaheen oopar na? (19)19, where the inversion of the verb from the last to the first place puts (emotional) emphasis on the action or verb “stepping up”. Furthermore, the use of comma after the verb which almost makes it two clauses, and of na for omitted question word plus subject—kya main—makes this expression more complex. As a result of all these, the meaning which comes out is something like this: the speaker has already decided to go up on the shop and he is just being polite (or conforming to the authority of the 18 In Chapter 5, the narrator uses stylistic inversion to foreground and emphasize the name of the male protagonist, Munshi Totaram. He says Vakil sahib ka naam thaa Munshi Totaram. TLT3 and TLT4 fail in doing so, mainly because this is not possible in TL (TLT3:50, TLT4:38). 19 This in regular grammatical structure will be main vaheen oopar aa jaaoon na?. 138 owner) in confirming it. In TLT3 and TLT4, this complex and stylistically inverted expression become simply “I’ll just step up, all right?” (TLT3:41) and “should I come up there myself and help you out?” (TLT4:28). Minor Clauses Unlike in Godaan, there are not many instances in Nirmala where its narrator and characters use minor clauses for specific purposes, and if there are some, they are easily translatable. But there is one place in TLT4 which testifies to the importance of a minor clause as a syntactical device and to the fact that any failure in recreating it or using it when it is not in SLT would cause loss of meaning. This is in Chapter 15 when TLT4 translator translates a complete sentence, kamal kee bhaanti munh hameshaa khilaa rahataa thaa (84), as a minor clause, “a radiant countenance like a lotus flower!” (123). The SLT2 sentence is a narrative report by Nirmala to her sister Krishna about Mansaram but TLT4 translator’s minor clause makes it a free direct speech or thought. Asyndeton20 Like minor clauses, SLT2 narrator does not employ asyndeton (deliberate avoidance of a conjunction in a sentence) often either. But whenever he employs it, it plays an important part. At such places, it helps the narrator in two ways: it helps him achieve connotation, and it helps him create a novel effect in the text. Although preserving this just means to preserve SLT2 punctuation marks in the translations, which in most cases are commas, TLT3 and TLT4 translators—TLT3 translator at times and TLT4 translator most times21—do not do so. 20 It appears that SLT2 narrator is not fond of polysyndeton. There are a couple of places where he uses these, which are easily translated by the translators. 21TLT3 translator preserves asyndeton most times as he does in “Believe me…lament” (32) and “Nirmala saw…wasting away” (83). However, this is not always the case with TLT4 translator. He translates above TLT3 constructions as “Believe me…in weeping” (20) and “Nirmala could…fading fast” (72). In the first instance, even though he preserves asyndeton, it appears artificial because of the unnecessary repetition of “I know”. In the second instance, he does not preserve asyndeton and at the same time leaves the last clause from SLT2 untranslated. 139 For instance, on the very first page of the novel, SLT2 narrator uses asyndeton when he reports about Udaybhanulal’s preparation for Nirmala’s wedding. He reports, “darate the, na jaane kis-kis ke saamane haath failaanaa pare, do-teen mahaajanon ko theek kar rakhaa thaa,” where the use of commas in place of a conjunction makes three clauses both a narrative report and a narrative report plus a free direct thought because the subject of the second SLT2 clause may either be taken to be “he” or “I”. If it is “he”, it will become a narrative report; if it is “I”, it will become a free direct thought. In TLT3 (14) and TLT4 (2), this ambiguity between two possible meanings is lost as the translators use conjunctions for commas and thus foreground one of the meanings22. Parentheses TLT3 translator also loses meaning in recreating SLT2 parenthetical expressions (TLT4 translator does not, except that he does not translate one parenthetical expression on page 146). In SLT2, these parenthetical expressions appear randomly and create two distinct effects: 1. they capture readers’ attention because they stand out from the usual narrative, and 2. they give a touch of dramatization in the story23. Premchand uses such parenthetical expressions on pages 12, 31, 48, 81, 85, 86 (twice), 87 and 101, which provide vividness to his text. TLT3 translator does not preserve any (respectively on pages 31, 82, 128, 133, 135, 136 and 157) and instead makes these plain narrative reports. This way, though he preserves sense, he loses the dramatic effect. 1.3 Semantics As in Chapter III, here too semantics denotes to the meaning of words and sentences in a text. This meaning is not only a dictionary meaning, the sense of the words and sentences, but also 22However, there is one place in TLT3 and TLT4 where the translators do not preserve asyndeton and do not lose meaning either. This is in translating aatishbaajiyaan…girenge (3) in Chapter 1 where they replace commas after the first clause and the name of the colors with conjunction “and”, thus making asyndeton a polysyndeton (TLT3:14, TLT4:4). This can be considered gain. TLT4 translator uses polysyndeton on pages 95, 132 and 180 too. 23 Perhaps Premchand borrows this style from playwriting where such parenthetical expressions are used to provide commentary about the characters and the context. 140 overall meaning. A discussion of the loss of these meanings in TLT3 and TLT4 is as follows in three categories—lexical, culture specific, and transferred meanings. Lexical Meaning Though Premchand’s vocabulary in Nirmala is usually standard Hindi vocabulary, there are also instances where Tatsam and Tadabhav words, rural versions of standard Hindi words, and words from one Hindi dialect, Avadhi, are found. There are also common words and expressions from Urdu, English and Persian. Though used infrequently, they also give life to the characters, literary quality to the text. TLT3 and TLT4 translators translate all of these words into Standard English, which does not capture this variation and real-life effect. Some examples of the lexical usages and their translations in TLT3 and TLT4 are as follows: SLT2 TLT3 TLT4 Daivaat (9) by chance (25) quite by chance (13) Sanskritized/ Ghrit (14) ghee (34) ghee (21) Hindi Kripan (22) miser (44) miser (32) Words and Vashtraabhoosan (27) jewels and richly dress (52) all finery (40) their Nairaashy (35) despair (65) despair (53) Translations Nistabdh (49) silent (83) still, quiet (72) Akasmaat (51) suddenly (85) suddenly (75) Animesh netr (58) NT (95) unblinking eyes (85) Randaapaa (6) widow (21) widowhood (9) Rural Nigoree (27) the wicked thing (52) NT (40) Terms and Tarakaa (61) dawn (100) dawn (90) their Larakoree (84) had children (132) had begotten sons (122) Translations Majooree (120) wage (184) be servant (173) kai (123) what (188) what (177) Mubaarak (6) luck (22) welcome (9) Raees (12) gentleman (31) rais (18) Urdu and Dillagee (16) joke (36) NT (23) Persian Taajee (19) free (40) fresh (28) Words and Saalaanaa nafaa (24) annual profit (48) annually worth (36) their Jaheen (37) intelligent (68) clever (56) Translations Hujjat (119) wrangle (182) argue (171) haftaa (127) week (193) week (183) 141 Proper / Pulis Main (9) the police (26) the police (14) Adapted Kot, Breechej (17) coat, western trousers (38) short jacket, breeches English (26) Words and Ardalee (19) orderlies (40) orderlies (28) their Jyometree (57) geometry (94) geometry (84) Translations Thaaisis (60) phthisis (98) pthisis (88) Sivil Sarjan (66) Civil Surgeon (107) Civil Surgeon (97) In addition to this loss, TLT3 and TLT4 translators also fail in transferring many vocabulary words. For example, on the very first page of the novel, the narrator reports that whenever Nirmala and Krishna heard baaje kee aavaaj (the sound of a local music instrument), they used to come out at the door. TLT3 and TLT4 translators translate the italicized words respectively as “the sound of music” (13) and “the merest sound of an iterant musician” (1), which do not convey the sense that baajaa refers to a local music instrument. TLT3 and TLT4 translators also lose meaning in recreating relationship terms, this time because of the linguistic differences in the SL and the TL: Hindi has a separate name for every relationship and English does not. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator informs that there were many people in Udaybhanulal’s family: koee mameraa bhaee thaa, koee fuferaa, koee bhaanjaa thaa, koee bhateejaa (1). In TLT3, these become “maternal and paternal uncles, nephews and nieces” (13). TLT4 translator, however, succeeds in preserving the SLT2 meaning, by not resorting to TL relationship terms but by translating the terms literally as “cousins maternal and paternal, sons of brothers, sons of sisters” (1). But at other places in translating individual relationship terms, he also loses meaning. Some relationship terms which lose meaning in both TLT3 and TLT4 are samadhin sahab (13), bahoo (29), buaaji (29), naanee (39), bhaavaj (88) and devar (134)24. 24 TLT3 translator translates these terms respectively as “bride’s mother” (31), “sister-in-law” (54), “aunt” (55), NT (57), “sister-in-law” (129), “brother-in-law” (204), and TLT4 translator consecutively as “honourable lady” (19), “Nirmala” (42), “aunt” (43), NT (69), “sister-in-law” (139), “brother-in-law” (193). Apart from these relationship terms, names for places that denote relationships also appear in SLT2. These are Maikaa (7), Sasuraal (18, 26) and Nanihaal (40). TLT3 translator translates these three as “father’s house” (22), “father-in- 142 Meaning is also lost in TLT3 and TLT4 in recreating SL synonyms. For example, SLT2 narrator uses three synonyms for wife: Istree (15), Patnee (15), Beebee (30); three for mother: Maataa (27), Maan (28), Amman (29); and three for school: shaalaa (52), iskool (52), madarasaa (53). These synonyms simply become “wife,” “mother” and “school” in the TLTs. It is not the case that the translators do not try to recreate SL synonyms, they do but maybe not seriously enough. Therefore, there are instances when they have tried to recreate synonyms, but there too they fail. For example, SLT2 narrator uses seven synonyms for God—Eeshwar (11), Vidhaataa (14), Bhagavaan (21), Vidhi (25), Khudaa (110), Allaah (110), Dayaanidhi (117). TLT3 translator translates these synonyms respectively as “God” (29), “Almighty” (33), “Lord” (43), “fate” (49), “God” (170), “God” (170), “treasure of compassion” (179); and TLT4 translator as “Providence” (16), “God” (20), “Lord” (31), “Maker” (37), “God” (159), “God” (159) and “God of mercy” (168). In Hindi, words made with prefixes and suffixes, adjectives and epithets play an important part. They not only save sentences from being very long but are also quick and effective. Like SLT1, SLT2 also benefits from this quality of the source language. Since in the case of words made by prefixes and suffixes (sadvrittiyaan, kuvrittiyaan, abalaa, adin, vakeelaain and chhaapaakhaanaa, etc.), there is not much that TLT3 and TLT4 translators can do, they preserve the sense but the effect created in the SL is lost. Nevertheless, in the case of adjectives and epithets, the translators can preserve their exact and precise usage and meaning as they do sometimes25 yet there are times in the TLTs when one or both of the translators either lose the preciseness or fail in capturing the exact sense26. Three examples: • Nagn vritaant (22)—“spare no detail” (TLT3: 45), “a full and detailed account of all” (TLT4: 33); law’s house, husband’s house (38, 50) and “grandmother’s house” (71); and TLT4 translator as “mother’s welcome” (10), “in-laws, husband’s home” (38) and “grandparents” (59). 25 Anindy chhavi (36)—“flawless beauty” (TLT3:65), “flawless vision” (TLT4:53); thandee saans (133)—“deep sigh” (TLT3:202), “long, cold sigh” (TLT4:191). 26 At one point in Chapter 17, TLT4 translator even misuses adjective. He translates chhaatee fate jaanaa as “insupportable grief” (138). 143 • Avishvaaspoorn tatparataa (45)—“readiness to be suspicious” (TLT3:78), “distrustful insistence” (TLT4: 67); • Buddhimatee Sudha (132)—“clever Sudha” (TLT3:200), “Sudha […] sharp enough” (TLT4:190). Culture Specific Meaning Culture specific meaning here pertains to the meaning of the words, phrases and sentences which are direct or indirect references to the culture from which they are derived, and are most familiar to its culture specific readers. In Nirmala, culture specific meaning shows its presence in five ways—cultural terms and references, allusions, idioms and proverbs, slang words, and euphemisms. In all these categories, except euphemism27, meaning gets lost in both TLT3 and TLT4. Cultural terms are vocabulary words that also carry cultural associations with them. For instance, on page 91 of SLT2, the narrator refers to dvaar pooja which literally means worship of the door but culturally it is a religious ritual in Hindu marriages. TLT3 translator translates this as “welcome ceremony” (142) and TLT4 as “welcome ritual” (132). Though the equivalents are close in sense, they still lose the cultural meaning associated with the usage, because dvaar pooja is not just welcome ceremony or ritual. Something similar happens in translating istree (15), kush-kanyaa (83), jal-kriyaa (95) and Vaishnavee bhojan (100), which become “wife” (34), “nothing but the girl itself” (131), “the oblation of water for the dead” (148), “Vaishnava meals” (156) in TLT3; and “wife” (22), “dowerless daughter” (122), “washed in advance for the cremation” (138), “vaishnav food” (146) in TLT4. A similar case also arises in the translation of cultural references in which meaning is produced in contexts and is sensible to the SL readers. Two such references, which are 27 It is because there are not many euphemistic expressions in SLT2 except those denoting death and misbehavior. These are translated fine in the TLTs. 144 translated fine in TLT3 and TLT4 but may not be sensible to TL readers without extra information, are: 1. In Chapter 1, Nirmala tells Krishna that they are girls, and therefore do not have/are not supposed to have a home anywhere (2). 2. Bhalchandra and his wife in Chapter 3 think that it is someone’s unlucky face which has spoiled their day (21). Meaning is also lost in TLTs in the translation of allusions. The text of Nirmala, like Godaan, carries all sorts of allusions—religious, social and historical. As in Godaan, at times these allusions stand separate and at other times come as part of a continuous narration or speech. In both cases, they are easily identifiable by SL readers. But in the case of TL readers, these need to be explained in footnote, endnote or glossary, which is only done, and not always, in TLT3. Otherwise, TLT3 and TLT4 translators just translate them as vocabulary words or give their contextual sense. At times, TLT4 translator does not translate these or transcribes them in their SL form, which are not great ways of dealing with these either since they remain unintelligible to TL readers. Five such allusions and their translations are: SLT2 TLT3 TLT4 Yamadoot (4) fiends from hell (21) NT (8) Saneechar (20) some devil (42) a devil (29) Trivenee (21) where three rivers come together (43) Triveni (30) Agnivaan (48) the arrow of fire (81) deadliest weapon (70) Satee (59) a true and devoted wife (97) a pure woman (86) Idioms and proverbs are also culturally specific as they carry much cultural knowledge and wisdom in them. Not only do they help the narrator say complex things easily, they also give a local color and rhythm to the text. Nirmala is full of idioms and a significant amount of proverbs. TLT3 and TLT4 translators at times translate these idioms and proverbs sense for sense which, compared to the quick, emphatic and rhythmical effect of 145 the SL usage, reads dispassionately; at other times they leave them untranslated. Some examples: SLT2 TLT3 TLT4 Idioms Mittee men mil jaanaa (7) Fall apart (22) Fall apart (9) Chhaatee par moong NT (36) Monstrously unfair (24) dalanaa (16) Daaee se pet chhupaanaa Hiding pregnancy from the NT (24) (16) midwife [fine rendering] (37) Badhiyaa baith jaanaa (20) Be bankrupted (29) Be bankrupt (42) Naanee maree jaanaa (39) Horrified at the thought of (57) Of going to live there (69) Proverbs Naam bare darshan chhote Big name but poor show People will make unflattering (5) (20) comparisons between our status and the level of hospitality (7) Muft kee sharaab to kaajee Even the qazi is free to accept ko halaal hai (12) Just as liquor is no longer free liquor (17) taboo for the Muslim judge when it is free (30) ‘Haathee ke daant khaane NT (25) ke aur dikhaane ke aur’ (17) A morality of doing anything so long as you can get away with it (37) ‘Naaton khetee, bahuriyon You can no more plough a field ghar’ (29) “Oxen for the plough, brides with a short-statured bullock for the house” (55) than you can expect these young brides to run households (43) Murdaa dojakh men jaay yaa bahisht men (71) The corpse goes to hell or to The patient can go to hell or paradise (112) heaven for all they care (103) Like idioms and proverbs, slang words are also culturally specific, and as in other categories, here too, TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning. They lose meaning because either their renderings do not capture the cultural context or they only resemble in sense and are harsher in tone. For example, SLT2 narrator uses slang words like pishaachinee (51), buddhaa, khoosat [vakil] (78), laalaajee (101) and daareejaar (110). These become “witch” 146 (85), “decrepit old [lawyer]” (123), “my father” (156) and “bastard” (170) in TLT3, and “witch” (75), “rotten old [lawyer]” (113), “my father” (146) and “wicked fellow” (159) in TLT4. Transferred Meaning Here transferred meaning refers to the meaning which is produced by the figures of speech and the verbal humor. Both of these kinds of meanings are vital to SLT2, as they are for SLT1, because they not only make the text a pleasurable reading but also help the narrator express a message which could otherwise not be expressed. Out of these two categories, figures of speech solely exist in words while the verbal humor appears both in words and contexts. Again, TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in recreating expressions which employ figures of speech. However, the translators do not usually lose this meaning at the same time. Frequency of this loss between TLT3 and TLT4 translators also varies at great length, which is approximately two to ten. Following are two examples; the first example represents the places where either or both of the translators lose meaning or do not translate,28 and the second example where they succeed in preserving the figure of speech, but still lose meaning because of their adding unnecessary word(s). • Nirmala kee sahaasy moorti apane kamare ke dvaar par kharee hai (oxymoron) (36)—“Nirmala standing at the door, meeting with him with a smiling face” (TLT3: 65), “a smiling Nirmala at the door, eager to welcome him upon his return” (TLT4: 53). —oxymoron not preserved in either of the TLTs. • Pandit Moteramjee bagule kee tarah dhyaan lagaaye bajaar ke raaste kee or taak rahe the (simile) (15)—“Pandit Moteram, hunched like a heron in deep meditation, was staring at the road to the market (TLT3: 35), “Pandit Moteram was sitting tight, with all the concentration of a fishing heron, staring in the direction taken by the servant who had gone for the sweets (TLT4: 23).— bold words unnecessarily added. 28 TLT3 translator does not translate one personification on page 59. 147 But the translators translate verbal humor—humor, pathos, irony, satire, and parody— well because in SLT2 it is usually explicit and arises from a situation, thus translating this only demands translating the context well. However, when this verbal humor arises from a single word or phrase, the translators again stumble in their translations. For two examples, Bhuvan Mohan Sinha in Chapter 3 and Rukmini in Chapter 8 respectively use the expressions buriyaa ke paas ab kyaa hogaa? (18) and Ranee, ghar ko mittee me milaakar chain se na baith paaogee (52) satirically. TLT3 translator translates these as “How much could the old woman have?” (38) (satire distorted by not translating ab) and “You won’t rest will you until you’ve brought the house down around you” (88) (satire distorted by not translating Ranee); and TLT4 translator translates these as “How much d’you suppose the widow has put away? (26) (a plain question) and “I assure you, you’ll never be able to live contentedly if you insist on destroying a home in this fashion” (77) (unnecessarily wordy). Loss of meaning in TLTs also occurs in transferring SLT2 imagery. This happens in two ways: loss of a stock image usually depicted in a phrase or sentence, and loss of an extended image usually used as a way to compare a character’s situation. In translating a stock image, both translators lose meaning, regardless of the fact that they translate them faithfully, because the image is culture specific and creates a set of associated responses, along with the literal meaning, in the mind of the SL readers. This may not happen with TL readers. One such stock image appears on page 2 of SLT2 where Nirmala wants to have feathers (as in many folk stories) so that she can fly away from all of her present troubles. But there is one place in TLT4 (none in TLT3) where an important extended image is misunderstood or mistranslated by the translator. This happens in Chapter 22. In the last paragraph of this chapter, the SLT2 narrator compares the present and future condition of Siyaram with that of a bird which hovers for sometime over the grains spread by a hunter to snare it. The bird finally descends and is captured. The narrator comments that whether this 148 hunter (the fake saint in the narration) would cage this bird (Siyaram) or kill it is not sure (122)29. TLT3 translator translates this image fine (185) but in TLT4, the image is completely changed. In TLT4, it becomes: “having hovered over its prey all this while, the predator finally descended on its catch. Now as to whether the bird will end up in a cage or under the hunter’s knife—who can tell? (175). As one can see in the translated image, there are two distinct predators, one is a bird, maybe eagle, which descends on its catch, the other a hunter who may cage “the bird” or kill it. 1.4. Narrative Narrative here refers to the narrator and his techniques—characterization, textual structure, points of view, analepsis and prolepsis, acceleration and deceleration, etc.—which he employs to thread together Nirmala’s story. Compared to TLT1 and TLT2 translators, TLT3 and TLT4 translators come out slightly better in translating narrative. In addition to preserving textual structure, analepsis and prolepsis, acceleration and deceleration, they also preserve most of the shifts in narrator’s positions, depicted in SLT2 by the use of pronouns30. However, they also fail in reproducing narrative positions depicted in tense changes (already discussed above in “sentence, tense and voice type” section), characterization (because they fail in translating characters’ individualized accents) and points of view (since at times points of view arise from individual speech and thought processes). The narrator of Nirmala, like that of Godaan, is a heterodiegetic omniscient narrator who directly enters in the narrative whenever and wherever he thinks it necessary. However, he is friendlier than that of Godaan. For instance, he begins the story of the novel as if he is a grandparent telling a story to his grandchildren because he, homodiegetically, addresses 29 This is an extension of another image, already used before in Chapter 8, page 47: chiriyaa ko…neeche jaal hai. TLT3 and TLT4 translators translate that image fine (80, 69). 30 E.g. TLT3 and TLT4 translators preserve the narrative interferences and comments (in SLT2: TLT3, TLT4 format) on pages 1:13,1; 10:28,15; 46:80 69; 63:102-03,92; 71:113,104; 74:118,108; 82:128,119; 97:152,141. 149 himself and his intended readers by the pronoun “we” and perhaps assumes that he and the readers are on the equal front. But soon after this, his narration becomes third person omniscient narration which continues until the eighth page where he again addresses readers indirectly in rhetorical questions. Later on page 10, he directly interferes in the narration, this time to address “life” as a character: Jeevan, tumase…bujh jaataa hai. A similar case also happens in Chapter 13, pages 81-82 where he addresses “human life” in a similar tone: Maanav jeevan...deerghaayu! These addresses reflect that he is emotionally involved in the narration. Though these kinds of shifts in narration are important, they usually get distorted in one of the TLTs. In translating the first expression above, it is TLT3 translator who distorts the address (27) while in translating the second, it is TLT4 translator who does so (119). TLT3 and TLT4 translators also lose meaning in translating locative expressions like yah (9), isee (24), isakaa (38), inhen (38), which respectively become “other” (25), “that” (47), “his” (68), “he” (69) in TLT3, and “the man” (13), “just” (35), “some” (56), “they” (57) in TLT4. These locative expressions in the narration reflect the narrator’s point of view towards characters and the characters’ points of views towards their counterparts. With the first two locative expressions, the translators could have preserved the meaning by using “this” but with the other two, there is nothing that they could do as there is no equivalent available in TL for them31. Another way that TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose characters’ points of view is that they distort their speech and thought processes, which the narrator represents in a variety of 31 This kind of loss also occurs in TLTs when it comes to translate gender specifications; Intensifiers to, hee, na, see, kitanaa, kitanee; honorific suffix jee; and sentences which have their subjects omitted because their subjects are easily identifiable from the verbs. There is one place in Chapter 7 where the honorific suffix gives extra meaning in the context. In the context, Mansaram informs Rukmini about his father’s decision to send him to the hostel. Rukmini thinks it is Nirmala’s deed and goes to her in anger. Seeing her, Nirmala addresses her as didi but once she knows about her anger, this address changes to didiji. This shows the mental condition of the female protagonist. In a normal situation, she feels friendlier and less submissive but once threatened and frightened, she assumes (psychologically) an inferior position. TLT4 translator loses this meaning because he does not differentiate between the honorific and non-honorific usages and translates both as didi (59). TLT3 translator preserves it (70). 150 ways: as free direct speech and thought, free indirect speech and thought, just direct/indirect speech and thought, and as narrative report of speech and thought. These variations play a crucial part in the reported speech of the dialogues as well as in the narration. These stylistic variations also create an up and down beat plus liveliness in the narrative. In TLT3 and TLT4, the sense of these processes remains intact yet, many times, their stylistic form changes, thus changing the focalization in the narration and causing loss of meaning. For example, on page 8, the narrator reports Kalyani’s thoughts as a free direct thought, where the subject is “I”: Naheen pyaaro, men tumhe chhorakar naheen jaaoongee. Tumhaare liye sab kuchh sah loongee. TLT3 translator leaves the first sentence untranslated and makes the second sentence a narrative report: “she could put up with anything for them” (23). TLT4 translator preserves it, but he too distorts such expressions other times. For instance, in the beginning of Chapter 3, the narrator again narrates Kalyani’s thoughts directly. She thinks: men ant samay apane pati ke prem se vanchit ho gayee (10). This becomes a plain narrative report in TLT4: “at the very end, she had lost the love of her husband” (15). TLT3 translator, however, preserves it (28). 2. Cognitive Part In addition to losing meaning on a textual level, TLT3 and TLT4 translators, like TLT1 and TLT2 translators, also lose meaning on a cognitive level. They lose meaning in two ways: in the first case they cannot do much and the loss is almost inevitable while in the second case they could preserve meaning but fail in doing so or make wrong choices. These two cases are discussed in the following two sub-heads: Ideology; and Readers’ and the Translators’ Cognitive Models. 2.1 Ideology As in Godaan, ideology in Nirmala also plays a role on many levels. Everyone and everything, including the author who is an advocate of women empowerment, assumes some 151 kind of inherent ideology32. Most times, this ideological system is only sensible to SL readers and non-transferable in TLTs. For instance, the characters in SLT2 follow a certain power structure in which the elders within a family and caste, the priest and the master are given respect. This respect is visible in the use of honorific verbs and pronouns. Since there is no way to translate these honorific verbs and pronouns (too, tum and aap) in TLTs, they translate these in Standard English, and thus lose the meaningful ideological system.33 Apart from this, there are other ideological references in SLT2 which are translated well in TLTs, but TL readers may still not make sense of them. For instance, in Chapter 3, Moteram boasts of having clients (and their families) who not only wait on him to eat some sweets but also give him money (21). A TL reader who does not have exposure to SL culture may not understand this sociological, religious and ideological dominion of Moteram over his clients. Similarly, in Chapter 6, Nayansukh declares that it is not a big deal to master a woman, as if there is nothing easier in the world (32). A TL reader may require additional information about Nayansukh’s ideological working in this context. 2.2 Readers’ and the Translators’ Cognitive Models Meaning does not come solely from a text, but it is a result of interplay between the textual units and a reader’s cognitive model, the model which consists of his social, historical and cultural background knowledge. Since two different readers should have two different cognitive models, a SL reader and TL reader would interpret the same line/text in two different ways. This is likely to happen with an SL and a TL reader in interpreting a racial but 32 In Chapter 20, the narrator emphatically puts that “jewels are a woman’s only wealth” (TLT3: 166), which seems to imply that she has no right to anything else. This is a reiteration of what Nirmala says in Chapter 1 about girls having no home. 33 Nirmala uses too and no-honorific verb form for Krishna and Chandar; Krishna uses tum and Chandar aap for Nirmala. This reflects the cultural and ideological system in an Indian family. The fact that though Krishna and Chandar are both younger than Nirmala but use different pronouns for her reflects another ideological structure in which a boy is supposed to pay utmost respect to his elder sister, and a younger girl can be familiar with her. Since Krishna and Chandar are born one after another, he does not follow the same rule with her, even though she is younger, and when he does on page 3, it becomes satiric. Similarly, on the first page the narrator uses honorific verb form for Udaybhanulal but regular verb form for Nirmala. This ideological power structure is lost in TLTs. 152 humorous reference in Chapter 3 where the narrator compares Bhalchandr to an African negro. While a modern SL reader might still enjoy this humor, probably with slight discomfort, a TL reader with an African background in the US or Britain or any English speaking country might misinterpret the reference and have serious concern about it, which may even lead him to hate SLT2 author and culture. It is because of this fear of misinterpretation by a TL reader that a translator may be tempted to foreground SLT meaning in his TLT. This should be fine if it is done at the places where the chances of misinterpretation are prevalent. But if it is done regularly even with simple literary constructions, this would not be good; this means that the translator is not trusting TL readers’ comprehension abilities. Also this foregrounding (unnecessary addition of words and phrases) will ruin the literary precision of the text and create a meaning which is just indicated in SLT. TLT3 and TLT4 translators (TLT4 translator badly) lose meaning because in their translations they unnecessarily foreground meaning, which could have been understood by TL readers without those additions too. For example, in translating Sooryabhanu’s accent in Chapter 2, TLT3 translator adds “will you” at the end of an interrogative sentence to foreground a sense of informal question (23), but this foregrounding ruins literariness because a construction like “will you” as a way of confirming would not be used by a child who is still lisping. His foregrounding of meaning with additions like “but they grow numb” (12), “at this rate” (20), “that would do the trick” (39), “I will” (45), “so” (65) and “even” (98) also falls in the same category. Unlike in TLT3, there is too much foregrounding of the meaning in TLT4. This foregrounding not only makes the translation pompous and a kind of adaptation but at times the constructions are even awkward to read. The translations of two precise constructions, to ghar kaa bhandaa footataa hai and yah Munshi Totaram the in TLT4 as “She would be 153 revealing that which should remain private between her and her husband” (68) and “This was Munshi Totaram, come home at last” (196) are two such examples. In Nirmala, there are also social, historical and cultural references which do not appear to be intentional references or allusions but may still fire up SL readers’ cognition. This cognitive stimulation will give an extra meaning to what is being written on the page. Because TL readers do not have a similar cognitive framework, even the faithful and exact translation of these references in TLTs may not evoke the same responses from their readers; thus this extra cognitive meaning of SLT will be inevitably lost in the translations. For example, in Chapter8, Rukmini warns Nirmala that Mansaram is not going to school, but he is taking vanvaas (exile) (52). Here the word vanvaas may instigate SL readers’ cognition to compare Mansaram’s condition with that of Ram in the Ramayana. A foreign reader might not have this information about Ram going into exile into his cognition. Thus, even when TLT3 and TLT4 translators translate it faithfully, this cognitive meaning would not be transferred. There are also at least two historical references in SLT2 which are easily comprehensible to a SL reader but may require additional historical knowledge from a TL reader. This is the use of the word gora (mostly used as a derogatory term for the English) in Chapter7, and a reference in Chapter17 about the English in colonial India always going on hunts and their slaves working for them. In these two references, while the first may not be intelligent to a foreign reader without extra information, the second may appear too obvious. Like many readers, a translator is also a reader who reads the text, re-reads it, and interprets it from his own perspective. It is from his understanding of a text through his cognition that a TLT appears. Thus, in this process, it may happen that he, as a result of his limited/incorrect background knowledge, may misunderstand something in SLT, may not understand it at all, or might make a poor decision. In all cases, loss of meaning will occur. 154 In the case of Nirmala, David Rubin is its foreign reader and Alok Rai a domestic reader. And it is perhaps because of their different cognitions that their translations also vary from each other. However, regardless of their readership, both lose meaning in similar areas: Both are inconsistent about some usages and both commit errors. Inconsistency There are places in both TLT3 and TLT4 where the translators are inconsistent with some usages. TLT3 translator is not consistent with monetary and measurement system34, translation of a SL word or expression35, and italicization36. The case does not change with TLT4 translator either. He is not consistent with monetary system37, capitalization38, and the translation of a SL word or expression at different places39. Errors TLT3 and TLT4 translators commit non-grammatical and grammatical errors in their translations. In the non-grammatical errors, the errors are usually wrong usages, which are either spelling or typing errors40 or wrong translations of some constructions41. In the grammatical errors, these errors are in the sentences as they are evident in the following examples (errors underlined): It’s not surprising is it if one…” (TLT3: 61) “Surely you can’t that simple-minded! (TLT3: 154) 34 Monetary: Paaee—paisa (20), pice (76) [paisa—pice (168)]; chavannee—four-anna coin (187), four-anna pice (187). Measurement: Seer: [footnote] a seer equals about one kilo (41); paav bhar—a pound (41); aadh seer—a full pound (41). 35 Sandhyaa ka samay thaa (2)—one evening (15), Sandhyaa ka samay hai—it is evening (17); ghee (20)—such and such, ghee (20); Halvai—sweetmaker (19), halvai (40); buaaji—aunt (55), buaji(68); kachaharee—the law court (54), court (79), the law courts (91). 36 seer (42), seer (42); ghee (20), ghee (132). Babuji is used in italic on page 26 but no footnote is provided. 37 Lakh (7), five thousand (8), 500 rupees (17), a hundred thousand (26), dhelaa-dhelaa—pennies (41), paee— pai (64). 38 Panditji (21), panditji (22); brahmin (23), Brahmins (30). 39 Sarkaar—sarkar (18), sir (19); Mahaaraaj—your honour (28), Maharaj (29); Vakil Sahab—the lawyer sahib (139), the Vakil Sahib (139); Charapaee—bed (6), cot (58); Miss naukar—Christian woman (60), ‘miss’ (61); Kachaharee—the court (53), the law-courts (62), the courts (68), the law courts (116); thaanedaar—station officer (158), Police officer (158), inspector (160). 40 TLT3: 25, 64, 187, 194; TLT4: 16, 52, 76, 77, 125, 189. 41 For instance, “skies” for sky (16), “red hats” for black hats (16) in TLT3; and “Chandar was Chandrabhanu Sinha’s son” (4), “The next day” for yesterday (68), “that day” for today (87), “her eyes” for his eyes (107), “yesterday” for two days (138) in TLT4. 155 “Formerly when…felt famished” (TLT3: 196, three when(s)) “He went directly to Mansaram and starting quizzing him on his studied” (TLT4: 55) “All he came back and said…” (TLT4:122) “There are few young men are …” (TLT4:125) “Looking at her through her tear-filled eyes” (TLT4:139) “My legs might begin to quake so that I’ll fall when I see him” (TLT4:139) Translators’ Incompetence and Misunderstanding Not only TLT3 and TLT4 translators commit errors and are inconsistent in some usages, they also come out incompetent in translating some expressions and misunderstand some others. Though TLT3 translator is careful in his translation and consults (as he informs in the introduction) a few SL speakers about complex places in SLT2, he still misunderstands many constructions. For instance, he misunderstands the addressee of the speech in “there you can…in ghee” (41) in Chapter 3 (the addressee is the servant, not the shopkeeper) and the speaker for “he wasn’t like this before” (162) in Chapter19. He also translates many expressions incompetently. For example, he translates a simple two word expression jalaao mat (126), meaning ‘do not burn (annoy) me’, as “don’t get angry” (191)42. In Chapter 7 of the translation, he makes Mansaram address his father as “sir” (77); this is culturally wrong as an Indian son in the 1920s would have never addressed his father as “sir”. Apart from this, his leaving of many words, phrases, sentences and a paragraph untranslated would also be considered part of his inability to translate SLT2 faithfully43. In the same line, his translation of the SLT2 title as “The Second wife” is also a cultural misnomer. It derogates the female protagonist, as she just becomes someone invisible and the SECOND wife, not someone who has been highlighted by SLT2 author by using her name as the novel’s title. Furthermore, there is no reference to the title in the translation 42 Similar case also happens in “I realize...vagabond” (68), “That when…bother me” (101), “the blow…before him” (162-163), “when Munshiji left…last night” (165), “what do I… my family” (185). 43 He leaves words and phrases untranslated on pages 22, 28, 34, 93, 100, 101; single sentences on pages 20, 23, 30, 36, 50, 59, 86, 105, 144, 155, 161; two sentences on pages 65, 84, 101, 141, 142, 183; three sentences on pages 82, 169, 205; and a paragraph on page 206. 156 except one in Chapter 6 when Nayansukh, perhaps casually, expresses his desire to marry a second time. He says, “I’m thinking about taking a second wife” (59). Similar are the cases with TLT4 translator. He misunderstands at least two cultural references and translates many expressions and book chapters insufficiently44. In the cultural references, he misunderstands bazaar to market in Chapter 10 and panditaain to “cook” in Chapter 17, which are references to visiting prostitutes and the wife of a Brahmin, respectively. However, he comes out incompetent in the following five ways: 1. He fails in closely following the text, and at times or most times ends up giving the meaning which he has deciphered, not the one which is in the text. On the surface, it may seem fine but it deprives readers of the artistic process through which they themselves would have deciphered the meaning. One such instance is the translation of tumane munh kyon latakaa liyaa as “Why are you unhappy at the thought of living there?” (57). 2. He translates many SL words, phrases and sentences wrongly. One such word is “ancient” (21, 97) for boodhaa and jyotiheen par anubhavpoorn. 3. He overuses words in his translation, at times even when they are not needed and/or are not proper equivalent for the SL term. Some of these words are “just then”, “terrace”, “all right” and “transform”. 4. He leaves words and sentences untranslated45. And, 5. There seems to be a contradiction between what he says in the introduction about the target readership (which is primarily non-Hindi speaking Indian) of his translation and what he does. For instance, this contradiction arises in his preserving of the lunar calendar month chaita (even when many modern Indian readers may not be aware of this or may be more familiar with its TL equivalent), and his translation of the word 44 These Chapters are 1 to 6, 11 to 14, 16 to 17, 19 to 20 and 24 to 27. 45 Words, and sometimes sentences, are left untranslated on almost every page. E.g. he does not translate single sentences on pages 9, 24, 30, 67, 75, 122, 128, 134, 136 and two sentences on page 52. 157 chilam as “clay pipe” (most Indian readers should be aware of the word chilam and even some foreign readers too). Similarly, his glossary for a foreign reader is not helpful either, it just seems a kind of fulfillment of a responsibility or the publisher’s trick to make foreign readers believe that it is helpful46. ***** Thus, it can be said that TLT3 and TLT4 translators also lose meaning in the same areas—textual and cognitive—that TLT1 and TLT2 translators do, and at times on a major scale. As acknowledged, there is some loss of meaning over which they do not have control; but with the remaining part it is the lack of proper attention and effort which contribute to such loss. The loss also occurs because they do not draw upon the translation techniques of their predecessors. It also appears that some loss of meaning occurs because of publishing companies’ lack of proper editing and review, and the translators might be in haste to meet prescribed deadlines. Different natures of the SL and the TL and their cultures also add to this loss. 46 Not all of the SL terms are explained in the glossary and there is no distinction between the words which are explained and the words which are not. It is not alphabetically ordered either. It will be frustrating for a foreign reader to go back each time to glossary just to have an idea whether the term has been explained or not. Furthermore, since the purpose of the vocabulary is to provide explanation for something unfamiliar, it should be done in the easiest and simplest way. TLT4 translator does not do so and uses difficult, dictionary lingo rather than a colloquial one. E.g. in the very first explanation, he uses “according […] to” for “showing […] to”. This may further frustrate the reader at first as he may confuse this for the popular use of the term, “According to”. There are also errors and unnecessary words in it. 158 Works Cited Kumar, Suresh. Shailyvigyan Aur Premchand ki Bhasha. New Delhi: Macmillan, 1978. Print. Premchand, Munshi. Nirmala. New Delhi: Raj Pal and Sons, 2000. Print. Rai, Alok, trans. Nirmala. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. Rubin, David , trans. The Second Wife. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 2010. Print. Chapter VI Gain of Meaning in English Translation of Nirmala Just as the last chapter follows the conceptual, analytical and structural framework of Chapter III, this chapter follows the conceptual, analytical and structural framework of Chapter IV. In introducing Chapter IV, an analogy between the concept of loss and that of gain has been made. The analogy suggests that since every place where a translator does not preserve SLT is considered loss, every place where he preserves it should be considered gain. However, next to this suggestion, it has been stated that since it is a translator’s duty to preserve (translate) SLT faithfully, Chapter IV does not consider mere fulfillment of this duty as gain of meaning. The present study agrees with Chapter IV in this and therefore considers only those places gain where the loss of meaning is prevalent but either of the translators succeeds in preserving it completely or partially because of their creativity. In addition, it also considers those constructions gain which not only preserve SLT semantic meaning but also adds to its expressive power. Since a translation is written for target language readers, any creative technique which either translator employs to make his translation a smooth and psychologically involving reading is also considered gain of meaning in this chapter. However, this technique should not distort SLT2 meaning. TLT3 and TLT4 translators may be aware of the contemporary research in TS and other fields of fiction writing; at least they should know some. That said, this chapter also discusses any added creative technique which the translators use to transfer SLT2 meaning accurately and coherently in the translations. However, like the last chapter, it also serves as a test for TLT1 and TLT2 translators’ creative techniques. 160 Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators gain some meaning on these parameters. TLT3 translator uses his creativity throughout the text to improve his translation and to make it more comprehensible. But this does not happen regularly with TLT4 translator; he is creative in some of the chapters, especially Chapter 151, but not in others2. A stylistic analysis of the gain of meaning in TLT3 and TLT4 (following the analytical structure of the last three chapters) is as follows in two major parts—Textual and Cognitive— and their many sub- heads. 1. Textual Part As it happens with TLT1 and TLT2 translators in Chapter IV, the textual part does not provide much space for TLT3 and TLT4 translators to gain either, even though the language of Nirmala is not as intricate as Godaan’s. Unlike the loss of meaning in four categories— sound system, grammar and syntax, semantics and narrative—in the previous chapter, TLT3 and TLT4 translators here only gain meaning in the first three categories. In the fourth category, they preserve some parts of the narrative (plot, story, chapter division, acceleration and deceleration, flashback and flash-forward) and lose others (discussed in the previous chapter). So if they gain anything in the fourth category, they gain in preserving the in- bracket narrative units. An analysis of the other three categories follows. 1.1 Sound System As discussed in the last chapter, TLT3 and TLT4 translators badly lose meaning in recreating SLT2 sound system in their translations. This primarily happens because of the different natures of the SL and the TL. However, since sound system makes a reading emotionally involving, TLT3 and TLT4 translators, like TLT1 and TLT2 translators, also try to create an equivalent or alternate sound system in their TLTs, either by recreating a part of SLT2 sound 1 However, it appears that the chapter has not been edited properly. One reason for saying this is that there are many additions in this chapter which are unnecessary. 2 The other chapters where his creativity is seen are Chapters 7 to 14, 18 and 21 to 23. 161 unit or compensating the loss with some other kind of sound pattern. This happens via the use of rhythm, euphonic effect, assonance and alliteration, and onomatopoeic words. Rhythm TLT3 and TLT4 translators fail in exactly recreating most of SLT2 rhythm. Yet at times they also preserve it, as they do in the case of repetition, or create some compensatory rhythmic patterns in their TLTs with the help of rhyming or compound words. Following are two examples in which TLT3 and TLT4 translators create rhythm with repetition. In the first example, the SLT2 author creates rhythm by repeating vahee before four phrases, which TLT3 and TLT4 translators preserve by repeating “the same” before three (TLT3) and four (TLT4) phrases. Similarly, in the second example, SLT2 author creates rhythm by repeating naheen three times, which only TLT3 translator translates successfully because he preserves the repetition and follows the semantic meaning closely. TLT4 translator preserves the repetition (and thus the rhythm) but distorts the meaning because he translates sau (hundred) as “thousand”. The examples: Vilkul maan ko…kaa-saa thaa! (17)—“He took after…from his father” (TLT3:38), “He resembled…his father” (TLT4:25-26). Naheen, naheen; sau baar naheen! (65)—“No, no, a hundred times no!” (TLT3:105), “No, no, a thousand times no!” (TLT4:94-95). TLT3 and TLT4 translators produce a compensatory rhythm with TL rhyming or compound words in two ways: one, they use two (usually) rhyming words combined with the conjunction “and” for a SL compound word; and two, they use two rhyming words for a SL compound word. However, they do not do so at the same time. Here are some examples: SLT2 TLT3 TLT4 Tark-vitark (5) discussion and argument (20) (No gain) Ronaa-dhonaa (62) crying and sniveling (101) weeping and wailing (91) Luchche-lafange (102) hoodlums and idlers (159) louts and rascals (148) Katar-vyont (128) scrimping and saving (195) (No gain) 162 Aamod-pramod (31) pleasures and relaxations (59) light dalliance (47) Khare-khare (7) still standing (23) (No gain) Nang-dharang (11) bare bodied (29) (No gain) Additionally, there is one more example in TLT3 which can also be considered gain. In this example, the translator replaces two non-rhyming SL words with two TL rhyming words, joined with conjunction “and”. This is his translation of Karavatein badalanaa (51) as “tossing and turning” (164). Euphonic Effect In reproducing SLT2 constructions which are euphonic, TLT3 and TLT4 translators mostly lose meaning and there are only a few places in TLT3 (none in TLT4) where the translator manages to preserve it, wholly or partially. Two such places where he does not lose meaning but respectively creates a similar and partially similar euphonic effect are the translations of kabhee dekhate…rahee hai (31) in Chapter 6, and chupchaap…rahe the (71) in Chapter 12. At the first place, SLT2 author creates euphonic effect by repeating kabhee four times and at the same time ending four verbs with rahee hai. And at the second place, he creates the effect by using alliteration (letters “ch” and “p”) and two compound words. TLT3 translator uses his creativity in translating both of these places and succeeds in recreating a similar and nearly similar euphonic effect in his translation. He translates the first place as “he would find her…some story” (58) and the second place as “he was…a sound” (113). At the first place, he recreates euphonic effect by using “-ing” at the end of five verbs, which are also followed four times by the word “them”. At the second place, he recreates a nearly similar euphonic effect by replacing one SLT2 compound word with two rhyming words joined with “and”: “twisting and turning”. The “t” letter in the rhyming words further rhyme with the “t’s” in “violently” and “without”. 163 Alliteration and Assonance Because alliteration and assonance are language specific, TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning on this level. However, their language-specificness also helps the translators gain meaning since the English language, as discussed in Chapter IV, is more alliterative and assonant than Hindi3. This feature of English enables the translators to create alliterative and assonant effects even when the SLT2 construction is a plain expression. As a result, they sometimes gain meaning in translations if the alliterative and assonant effect increases the readability of the text without affecting the meaning4. In fact, it are alliteration and assonance which occupy a major portion of the compensatory sound system in the TLTs. Some examples (phrases and sentences) of such usages in TLT3 and TLT4 are as follows (repeated vowel and consonant sounds in bold): TLT3 “She was jealous because she felt she was no longer mistress of the house” (71) “He be teaching” (72) “In the whole wide world what was there that he…” (76) “that’s all, just tell him that” (110) “Who knows what God wills” (119) TLT4 “I should simply stand by” (42) “Much much more than a mere” (48) “Her life is in danger even at this moment” (91) “She sent word through her maid that her husband should sell her jewellery and save the house, but this suggestion was wholly unacceptable to Munshiji” (117) To further elaborate the point, one non-alliterative and non-assonant expression from Chapter 3 of SLT2 can be used: chitt ko samjhaaiye aur hansee-khushee kanyaa kaa paanigrahan karaa leejiye (14). TLT3 translator creates alliteration and assonance in 3 For detailed information, please consult “alliteration and assonance” sub-heading in Chapter IV. 4 This feature of the TL is also dangerous as a little carelessness on the part of the translators can create a meaning which is not in SLT. Therefore, they have to be very careful in using English vocabulary in such situations. 164 reproducing it. He translates it as “be consoled and gladly, joyfully, see that this girl is married” (33) in which alliteration is created by the repetitive use of consonants “l” and “d”, and assonance by the use of “ee” vowel sound in “be”, “gladly”, “joyfully” and “see”. This does not distort the semantic meaning either. Onomatopoeic Words There are a few places in TLT3 and TLT4 (they can be counted on one hand) where the translators gain meaning on this level. However, these few places and the techniques with which they gain meaning are important. The techniques are three: one, they use an equivalent TL onomatopoeic sound for an SL onomatopoeic sound; two, they translate a non- onomatopoeic SL sound with a TL onomatopoeic sound; and three, TLT3 translator (no instance like this in TLT4) uses two rhyming words joined with “and”5. Following are the only examples where TLT3 and TLT4 translators gain meaning (gain in bold). Equivalent onomatopoeic sound Uf (8)—“Oof6” (TLT3:24), NT (TLT4:11). Tik-tik (105)—“ticking” (TLT3:104), “loudly ticking” (TLT4:153). Non-onomatopoeic expressions translated as onomatopoeic sounds Chup raho (85)—“hush” (TLT3:133), “hush” (TLT4:123). Dabe paanv (96)—“tiptoe” (TLT3:150), “noiselessly” (TLT4:140). Dab jaanaa (112)—“hushed up” (TLT3:172), “hushed up” (TLT4:162). Onomatopoeic sound translated with two rhyming words Haay-haay [machaanaa] (69)—“weeping and wailing” (TLT3:110); “going on in this fashion” (TLT4:100). 1.2 Grammar and Syntax The last chapter witnesses that both TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in this category, even though the grammatical and syntactical usages in Nirmala are not 5 Though the rhyming words are not equivalents of onomatopoeic words, this is counted as gain because it can be a possible option for translators when there is no way to recreate onomatopoeic sound. However, TL onomatopoeic sounds for SL onomatopoeic sounds should be the first choice. 6 TLT3 translator also uses “oof” for another onomatopoeic sound oonh (22) on page 44. This is loss of meaning because the two sounds are not same. 165 complicated. Nevertheless, there are a few places where either or both translators preserve SLT2 grammatical and syntactical forms in their TLTs or devise a technique with which they successfully recreate the intended meaning. In this way, they either preserve SLT2 meaning or slightly improve upon it. A discussion of such instances follows in eight sub-headings: Tense and Sentence Type; Punctuation Marks; Intensifiers; Gradation and Minor Clauses; Parentheses; Devices of Emphasis: Italic, Capitalization and Single Inverted Commas; and Target Language Expressions (the first three denote grammar, next three syntax, and the last one grammar and semantics). Tense and Sentence Type TLT3 and TLT4 translators gain no additional meaning on this level, except at places where either of them preserves SLT2 tense and sentence type. Under this condition, TLT4 translator preserves historical present tense in many narrative descriptions7 and past tense in most of the descriptions. However, TLT3 translator only gains at the places where he preserves SLT2 past tense. For instance, on the very first page, he preserves SLT2 past progressive tense in its passive voice form when TLT4 translator changes it to present perfect tense: Idhar maheenon se… kar rahe the (1)—“For months now Udaybhanu had been negotiating Nirmala’s marriage” (TLT3:13), “For the past several months Babu Udaybhanulal has been on the lookout for a husband for Nirmala” (TLT4:1). Thus, they gain meaning with tense but not in the same ways and not necessarily at the same time. They also repeat something similar on the level of sentence when they gain meaning with a sentence type but at different times. As part of their duty, the translators translate 7 For example, dream narration in Chapter 1, even though the shift to this tense comes one sentence later than in SLT2. 166 normal sentences fine, but there is one kind of sentence usage for which translators deserve applause here. This is their translation of participles in SLT2 reporting clauses. They make the participles adverbs in the translations. The following two examples show that only one of the translators recreates this participle with an adverb while the other distorts it. Nirmala muskaraakar bolee (2)—“Nirmala smiled” (TLT3:15), “Nirmla replied smilingly” (TLT4:3). Babu sahab ne dapatakar kahaa (9)—“Udaybhanu demanded sharply” (TLT3:26), “Babu Sahib’s tone was severe” (TLT4:13). Moreover, there are at least two more places where TLT3 translator handles the use of participles in narrative reports creatively. At one point, he makes it an adjective, and at another a clause in a compound sentence (at both places, TLT4 translator loses meaning). Isakee soochanaa…bithaa rakhaa hai (1)—“This news…with her face covered” (14). Mej par baithkar ek patr likhane lage (79)—“Sat at the table and began to write a letter” (125). Punctuation Marks It is the use of punctuation marks in a written text which gives meaning to the words, phrases and sentences of the text by clearly marking their territories. They visually help readers understand the intended message in its proper tone and mood too. Therefore, any misuse and distortion of these by a translator should cause him to lose meaning. But if he uses these carefully and creatively, he would also glean good results. TLT3 and TLT4 translators’ positions about punctuation marks are not unitary. In the most critical times, they take these casually and lose meaning. Nonetheless, there are places where they use punctuation marks, especially two of them, creatively and reap favorable results. These two punctuation marks are exclamation mark and ellipsis. 167 There are instances in SLT2 where the author uses a period in place of exclamation mark8, even when the use of this punctuation could have been easily justified. Although this use does not affect the meaning, it still overshadows the clarity of SLT2 expression. In translating such expressions, TLT3 and TLT4 translators usually replace the periods with exclamation marks. This way, they foreground the intended emotional touch and gain meaning (TLT3 translator frequently). Following are four examples, two from each: Ghar men…kam naheen. (6)—“I have just…not a bit less!” (TLT3:22). Khoob samajhataa hoo. (41)—“Now I understand it perfectly!” (TLT3:73). Tum kyaa baaten karate ho. (32)—“What’re you saying!” (TLT4:47). Tujhe to mote kaparon se chir hai (86)—“But you detest coarse fabrics!” (TLT4:126)9. The approaches of TLT3 and TLT4 translators towards ellipses vary from each other. TLT3 translator experiments with these in his translation whereas TLT4 translator adheres to preserving SLT2 ellipses in his translation. With ellipses, TLT4 translator neither loses meaning nor gains. If he gains, he gains in faithfully preserving these all the time. TLT3 translator in his experimental approach, however, both loses and gains meaning. He loses because he does not preserve many of these (which he could have done); and gains because he preserves two (on pages 174 and 197), changes one to a hyphen10 and uses ellipses three times when they are not in SLT2. He translates janavaase kee jagah havaadaar naheen (5) in Chapter 2 as “the guest rooms have no ventilation…” (20); pooraa kasaaee, nirdayee, dagaabaaj (23) in Chapter 4 as “regular butchers! Cruel, cheat…” (46); and vah sochate 8 At one point in Chapter 2, he does not use question mark at the end of a sentence: tum mere peechhe-peechhe kyon aa rahe ho. (9). Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators replace the period with a question mark. This may be an error committed by the SLT2 author (or overlooked by its editor) as this pattern is not repeated. If this is not an error, this will be a gain. 9However, TLT 4 translator hardly gains meaning in this and above example because if he uses exclamation marks creatively, he also changes SLT2 semantic meaning slightly. 10Par doosaraa… [ellipsis in SLT2] (91)—“But the other one—” (142). Though hyphen is not equivalent of SLT2 ellipsis yet its usage by the translator does not distort the meaning. It conveys the intended sense plus adds a novel touch in the reading too. 168 the—kaheen usane bahaanaa to nahee kiyaa hai? in Chapter 17 as “he went thinking, ‘what if she has only invented an excuse?...” (92)11. In the first case, the ellipsis provides a smooth transition from this sentence to next one without distorting the meaning. In the second and third cases, it adds a sense of continuity. Intensifiers In Chapter III, TLT1 and TLT2 translators badly lose meaning because they leave the Hindi intensifiers, to and hee, which help a Hindi speaker deliver depth of his intended message clearly and accurately, untranslated. However, they are not held responsible for this because the loss is language related as English does not have equivalents for any of these intensifiers. Many times this lack also makes TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in their translations, as is discussed in the last chapter. However, at times, they succeed in recreating the intensifying sense of the SL intensifiers in their TLTs with the help of some TL terms. Though these terms are not equivalents of SLT2 intensifiers, in a given context they recreate an equivalent effect in the TLTs. Here is a list of some usages in TLT3 and TLT4. SL Intensifiers TL terms used in TLT3 TL terms used in TLT4 To Surely (43), have I (70), at all Itself (41), all right (49), so much (72), as a matter of fact (82), will as (55), really (60), not at all you (98, 198), anyway (114), (65), hardly (65), only (75), after already (173), won’t you (194). all (79), won’t you (194). Hee At all (26, 109), merely (90). Merest (20), so much as (75), hardly (65), alone (75), anyway (81), always (128). In addition to these substitutes for SL intensifiers, TLT4 translator also uses the English intensifier “do”, which functions in the same way Hindi intensifiers do, three times respectively in Chapters 3, 7 and 15: “do come” (17), “do come back soon” (55), and “but I do know that…”(123). In these three places, use of this intensifier helps the translator best convey SLT2 message in his translation, and most effectively. 11 Three ellipses in this sentence are of the translator. 169 Gradation and Minor Clauses Premchand in Nirmala does not explore gradation on a larger scale. There are a few instances where he employs gradation and they are simple. He employs gradation to give a sense of abundance and the reference is usually explicit. However, it is only TLT3 translator who successfully preserves it. TLT4 translator either distorts the semantic meaning (example one below) or preserves semantic meaning but distorts gradation (example two): Haan-haan, band se bhee achchhe, hajaar gune achchhe, lakh gune achchhe (3)—“Oh, yes, even better than the band, a thousand times, a hundred thousand times better!” (TLT3:16), “Better, much, much better, a hundred times, a hundred thousand times better.” (TLT4:4). Aisaa aadamee lakh-do lakh men ek hotaa hai. (12-13)—“A man like him is one in a hundred thousand-two hundred thousand!” (TLT3:31), “A man like him is one in a million” (TLT4:18). But with minor clauses, both TLT3 and TLT4 translators gain meaning. They gain because at times they convert a full length SLT2 clause or sentence into a minor clause, which is shorter than its counterpart in SLT2 and does not distort the meaning either. The shortness also provides an urgency and speed to it, something quick and fast. However, TLT3 and TLT4 translators do not necessarily gain at the same time. Two examples, one for each: Daarun dashaa thee (16)—“Dreadful situation” (TLT3:35). Yahaa akelee…achchhaa hai (4)—“Abandoning her at such a time!” (TLT4:5) Additionally, there is also a place (perhaps only one) where they preserve SLT2 minor clause. This is when they translate aur naee ammaa! as “and new Amma!” (TLT3:96) and “and my new mother!” (TLT4:86). Parenthesis As is the case with ellipses, TLT3 and TLT4 translators approach parentheses differently too. TLT3 translator experiments with these whereas TLT4 translator preserves them as they are in SLT2. Thus, TLT4 translator gains in the sense that he consistently preserves all of them. In his experimental approach, TLT3 translator both loses (discussed in the previous chapter) 170 and gains meaning. He gains two times when he uses a parenthetical statement for a SLT2 non-parenthetical statement. He does so in translating meraa bas chale…maar doon (13) and teenon jhallaa-jhallaakar…kaat detaa thaa (34). In translating the first as “if I had…shot” (32), he uses parenthetical statement “(or who gave either)” which is effective and emotionally appealing in the context. It also adds newness in the reading. Similar is the case in the translation of the second as “they became…blows” (62) where the translator makes the second clause of SLT2 a parenthetical statement. The second example also uses the apposition “quick as lightening”. Devices of Emphasis: Italic, Capitalization and Single Inverted Commas TLT3 and TLT4 translators approach devices of emphasis—italic, capitalization and single inverted commas—creatively but a bit differently: TLT3 translator uses these carefully, especially italic, and sparingly. He uses italic in three ways: 1. he italicizes one or two words in a sentence to emphasize those words12; 2. he italicizes the words which he explains in the footnote (e.g. didi and Ammaji on page 15, neem on page 19); and 3. he italicizes SL words which he transcribes in his TLT and leaves on the readers to decipher their meaning13. These three uses of italic create a distinct effect and emphasis in the text without disrupting the flow of the reading. Additionally, at one point he uses italics creatively, this time to preserve the emphatic sense of a stylistically inverted clause in SLT2. He translates men nahee jaataa baajaar (120) as “I’m not going to the market!” (183)14. Unlike the gain with italic, TLT3 translator does not gain much with capitalization and single inverted commas as emphatic devices. He (or his typist) capitalizes the initial letter 12 E.g. He italicizes “your” on page 15, “see” on page 32, ““you” on pages 20, 33, 36, 88, “yes” and “no” on page 36 for SLT2 ‘haan’ and ‘naheen’, “him” on page 38, “we” on pages 39, 43, and “those” on page 39. 13 For instance, he italicizes Arrey on page 33, “rasgullas and laddus” and “sherbet” on page 34, and “anna” on page 35. 14 TLT4 translator translates this as “I won’t go” (173). 171 (though in a different font15) of the first word of every chapter; the first letter of all the proper nouns; and some other words like “Excise Department” (30), “Pandit” (33), “Brahmin” (39), “The School Inspector” (73) and “The Civil Surgeon” (151). He does not experiment with single inverted commas but does preserve one use of it by the SLT2 author (which TLT4 translator does not) in his TLT. He does so in translating ‘ek aane kee mithaaee’ ne…tor dee thee (16) as “but that ‘one anna’s worth of sweets’ had already dashed up his hopes” (35). Unlike the three types of uses of italics by TLT3 translator, TLT4 translator uses italics only in one way: He employs italics to put emphasis on a particular word. However, he also uses it carefully and sparingly and whenever it is used, it gives a distinct effect and emphasis in the context. Here are three examples: It seems you are (14); It was just that—happiness—for which I married (111); Do you like him or not? (125). Like TLT3 translator’s, TLT4 translator’s (or his typist’s) use of capitalization of the first letter of the first word of every chapter does not distract the readers unnecessarily. It serves his purpose efficiently. In other usages, however, he is like TLT3 translator: He capitalizes the first letter of all the proper nouns; and also some other words like “Excise Department” (17), “Mussalman” (17), “Divine Court” (20), “Pandit” (21) and “Brahmins” (30). He also employs single inverted commas as a device to emphasize a word. He does so a few times but does not always gain. He uses single inverted commas first on page 122 with “save” and gains meaning; but with the same creative technique he loses meaning on page 125 when he unnecessarily uses it with “your brother-in-law”. Two other places where he gains with emphasis are on pages 142 and 167 where he respectively uses “solitude” and “step-mother” in single inverted commas. 15In this capitalization, he does not gain anything, rather he loses. Since this font is not a popular font, it is hard to understand the letter at times (the letter “a” itself). The many curves in this font are also visually distracting. The same also applies to the chapter numbers and the image with them. 172 Target Language Expressions As in Chapter IV, target language expressions here refer to the expressions which are target language specific and do not necessarily correspond to the source language. At times, they cannot even be translated back into SL. Since these expressions are familiar to TL readers, and are also the best and the most natural TL equivalents for any SL expression into a TLT, they not only make the TLT a natural and smooth reading, they also create a novel effect whenever they are used. This way, these expressions stimulate TL readers’ cognitions also, just as some SL expressions do with SL readers’ cognitions. These expressions, which give a feel of familiarity to TL readers, appear in TLT3 and TLT4, as they do in TLT1 and TLT2, in two forms: verb contractions, and a word or a set of words which are TL specific. What is being said about verb contractions in Chapter IV also applies here. Verb contractions do not exist in Hindi but in English they have a specific role to play: they provide naturalness, colloquialism and smooth flow to a speech or narration. Therefore, TLT3 and TLT4 translators use all the verb contractions which TLT1 and TLT2 translators use in their translations. These are: ’s is/has/us n’t not ’m am doesn’t does not ’re are don’t do not ‘ve have can’t cannot ’ll will won’t will not ’ll shall shan’t shall not However, TLT4 translator adds one more verb contraction to the list. This is d’ in the beginning of an interrogative sentence for auxiliary verbs “do” or “does”. At times, these verb contractions also help the translators express the intended urgency and speed of the SLT action. For one instance, they do so in TLT3 and TLT4 in the very first dialogue of the novel, a long dialogue between Nirmala and Krishna. Three lines from the dialogue have been presented here: 173 TLT3: “‘Then I won’t let you leave. Why don’t you just tell Ammaji you won’t go?’ ‘That’s what I’ve been saying, but who listens to me?’ ‘But isn’t this your house?’” (15) TLT4: “Krishna—Then I won’t let you go either. Why don’t you tell Amma you won’t go anywhere? Nirmala—I’m telling them all right, but who’s listening? Krishna—So isn’t this your home too?” (3) Like the verb contractions, TLT3 and TLT4 translators also use a word or a set of words which are TL specific. These words work like verb contractions in that they not only preserve SLT2 meaning but also gain TL readers’ interest. Some such usages (word(s) underlined) are as follows: TLT3 Ship (Since there is a mention of sail, rudder and mast in the context, the use of ship for boat by the translator is good. It would also ignite TL readers’ cognition) (17); We kept supper for you (41); Still not filled your tummy (41); Damn you, you blood-sucking miser (44); Oh, you silly child (46); Make an ass all for nothing (61); This grand lady of his (72); The day students (73); Munshiji’s legal wiles were checkmated (104); My (for Are) (146); Millionaire (for lakhpati) (153). TLT4 Skinflint that you are! (32); Mark my words (35); English lessons (60); Go to hell (90); Give a damn (91); All but unconscious (107); God knows (155). 1.3 Semantics Semantics does not allow much space for TLT3 and TLT4 translators to gain meaning. It is difficult enough for them to preserve meaning on this level, as is evident in the last chapter (except at the places where the SL words, phrases and constructions are not peculiar and do not have specific associations). However, this does not mean that TLT3 and TLT4 translators do not gain anything. In addition to the successful transfer of vocabulary or normal SL words, 174 phrases and constructions, there are three more creative conditions in which they successfully preserve SLT2 meaning or preserve meaning plus add some new effect. One of these conditions, use of target language expression for a SL word or phrase, has already been discussed above in the grammar and syntax section. Nevertheless, there is one addition to the previous description and it is TLT3 translator’s decision to replace SLT2 measurement units (which is not done consistently) and the Hindu lunisolar calendar with TL measurement units and the English Roman calendar (these changes do not occur in TLT4). The replacement of the measurement units and the name of the month (only one month, chait, used in SLT2 which become April in TLT3, page 17) would not only avoid confusion in the minds of the TL readers, it would also make TLT3 reading smoother. The second condition: TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning in the last chapter when they translate SL idioms and proverbs. But there are also places in TLT3 and TLT4 where the translators do not. This happens when they replace a SL idiom or proverb with an equivalent TL idiom or proverb, or translate a SL idiom or proverb literally or in sense (but expressive in nature). Though this does not happen often, especially in the case of proverbs, whenever it does, it helps the translators preserve SLT2 meaning. Some examples: SLT2 TLT3/TLT4 Idioms Chalaane chalanaa (4) To pull the wool over eyes (TLT3:73) Jabaan hilaanaa (5) to wag tongue (TLT3: 19) Akl chhoo tak na jaanaa (14) to have not an ounce of sense (TLT3: 33) Jhoot-mooth kaa holaa karanaa (15) to evade with a few fibs (TLT3: 35) Nas-nas pahachaananaa (22) to know inside out (TLT4:32) Ek hee thaalee ke chatte-batte (18) two chips off the same block (TLT3: 39) Chotee pakarakar nachaanaa (29) dance on a string (TLT3: 54) Royen khare ho jaanaa (58) to make hair stand on end (TLT4: 86) Aag lag jaanaa (173) to go up in smoke (TLT3: 175) Proverbs Aankhen footeen, peer gaee (6) out of sight, out of mind! (TLT4:9) [though loosely] Vipatti aatee hai to akele naheen when trouble comes it never comes alone aatee (22) (TLT3: 44) 175 Jaisaa kiyaa vaisaa bhogo (125) [he’s] reaping what he showed (TLT3: 191), [now] reap what you have shown (TLT4: 180) Apart from preserving meaning in the TLTs, the translators also gain meaning in this condition. Since idioms are culturally specific, whenever either of the TLT3 and TLT4 translators uses a TL idiom for a normal construction in SLT216, they gain meaning because this usage not only helps them to create an atmosphere which is TL specific but also captures the SLT2 message in TLTs most effectively. Following are some idioms which the translators employ in their translations for a normal SLT2 construction: TLT3 All and sundry (14) to make your eyes pop (16) bread and butter (21) To take to heels (29) to be scared out of wits (30) a bit long in the teeth (49) Hue and cry (141) TLT4 A tough nut to crack (2) to make a laughing stock [of oneself] (7)17 fly off the handle (9) Hale and hearty (107) hold no water (176) the wrong side of the bed (176)18 The third condition: In the third condition, there fall other creative experiments which TLT3 and TLT4 translators employ to capture (and improve upon) semantic meaning. These creative experiments are three: use of archaic or poetic terminology by both translators; creative translations of some relationship terms by TLT4 translator; and the use of figure of speech by TLT4 translator for a non-figurative SLT2 construction. These can also be considered good techniques to preserve or gain meaning in translation if used sparingly. In the first creative experiment, the translators use poetic or archaic terminology to recreate some SLT2 vocabulary words. In fact, in the context, this terminology is the most effective way to recreate those SL words. Some (and perhaps only) examples: 16 There is no such use of proverbs in the TLTs. 17 However, use of this and the next idiom by TLT4 translator is unnecessary. Therefore there is no gain. 18 The SLT2 meaning is changed in the TLT, so no gain again. 176 Beeson (1)—“scores” (TLT3: 13); Kul (1)—“clan” (TLT3: 13); Dhany ho sarakaar! (13)—“Praise be!” (TLT4: 19); Puraane raees (25)—“noble lineage” (TLT3: 48); Naaraj (27)—“her ire” (TLT3: 52) Sudha (51)— “nectar” (TLT3: 86, TLT4: 75); Pathik (136)—“wayfarer” (TLT3: 206, TLT4: 196). However, it is only TLT4 translator who gains meaning in translating relationship terms (second creative experiment). He gains when he tries to preserve them two times. On the very first page, he does so in literally translating mameraa bhaee, fuferaa bhaee, bhateejaa and bhaanjaa as “cousins maternal, cousins paternal, sons of brothers, sons of sisters”. On page 122, he again tries to preserve the meaning of a relationship term, this time by using both the SL relationship term and its equivalent in TL. He translates jijaji (84) as “Jijaji, her own brother-in-law”19. It is TLT4 translator who gains meaning in the third creative experiment too. He gains meaning with figure of speech: on page 28, he makes a non-figurative SLT2 expression a synecdoche. He translates tum to puraane aadamee ho (19) as “you’re an experienced hand” (28). 2. Cognitive Part Since a translation is written for TL readers through the cognition of a translator, it involves some major decisions in translating. It is because of this challenge that in the last chapter, it is discussed how some of these less desirable decisions by TLT3 and TLT4 translators cause loss of meaning. However, there are also some good decisions which TLT3 and TLT4 translators make (though not same) and which assist them in better presenting their translations to the targeted readers. These cognitive decisions on the part of the translators are here considered gain because in their absence, the readers may misunderstand some parts of SLT2 or may not understand those at all. In the absence of these decisions, the readers may also become frustrated with the TLT reading simply because: first, the TLTs are foreign texts 19 This kind of usage can be applauded as this, if not used frequently, would give a sense of novelty in the text, and (possibly) a sense of curiosity in the mind of a reader to explore the SL word by himself. 177 in translation having everything foreign for them, and second, textual references and meanings may not be clear in their mind. In such a place, they may even stop reading the translated texts halfway. In order to avoid any of the negative situations mentioned in the above paragraph, and to create a proper and favorable atmosphere for the reading, the translators make certain creative decisions, and add something in TLTs which are not in SLT2. Though these additions do not exist in SLT2, they cannot be considered loss of meaning because they are important components from a translator’s and his readers’ points of view20. A discussion of these cognitive decisions by TLT3 and TLT4 translators is as follows in the five sub-headings—Style of the Dialogues; Error Correction; Foregrounding: Addition of Words and Phrases; Introduction, Footnote, Foreword, Translator’s Note and Afterword; and Structural Changes. Style of the Dialogues Style of dialogues here refers to the way SLT2 author writes them, and the ways TLT3 and TLT4 translators recreate them. In Nirmala, the author uses the name of the characters, then hyphen and then the actual speeches without any inverted commas. TLT4 translator recreates the same style in his translation, which can be considered his gain, except on page 112. On this page, his style suddenly changes for a while, which includes the speech of a character in single inverted commas followed by a reporting speech. Though this style does not distort the meaning directly, cognitively the sudden change just for three speeches may annoy and distract the readers. 20 However, as is said in Chapter IV, a translator has to be careful not to create a meaning which is not available in SLT at all. He should only foreground or manipulate the existing meaning for his purpose. If he creates his own meaning, supposedly if he adds a character or an event, it will fall under the category of the loss of meaning. It is because of this fact, that the translators lose meaning in the last chapter in section “foregrounding”. 178 The same style which may annoy the readers of TLT4 helps TLT3 translator gain meaning21. TLT3 translator does not follow SLT2 author’s style of dialogues but he changes it to include speeches in single inverted commas. These speeches are preceded or followed by reporting speeches if they are needed in the contexts. Since the translator follows this creative diversion consistently, this does not distort SLT2 meaning. At times when the speakers are obvious in the context, the absence of their names (or reporting speech) even makes TLT3 reading smoother. It also provides urgency and speed to the action. This happens in the following dialogue: ‘Didn’t you get anything today?’ she asked him. ‘I spent the whole day running around but I got nothing for it.’ ‘What happened in that criminal case?’ ‘My client was found guilty.’… (186). Error Correction It is discussed in Chapter IV that there are two possible viewpoints which one may take about error corrections: one may advocate preserving errors in translation or support correcting them. In outlining the reasons for these two opposing viewpoints, it comes out that both of them have strong and valid reasons. However, the parting line between them is that one viewpoint primarily looks at the errors from SL readers’ point of view (in the present case, TLT4 translator’s intended domestic readers whom he sees as his target readers) and the other viewpoint principally from TL readers’. Chapter IV concludes that since a translation is written for TL readers, the second stand is more valid. And since it involves creative changes on the part of the translators, it considers those changes their gain. Premchand commits errors in Godaan on two levels: grammar and plot. TLT1 translators do not deal with these errors seriously while TLT2 translator corrects them. In Nirmala, Premchand again commits errors on two levels but this time on semantic and plot. 21 It also helps him show his presence in the translation, a rare occasion for a translator. 179 In translating these errors, both TLT3 and TLT4 translators correct the semantic errors but preserve the first errors of plot (in the select two examples below). In translating the second error of plot, however, approaches of TLT3 and TLT4 translators differ from each other. TLT3 translator handles it creatively: he both corrects and preserves it—a double meaning; while TLT4 translator only preserves it. Following are the four examples representing the two kinds of errors. Semantic errors 1. At the end of the second paragraph of Chapter 5 in SLT2, the narrator reports that Munshi Totaram used to spend a part of his invaluable time with Nirmala playing (bajaanaa) gramophone. Since gramophone is a record player, this is an error of vocabulary use. Bajaanaa should be sunanaa (listening). TLT3 and TLT4 translators correct this usage as they use “listening” in their translations (TLT3:51, TLT4: 38). 2. In Chapter 13, the narrator informs that Doctor Sinha was ashamed by Sudha’s parihaas. Since the reference is satiric, the word should be uphaas, not parihaas (Kumar 121). Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators correct this error (may be unconsciously) as this becomes “sarcasm” (124) in TLT3 and “mockery” (115) in TLT4. Errors of Plot22 3. In Chapter 3, page 15, the narrator informs that Rangilibai can read letters in Hindi but she seldom reads books. However, on the next page in Bhalchandr’s speech, it comes out that she weeps for hours after reading fiction books. Both TLT3 and TLT4 translators preserve this error (TLT3: 35, 36-37; TLT4: 22, 24). 22 TLT4 translator mentions both errors of plot in his afterword (204). 180 4. In the beginning of Chapter 13, page 75, the narrator informs that even though Nirmala has everything she needs—jewelry and comfort—and does not have to do any household work, she is sadder than her friend Sudha. However, later in the same chapter on page 78, Sudha informs that Nirmala is skilled in household works. If Nirmala does not do any household work, how does Sudha know that she is skilled in that? TLT4 translator preserves this error (113) whereas TLT3 translator translates it in such a way that it resounds both the SLT2 meaning and the corrected one. He translates it as “so skilled in running a house” (123) where “running” may mean that she works in the house and also that she oversees servants. Thus, he succeeds in gaining with this ambiguous meaning. Foregrounding: Addition of Words and Phrases In the last chapter, it is seen that TLT3 and TLT4 translators lose meaning because in order to foreground the meaning, they add unnecessary words and phrases. But there are times when some expressions, if translated literally, will not create an equivalent effect in TLTs. In these situations, translators have to or should add words and phrases to the literal translations of these expressions to foreground the SLT2 meaning or to make the meaning rhythmic and more effective. Since such additions are only used to make meaning clear to the TL readers, to make their reading of the text smoother, they can be considered as techniques of gaining meaning in translation, given the condition that they should not be unnecessary and should not change the SLT2 meaning. Following are some examples where TLT3 and TLT4 translators add words or phrases (additions underlined) and thus gain meaning: “There are no aspirations there, no fond expectations, only fears…” (TLT4: 2) “But Chandar’s very naughty” (TLT3:16) “Well, I’ve really heard something new today” (TLT3: 21) “Pulled out…a different kurta” (TLT3: 24) “My husband had great plans, great hopes but, alas, Providence…” (TLT4:16) “…one can even live in a thatched hut if need be…” (TLT4:33) “But it turned out that panditji was sitting ready…” (TLT3: 42) “He asked her directly—what are you doing here?” (TLT4: 74) 181 “If I continue…such ignominy, he thought, then my existence in itself is shameful” (TLT4: 85). Introduction, Footnote, Foreword, Translator’s Note and Afterword Among TLT1 and TLT2 translators, it is only TLT2 translator who provides Introduction with his translation, but between TLT3 and TLT4 translators, both translators provide it with their translations. TLT3 translator provides it under the title “Translator’s Introduction” whereas TLT4 translator under two titles, “Foreword” and “Translator’s Note”. But regardless of the names, the introductions, which precede the core texts, are informative of SLT2 and its author and set out a favorable and knowledgeable background for TLT readers. They are also effective means to assist the translators to gain readers’ confidence and reduce chances of them being misunderstood. However, the introductions vary when it comes to them talking about the translators’ translation techniques and translation process. “Translator’s Introduction” talks about TLT3 translator’s principle translation techniques as well as about the liberties which he takes in the act of translating, but nothing like this is done by the “Translator’s Note”. It does not really talk anything about TLT4 translator’s translation techniques except that the translator has chosen a way out between the domestic and foreign readers (and that a “gifted teacher” would be able to utilize his glossary). Among the footnotes and afterword, TLT3 translator provides footnotes and TLT4 translator an afterword. TLT3 translator uses footnotes (total 51) alongside the text as a device to explain individual words, concepts and references. Though not all of the footnotes given by TLT3 translator are correct23 or needed24, the ones which are correct and needed are effective. They not only explain something semantically, they also give a fresh touch to the text. Opposed to 23 Footnotes 21 and 28 are incorrect because bhang and brahmachari are not just “intoxicant” and “ascetic”. 24 Footnotes 4, 15 (if “margosa” and “sweet maker” are TL equivalents of neem and halvai, why not to use them), 32, 39 (readers should be allowed to decipher the meaning by themselves) and 42 are unnecessary footnotes. 182 the footnotes, TLT4 translator’s afterword does not contribute anything towards the betterment of the translated text. It does not help the readers in understanding the meaning either. However, it should help a reader better understand Nirmala’s melodramatic nature. Just for this, it deserves mention here. Structural Changes In order to better present their translations to readers, TLT3 and TLT4 translators also creatively experiment with the structure of SLT2. In their experiments, they change the structure in two ways: first they break one long paragraph into two or more short paragraphs, and second, they combine two or more paragraphs into one. When the short paragraphs have better readability, the combination of two or more paragraphs helps the translators present two or more similar and ongoing thoughts or actions in continuity. However, they break oftener than they combine. TLT3 translator breaks paragraphs 19 times25 whereas he combines them 10 times26. Similarly, TLT4 translator breaks paragraphs 18 times27 whereas he combines only one time on page 49. ***** To conclude the above discussion, it can be said that as TLT1 and TLT2 translators gain meaning in Chapter IV, TLT3 and TLT4 translators gain it here in this chapter— sometimes less, sometimes more. They gain meaning in both textual and cognitive categories. Furthermore, even though they do not gain as much as they lose, this gain is equally important because it not only compensates for the loss which they incur in the last chapter but also provides space for their creativity and identity in the translation. 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