1 1. Introduction Translation Is a Kind of Art. It Must Be Admitted That It Does Not Mean to Create Something out of Nothing, Su
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1. Introduction We do translate words, because there is nothing else to translate. Peter Newmark Translation is a kind of art. It must be admitted that it does not mean to create something out of nothing, such as writers do; on the other hand it certainly is a way of creating. The translator produces a new matter, a text that was not here before. They put into it their personality, their individual understanding of things, their own words. The heart of the text remains the same but the clothing is different. It could be said that the translator is a tailor and depends only on their abilities whether the new dress will be shabby or of “haute couture”. In the case of specialised translation the necessity of a well-made dress is maybe not such as with the literary translation. The translator of the former has to keep in mind the informative function of the text, in the first place, and consequently transmit the main ideas and arguments clearly and intelligibly. On the other hand, they have to attempt at preserving the individual style of the writer, therefore, if we accede the idea of the tailor, the translator is a kind of apprentice at the author’s workshop, they should follow the given style (of course, there are cases when the style is not worth following, the translator’s work is much more difficult then as they have to refashion the original into a prettier shape). The essay that was translated for this thesis is taken from the field of cinematography. There are many works written in (or translated into) Czech concerning film but not so many that would treat with the specific phenomenon of film noir. As a result, I had to deal with many still unestablished technical terms or film titles and films that the Czech audience have not had a chance to see. Consequently, this thesis is meant to be a kind of description of the translational process with a deeper insight into the technical translation and again yet deeper 1 into certain elements of culture. I would like to show how to treat such texts, from the first meeting with them till the final polishing of the translation. The following pages should communicate both the theoretical background of technical translation and its practical aspect. I chose to proceed from the former to the latter, as it displays the factual translating procedure. And although the thesis is based mainly on the given essay I hope it will contribute in a way to the area of translation of cultural issues, especially the issue of cinematography. If not said otherwise, all the given examples are taken from the essay Film Noir and Women . 2 2. About the Author and the Essay The author of the essay Film Noir and Women is Elizabeth Cowie BA (Hons), PhD, professor of film studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where she has been teaching since 1982. Previously to that she worked for a film journal, Screen , from 1972 to 1976, edited the 1978 catalogue of films for the British Film Institute Production Board and also taught film at various institutions in London. Together with other experts, Parveen Adams, Rosalind Coward and Beverley Brown, she founded a feminist theory journal, m/f , that published 12 issues between 1978 and 1986. The author herself says The central focus for my research and writing was to understand how representation works to produce meanings and identities in relation to political and cultural questions of gender and sexual difference. (http://www.kent.ac.uk/sdfva/film/stafflist/ecowie.html ) Her current research is based on the documetnary film and its spectator. The essay Film Noir and Women was published in 1993 in a collection of film essays Shades of Noir , edited by Joan Copjec. 3. Cultural Background Translator can not translate a text without some knowledge of the subject matter that is being discussed. Either they choose a text describing issues of their field or – and this is probably much more frequent – they have to widen their knowledge by reading books and 3 articles, basically anything related to the topic of the text. In other words, before they start working on the translation, they have to acquire a deep insight in the subject otherwise they could miss important details, data, terms or allusions to other works within the given field or even outside it. If the translator has the slightest suspicion that what is written might have yet additional or secret meaning, they are “obliged” to attempt at finding it out. If the translator misses something in the process, the reader would be deprived of a possible important moment. As a result it should be appropriate to include a short note on the cultural background of film noir in this work, as it is the subject matter of the essay in question and, furthermore, the Czech audience is not well familiarised with this topic. 3.1 Film Noir As the classical period of the film noir are seen the 1940s and 1950s, for the boundary years are defined by 1941, when The Maltese Falcon by John Huston, the first film noir – although usually described as atypical – was released, and 1958 when the premiere of Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil took place. In spite of the fact that this cultural phenomenon has its origin in the United States of America, it has a French name. The reason for this was the unawareness of the American film-makers and critics that there is a new style being born. Only in 1946, when the new, strange thrillers or crime films arrived to France, they were labelled as films noirs, i.e. black films. The name is due to certain darkness, both in the story and in the visual style. Film noir tends to revolve around flawed and desperate characters in an unforgiving world. Crime, usually murder, is an element of most films noirs, often sparked by jealousy, corruption, or greed. Most films noirs contain certain archetypal characters 4 (such as hard-boiled detectives, femmes fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, insurance agents, or down-and-out writers), familiar locations (downtown Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco), and archetypal storylines (heist films, detective stories, and court films). (Wikipedia 2006) Also the morality is subjective here, the characters that usually suffer from maltreatment and logically would like to break free from it, very often use illegal or immoral means. The visual style of films noirs is characterised by atypical lighting. The majority of them are shot in black and white. The fill-light – that usually balances the contrasts – is reduced and consequently there emerge sharp, dramatic changes form light to darkness. Low key-lightning creates shadows where are hidden both villains and plot twists. After the 1930s films that are full of “social optimism, sentimental humanism and patriotism as a remedy for economic and social crisis” (Kučera 2002), films noirs bring questions of current social issues, the after-the-war problems, as well as the “threat” of the feminist movement. Since the 1960s there have been appearing pictures that continue the idea of film noir. As examples can be seen Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), many a film by Joel and Ethan Cones (such as Fargo [1996], Big Lebowski [1998] and Blood Simple [1984]), and David Lynch ( Blue Velvet [1986], Mulholland Drive [2001]) or Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). 5 4. Type and Style of the Text 4.1 Type of the Text To be able to translate a text properly, the translator has to determine correctly the type of the text and its character. This helps them to decide which translation method is best to apply. When setting the type of the text we should proceed from the functions of language and from the information which constituent – i.e. sender, message or addressee – is represented the most. According to Karl Bühler there are three functions of language: the expressive , where the main role is ascribed to the sender or the author, the informative (also called the representation) with the emphasis on the message or the information and finally the vocative function with the text being openly directed at the addressee, the reader. The linguist Peter Newmark made a set of various text types that are characteristic for each category, as shown in the following scheme (Newmark 2003: 40): Function Expressive Informative Vocative Core Writer ‘Truth’ Readership Author’s Status ‘Sacred’ ‘Anonymous’ ‘Anonymous’ Type Topic Format Serious imaginative Scientific Textbook Notices literature Technological Repor t Instructions Authoritative statements Commercial Paper Propaganda Autobiography Industrial Article Publicity Personal correspondence Economic Memorandum Popular fiction Other areas of knowledge 6 He classifies the form of essay as something between the expressive and informative text because it includes both idiolect, personal elements and the facts of a certain topic, objective information. By the prevailing components the essay is then classed into one of the categories. As for Film Noir and Women , there seems to predominate the informative function for the author does not use many personal features (“it is social reality that produces crisis in my masculine identity”, “I want to examine”), she is not judging. We can find a great deal of data there as well as quotations from various works of other authors – both from the cinematography and other fields – everything written in a formal or neutral style with the utilization of such grammatical features as passives or linguistic devices as Latin and Greek vocabulary (“what must be explained”, “ post hoc analysis”, “iconography”). However there are more linguists with various approaches to texts and therefore more than just one way to classify them.