R O M Â N I A MINISTERUL EDUCAŢIEI, CERCETĂRII SI TINERETULUI UNIVERSITATEA “DUNĂREA DE JOS” DIN GALAŢI STR. DOMNEASCĂ NR. 47 Tel.: (+40) 236 - 414.112; 413.602; 460.328 800008 - GALAŢI, ROMÂNIA Fax: (+40) 236 - 461.353; 460.904; 460.426 E-mail: [email protected]

TRANSLATION STUDIES: RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE VIEWS

COORDONATOR: CONF. DR. FLORIANA POPESCU

REFERENŢI ŞTIINŢIFICI:

Prof. univ. dr. ELENA CROITORU Prof. univ. dr. MICHAELA PRAISLER Prof. univ. dr. NICOLAE IOANA Prof. univ. dr. ANCA GÂŢĂ

REDACTOR DE CARTE:

Lect. dr. GABRIELA IULIANA COLIPCĂ

COMITETUL DE ELABORARE A PROIECTULUI:

Conf. dr. FLORIANA POPESCU Asist. drd. DANIELA ŞORCARU

Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României STUDII DE TRADUCERE – RETROSPECTIVĂ ŞI PERSPECTIVE. CONFERINŢĂ INTERNAŢIONALĂ (2006 ; Galaţi) Conferinţa internaţională „Studii de traducere – retrospectivă şi perspective”: Galaţi, 16-17 iunie 2006 / coord.: Floriana Popescu. - Galaţi : Editura Fundaţiei Universitare „Dunărea de Jos”, 2006

Bibliogr. ISBN (10) 973-627-349-0; ISBN (13) 978-973-627-349-0 I. Popescu, Floriana (coord.)

81’25(063)

2

CONTENTS

ENGLISH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

Ruxanda Bontilă – The Literary Translation: Felicities and Infelicities 5 Violeta Chirea – The Author and the Translator: A Writer - Re-Writer Relationship 12 Gabriela Iuliana Colipcă – Negative Aspects in Poetry Translation 18 Elena Croitoru and Antoanela Marta Dumitraşcu – Modulation – A Translation Strategy 24 Ágnes G. Havril – Aspects of Testing English for Specific Purposes 34 Tamara Lăcătuşu – Translation and Interculturalism 43 Carmen Maftei – The Challenge of Culture Specific Elements 51 Gina Măciucă – Suggested Ways of Expressing ‘Aktionsarten’ by Resorting to Fvps. Contrastive Sketch: English, German, Romanian 58 Camelia Mihăilescu – From Psychoanalysis to the Symbolism of the Limit in Translating and Interfering D. H. Lawrence’s Poetry 61 Nadia Nicoleta Morăraşu – Challenges in Translating Proper Names from Dickensian Novels 68 Lidia Necula – Translating Literature/ Cultures 76 Diana-Elena Popa – Abusive Creativity in Humorous Literary Translation 88 Diana-Elena Popa – The Who and Why in Ethnic Humour. A Brief Theoretical Introspection 92 Floriana Popescu – Translating Toponyms in English Idioms 97 Teodora Popescu – Teaching Translation to ESP Students 103 Ioana Sasu-Bolba - Translating Religious Poetry (Equilibrium Within Conflict – Some Statements on Individuality and Social Consciousness) 108 Daniela Şorcaru – Translating Style: Language and Culture 112 Emma Tămâianu-Morita – Subtitling a Bilingual Film in a Third 118 Language: Some Paradoxes of Translation Anca Trişcă – Latest Views on Translation 126 Daniela Ţuchel – New Poets, Old Politics 132 George Volceanov – Appropriating Through Translation:

3 Shakespeare Translations in Communist Romania 138

FRENCH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

Carmen Andrei - Regard croisés sur les sens de la notion de belgitude sur le web 146 Sofia Dima – Sur les traductions en français du «best seller» de tous les temps: la Bible 158 Mirela Drăgoi – Les traductions allographes et auctoriales – œuvres de propagande culturelle 164 Ana Guţu – L’autotraduction – Acte créateur complexe : entre l’équivalence et la prolifération 171 Nicolae Taftă – La traduction littéraire 179 Angelica Vâlcu - Deux approches traductives: la traduction et l’interprétation 184

ROMANIAN CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

Doina Marta Bejan – Traducerile şi rolul lor în formarea limbilor literare moderne 188 Alina Crihană – Romanul obsedantului deceniu: de la alegoria corectă politic la parabolă 192 Nicoleta Ifrim – Între Eros şi Thanatos: o re-lectură a ipostazelor arhetipale ale feminităţii bacoviene 204 Doiniţa Milea – Textul labirint sau dialogul privilegiat cu jocurile intertextuale 210 Steluţa Stan – Spre o negociere a relaţiei dintre semnificat şi semnificant. Prezentare sau reprezentare? 217 Anca Trişcă – Anglicisme în presa economică românească actuală 221

4 ENGLISH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

THE LITERARY TRANSLATION: FELICITIES AND INFELICITIES

Ruxanda Bontilă “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

„Studii de traductologie” este o disciplină/ştiinţă de sine stătătoare care deplasează accentul de pe traducerea literară în exclusivitate pe tehnici de traducere, perspective analitice, act traductiv, comportament traductiv, caracterisici ale procesului de traducere. Teoriile traducerii din perspectivă sociologică sau semiotică analizează acele constrîngeri socioculturale specifice unei culturi, unei societăţi, unei epoci date, cu accent pe faptul că repetiţia unui semn este atât diferită cât şi deferenţiatoare (Bhabha 1994). Lucrarea de faţă îşi propune să exploreze modul în care studenţii filologi înţeleg mecanismul (scop, intenţionalitate, receptare) prin care traducerea literară devine exprimarea celor mai adînci relaţii reciproce dintre limbi (W. Benjamin 1955). Ne interesează de- asemenea perspectiva traducătorului consacrat despre felul în care traducerea contribuie la consolidarea unei teorii a diferenţei culturale.

Counter-Disclaimer The present paper features real characters and situations issued out of the real experience of its author. Thus, any resemblance to known characters is intended and not coincidental, as the saying of current disclaimers goes.

Describing an experiment The present investigation proposes to show how ‘Translation Studies’ may well assume the role of cognitive mapping, devised, on the one hand, to help us find our bearings in the ‘vast, abstract, and empty space of history’ (Jameson 1988), and, on the other hand, to make us take in responsibility as regards a transnational knowledge of the world. The seminar-case I intend to develop upon draws on the observations I made having concluded the practical course in literature with fourth-year students majoring in English, French and Theology. The intention of the seminar, which I have made manifest, was to warn students about the fact that what it looks like an ending of their scholarly endeavours is nothing but a perpetual renewal of the necessity to ‘remain interested’ (Updike 54) in

5 the vast fields of culture. The hidden agenda, which I have kept to myself, was cunningly busy: to have a feed-back on our own efforts/ achievements as ‘taste-makers;’ to make the students aware of the high-standards required in quality work performed in the fields of culture; and to check on how aware students have become that ‘repetition of the sign is, in each specific social practice, both different and differential’ (Bhabha 163). The prompting seminar assumptions and subsequent working hypotheses were: (1) philological students can, sooner than others, study culture through texts; (2) philological students can read in and through texts; (3) philological students can ‘translate’ cultures and can understand the language of culture; (4) they can formulate a context-wise, fallacy- proof, evidence-based argument; (5) they have acquired an intellectualization of regard into the text, necessarily seen both as intertext and pretext. The content of the seminar was ‘keeping an eye,’ literally speaking, on the Romanian cultural scene as described in the Romanian specialist cultural/literary press—Literary Romania; Cultural Observer; Old Dilemma; Magazine 22; The Word. The seminar was managed by having teams of six students scheduled to deliver 5-minute presentations in English, followed by 10-minute group discussions, on significant events/cases, extracted from the literary press, connected to general issues, such as: editorial news; the state of language; film production; music production; life of translation; Romanian/world political scene; history; etc. The students had to use and hand in prompts edited in English, including: title, author, publishing details observing any acceptable editing style, and a number of germinating ideas. The evaluation, we have agreed on, based on: discursive accuracy (oral and written), observing deadlines, seminar interventions, and seminar record, i.e. silence valorization. Here are some concluding remarks following our seminar endeavours—which had their moments of illumination too. (1) There is much fallacious argumentation going on because of the students’ too little reliance on such enabling skills disciplines like pragmatics—text/ discourse/ conversation analysis included; cognitive linguistics; literary criticism/ theory; philosophy; (2) There is a tendency with students to place a larger focus of attention on the foreground of the text (story, plot) rather than the ground (intentionality, medium) and consequently the logic, grammar and the rhetoric of the text in question. (3) There is a high frequency of ‘hackneyed slogans’ that students prefer instead of the natural language both in their native language and the

6 foreign language; this may be caused by the students’ shaky grasping of the continuities between creative literary language and creative language in everyday use. (4) There is a rather low interest with out students in keeping abreast of the cultural events from Romania as elsewhere on their own account (“Are you going to bring the magazines to us?” asked me one aspiring graduate student when I first broached the subject of what the seminar will consist in). (5) There is strong resistance to forming deontological habits, be it only to the annoyance of some nagging teachers deprived of the sense of reality.

Translation/Translator/Translating: Postmodernist Clichés Since all the reading students were expected to do was in Romanian, they, by force, had to practice not only literary translation but also cultural translation—which is somehow the most demanding dimension of translation—since they had to be ever more cautious against generalizing the contingencies and contours of local circumstance, in order not to disregard the host culture whose language they have borrowed. Knowing that such an enterprise is all too difficult so as to consider ourselves completely safe from failure, I had to find something catchy to alert them about the translator’s anxiety concerning the borderline moment of translation, as well as about the huge efforts invested in the field of Schattencultur (culture of shadows) as those responsible in the Göttingen project coined it. Then, what I could come up with was to devise a questionnaire (see Appendix 1) which I gave them to answer in the very first seminar. If, in the beginning, I was anxious about the translator’s anxiety concerning the adoption of a necessary stand of detachment towards both cultures (source and target), after going through the forty-four almost- graduates’ answers, I became anxious about their extreme detachment towards the problematics of literary translation in its essentials. I first asked them to mention three names of translators of literary works whose performances they came to appreciate. The names the majority of them avowed affinity with were: Leon Leviţchi, Andrei Bantaş, Dan Duţescu, Horia-Florian Popescu and Petru Iamandi. This may well prove that our students are still stuck in the condition of dependency upon obligatory readings and miss the vital itch of temptation in the field of literature. Such names like Antoaneta Ralian, Catinca Ralea, Frida Papadache, or Mircea Ivănescu (the translator of Joyce’s Ulysses) have not

7 been invented. This certainly connects to the graduates’ malpractice of not mentioning the name of the translator in the references. In the second question I wanted them to mention three names of contributors to the theory of translation whose theories they are familiar with. Almost all acknowledged owing a lot to Leon Leviţchi’s Manualul traducătorului, Elena Croitoru’s English through Translations, and Andrei Bantaş’s Manualul traducătorului. This is all too good, but the only other name mentioned was Geoffrey Leech. George Steiner (1975/1983), Walter Benjamin (1955/2000), Tzvetan Todorov (1996/1999), Paul Ricœur (2005), among others, are certainly both strange and foreign. As to their choice between the original and the translation, ninety-five percent of the respondents confessed that they consider reading the original whenever available. This can be good news on condition they understand that the translation ultimately serves the original’s objective afterlife— which only two ventured to answer, when asked about the ultimate aim of the translation (Q 4). The remaining ninety-nine percent considered that the translation is meant to serve either the reader who does not understand the original (socio-historically true), or, the purpose of expressing the central reciprocal relationship between languages (half-true). The fifth question asked them to choose the most appropriate definition of translation between: (1) a faithful copy; (2) a transformation and renewal of something living; (3) an accurate transmission of an essential content. Fifty percent of the students opted for the last definition; the remaining fifty equally divided their options between the first and the second definition. That a translation is a transformation and renewal of something living is certainly what all translators will testify to. So did Petru Iamandi who graciously accepted to answer some questions I addressed him to the purpose of offering the fourth year students a glimpse of the torments of the trade (see Appendix 2, Qs 2,3,8). Antoaneta Ralian, a long- run translator, also assimilates translation to art. As to question six, I asked students to judge whether there is such a thing as a ‘real life’ of the translation. So, I wanted them to complete the kernel sentence which read: ‘Translation can’t be but a provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages.’ Unfortunately only seven percent of the students valued the answer ‘since a final solution eludes any direct attempt,’ as true. Petru Iamandi also admits that ‘translations have a limited lifespan and, sooner or later, they will inevitably sound obsolete’ (Q5). With question seven, I intend to alert students about the paradoxical status of translation as a ‘more definitive linguistic realm since it cannot be displaced by a secondary rendering’ (Benjamin 75)—fact which was sensed

8 by only two percent of the students. The rest of the students considered that ‘the relation between content and language is quite different in the original and the translation,’—an assertion difficult to account for. Question eight referred students to the task of the translator, which was answered by the majority of the students (eighty-five percent) in agreement with translation theorists. It is Benjamin who contends that ‘The task of the translator consists in finding the intended effect upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original’ (76). Petru Iamandi says the same thing when he asserts, ‘Translators have to guess everything first and then help the readers do the same, to the same extent that the author has helped them do it’ (Q 6). Or, as Magda Jeanrenault clarifyingly puts it, the ethics of translation is concerned with being truthful to the text’s intentionality (363). Question nine means to synthesize major differences between the literary work and the translation, in that ‘the intention of the writer is spontaneous, primary, graphic; that of the translator is derivative, ultimate, ideational’ (Benjamin 76-7). Or, as Petru Iamandi puts it, on the one hand, ‘the author is sometimes deliberately nebulous, trying to incite and confuse the readers, and there’s always the impalpable’ (Q6); and, on the other hand, the translator will always try to ‘stick to the author’s style, avoid linguistic copy, make the meaning clear, help the author when he’s in trouble’ (Q4). Some students have well described the difference between literary work and translation by referring to the alchemy of the process they have termed: ‘creation and re-creation.’ Here is a short list of postmodernist clichés—glossed so because they keep bothering us—concerning the life of translation in the present times. 1. The politics of translation of Publishing Houses is never as vivaciously supervised as in the present (see Magda Jeanrenaud, ‘A Case- Study: Polirom,’ 179-220). 2. Translators—along critics, academics, teachers, journalists, the so called ‘taste makers’—are both empowered and empowering in the process. 3. New criteria/ notions of translating strike forcefully the theoretic aporias of ‘untranslatability.’ 4. New theories on translation impose new translating strategies with consequences on the status of translation (see Magda Jeanrenaud 246-249; 280-283). 5. Besides the so called translation universals recorded by dictionaries, there is much talk about translation behaviour with reference to socio-cultural constraints characteristic of a culture, society, epoch. 6. The ethics of translation imposes the principle of inter-culturality as an important identity seme of the translator.

9 7. The task of the translator has never been as demanding as always!

Postscript: University studies as genuine ‘taste makers’ In conclusion, what I hope to have pointed out by describing this experiment is that the long hoped-for democratization of university studies requires a thorough re-negotiation of roles, needs, requirements. In order to help students gain self-esteem, we need operate a re-configuration of the specimen domains reflective of the students’ needs in real world. We need also build an educational programme which consists in making essential information/knowledge breed essential knowledge based on the sound principle of reciprocity between interactants (firstly, between teachers, secondly, between teachers and students). And only then, can we call the system Higher-Than-Something-Else.

Appendix 1 QUESTIONNAIRE

This is an exercise in assessing together the needs vs. dead-ends in this highly respectable but always risky job of translating/ the translator. Your answers will help in further improving the translation component of the practical course with undergraduates and graduates alike. Thank you.

1. Mention three names of translators of literary works whose performances you came to appreciate. Edit the details on the translated texts you are familiar with observing any one acceptable reference style. (1)______(2)______(3)______

2. Mention three names of contributors to the theory of translation whose theories you are familiar with. Edit the details on books/articles/etc. in any one acceptable reference style. (1)______(2)______(3)______

3. If you were to choose between the original and the translation which one comes first? Original ___; translation ___

10 4. Who/what is a translation ultimately meant to serve? (1) the reader who does not understand the original ___ (2) the original’s objective afterlife ___ (3) the comparative critic’s gusto for updating the canon ___ (4) the purpose of expressing the central reciprocal relationship between languages ___

5. A translation is essentially (1) a faithful copy of the original ___ (2) a transformation and a renewal of something living ___ (3) an accurate transmission of an essential content ___

6. Choose the sentence which may come as logical completion to the following assertion: “Translation can’t be but a provisional way of coming to terms with the foreignness of languages since…” (1) a final solution eludes any direct attempt. ___ (2) there is a hidden seed to be discovered. ___ (3) its most genuine claim is a conclusive stage of all human creation. ___

7. Choose the sentence which may come as logical completion to the following assertion: “Translation transplants the original into a more definitive linguistic realm since …” (1) it represents a more exalted language than its own and thus remains unsuited to its content. ___ (2) the relation between content and language is quite different in the original and the translation. ___ (3) it cannot be displaced by a secondary language. ___

8. The task of the translator consists in (1) devising a mode which is clearly distinct and differentiated from the task of the artist. ___ (2) finding the intended effect upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original. ___ (3) finding and using a language in which the independent sentences, works of literature, critical judgements will never communicate in themselves. ___

9. Fill in the gapped sentence so as to point out necessary differences:

11 “Not only does the aim of translation differ from that of a literary work, but it is a different effort altogether. The intention of the writer is ______; that of the translator is ______.”

Appendix 2 INTERVIEW

Given your considerable experience in this thorny field of literary translation (translator, both God—albeit temporary—and Ghost), let us try to look into certain matters regarding (1) the life/ aim of translation; (2) the torments/ agony of translating; (3) the difficulty of teaching/ learning how to translate.

Ruxanda Bontilă: W. Benjamin in his “Task of the Translator,” refers to translation as being “a mode,” in the sense that the original contains the law governing its own translatability. Do you really think that there are works that cry out their translatability and others don’t?

Petru Iamandi: Yes. The works that cry out their translatability are written by people who are not keen on experimenting with the language – to them language is just a vehicle. These authors are born storytellers, the stories come to them naturally, in the ordinary reader’s language, therefore they let themselves be carried away by the quick pace of the plot, not caring too much about style. On the other hand, the works that don’t cry out their translatability are written by those who take their time with the language: being interested in exploring the full potential of the language, they play with it, refine it, push it beyond its limits, and make it move according to a logic of its own.

RB: It is also said that no translation, however good it may be, can have any significance as regards the original (like any manifestation of life has no significance to the phenomenon of life). Yet, by virtue of its translatability, the original is closely connected with the translation. May this imply that a translation issues not from the life of the original but rather its afterlife?

PI: Ask ten people to translate the same work and you will get ten different translations. Where’s their significance as regards the original? Definitely in how close the translators have managed to get to the original. The closer the better. Overlapping is impossible. Which makes them just versions of the original. These versions can be poor, excellent, or … better

12 than the original. Yes, there are cases in which the translator can help a careless author here and there, improving his style or even adding something to the text that the author seems to have overlooked.

RB: Who, if any, do you particularly have in mind when performing a literary translation?

PI: The author, by all means. Doing a literary translation is probing into the author’s mind, trying to rebuild in your own language the universe he has built in his own language. Rebuilding starts with the exploration of every multi-semantic word, every complex sentence, every complex paragraph, until you get the full meaning of the work and then you come full circle.

RB: As there are different theories regarding translation, where do you position yourself? What are your priorities towards achieving that longed-for kinship of languages?

PI: I’m not much of a theoretician, although I’ve read quite a number of books on the subject just to know how to go about it. There are several basic rules that I always try to abide by: stick to the author’s style, avoid linguistic copy, make the meaning clear, help the author when he’s in trouble.

RB: Do you agree that while the original’s destiny is to endure in its own language, even the greatest translation is destined to become part of the growth of its own language and eventually to be absorbed by its renewal? Is this also part of the torments of the translator?

PI: Yes, to the first question. Most of Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, were translated into Romanian in the late 1950s and early 1960s. If a teenager reads them now, he will find them very hard to follow, not to mention that Shakespeare is hard to understand in his own country! Therefore, translations have a limited lifespan and, sooner or later, they will inevitably sound obsolete. As for the second question, I think the translator is too busy doing the translation properly to worry too much about the future. After all, who can anticipate where the language is going?

RB: One critic said the best translation is the one that allows the best guesses, or causes the least impoverishment. Does this also link to that element that does not lend itself to translation (the untranslatable)?

13 PI: There’s certainly a lot of guesswork in doing a translation – the author is sometimes deliberately nebulous, trying to incite and confuse the readers, and there’s always the impalpable. Translators have to guess everything first and then help the readers do the same, to the same extent that the author has helped them do it. Thus, the untranslatable can be made to come out of the context.

RB: Some voice the idea that it is not the highest praise of a translation to be said that it reads as if it had originally been written in that language. Why so? Could it be that a translation should be obliquely reflecting the original too?

PI: I think the reader should feel as comfortable when reading a translation as when reading something in his mother tongue. A good translator should have enough tricks in his bag to make that work. Readers know they’re going to deal with a translation even before starting reading a book: They can see “Translated by …” right below the title!

RB: Is translation (as a trade) teachable/ learnable? Will you please enumerate the blocks you are most frequently faced with when teaching students how to translate?

PI: It’s both. But you have to feel it in your bones first. Literary translation is an art and, as any other art, it takes true calling and a lot of apprenticeship/hard work to become proficient in it. There are a few students who might become proficient translators but, no matter how good they are at manipulating their mother tongue, they are helpless when they’re trying to do a literary translation: They are tempted to do it word for word, forgetting the requirements of their mother tongue and changing into servants of the foreign language. As I said, apprenticeship takes time.

Bibliography o Benjamin, W. (1955/ 2000) Iluminări, trans. Catrinel Pleşu, Ch. „Sarcina traducătorului”, Bucureşti: Editura Univers, pp. 45-56. o Benjamin, W. (1955/1970) “The Task of the Translator.” Illuminations, trans. H. Zohn, London: Cape, pp. 69-82. o Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture, London: Routledge. o Croitoru, E. (1996) Interpretation and Translation, Galaţi: Editura Porto-Franco. o Iamandi, P. (May 2006) Interview. Author: Ruxanda Bontilă.

14 o Jameson, F. (1988) The Ideology of Theory: Essays, 1971-1986 (Vol. I, Situations of Theory; Vol. II, Syntax of History). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. o Jeanrenaud, M. (2006) Universaliile traducerii. Studii de traductologie, Iaşi: Polirom. o Leviţchi, L. (1974) Îndrumar pentru traducători din limba engleză în limba română, Bucureşti: Centru de multiplicare al Universităţii din Bucureşti. o Ricœur, P. (2005) Despre traducere, trans. Magda Jeanrenaud, Iaşi: Editura Polirom. o Steiner, G. (1983) După Babel. Aspecte ale limbii şi traducerii (After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, 1975), trans. Valentin Negoiţă şi Ştefan Avădanei, Bucureşti: Editura Univers. o Todorov, T. (1996/1999) Omul dezrădăcinat, trans. Ion Pop, Iaşi: Institutul European. o Updike, John. “Why Write?” 1974. Picked-Up Pieces. Connecticut: Fawcett Books, 1975, 45-54.

THE AUTHOR AND THE TRANSLATOR: A WRITER - RE-WRITER RELATIONSHIP

Violeta Chirea “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Cet oeuvre se propose d’analyser la relation d’entre l’auteur et le traducteur, à savoir une relation entre écrivain et re-écrivain. La liaison entre Salman Rushdie, l’auteur du roman Shame et la traductrice roumaine, Cornelia Bucur, est tout spéciale, parce que Rushdie s’érige aussi en translateur. Il établit de nouveaux règles d’écriture, pour le lecteur international, en créant une Anglais hybride, parsemée par concepts Hindi et Urdu qui sont “untraductibles” comme takallouf, mohajir, sharam etc. En tant que traducteur, Rushdie croit que la seul manière de découvrir une civilisation est de regarder les mots qui sont untraductibles. Par conséquent, le texte en Roumain se présente comme une traduction indienne – anglaise – roumaine posant toute sorte de problèmes analisés à l’aide de divers théories de traduction dans de nombreux études spécialisées.

15 It is common knowledge that the concept of globalization has been extended all over the world and in the process of expendature cultures have not been mixed and lost, but they were made even more distinct, brought, however, closer to each other, the Colonizer to the Colonist, the Margins to the Center. It brought about the need of identifying the Self without rejecting the Other, hence the emergence of a society based on plurilinguism, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism. The 21st century society is not homogenous, but heterogeneous, a pot-pourri of cultures and civilizations. As a consequence, a great challenge becomes more and more prominent, namely to transform the perfect Babylonian chaos into flawless communication and mutual comprehension. Here comes in the historic role of the translator as the one attempts to bring cultures closer to each other, not only by translating words from the SL into TL, but by getting to know their historical background, and grasping their social values. A case in point is Rushdie’s novel, Shame, which was translated into Romanian by Cornelia Bucur who attempted to render into Romanian the Muslim concepts of life in general, the impact of the religious beliefs upon their partisans, as well as the historical and social issues. Therefore, the reader should note the important role of the translator as a Re-writer, a mediator of cultures, a renderer of the truth of the Other. This study aims at presenting how the culture of the “Other “is brought within other culture and who are the factors that produce this interpenetretion of values. Consequently, we refer to the role of the translator, as well as at the relationship between writer and translator. In our case, there is a specific situation when the writer, Rushdie, is a translator and the translator, Cornelia Bucur, is a Re-writer. Therefore, the focus of this paper will lay less on the theoretical background and more on the literary historiography and the role of the translator. Thus, they are both bilingual and have a common instrument of communication, I.e. the English language. As a consequence, this paper deals with the English that Rushdie uses in his novel Shame, and how it was translated into Romanian by Cornelia Bucur. He is an Indian writer that uses the English language just as a translator does. Therefore we have to deal with two bilingual writers, two translators. Before analyzing this particular translation, it would be important to state that the process of translation dates far back in literary history and George Steiner suggests a division in four periods. The first period extends from the Roman translators to Alexander Fraser Tytler, being characterized by an immediate empirical focus. The second period, characterized by hermeneutic methodology of approach, goes up to Valery. During the third

16 period, structural linguistics and communication theory were introduced into the study of translation, whereas the fourth period, beginning in the early 1960’s, is characterized by a reversion to hermeneutic inquiries into translation. Translation has been seen as a linguistic problem by different theoreticians such as Catford, for instance, whose believes that any theory of translation must emerge from linguistics due to the fact that translation is a linguistic act: “Translation is an operation performed on languages: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another; clearly, then, any theory of translation must draw upon a theory of language- a general linguistic theory.” (Catford, 1965: vii). Nevertheless, theoreticians have also considered both the aesthetic and the ideological side of translation studies, laying emphasis on the question of literary history. Thus, translation should not be simply regarded as a replication of a text in another verbal system of signs but a replication of an ordered sub-system of signs within a given language in another corresponding ordered sub-system of signs within a related language. Translation is not a transposition of significance or signs. After the act of translation is over, the original work still remains in its original position. […] translation at once approximates the original and transcends. (Ganesh 1999: 186) Ganesh also points out that the issues in translation studies are quite similar to those in literary history since there are “the problems of the relationship between origins and sequentiality.” (id. p. 187). He alludes to the Indian philosophies about form and essence, structure and significance, which is ahistorical in Indian view. Hence, the idea that the success of Indian writers do not lay on their originality, but “the true test is the writers capacity to transform, to translate, to restate, to revitalize the original. And in that sense Indian literary traditions are traditions o translation”. (id. p. 187) Having considered these views one can better understand Rushdie‘s “historical background“, not only as a writer, but also as a translator and a theoretician. Rushdie is an Indian writer, thus a bilingual one. He takes special interest in the Indo-British writers who cannot reject English, but must embrace it considering them to be “translated men”. He also went against the idea that “something gets lost in translation” believing “that something can also be gained”. This gain is mirrored in the pollinated and enriched language (and culture) that results from the act of translation - this act not just of bearing across but of fertile coming together. Thus it is not only the case of Indo- British writers but in that of all Indian English writers that the texts they

17 create are “translated”, the very act of their writing being one of translation. (G. J. V. Prasad, 1999: 41). Consequently, “the act of writing in English is not ‘merely’ one of translation of an Indian text into the English language, but a quest for a space which is created by translation and assimilation and hence transformation of all three- the Indian text, context and the English language.” (ibid., 1999: 41). Thus, the idea of the Indianization of the English language is forwarded and embraced by the non-initiated reader of such texts. And so is the case of the Romanian translator, Cornelia Bucur, who has to cope with a text that is in the so-called Indian-English and presents an unfamiliar reality, and, at the same time, unknown concepts, words, meaning seem to flood the text. Mukherjee says that “the Indian writer has to deal with non- English-speaking people in non-English-speaking contexts and has to overcome the difficulty of conveying through English the vast range of expressions and observations whose natural vehicle is an Indian language.” (Mukherjee, 1999: 43). Consequently, the choices of the writer are those of a translator. Thus Rushdie’s aim is to create an English that fulfills his translational-creative aims. Singh says that “Rushdie’s use of Indian vocabulary is altogether more natural and sophisticated” (Singh, 1999: 45). Prasad reinforces the idea that it is the bilingual situation that leads inevitably to this permeation of one language by another. However, there are voices against it such as Ketaki Kushari Dyson who says that “Rushdie cannot write a book in Urdu…. He may be a cosmopolitan, but he is a monolingual writer. His use of Urdu adds colour to his texts, but does not lead us to an Indian intellectual world.” (1993: 178). However, Rushdie knows what he does to his texts, and he does it fully consciously because his aim is to be understood by the reader, signaling the Indian-ness, the otherness of his texts in language itself. Therefore, Rushdie’s novel reads like translation because many Indian English writers create the language in which they write, and part of their intent is to make things difficult for the monolingual (English) reader. Far from using Indian words and expressions for local colour, to create an exotic ethnographic text, they attempt to make the process of reading as difficult as that of writing. (Prasad, 1999: 53). As a consequence, to support this brief theoretical survey on translation studies focused on Indian writings, some practical examples will be provided analyzing the translation of the untranslatable or a series of adjustments, adaptations to the new verbal system. Cornelia Bucur’s translation of Rushdie’s Shame is not only an English-Romanian translation, but an Indian-English-Romanian translation. What may disturb

18 the Romanian reader is that sometimes he/she may fail to understand some of the Indian concepts used in the texts, even though in most cases the meaning may be inferred from the text. He/she may have found it useful to be provided with some explanatory footnotes or glossaries (which Indian writers used to do in the past), but than the act of reading would not be as difficult as the one of writing. Cornelia Bucur, did not have a glossary to translate and the terms were imported from one verbal system to another. She has chosen to obey the original work and did not try to provide her own list of terms and concepts, considering that the audience of the text has been changed from the initiated Indian reader to the non-initiated Romanian one. If the Indian reader did not need to be given explanations, the Romanian reader may find himself at a loss among concepts that are totally unknown to him. Nevertheless, in this case, they receive the translator’s explanations of some notions, but the translator is Rushdie himself, whereas Cornelia Bucur is a writer of a Romanian text, a Re-writer of Rushdie’s translation. She achieves a fluent text in Romanian managing to preserve Rushdie’s theories on translation, his style and his purposes. In order to support the ideas stated above a table will be provided showing practical examples of “untranslatability”, equivalence and culture specific elements. Multiple ways of translation will be observed along with the methods chosen by Cornelia Bucur to render Rushdie’s novel Shame into Romanian. Before presenting the table it should be said that Rushdie’s text abounds in untranslatable words from Urdu, especially. And as an answer to the question “why are they untranslatable?” Rushdie himself chooses not only to give an explanation, but also an example of paraphrasing it, which would totally disrupt the fluency of the text: To unlock a society, look at its untranslatable words. Takallouf is a member of that opaque, world-wide sect of concepts which refuse to travel across linguistic frontiers: it refers to a form of tongue-tying formality, a social restraint so extreme as to make it impossible for the victim to express what he or she really means, a species of compulsory irony which insists, for the sake of good form, on being taken literally. When takallouf gets between a husband and a wife look out. (Rushdie, Shame, 1983: 104). Consequently, as far as the practical approach may be concerned, this paper deals with a lot of untranslatable words, concepts, meanings. Thus, the aim is to show the reader how these “intruders” flood into the text. If for the Indian intended reader the flow of the text is absolutely natural, for the non- initiated, Romanian reader in this case, he/she may find it difficult at first to grasp each and every meaning. That is why, Rushdie, himself a translator, does not ignore the international reader and provides, from time to time,

19 explanations or he takes care that the meaning can be inferred from the context. This procedure may very well be a reminder of Catford’s theory of the two types of untranslatability. He discusses two types of untranslatability i.e., linguistic untranslatability and cultural untranslatability. Lack of formal correspondence between the source language and the target language leads to linguistic untranslatability. This untranslatability can occur because of oligosemy I.e., an item having a particularly restricted range of meaning. In the same way cultural untranslatability occurs when a situational feature relevant for the source language text is absent from the culture of the target language text. (Suka Joshua, Translation: Its Brief History and Theory, 2002: 5). Thus, the following table will provide examples as stated above:

Methods of translation

Salman Rushdie’s Shame Ruşinea translated by Observatio Cornelia Bucur. ns

Cultural untranslatability deals with elements related to birth, wedding, death, family, religion, food habits etc They are mainly, Urdu and Hindi words that, according to Rushdie, cannot be translated in another language

“Little bat”, his three mothers “Micul liliac” îl botezaseră called him tolerantly when they tolerant cele trei mame când learnt of his nocturnal flittings…, aflară despre excursive sale a dark-grey chadar fapping nocturne, …, cu un chadar around his shoulder…” (22) cenuşiu fluturându-i pe umeri…(22) Sharam that’s the word. For which Sharam, acesta e cuvântul. Rushdie explains the very this paltry shame is a wholly Pentru care nevolnicul “ruşine” procedure of his writing, namely, inadequate translation. … A short nu este decât o traducere why he chooses to keep words word but one containing inadecvată. …Un cuvânt scurt untranslated, and Cornelia Bucur encyclopedias of nuance … dar unul care cuprinde cannot but respect his wish, thus embarrassment, discomfiture, enciclopedii de nuanţe the originality of the paper, decency, modesty, shyness… for …stânjeneala, jena, decenţa, which English has no counterparts. modestia, timiditatea … pentru (39) care engleza nu are echivalent. (43) Also present was the town Era de faţă şi postnasal oraşului, Gatta is explained in detail in the postman, Muhammad Ibadalla, Muhammad Ibadalla, pe frunte context, so the international who bore upon his forehead the cu gatta, sau vânătaia reader meats no difficulty in gatta or permanent bruise which permanentă care îl vestea ca pe dealing with it. revealed him to be a religious un fanatic religios atât de fanatic who pressed brow to împătimit încât îşi apăsa chipul prayer-mat on at least five de covoraşul de rugăciune cel occasions per diem….(42) puţin de cinci ori per diem. (48) Raza and Bilquis were betrothed Raza şi Bilquis se logodiră sub According to A Dictionary of Urdu, beneath the bitter eyes of the privirile acre ale multimillion Classical Hindi and English by John dispossessed multitudes; and sărăcite: după aceea darurile T. Platts, the henna plant, cultivated afterwards the gifts continued, continuară, dulciuri pe lângă throughout India for its leaves, is used sweetmeats as well as bangles, soft braţări, băuturi răcoritoare, şi by women to dye their hands and feet drinks and square meals as well as mese bogate o dată cu henna şi a reddish-orange and by men to dye henna and rings. (66) inele. (81) their beards. It is a Mohammadan ceremony of sending henna for the bride before the wedding day. The meaning may not be fully understood from the context, and

20 Cornelia Bucur does not provide any additional information for her reader. “You, Billoo Begum, begone. … -…Tu, Billoo Begum, du-te. Come on, mohajir! Immigrant! …Haide mohajir! Imigranto! Fă-ţi Pack up double-quick and be off to bagajele şi ascunde-te în ce sat vei what gutter you choose.” (85) voi! (106) And at breakfast, when she Iar la micul dejun, pe când ea îi began dutifully to spoon khichri aşeza cu lingura khichri în farfurie, on to his plate, he roared in răcni cu o furie bonomă: good-natured fury, :why do you -De ce pui mana, fata mea? lift your hand, daughter? A Prinţesele nu servesc la masă. princess does not serve. (59) (72) The two girls, unashamed, turn Cele două fete, fără jenă, se întorc şi Female attendant on children or to stare, still holding garments, o privesc, cu braţele pline de obiecte on a lady, nurse, lady's maid, cosmetics, combs. ‘O, Isky’s de îmbrăcăminte, cosmetice, ayah. wifw, nothing to worry, Isky’s piepteni. ayah said to look.’”(93) -Ah, nevasta lui Isky, nu te speria, ayaha lui Isky a zis să ne uităm.(113)

Linguistic untranslatability deals with words from English which are not translated because they have already been adopted by the Romanian language or because the translator has chosen to preserve them as such.

To be frank: what a telescope began Ca să fim sinceri: ceea ce Word of French origin, voyeur is not at long distance, Omar Khayyam telescopul începuse a face la given by the Explanatory continued in close-up. Let us not be distanţă, Omar Khayyam Dictionary of the Romanian afraid to mention the word “voyeur”, continua de aproape. Să nu ne Language. However, it circulates in remembering that it has already been temem să rostim cuvântul the language and Cornelia Bucur mentioned……(45) “voyeur”, căci el a fost pomenit found it natural to use it untranslated, deja….. (53) especially due to the fact that it would have been quite difficult if not impossible to find a perfect, Romanian counterpart. What’s a doctor, after all? A Căci, ce este un doctor, la urma The word outsider is adopted by the legitimized voyeur,… who gazes urmelor? Un voyeur legitim…. Explanatory Dictionary of the at what we take most trouble to Care vede ceea ce ne străduim Romanian Language only that it has hide…an outsider admitted to din răsputeri să ascundem…un a different acceptance i.e. a our most intimate outsider primit în clipele participant in a competition that is moments….(49) noastre cele mai intime… (58) out of it. Cornelia Bucur deals with the word differently: first she keeps the original word, assuming that the Romanian reader is aware of its meaning, and secondly she translates it because it seems to have Veneticule! Intrusule! N-ai nici another sense that the one adopted Outsider! Trespasser! You have un drept asupra subiectului by the TL. no right to this subject….(28) astuia!…(29)

There’s an apocryphal story that O poveste apocrifă spune că, In this case the Romanian reader Napier, after a successful după o campanie reuşită în ceea deals with a play upon words, which campaign in what is now the ce este astăzi sudul he/she has great chances to south of Pakistan, sent back to Pakistanului, Napier a trimis misunderstand if he/she is not England the guilty, one word înapoi în Anglia un mesaj familiar with the English language. message, “Peccavi”. I have Sind. vinovat, de un singur cuvânt: Cornelia Bucur does not even …(88) ’Peccavi’. I have Sind. (110) provide explanatory notes,

21 considering the fact that her reader is not necessary Rushdie’s bilingual reader.

Considering the above exemplification, mention should be made of the fact that “since language is to some extent culture oriented, translators face the problem of translating certain culture-based words into another language with a different culture.” (Bijay kumar Das, Problems of Translation, 2002: 20). Thus, Cornelia Bucur’s translation may be considered quite faithful to the original, and at the same time has the fluency of a Romanian text filled with Indian concepts which the reader gradually comes to understand and appreciate as a cultural enriching exchange. To sum up, it should be said that this hybrid English is part of Rushdie’s creativity as well as personality, giving the reader the chance to see the world through the Other’s eyes, to observe the the culture of their culture just like a “voyeur”, through the lenses of his binoculars.

Bibliography: o Bassnette-McGuire, S. (1988) Translation Studies, London, Routledge o Catford, JC. (1965) A Linguistic Theory of Translation: An Essay in Applied Linguistics, London, OUP o Croitoru, E (1996) Interpretation and Translation, Galati, Porto-Franco o Devy, G. (1999) ‘Translation and Literary History. An Indian view’ in S. Bassnett-McGuire, H. Trivedi, Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, Routledge, 181-186 o Gentzler, E. (1993) Contemporary Translation Theories, London, Routledge o Joshua, S. (2002) ‘Translation: Its Brief History and Theory’ in M. K. Ray (ed.). Studies in Translation, New Delhi, Mehra Offset Press, 1-9 o Kumar Das, B. (2002) ‘Problems of Translation’ in M. K. Ray (ed.) Studies in Translation, New Delhi, Mehra Offset Press, 20-40 o Kundu, R. (2002) ‘Reconstructing the Tower of Babel: Equivalence in Translation: A rare case study’ in M. K. Ray (ed.) Studies in Translation, New Delhi, Mehra Offset Press, 56-65 o Nida, E. A. (1964) Towards a Science of Translation, Leiden, E.J. Brill o Prasad, G.J.V. (1999) ‘Writing Translation. The strange case of the Indian English novel’ in S. Bassnett-McGuire, H. Trivedi, Post-Colonial

22 Translation: Theory and Practice, Routledge, 41-54 o Rushdie, S. (1983) Shame, London, Pan Books o Rushdie, S. (2001) Rusinea, Iasi, Polirom o Steiner, G. (1975) After Babel: Aspect of Language and Translation, Oxford

Dictionaries: o *** (1998) Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române, Bucureşti: Univers Enciclopedic o *** (2001) Dictionary of Contemporary English (3rd Edition), London: Longman o Platts, J. T. (John Thompson). (1884) A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English, London: W. H. Allen & Co.

NEGATIVE ASPECTS IN POETRY TRANSLATION

Gabriela Iuliana Colipcă “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Dificilă prin însăşi natura ei care presupune medierea între două universuri lingvistice şi culturale, misiunea traducătorului se complică şi mai mult atunci când textul-sursă care face obiectul interesului său este unul literar, şi în particular un poem. Luând ca punct de plecare încercarea de sistematizare de către profesorul Andrei Bantaş a câtorva ipoteze privind cele mai importante aspecte practice ale traducerii de poezie, lucrarea de faţă îşi propune să analizeze cauzele şi consecinţele traducerilor de slabă calitate marcate de pierderi în încercarea de echivalare a codurilor poetice, care pot afecta radical percepţia publicului-ţintă asupra textului sursă. Pentru exemplificare, este adus în discuţie cazul traducerii în limba engleză a operelor unor poeţi români reprezentativi de către vorbitori nativi de limba engleză care, deşi animaţi de dorinţa de a-i familiariza astfel pe cititorii occidentali cu sensibilitatea şi talentul artistic deosebit al poporului român, nu rămân fideli originalului modificându-i structura şi chiar alterând-i mesajul. O comparaţie între două variante traduse ale poemului De-a v-aţi ascuns de Tudor Arghezi – cea dintâi iniţial realizată de Dan Duţescu, dar ulterior refăcută la cererea editorului canadian de către Alden Nowlan, cea de-a

23 doua aparţinându-i profesorului Andrei Bantaş – scoate în evidenţă impactul negativ al pierderilor în procesul de traducere asupra produsului rezultat care nu mai reuşeşte în final să transmită „inefabila tensiune emoţională a originalului.” (Bantaş, 1999: 123)

That a good translator needs, above all, bilingual and bicultural competence has already become common ground in modern translation theories. As an applied linguist and a mediator between intercultural situations of communication, (s)he must acquire, on the one hand, knowledge of any of the five types identified by Hewson and Martin (1991) – i.e. source language (SL) and target language (TL) knowledge, text-type knowledge, subject area and cultural knowledge and finally contrastive knowledge – and, on the other hand, decoding skills of reading and encoding skills of writing. Her/ his task is not to look for an ‘equivalent’ in the narrow sense of the word, but to analyse minutely the various elements creating the overall effect of the source text (ST). That causes her/him to eventually deal with the so-called “concave-mirror effect” which can be accounted for by the distorting effect produced by the changing cultures and by the connections made within the target language culture (LC2) that interfere with those originally operating in the source language culture (LC1). (Hewson and Martin, 1991: 152; Croitoru, 1996: 30-31) It is true that, no matter how hard (s)he may try, the translator could never clearly adopt a midway position and (s)he will always be anchored, to a greater or less extent, in one LC. That is why, as Elena Croitoru emphasises, her/his competence is determined “by her/his ability to analyse, compare and convert two cultural systems, while respecting both the conflicting forces within one LC and the interplay of these forces as the LCs are brought into contact.” (Croitoru, 1996: 32) (S)he has to be what A. Bantaş metaphorically calls “a servant of two masters” selling to her/his customers, i.e. readers, the original product, i.e. the writer’s work, without cheating in either quantity or in its original form. (1994: 81) Nevertheless, when referring to literary translation, one more important aspect is worth insisting upon. For as Levý points out, not only the semantic content and the formal contour of the original have to be taken into consideration, but also the entire system of aesthetic features bound up with the language of the translation. (See Bassnett-McGuire, 1991: 6) Since it is not enough to render the meaning and the logical structure, the translator also has to render the emotional content of the SLT and so faithfully that the TT can have the same effect as the original does upon the reader. (Leviţchi, 1993: 6) Consequently, the task of the translator becomes somewhat harder than even the writer’s: “the writer translates [herself/]himself, turning [her/]his imagination into words, thus

24 keeping faithful to [herself/]himself, whereas the translator must be faithful to the writer, to the tradition from which [s]he translates, to the language into which [s]he translates and to many other canons.” (Leviţchi qtd. in Croitoru, 1996: 32) Transcending language but also cultural and time boundaries, the translator must aim at rendering in the TT not only the universe of ideas, but also the feelings implied by the original. By means of a different linguistic system, (s)he has to perform what A Bantaş calls “a transfer of spirit,” (1999: 18) keeping in mind that each and every text has its own music, colours, movement and atmosphere. Besides its material, literal meaning, each and every piece of literature has a less apparent meaning which is the only one that can create inside us the aesthetic impression that the poet meant to express. In order to render this literary meaning of the literary works, we (the translators) must, first of all, grasp it; but then it is not enough to grasp it; we must also re-create it. (Larbaud qtd. in Meschonnic, 1978: 221) Thus, literary translation can be considered a re-creation of the literary work. In poetry in particular, the poet, who tends to perfection, implicitly tends to express her/his ideas or feelings in the most effective way, aiming at identifying and choosing those synonymic variants that might have the strongest effects on all poetic language and diction levels as well as on the affective level. “The translator who is willing as well as capable to reproduce these elements in another language must be aware of all these factors and provide [herself/]himself with all the means necessary for re- creating the original, for equivalating the broad as well as small lines of the original.” (S)he must render the original magic of the verse, its musicality and power of suggestion. (S)he must be endowed with a special passion for the word and know how to use it in order to transpose the poet’s experience into another language and cultural context. “When [s]he reproduces all the meanings and even all the metaphors and other figures of speech without rendering also the music of the original [s]he may have accomplished [her] his task, but if [s]he does not manage to convey also the ‘ineffable’ emotional tension of the original [s]he has failed and can be accused of having violated the rules of the game: that is to say that no loss should be tolerated on any facet of the original.” (Bantaş, 1989: 4-5; Bantaş and Croitoru, 1999: 123) That does not mean that there cannot be accepted losses in translating poetry, but they have to be made up for by choosing from among the instruments offered by the rhetoric of the SL poetic space the most adequate. And what is more important, (s)he must not miss the effect meant by the poet, so as not to change, alter or even destroy the emotion expressed by the poet.

25 Taking all these aspects into account, the conclusion can be reached that the good translation of poetry is possible only when “there is enough linguistic and literary expertise in order to discern the author’s intentions.” (Bantaş, 1989: 9) That is why a complex, translation-oriented analysis of the original (TOTA) must precede the translation process. It is only by making a thorough analysis of the original, observing all its steps, through a series of successive operations of selection and restriction, that the translator will discover the so-called ‘inner mechanism’ of the literary work and consequently the right way to a correct interpretation and translation. (Bantaş and Croitoru, 1999: 123) Even if the major principles of the above summarised theoretical background for poetry translation have been clearly underlined, the practice of poetry translation often seems to infringe them (more or less consciously). In an attempt at summing up the negative aspects in poetry translation, A. Bantaş advances in his article “A Few Hypotheses on Translating Poetry” (1989) a hypothesis (as he puts it) that attaches them essentially to “the failure to decipher the author’s code and/or intentions, the translator’s failure to integrate [herself/]himself with them, to endorse them [which] thoroughly may lead to their betrayal.” (1989: 24; see also Bantaş and Croitoru, 1999: 133) In this respect, two categories of causes should be distinguished between: -objective causes: the impossibility of identifying the code of the original even after analysis (i.e. the semantic and/or the prosodic code) which may generate the temptation to replace it by the translator’s own (perhaps favourite) code. -subjective causes: the translator’s lack of competence in deciphering the code, in discerning the system of the original or merely lack of linguistic competence regarding either the SL or the TL or even both of them; and the receptor’s lack of sensitiveness or his inability to take in the poem to be translated which may also happen even in the case of the reception of the original by the native speakers of the SL. (1989: 24; 1999: 133) Such negative aspects seem to be particularly affecting the translations made by Romanian translators together with English native speakers. In this case, the causes determining the poor quality of the translations may be both objective and subjective. Thus, even if the Romanian translator is what one may call a good translator, able to identify correctly, by means of a thorough analysis, both the semantic and the prosodic code of the original, endowed with linguistic and literary competence, there still remain the dangers related to the English-speaking translator’s lack of sensitiveness when facing a new poetic universe or

26 her/his inability to understand it, which will obviously lead to the betrayal of the original. For example, the very title of Blaga’s poem Mirabila sămânţă has been rendered into English by Roy McGregor Hastie as The Wonderful Seeds. Either deliberately or out of a total lack of understanding, as A Bantaş emphasises, the translator has distorted two essential elements: the singular of the noun seed used by the poet as a symbol of nature, of the universe, of its development, of its embryo loses all its meaning, becoming just one agricultural element out of many; changing mirabil into minunat again defies the author because if he had intended to use the ordinary word, emptied of connotations and in the last analysis impoverished in denotation as well through frequent use, through routine, there would have been no easier thing to do; but it stands to reason that the choice of a rarer, more impressive word had been deliberate by Blaga, being meant to obtain spectacular effects. (1989: 9-10; 1999: 126) Professor Bantaş’s example plainly demonstrates that, even at the word level, a translator can kill both the author’s meaning and art. And the temptation of replacing thus the original code (which perhaps was not even correctly understood) seems even greater when the English-speaking translator is at the same time a poet. Both categories of deficiencies that have been identified above can be easily found in the poems published in the volume Modern Romanian Poetry edited by Nicholas Catanoy (1977). Although the intention of the editor of showing to the Western World “something of the range and quality of a poetry that has long ceased to be merely a regional off-shoot of Balkan writing” and of “bringing home to many English readers the unknown sensitivity of the Romanian people” (1977: 11-12) is indeed praiseworthy, the versions included in the book are far from sticking to the original music and power of suggestion of the Romanian poetry. As he acknowledges in the Preface, although he initially relied on the ability of the Romanian translators, starting from the idea that “being an art of words and music, poetry is different from the art of translation and only poets should translate poetry” (1977: 12), the editor sent the Romanian translations to twenty-two Canadian poets, who, unfortunately, took too many liberties with the text sometimes even modifying the sense and the structure of the original. In order to prove the shortcomings of these so-called “poetic translations”, two translations into English of the poem De-a v-aţi ascuns/ Hide and Seek by Tudor Arghezi will further be contrastively discussed. T1 was included in the previously mentioned collection; it was originally made by Dan Duţescu but then remade by Alden Nowlan. T2 belongs to professor A.Bantaş.

TUDOR ARGHEZI T1: Translated by D. Duţescu T2: Translated by Andrei De-a v-aţi ascuns (ST) English version by Alden Nowlan Bantaş (1980: 111-112) (1977: 98-99)

27 1 Dragii mei, o să mă joc odată 1’ My small and precious ones. I know 1” Dear children, some day 2 Cu voi, de-a ceva ciudat. a strange together we’ll play 3 Nu ştiu când o să fie asta, tată, 2’ game that we’ll play some day. 2” At some unconny game, my pets: 4 Dar, hotărât, o să ne jucăm 3’ I don’t know when. 3” When this will happen I odată, cannot say 5 Odată, poate, după scăpătat. 4’ But we will play it. 4” But certainly we’ll play the game some day, 5’ Some evening, maybe, after the sun 5” Some day perhaps as soon goes down. as th’sun sets. 6 E un joc viclean de batrâni 6’ Old people play it (it’s a tricky 6” It is a game of old folks, game) sly and fell, 7 Cu copii, ca voi, cu fetiţe ca 7’ with boys like you, and girls like 7” With kids like you, girls tine, you, my sweet. out of schools 8 Joc de slugi şi joc de stăpâni, 8’ Poor people play it: rich people 8” It’s played by servants 9 Joc de păsări, de flori, de play it, too. and by masters ’swell câni, 9’ Animals play it, and birds, and even 9” By birds and flowers and 10 Şi fiecare îl joacă bine. flowers. by dogs as well 10’ Everyone plays it well. 10” And each of them obeys its rules. 11 Ne vom iubi, negreşit, 11’ We will love one another forever, 11” To keep our mutual love mereu you and I, we’ll never fail 12 Strânşi bucuroşi la masă, 12’ laughing around the dinner table 12” Together sharing in our mirthful dinner/Together 13’ under God’s roof, the sky; gathered in our mirthful dinner 13 Subt coviltirele lui 13” Protected by God’s Dumnezeu. 14’ but one day I will start to walk canopy and veil. 14 Într-o zi piciorul va rămâne more slowly, you will see a difference 14” Some day my leg’ll hang greu, 15’ in my eyes, my hands will shake limp and stale and, perhaps, I’ll cough. 15 Mâna stângace, ochiul sleit, 15” My hand clumsy, my eye limba scămoasă. drained, my tongue like tinder. 16 Jocul începe încet, ca un 16’ That’s how the game starts, quietly, 16” Slowly starts the game, vânt. like the wind. like winds around. 17 Eu o să râd şi o să tac, 17’ I’ll laugh then and say nothing 17” I’ll laugh and then keep more. mum 18 O să mă culc la pământ. 18’ I’ll go and lie down on the ground; 18” Then stretch myself upon 19’ I’ll lie there without moving and the ground. 19 O să stau fără cuvânt, won’t make a sound. 19” I shall be speechless, like 20’ Maybe I’ll lie down over there spellbound 20 De pildă, lângă copac. beside that tree. 20” For instance by that oak- tree trunk. 21 E jocul Sfintelor Scripturi. 21’ This game was played in the Bible; 21” The game is in the Holy Writ: 22 Aşa s-a jucat şi Domnul 22’ even Our Lord Jesus Christ played 22” It was also played by nostru Isus Hristos it once, Jesus Christ our Lord, 23 Şi alţii, prinşi de friguri şi 23’ and others: fever and chills 23” By others, seized with de călduri, shivers and with heat 24 Care din câteva sfinte 24’ shook them until they quit. 24” Who, out of several tremurături trembling fits, 25 Au isprăvit jocul, frumos. 25’ But they played well. 25” Could finally end the game ungored. 26 Voi să nu vă mâhniţi tare 26’ So don’t be sad, my little ones, 26” You, kids, should not when they come take it to heart 27 Când mă vor lua şi duce 27’ and lift me up and carry me away. 27” When people lift me, departe 28’ They’ll put me in what they call a carry me away 28 Şi-mi vor face un fel de grave, 28” And bury me with some înmormântare 29’ in soft or hard earth. strange art 29 În lutul afânat sau tare. 29” Into the clay/earth that’s 30’ You see: the game begins with either soft or hard. 30 Aşa e jocul, începe cu death. 30” The game’s like that: it moarte. starts with death, they say.

28 From the very beginning, the fact must be mentioned that T1 suffers from a surprising lack of musicality and a striking violation of the “no loss, no gain” principle in terms of prosody and rhyme. Unfortunately, a poetic synonymy on the versification level cannot be established between ST and T1, in which the English translator completely disregards the structure of the lines and of the stanzas as well as the original rhyme, providing an awkward, almost prose-like version. On the contrary, in T2, A. Bantaş successfully manages to accurately render the metrical patterns of the original, sticking to the structure of the stanzas made up of five lines, displaying an a-b-a-a-b rhyme type, thus being closer to the original overall effect and music of Arghezi’s poem, to the emotion the poet meant to express. Although preserving the broad lines of meaning and logical structure, T1 is marked by many losses especially on the vocabulary level (the semantic and formal or metaphorical code). Thus, in many cases, the semantic choices of the English-speaking translator are rather vague and common, lacking expressiveness, sometimes even tending to over- simplification by rendering the implicit denotations and especially connotations of Arghezi’s metaphors too obvious. Here are a few examples. In the second stanza, he unjustifiably replaces the Romanian copii (line 7) having generic value (correctly rendered both semantically and stylistically by kids in T2, line 7”) by boys (line 7’), although there is no reference to boys in the co-text. Probably as a result of his not being familiar with Arghezi’s family life, the foreign translator did not realise the fact that, despite the introduction of copii with a generic meaning, in that particular line, the poet addressed in fact his beloved daughter. Consequently, in T1, there is a slight shift in meaning, as my sweet (line 7’), in final position, determines both boys and girls thus implying that the poem is addressed to all children, or at least to a boy and a girl, which is not the case. Then, in the next line (8’), there is again a slight shift in meaning, a semantic loss, as the T1 translator takes the liberty of replacing the two members of the antinomic interplay in the ST (Joc de slugi şi joc de stăpâni – line 8) – rendered as such in T2 (It’s played by servants and by masters ’swell – line 8”) – by poor people and rich people (line 8’), preserving thus only the feature [+WEALTH] while missing in fact the essential one [+SUBORDINATE] which the poet meant to emphasise. Further on, he misses the effect of câni (line 9) (dogs in T2, line 9”). The word was probably used, given also the immediate co-text, not only for its denotative but especially for its connotative meaning (referring to character: “a despicable, cruel man” – Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary, 1996: 422), which can by no means be rendered by animal, as the latter has

29 a generic value when used in its denotative meaning, as well as different connotations (referring to the physical, carnal nature of man – 1996: 59) and different contexts. (For e.g. She married an animal.) In line 13, the original metaphor coviltirele lui Dumnezeu is, in its turn, subject to modifications. The English-speaking translator practically ruins all its stylistic effect when rendering it explicit in line 13’ by means of a rather common phrase God’s roof (too modern also as compared to the archaic coviltir), associated with the noun sky which definitely clarifies the meaning. On the contrary, in T2, A. Bantaş’s choice (God’s canopy and veil – line 13”) suits best both the semantic and the stylistic dimensions of the ST, managing to preserve the effect Arghezi’s original metaphor may have upon the reader. Even more dissimilarities are to be found in lines 14-15 where T1 is far from rendering even the meaning of the original ST. Adopting common, well-known English terms used in describing the symptoms of old age, the English translator does not offer the readers a translation proper of the two lines, but a personal interpretation of poor quality, as a matter of fact, of the ST, completely disregarding the poet’s semantic choices and the effect he meant to create by using them (see lines 14’-15’). On the contrary, T2 closely follows the original, preserving not only the meaning and the stylistic effect but also the rhetoric and the enumeration of elliptical structures in line 15”: Some day my leg’ll hang limp and stale/ My hand clumsy, my eye drained, my tongue like tinder. Similarly, a large number of deliberate distortions are to be found in T1 on the syntactic level. A striking example in this respect can be identified in the fifth stanza, where the T1 translator completely modifies the structure of the complex sentence extending over four lines in the ST. First of all, a shift in emphasis marks line 22: in the ST, the stress is laid on play (and T2 sticks to it: It was also played by Jesus Christ our Lord- line 22”), while in T1, on the contrary, it is laid on Jesus Christ (even Our Lord Jesus Christ played it once-line 22’). Moreover, in the next three lines (23- 25), he prefers to cut the complex sentence into pieces, creating thus two independent sentences. In particular, the latter But they played well (line 25’) completely changes the meaning of the original, as it is the manner they play and not on the result or end of the game that appears thus foregrounded, again deviating from the poet’s original intention. All in all, the syntactic changes are accompanied by semantic changes which finally lead to unacceptable losses on all the levels of the ST. Many other examples of violations of the translation rules can be further identified, pointing, on the whole, to the same conclusion: although having rendered the broad lines of the original, by reproducing the general

30 meaning, the T1 translator did not manage to render the metaphorical code, the music of the original and what is more important, he did not manage to convey the ‘ineffable’ tension of the original (A. Bantaş 1989: 5). Consequently, he failed to accomplish his task and violated the “no loss, no gain” principle in point of meaning, clarity and stylistic value. It is undeniable that steps have been taken to fixing the main principles that should regulate literary – and in particular, poetry – translation. Andrei Bantaş’s studies range among the most representative in this respect. Yet, the production and publication of translations like those included in the volume Modern Romanian Poetry referred to above reinforce the general opinion that the discussion of the methodological problems of translating poetry should be continued and extended, that more emphasis should be laid on the relationship between scholarship and practice so as to gradually contribute to the gradual decrease of negative aspects, to help more translators to find the right way to communicate with the original poems and finally to improve the quality of their translations. Within the field of poetry translation, there is still a lot of work to be done.

Bibliography: o Arghezi, T. (1980) Versuri. Vol.1, Bucureşti: Cartea Românească, Colecţia „Mari scriitori români” o Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1991) Translation Studies, New York: Routledge o Bantaş, A. (1989) “A Few Hypotheses on Translating Poetry”, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 34, no. 2, 1-26 o Bantaş, A. (1994) “Names, Nicknames and Titles in Translation”, Perspectives. Studies in Translatology, no. 1, Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, pp. 79-88 o Bantaş, A. Croitoru, E. (1999) Didactica traducerii, Bucureşti: Teora o Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1991) Translation Studies, New York: Routledge o Catanoy, N. (ed.) (1977) Modern Romanian Poetry, Oakville, Ottawa, Canada: Mosaic Press/ Valley Editions o Croitoru, E. (1996) Interpretation and Translation, Galaţi: Porto-Franco o Hewson, L., Martin, J. (1991) Redefining Translation. The Variational Approach, London & New York: Routledge o Leviţchi, L. (1993) Manualul traducatorului de limba engleza, Bucureşti: Teora o Meschonnic, H. (1978) “Notes sur la traduction dans la poétique” in A. Dobrescu-Warodin, R. Marcu, L. Repeteanu (eds.), Langue, vie et civilisation françaises, Bucureşti: Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică o Steiner, G. (1975) After Babel – Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford: Oxford University Press

31 o *** (1996) Webster’s Encyclopaedic Unabridged Dictionary, New York/ Avenel: Gramercy Books

MODULATION – A TRANSLATION STRATEGY

Elena Croitoru and Antoanela Marta Dumitraşcu “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Modulation focuses on the events and states of affairs that the words refer to. It is closely related to the way a speaker of the target language would naturally conceive of what a word, a phrase, a structure or a text span refer to. A much clearer way of defining it is that it includes types of relationships between two texts.

1. The range of translation procedures, as discussed by J.-P. Vinay and J.D. Darbelnet (1958/1995), L. Kelly (1979), P. Newmark (1988), Van Hoof (1989), W. Wills (1994), S. Laviosa (2002), D. Katan (2004), or translation strategies (Chesterman 1997), seems to be as coherent as useful, because it proves once again that the decision-making act is prevailing in the translation process. Moreover, a study of the translation procedures or strategies points out interesting findings about cross-linguistic differences. Given the fact that such strategies, from borrowing to adaptation, are closely linked with the degree of difference between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT), the most difficult task of the translator, especially when there are great differences between the two languages, is to give the right interpretation and make his final decision. The more numerous and the more different the ways of rendering a ST expression in the TT, the more difficult the decision-making act.

1.1. The degree of difference between the two texts determines the use of one or another of the seven translation procedures described by J.-P. Vinay and J. D. Darbelnet (1958:55/1995): 1) emprunt/ borrowing, 2) calque / borrowing of a structure, 3) literal translation, 4) transposition, 5) modulation, 6) equivalence, 7) adaptation. There is a long way from borrowing, the case in which ST and TT are identical (at that level), to adaptation which reflects a radical divergence between the two texts. As it is obvious, modulation is a little bit down the middle of the spectrum, coming after transposition. Although they consist in doing different things in the translating process, they are logically associated. We consider that a combination of the two strategies, i.e. modulation and transposition, will make up a translation-inherent strategy.

32 Modulation is referred to as a change in point of view, whereas transposition consists in changing the grammatical categories. Generally, a clear-cut distinction is made between them. Thus, modulation consists in looking upon the same situation from a difference point of view, whereas transposition consists in changing the grammatical structures but preserving the same meaning. In this respect, some analysts consider that different grammatical forms express the same meaning, whereas some others do not agree to this idea and argue that a change in form brings about a change in meaning. Van Hoof describes modulation as a type of transposition at the global level, applying to categories of thought, not grammatical categories (Van Hoof 1989: 126, and Salkie 2001: 434).

1.2. One major contribution of modulation is that it offers a new perspective on the relationship between semantics and pragmatics, and lays stress on the relevance theory. Modulation is also related to contrastive linguistics since it helps in clearing up the relationship between the ST and the TT, on the one hand, and contrastive linguistics uses translation aspects in investigating differences between languages, on the other. A contrastive linguistic perspective rather than a translation research one is shared by H. Chuquet and M. Paillard (1987) and by R. Salkie (2001). H. Chuquet and M. Paillard (1987: 10) do not agree to Vinayand Darbelnet’s classification. They suggest a narrower range of translation procedures which includes literal translation, transposition and modulation. Thus, they do not consider adaptation to be a translation procedure “since it goes beyond linguistic concerns to sociocultural and subjective ones” (id., ibid.) and argue that the first two procedures, i.e. borrowing and calque (borrowing of a structure) are generally parts of the lexicon, whereas the last but one procedure, i.e. equivalence, is a special type of modulation. Their opinion is also shared by R. Salkie (2001: 434). The basic principle of modulation, i.e. the change in viewpoint, may be illustrated, for example, by two sentences describing the same situation. Thus, the same situation may be equated with the same meaning for sentences including, for instance, a modal verb or a modal phrase in the ST rendered by a modal (phrase) or a verb form with the same meaning in the TT. There are lots of examples in literary and technical translations with which this approach goes very well. There is also identity of meaning between passive and active structures in an English ST and a Romanian TT, respectively. Consider the following excerpt:

33 ST1: The visit was returned in due form. Miss Bennet’s pleasing manners grew on the good will of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was found to be intolerable and the younger sister not worth speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted with them was expressed towards the two eldest. By Jane this attention was received with the greatest pleasure…. (from J.Austen, Pride and Prejudice)

TT1: Au răspuns, după cum se cuvenea, la vizita ce li se făcuse. Manierele încântătoare ale domnişoarei Bennet câştigară bunăvoinţa doamnei Hurst şi a domnişoarei Bingley, şi, cu toate că pe mamă o considerau insuportabilă, iar pe surorile mai mici nedemne de a li se adresa vreun cuvânt, şi-au exprimat faţă de cele două surori mai mari dorinţa de a le cunoaşte mai bine. Jane a fost plăcut impresionată de acest lucru... (translated and commented by Gabriela Colipcă, Carmen Maftei, Daniela Croitoru 2004: 29)

Such examples may really mean a change in view point, besides the grammatical argument that English favours the passive structures, whereas Romanian favours the active ones. Nevertheless, P. Nermark (1988: 88) considers the change from active to passive and viceversa to be a “common transposition, mandatory when no passive exists, and advisable where a reflexive is normally preferred to a passive as in Romance languages”. In Romanian, the reflexive grammatical relationship which implies that “entitatea despre care se face comunicarea este dedublată într-un nume subiect care face acţiunea şi un nume obiect (complementul direct) care suferă acţiunea” (Avădanei 2000: 81) can be expressed by verbal idioms with a reflexive pronoun in the accusative such as: a se lăsa pe tânjală, a se culca pe lauri, a se ascunde după deget, with which the weak accusative form of the reflexive pronoun is a special direct object / “complement direct de tip special” (Dimitriu 1994: 240). With the verbal idioms including weak dative forms of the reflexive pronoun such as a-şi găsi naşul, a-şi lua inima-n dinţi, a-şi pune pofta-n cui the grammatical relationship is an active one, because “dativul neaccentuat al pronumelui reflexiv nu poate fi complement direct «de tip special» care să reprezinte marca raportului reflexiv” (Avădanei op.cit.: 81).

34 1.3. However, the question may arise: What will be the argument in all changes from affirmative to negative, abstract to concrete, means to result, negation to the opposite considered by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958: 89) to be cases of modulation, or different temporal viewpoint, different parts of the same process, especially from metaphor to no metaphor, modalised to non-modalised, included by Chuquet and Paillard (1987: 30, 26, 28) within the modulation procedure and from marked to unmarked collocations (our suggestion) ? We consider that the aspects mentioned above up to changes from metaphor to no metaphor are well integrated within modulation, maybe expect for the changes from abstract to concrete in contexts like the following:

ST2: This was odd justice in the eyes of those who still blinked in the fierce light projected from the tribunal –a light in which neither parent figured in the least as a happy example to youth and innocence. (from H. James, What Maisie Knew)

TT2: Acest mod de a face dreptate părea ciudat în ochii celor care încă mai clipeau orbiţi de lumina necruţătoare ce venea dinspre tribunal – lumină în care nici unul dintre părinţi nu apărea câtuşi de puţin ca un exemplu bun pentru o fiinţă fragedă şi nevinovată. (translated and commented upon by Isabela Merilă and E. Croitoru, in Croitoru – coord. – 2004: 69)

The translators commented upon the possibilities of rendering odd justice and youth and innocence. The former, referring to the manner in which justice was done, has no corresponding collocation in Romanian. It really means a changing viewpoint, but the long syntagm used in the TT is no longer marked stylistically. The same holds valid with the latter: “the two English nouns do not point to the age of youth and innocent childhood, but to the little girl, who was helpless under such circumstances (see the manner in which she was disposed of: she was divided in two and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants” (in Croitoru – coord. – 2004: 60). Even with the last sentence mentioned in brackets as a reference back in terms of the co-text, there is modulation, but the stylistic loss in the TT is due to the linguistic differences between English and Romanian. Furthermore, we consider that changes from metaphor to no metaphor and from marked to unmarked collocations in literary translations to be a stylistic loss in the TT and a mistranslation of modality.

35 On the other hand, P. Newmark (1988: 88) refers to the ‘negated contrary’, calling it ‘positive for double negative’ (or ‘double negative for positive’), which is a concrete translation procedure applied to any action (verb) or quality (adjective or adverb). He considers the double negative not to be as forceful as the positive”: “[…] in fact the force of the double negative depends on the tone of voice, and therefore the appropriateness of this modulation must depend on its formulation in the context” (id., ibid.). Moreover, Van Hoof (1989) adds shifts from popular to learned vocabulary and shifts from one colour to another, As far as the latter shifts are concerned, we share Van Hoof’s opinion considering the differences between the two languages. For example, colour idioms such as the following are translated by using the modulation strategy which makes use of different structures, patterns or strings specific to Romanian: to be in the red (be in debts), go into the red (start to owe money to the bank), come out of the red (having paid back one’s debts), see red (become very angry or annoyed), catch smb red handed (catch smb while they are doing smth illegal or wrong), paint the town red (keep throwing parties), not to be worth a red cent (not to be worth a farthing), red baiting (persecution of communists), to draw a red herring (try using a trick), red tape (useless official rules making things happen very slowly), green as grass (inexperienced or naïve), black and blue (physically attacked and badly bruised), be in the black (not to owe anyone any money; antonym: be in the red), once in a blue moon (very rarely), etc. The important thing is that the meaning is the same. This opposes situations which have nothing to do with modulation due to the (partial) formal and semantic equivalence between some colour idioms: white as a sheet/ ghost (very pale and frightened), white as snow (very white in colour), red as a beet/beetroot (very red in the face, to grow/become red in the face), a red letter day, black sheep, not as black as you are painted, (in) black and white, out of the blue, give smb the green light etc. Modulation is also applied to translating culture specific idiomatic collocations such as: red brick (university) (in England) – a university without any tradition (antonyms Oxford and Cambridge); red cent (Am) 1 cent copper coin); red coat (Br) British soldier; the red ensign (Br) the commercial flag of the British fleet; red eye (Am., informal) cheap whiskey, etc. However, as regards the shifts from popular to learned vocabulary, the question may arise: What will be the degree of the target readers (TRs)’ perception of a ST like, for example, Ion Creangă’s Memories of My Boyhood if such changes were operated ?

36 We consider that the changes combining modulation with transposition may hold valid in situations where the TL lacks any other means of linguistic expression, according to the expectations based on the translator’s linguistic competence, or on the ‘equivalents’ listed in a good bilingual dictionary, or, sometimes, on good collaboration with a TL native translator on condition he has good knowledge of the SL. For example,

ST3: Nică, băiet mai mare şi înaintat la învăţătură pînă la genunchiul broaştei, era sfădit cu mine din pricina Smărăndiţei popei, căreia […] i-am tras într-o zi o bleandă pentru că nu-mi da pace să prind muşte […]; şi unde nu s-apucă de însemnat la greşele cu ghiotura pe o draniţă […] “Măi!!! S-a trecut de şagă, zic eu, în gândul meu; încă nu m-a gătit de ascultat, şi câte au să mai fie !” Şi unde n-a început a mi se face negru pe dinaintea ochilor şi a tremura de mânios […] Şi când mă uit înapoi, doi hojmalăi se şi luase după mine şi unde nui încep a fugi de-mi scăpărau picioarele; […] cotigesc în stînga şi intru în ograda unui megieş al nostru […]; şi se vede că i-a orbit Dumnezeu de nu m-au putut găbui […] A doua zi a venit părintele pe la noi, s-a înţeles cu tata, m-au luat ei cu binişorul şi m-au dus iar la şcoală “Că, dă, e păcat să rămîi fără leac de învăţătură, zicea părintele; doar ai trecut de bucheludeazla şi bucheriţazdra […]” Şi părintele mă ie la dragoste, şi Smărăndiţa începe din cînd în cînd a mă fura cu ochiul, şi bădiţa Vasile mă pune să ascult pe alţii şi altă făină se măcina la moară! (from Ion Creangă, Amintiri din copilărie, pp. 11-12)

TT3: Nică, who was older than me and whose scholarship was a trifle more than non-existent, had quarreled with me on account of little Smaranda, whom […] one day I had been forced to shove away because she would interfere with my catching flies […] and didn’t just score mistakes wholesale on a piece of shingle; […] “My word, this is past a joke,” I said to myself. He has not yet finished examining me, and think of all the mistakes to come!” All of a sudden, everything went black in front of me and I began to tremble with anger […]. A glance over my shoulder showed me two hulking brutes already on my tracks. Then didn’t I just start running so fast that my feet struck sparks out of the ground! […] I turned left and entered the yard of one of our neighbours. […]. Surely the Lord blinded them,

37 so that they could not find me! […]. The next day, however, the priest came to our house and settled things with Father; they calmed me down and took me back to school again. ”For really, it’s a pity to be left without any education,” the priest was saying, “you are now past your ABCs. […]. The priest put me down in his good books and little Smaranda flashed a glance at me now and then; Master Vasile entrusted the coaching of other boys to me, and, as the saying goes, a different kind of flour was now being ground in the old mill. (translated by Ana Cartianu and R.C. Johnston).

1.4. Chesterman (1997: 104) includes converses and paraphrase among the strategies of modulation. The former expresses the same state of affairs from opposite viewpoints. However, with the latter, specific elements of meaning are disregarded in favour of the overall sense of a larger unit. Consider, for example, the following excerpt:

ST4: Both parties possessed certain claims to distinction. (from H. James, The Lanscape Painter)

TT4: Ambele părţi pretindeau că se deosebesc prin ceva anume. (translated and commented by Izabela Merilă, Ana Maria Ursu, Daniela Croitoru, Gabriela Colipcă)

ST5: She was divided in two and the portions tossed impartially to the disputants. (from H. James, What Maisie Knew)

TT5: Ea a fost împăţită în două, iar jumătăţile au fost aruncate fără părtinire celor care şi-o revendicau. (translated and commented by Izabela Merilă, Ana Maria Ursu)

ST6: The most popular with Locksley’s bwellwishers was that he had backed out […] (from H. James, The Lanscape Painter)

TT6: Cel mai frecvent comentariu printre aceia care era urau de partea lui Locksley era că el fusese cel care renunţase […] (translated and commented by Daniela Croitoru, Gabriela Colipcă, in Croitoru – coord. – 2004).

38 ST7: [...] for the sider too the prospect opened out, taking the pleasant form of a superabundance of matter for desultory conversation. (from H. James, What Maisie Knew)

TT7: […] pentru cei care erau de partea unuia sau a celuillat, se deschidea o perspectivă ce lua forma plăcută a numeroaselor subiecte de discuţie inutile. (translated and commented by Gabriela Dima, in Croitoru – coord. – 2004).

R. Salkie (2001: 437) considers converses and paraphrases to be “good examples of a translator arriving at the same message using different means, which is the way of conceiving modulation”. In P. Newmark’s opinion, converses (called reversal of terms, also mentioning Nida’s ‘conversive’ terms) are usually optional for making language sound natural: e.g. buy/ sell, lend/ borrow. He also mentions the English nouns loan, for which there are alternatives in other languages, and credit, or debt depending on the point of view (Newmark 1988: 89).

1.5. As a matter of fact, P. Newmark (ibid.) considers Vinay and Darbelnet’s categorization of modulation unconvincing. He considers modulation to be one of the translation procedures in order of closeness, coming the second after the componential analysis (Newmark 1991: 3). According to his own categorization, the translation procedures following modulation are: descriptive equivalent, functional equivalent, cultural equivalent, synonymy, and paraphrase. He suggests that a general principle of closeness in translation is that “normal or natural social usage must be rendered by its normal, equally frequent equivalent in any text” (Newmark 1991: 4).

2. Modulation lays stress not on words, but on what they refer to. The most important reason for the translators’ use of modulation is that “they believe that in a particular context, a span of text would be more naturally formulated in a different way in the TT from the way it appears in the ST” (Salkie 1997). The essential difference between modulation and transposition, as underlined by Salkie, is that “Whereas with transposition the translator’s primary concern is the grammatical resources available in the TT, with modulation the principal consideration is the events of states of affairs that the words refer to. In case of transposition, the guiding question is how would the TL naturally express it?; with modulation, the

39 question is how would a speaker of the TL naturally conceive of it? (Salkie 2001: 437). However, the skeptical conclusion which we share is that there are no criteria for considering some text span as an instance of modulation and excluding others. We consider that translation studies and contrastive insights may benefit from considering more translation strategies in analysing translation corpora.

2.1. Modulation is related to the analysability of idioms, i.e. the degree in which the concepts (expressed by the constituent elements) encoded in the idiom string can be used to access assumptions in memory which will contribute to the derivation of the intended interpretation. In its turn, it is related to transparency and conventionality (Vega-Moreno 2002). The notion of transparency refers to the ease with which these assumptions are accessed in a particular context and implications are derived. The notion of conventionality refers to the relation between a certain word string and a certain semantic representation. The fact should be mentioned that this notion is always combined with an element of arbitrariness as to why a certain linguistic label is used to express a certain conceptual representation. For example, there is arbitrariness as to what something costs an arm and a leg, and something else costs the earth. In terms of analysability, idioms are classified into: analyzable/compositional / decomposable idioms (those whose constituent parts contribute to the overall idiomatic interpretation) and unanalysable/non-compositional/non-decomposable idioms (those idioms whose constituent elements do not contribute to the overall idiomatic interpretation (Cacciari and Gluckberg 1991, Nunberg et al 1994, Titone and Connine 1999). The analysability of idioms is closely related to the theory of relevance. One aspect is that for some idioms, one of the concepts encoded in the idiom string acts as a better clue to the intended interpretation than the rest: e.g. bark up the wrong tree, break the ice, spill the beans. There are many idioms which are pragmatically enriched in every context: e.g. to live from hand to mouth (ODEI), not to be worth a straw (LDCE), a man of straw (ODEI), to bridle one’s tongue (ODEI), to look for a needle in the haystack (LDCE) etc,., or the Romanian idioms a tăia frunze la cîini (DLR), a prinde cheag (DEX), a se strînge funia la par (Dumistrăcel 1980: 187), a încresta în grindă (id.: 172), a merge ca ceasul (DEX), a pune fuiorul (DLR), a-i pune/ parcă i-a pus sare pe coadă (DLR), a lovi sub centură (Leviţchi 1981), a-şi băga nasul în (id., ibid.), a călca- merge pe ouă (DEX), etc.

40 The result of a compositional processing of the idiom string in context would often be an automatic narrowing or broadening of the encoded concepts, so that metaphorical, loose interpretations may be derived: e.g. to slip between one’s fingers → a-i scăpa printre degete, to wash one’s hands of → a se spăla pe mîini de ceva, to go downhill → a umbla lela/ a o lua la vale; a umbla treanca-fleanca (DLR). The denotative vs. pragmatic (non-denotative) distinction can be better understood by the fact that the denotative word strings which are semantically encoded and stylistically marked may be parts of a sentence or they may be closed units uttered under special circumstances as insertion formulas after interrupting discourse: e.g. 1) na-ţi-o frîntă că ţi-am dres-o! → that’s torn it! (iron.) there you are; na-ţi-o frîntă că mi-am dres-o! → now you’ve gone and done it!, 2) prinde orbul, scoate-i ochii! → you may whistle for it!; you can’t take the breeks off a Highlander; (proverb) one can’t get blood out of a stone; 3) vorba dulce mult aduce → good words cost nothing and are worth much; there are more flies caught with honey than with vinegar; fine words dress ill deeds; 4) vorbă multă sărăcia omului! (proverb) much cry and little wool; many words will not fill a bushel; all talk and no cinder; brevity is the soul of wit; (approx.) fine/ fair/ soft words butter no parsnips (Leviţchi, Bantaş, Gheorghiţoiu 1981). Such idioms do not have a proper denotative value but a philosophical metaphorical one. This holds valid with English idioms such as: 1) life is cheap! (meaning that people’s lives have little value so if they die it is not important); 2) life is just a bowl of cherries (used humorously to mean that life is not very pleasant); 3) live the life of Riley (informal) (live a happy life without work, problems or worries); 4) life’s too short (meaning that you should not waste time doing or worrying about unimportant things); not on your life! (informal) (meaning square refusal to do something); 5) that’s life (meaning that you cannot prevent bad things from happening and that you must accept them); 6) like it or lump it ! (meaning that you must accept an unpleasant or embarrassing situation because you cannot change it); 7) live and learn (Am.) (used when you have just discovered something that you did not know) (CIDI). Modulation is also used to render idioms with two (or more) different meanings considering the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of the context: e.g. get a loaf of that! (slang) (a) meaning surprise or approval; b) used when you see somebody who is very sexually attractive). It may also happen that the equivalents of idioms such as a face din ţânţar armăsar, a da cinstea pe ruşine şi pacea pe gîlceavă, a fi scump la tărîţe şi ieftin la făină, a-şi băga nasul unde nu-i fierbe oala will be stylistically unmarled in the TL.

41 Modulation also includes shifts from nominal idioms to simple nouns or combinations in the TL: e.g. ups and downs, heart and soul, give and take, flesh and blood, part and parcel, wear and tear, pins and needles, odds and ends, rank and file, ins and outs, etc. (LDCE). There are also shifts from idioms with proper names to idiomatic phrases with common nouns or to simple adjectives: e.g. keep up with the Joneses → a se ţine în pas cu moda, a nu fi mai prejos decât alţii: Heath Robinson → improvizat, ciudat. The shifts from phrasal verbs, which are specific to English, to their Romanian equivalents are the most numerous and some of the most difficult to translate. Some of the nominalizations have been borrowed by Romanian: e.g. hold up, play back (ODCIE). They have verbal idioms as their equivalents from which they were formed by conversion: e.g. shut down, show-off, hand out (Quirk 1972: 1012). Moreover, with idioms expressing emotional states, there may be shifts from one type of emotion to a different one: e.g. beat one’s breast (expressing pain) → a se bate cu pumnul în piept (expressing praise). Special attention should be paid to the shifts from the idioms specific to the SL to those specific to the TL: e.g. kiss the Blarney stone, fight like the Kilkeny cats (Avădanei 2000: 130), carry coal to Newcastle, etc.; a bate apa-n piuă (Dimitrescu), a da sfoară în ţară, a lua la vale (Dumistrăcel), a-şi aprinde paie în cap, a prinde în horă, a încresta în grindă, a-i tăia nasul (Avădanei 2000: 131), etc. We consider the following excerpt from Ion Luca Caragiale’s Conu Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea to be very interesting and relevant.

ST8: Leonidas: „Mă, nene, ăsta nu-i glumă; cu ăsta, cum văz eu, nu merge ca de cu fitecine: ia mai bine să mă iau eu cu politică pe lângă el, să mi-l fac cumătru.” Şi de colea până colea, tura-vura, c-o fi tunsă, c-o fi rasă, l-a pus pe Galibardi de i-a botezat un copil.

Efimitsa (cu ironie): Şi-a cunoscut omul naşul !

L (întrerupând-o): Da, da întreabă-mă să-ţi spun ce fel de oameni sunt.

E: Ceva tot unul şi unul.

L: Ăi mai prima, domnule, aleşi pe sprânceană, care mai de care, dă cu puşca-n Dumnezeu; volintiri, mă rog: azi aici, mâine-n Focşani, ce-am avut şi ce-am pierdut !

42

L (asemenea): […] Da' o să-mi zici că cu încetul se face oţetul, ori că mai rabdă, că n-a intrat zilele-n sac. (Cu tărie:) D-apoi bine, frate, până când tot rabdă azi, rabdă mâine ?

E: Adică, zău, bobocule, de ! eu, cu mintea ca de femeie, pardon să te-ntreb şi eu un lucru: ce procopseală ar fi cu republica ?

L: Ei ! bravos ! ş-asta-i bună ! Cum ce procopseală ? Vezi asta-i vorba: cap ai, minte ce-ţi mai trebuie ?

TT8: Leonidas: “I see he’s not a nobody / he's not a man to trifle with like with everyone. I think I’d better mind my politics and make him my godfather”. And what with one thing and another, to cut a long story short, he made Galibardi godfather to one of his children.

Efimitsa (ironically): So our man found his match!

L (interrupting her): Yes... but why don’t you ask me what sort of men they are.

E: I guess the best he can get.

L: The best of the best, each of them well chosen to go through heaven and hell without any scruple; volunteees, after all. Today here, tomorrow in China, so got so gone!

L (also from his bed): […] I know you're going to tell me that many a pickle makes a mickle, or that there are still days to come, and I must wait. (With emphasis) Look! I know that slow and steady wins the race, and that patience brings everything about, but how long can we wait? It can't go on like this, my dear! People have had enough of tyranny, they need a republic!

E: Well, are you sure, dearie? I for one, judging with my brains of a woman, may I ask you one thing: what good could there be in a republic?

L: Good for you! I like that! What d'you mean what good could be in that? You know there’s more beauty than brains.

43 2.2. Modulation is the relationship between the ST and the TT if both of them yield the same mental representation. In this respect, the relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995), according to which someone who hears an utterance or reads a text constructs a mental representation as a result of the interpretive process, is very helpful to translation. As A.-E. Gutt (1991) puts it, “a translator’s goal is to produce a text in the TL which, in the right context, will enable the reader to construct a mental representation that resembles the one constructed by the reader of the ST” (Gutt 1991: 163). Thus, the ST and the TT can have different semantic interpretations but yield the same mental representation. Therefore, at this level they are equivalent. The shifts caused by structural differences are not likely to affect the thematic structure very much. However, when the focus of the sentence is changed, the impact on the target reader (TR) will be different. Consider the following excerpt:

ST9: I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delightened me; what they approved I reverenced. They loved their sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure – with its low roof […] – found a charm both potent and permanent. (from Ch. Bronte, Jane Eyre) TT9: Îmi plăcea să citesc ceea ce le plăcea şi lor: ceea ce pentru ele era o bucurie, pentru mine era o încîntare; preţuiam tot ceea ce ele apreciau. Ţineau foarte mult la locuinţa lor retrasă. Şi eu, la rîndul meu, găseam un farmec pururea irezistibil în căsuţa aceea cenuşie şi veche - cu acoperişul ei jos […]. (translated and commented by Gabriela Colipcă, Anca Irinel Teleoacă, in Croitoru – coord. + 2004: 50)

The translators’ comment was that in the published versions “the gradation and emphasis characterizing the ST were missed (id. ibid.). The focus was changed in the TT.

2.3. An analysis of the shifts made in the TT helps to understand the decision-making process underlying the product of translation and to infer from it the translational norms adopted by the translator. According to Van Leuven-Zwart (1990), the microstructural shifts (semantic, stylistic, pragmatic, modulation) are reflected in the macrostructural shifts concerning the interpersonal ideational and textual function of language. S. Laviosa comments upon Van Lauven-Zwart’s opinion about word order and cohesion to be the areas where “the effect of

44 the microstructural changes are noticeable in the textual and interpersonal functions of language and at the discourse level” (Laviosa 2002: 78). Such analyses may go beyond the descriptive examination of parallel corpora and may try to explain the shifts in terms of the norms adopted by the translator. Generally, the shifts appear to conform to the TL norms.

2.4. Modulation refers to situations of asymmetry between languages, for instance, in communicative interactions in oral interpreting of specialized languages, and in literary translations, with the types of shifts mentioned above. A study of the shifts from ST to TT is also extremely useful in assessing the norms that characterize language in parallel specialized corpora, and in developing hypotheses regarding the links that exist between text types, translation strategies and the norms governing the patterning of translational behaviour against a given socio-cultural background. According to S. Laviosa (2002: 86), the strategies of modulation and transposition with modulation correlate with legal texts very well. To conclude, whatever the type of text may be, the translator’s ability to use the TL appropriately is an absolutely fundamental requisite. The translator has to overcome the difficulties in formulating the sentences in the TL. The translation strategy of modulation, combined with some other strategy (strategies) will help the translator formulate the TT in such a w ay that it may sound natural to a TL native speaker.

Bibliography: o Avădanei, C. (2000) Construcţii idiomatice în limbile română şi engleză, Iaşi: Editura Univ. “Al. I. Cuza”. o Cacciari, C. and Glucksberg, S. (1991) “Understanding idiomatic expressions: the contribution of word meanings”, in G.B. Simpson (ed.), Understanding Word and Sentence, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 217-240. o Chesterman, A. (1997) Memes of Translation, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. o Chuquet, H. and Paillard M. (1987) Approche linguistique des problèmes de traduction, Gap : Ophrys. o Dumitriu, C. (1994) Gramatica limbii române explicatǎ, vol. 1, Iaşi : Ed. Virginia o Gutt, E.-A. (1991) Translation and Relevance, Oxford: Backwell.

45 o Gutt, E.-A. (2000) Translation and Relevance. Cognition and Context, Manchester and Boston: St.Jerome Publishing. o Hofstede, G. (1991) Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, London: McGraw-Hill. o Katan, D. (2004) Translating Cultures. An Introduction for Translators, Interpreters and Mediators, Manchester, U.K. and Northampton MA: St. Jerome Publishing. o Kelly, L. (1979) The True Interpreter, Oxford: Blackwell. o Newmark, P. (1988) A Textbook of Translation, Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. o Nunberg, G., Sag J.A., Wasow, Th. (1994) “Idioms”, in Language, 70/3, pp. 491-538. o Salkie, R. (1997) “Naturalness and contrastive linguistics”, in B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and P.J. Melia (eds.), Proceedings of PALC ’97, Lódź: University of Lódź, (1997), 297-312. o Salkie, R. (2001) “A new Look at Modulation”, in Translation and Meaning, part 5, pp. 433-441, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. o Sperber, D. and Wilson D. (1995) Relevance (2nd edition), Oxford: Blackwell. o Titone, D., Connine, C. (1999) “On the compositional and noncompositional nature of idiomatic expressions”, in Journal of Pragmatics, 31/3, pp. 1655-1674. o Van Hoof, H. (1989) Traduire l’anglais, Paris and Louvain-la-neuve: Duculot. o Vega-Moreno, R.E. (2001) Representing and Processing Idioms, UCL Working papers in Linguistics, 13, pp. 73-107. o Vinay, J.-P. and Darbelnet J. (1958) Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais, Paris : Didier. o Vinay, J.-P. and Darbelnet J. (1995) Comparative Stylistics of French and English, translated and edited by Juan Sager and M.-J. Hamel, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. o Wills, W. (1994) “Translation processes and procedures”, in R. Asher and J. Simpson (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, vol. 9, Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 4747-4756.

Corpus: o Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms (1998), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (CIDI) o Caragiale, I.L. (1983) Conu Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea, Bucureşti: Editura Ion Creangă.

46 o Cowie, A.P. et al. (1975) Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English, vol., 1-2, Oxford University Press. o Creangă, I. (1995) Memories of My Boyhood, translated by Ana Cartianu and R.C. Johnston, Sibiu: Editura Universităţii „Lucian Blaga”. o Croitoru, E. (2004) English through Translations, Galaţi: Editura Fundaţiei Universitare „Dunărea de Jos”. o *** Dicţionartul explicativ al limbii române (1975) Bucureşti: Editura Academiei (DEX) o *** Dicţionartul limbii române (1937) Bucureşti: Editura Academiei (DLR) o Dimitrescu, F. (1982) Dicţionarul de cuvinte recente, Bucureşti: Ed. Albatros. o Dumistrăcel, S. (1997) Expresii româneşti, Iaşi: Ed. Institutul European. o Leviţchi, L., Bantaş, A., Gheorghiţoiu, A. (1981) Dicţionar frazeologic român-englez, Bucureşti: Ed. Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică. o *** Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) Longman Dictionaries.

ASPECTS OF TESTING ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

Ágnes G. Havril Corvinus University of Budapest. Centre of Foreign Languages for Social Sciences

The explosion of the second industrial and scientific revolution in this century has caused English to become the ‘lingua franca’ of the international community. English language became a natural link within multi-cultural, multi-lingual societies and a vehicle for international communication. As a result of the above mentioned social, economic, technological and scientific changes teaching and testing ESP have been improving all over the world. We see ESP movement all around us in colleges and universities (English for Academic Purposes) and in adult schools (English for Vocational Purposes) as well. ESP testing is largely addressed to adult learners who require English language competence to further their education or to perform a social or working role. After a short history of ESP and the development of several ESP testing theories, a precise definition of specific purpose testing as communicative language testing will be given. The characteristics of

47 communicative general language testing and communicative ESP testing will be compared and contrasted. A research on the nature of specific purpose language ability is reviewed, which indicates that specific purpose language ability is an interaction between specific purpose background knowledge and language ability.

1. A short history of ESP Certainly, a great deal about the origins of ESP could be written. Notably, there are three reasons common to the emergence of all ESP: (1) the demands of a Brave New World, (2) a revolution in linguistics, and (3) a focus on the language learner. (Hutchinson and Waters 1987) Hutchinson and Waters note that two key historical periods breathed life into ESP. First, the end of the Second World War brought with it an ‘…age of enormous and unprecedented expansion in scientific, technical and economic activity on an international scale, and for various reasons, most notably the economic power of the United States in the post-war world, the role [of international language] fell to English’ (1987: 6). Second, the Oil Crisis of the early 1970s resulted in Western money and knowledge flowing into the oil-rich countries. The language of this knowledge became English. This new focus on international markets and cooperation in technology and commerce motivated people to begin learning English for specific purposes. In reaction to these new market demands, a new approach to English language learning emerged. This new approach became more specialised branch of general language learning described in terms of learners’ purposes for study, namely purposes general, occupational/vocational and academic in nature. So English has previously decided its own destiny, it now became subject to the wishes, needs, and demands of people other than language teachers. The second key reason cited as having a tremendous impact on the emergence of ESP was a revolution in linguistics. Whereas traditional linguists set out to describe the features of language, revolutionary pioneers in linguistics began to focus on the ways in which language is used in real life communications. They also pointed out one significant discovery that spoken and written English vary. In other words, given the particular context in which English is used, the variant of English will change. This idea was taken one step further. If a language in different situations varies, then tailoring language instruction to meet the needs of learners in specific contexts is also possible.

48 ESP teaching and learning has been strongly influenced by the contemporary emergence of the communicative approach to language teaching. Communicative language teaching, in contrast to more traditional approaches to language teaching, focuses on: 1. effective and socially appropriate communication not only grammatical patterns, 2. learner needs and interests in course content not only a set of linguistic criteria, and 3. meaning not only form and correctness.

ESP has made use of the communicative language teaching paradigm, because it focuses on real language use outside the classroom. The final reason Hutchinson and Waters (1986) cite as having influenced the emergence of ESP has less to do with linguistics and everything to do with psychology. The Age of the Person is described by Curran (1982) and others (Tarone and Yule 1991) as humanistic and participatory learning, where the learner, self-determined and involved, is at the helm, facilitated by an egalitarian teacher. The focus in this approach is on the learning process itself, with what learners bring to the learning process, in terms of personal experience and needs. Teachers are resources and co-learners who support learning and act as catalysts. Learner autonomy and learner and teacher interdependence are the aims of this approach. ESP, then, has embraced this learner-centred approach to language teaching. Learner-centredness is demonstrated in asking learners to articulate their reasons and needs for study, and through learner involvement and input into course content and outcomes. The approach, while focusing namely on processes, does not ignore product. ESP teaching seeks to have learners meet the real-world demands for communication and interaction, whether oral or written and active or passive skills are required.

2. Assessing English for Special Purposes One of the main concerns of my research is to arrive at a firm description with respect to the identity of ESP tests, and to demonstrate clearly how ESP testing can be distinguished from general English as a Foreign Language (EFL) testing and, furthermore, how communicative language ability can be assessed.

2.1 EFL and ESP tests There has been a consensus among the experts that ESP testing is a special form of communicative language testing. Though there are a lot

49 of similarities between the EFL and ESP tests (such as target-orientation; objective testing; reliability and validity; test methods; test development; piloting; marking criteria; practicality; washback effect etc.), ESP tests differ from general language tests in two basic ways. First, the tasks in ESP tests reflect specific language use more than general tests do. Second, non- linguistic background knowledge plays a more significant role in ESP tests. Widdowson (1983) claims that the ESP problem is rather atheoretical, and says that ESP has no status in theory. Davies (1990) agrees that ESP tests are not theoretically justified, but he states that, ‘tests of Language/English for Specific Purposes (LSP/ESP) are indeed possible, but they are distinguished from one another on non-theoretical terms. Their variation depends on practical and ad hoc distinctions that cannot be sustained.’ (Davies 1990:62) Although there are many concepts offering a detailed theoretical rationale for ESP testing, other approaches underline the distinctive features between ESP and EFL tests. Table 2 contrasts the characteristics of EFL and ESP tests as seen by West (1998).

Table 1: Contrastive features of EFL and ESP tests (West 1998:50)

GENERAL EFL TESTS ESP TESTS General or social content Specific/specifiable content

Wide test population Narrow/closely defined test population

Objectives derived from textbooks or Objectives derived from target situation syllabus Predictive validity is rarely important Predictive validity is important

Detailed needs analysis is difficult Detailed needs analysis is straightforward

Often concentrate on competence/usage Usually concentrate on performance /use

Four skills given equal coverage Skills tested according to need

Skills usually tested in isolation Skills may be tested in combination

Texts/tasks often not authentic Texts/tasks normally authentic

Scoring often norm-referenced Scoring normally criterion-referenced

50 It is generally accepted that ESP tests cater for a narrower test population than EFL tests and they aim to assess specific knowledge in terms of skills, functions or subject-specific fields. ESP test constructors may decide to test linguistic ability separately, or to give equal weight to listening, speaking, reading and writing. Most ESP testing teams give equal coverage to the four basic skills and reject the idea of integrated skills-testing. These decisions represent a practical compromise since the framework intends to cater for various disciplinary areas where the importance of these skills might be very different. (The needs analysis can explore the target language use situations clearly.) Of course, the testing of integrated skills would result in higher situational authenticity and it would make language performances less comparable across disciplines. Certainly, the overall picture is not as straightforward as this comparison might suggest, since a number of EFL proficiency tests set out to assess use as well as usage and employ criterion-referenced marking. We can say that the right column of Table 2 summarises the main characteristics of performance-based ESP tests, where the constructors, by means of different needs analysis techniques, first look at the discourse domain associated with the special field to be tested in terms of skills, functions and tasks (i.e. target language use situations), and then select representative tasks to be sampled by test items. The test-takers’ linguistic performance is usually compared to criteria derived from the target language use in the form of ‘can-do’ statements. Thus, the predictive validity of ESP tests, in general, is assumed to be high.

2. 2 Theories of ESP and ESP testing Several theories have been developed over the past few decades. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) define ESP as a learning-centred approach and see ESP’s ‘coming of age’ with the introduction of the target situation analysis, which followed register and rhetorical analysis. They emphasise the need to concentrate ’less on differences and more on what various specialisms have in common’ (1987:19). In their view the primacy of language use over specialist content is stressed. With regard to language use, they follow Munby’s (1978) watershed approach which focuses on target language use analysis and concentrates on functions and skills. Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) take a more cautious stance when they claim the primacy of language use and state that ‘ESP is centred on the language (grammar, lexis, and register), skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these activities’ (1998:5). At this stage ESP is defined as real-life instances of academic and professional communication which has to be taught and tested.

51 The latest developments in ESP/LSP testing make a compromise which resembles the Dudley-Evans and St John approach and it does not examine the candidate’s specialist factual knowledge, although special background knowledge plays a significant role in test performances. Consequently, ESP assessment criteria formulate candidates’ output more in linguistic terms than in the successful completion of the task itself. The most up-to-date and commonly accepted theory of ESP testing was developed by Douglas (2000). He discusses three problems in ESP/LSP testing, and gives a theoretical justification and framework for this testing. The main concerns of his approach are the following. In ESP testing (1) the test content and the test methods are derived from a needs- analysis of the characteristics of the specific target language use situation. Consequently, (2) the test tasks and content are authentically representative of tasks in the target situation, which (3) allow an interaction between the test taker’s language ability and specific purpose content knowledge, and the test tasks. The tests, constructed by the disciplines of the above, allow the examiners to make inferences about the test taker’s capacity to use language in a specific purpose domain. (Douglas 2000:19) The highly valid characteristic of ESP tasks and content can be achieved by detailed needs-analysis of specific texts, carried out before constructing the ESP test. In the process of needs analysis the best way is to use the SSI technique (Spolsky 1995), which is based on the cooperation of a subject specialist informant and a professional language teacher. The role of needs analysis in the LSP/ESP setting evolved through similar phases of development. Munby (1978) is best known for his development of a Communication Needs Processor, which was a tool for analysing what language would be required for various target situations based on analysis of purposes, topics, settings, participants and mediums. Thus we can find out the communicative needs that are prerequisite to the appropriate specification of what to be taught and what to be tested. Tarone and Yule (1991) suggest that determining what to teach/test involves both the learning aims and language aims of the learner. They make clear that it is the learner and the learner’s knowledge, perceptions and needs that are the greatest source of information in planning language courses/tests. Brindley (1989) observes that two types of needs analyses have emerged: product and process. A product-orientation to needs analysis involves analysis of target communication situations. A process-orientation defines needs as ‘the situation’. The difference between product and process needs analyses correlate with Hutchinson and Waters’ (1987) distinctions between target needs (What does the learner need to do in the target situation?), and learning

52 needs (What does the learner need to do in order to learn?). The focus on the latter is what is considered a learner-centred approach to needs analysis itself. Needs analysis before ESP test construction, must focus on specific information about the communicative behaviours of language users. The authenticity (Bárdos 2002) of tasks does not refer to the nature of spoken/written texts said/written by natives, but it means that the test tasks share critical features of tasks in the target language use situation which are of interest to the test-takers. It is probable that the test-takers will carry out the test task in the same way as the task would be carried out in the actual target situation (i.e. business or economic situation). Consequently, ESP test tasks must simulate the features of a target language use situation and thus reflect real life situations. Another crucial part of Douglas’s concept is specific purpose language ability, which is based on Widdowson’s theory (1979) of authenticity. Since the publication of Widdowson’s Explorations in applied linguistics (1979) authenticity is viewed in the following way: Not as a quality residing in instances of language but as a quality which is bestowed upon them, created by the response of the receiver. Authenticity in this way is a function of the interaction between the reader/hearer and the text which incorporates the intensions of the writer/speaker… Authenticity has to do with appropriate response. (Widdowson 1979:166) In response to this, authenticity is a function of an interaction between a language user and a discourse, and it proposes two aspects of authenticity: situational and interactional. The situational aspect is composed of authentic characteristics derived from a needs analysis of tasks in the target language use situation, the features of which are realised as test task characteristics. Thus, situational authenticity can be demonstrated by making the relationship between the test task characteristics and the features of tasks in the target language use situation explicit. The interactional aspect of authenticity involves the interaction of the test taker’s specific purpose language ability with the test task. The extent to which the test-taker is engaged in the task (by responding to the features of the target language use situation embodied in the test task characteristics), is a measure of interactional authenticity. Douglas (2000) also emphasises that both these aspects are present in specific purpose language tests, and claims that these inseparable duel components engage the test takers’ communicative language ability. In conclusion, he states that performances on specific purpose test tasks can be interpreted as evidence of specific purpose communicative language ability. Of course, the

53 measurement of specific purpose language ability depends on the interaction between the language knowledge of the test-taker and the specificity of the test input. Before explaining the terminology of specific purpose language ability, I will have a look at the models of language ability.

3. Assessing communicative language ability

3. 1 Models of communicative language competence The definition of language proficiency has always been an intriguing task for those who have tried to measure or assess this multiplex trait in any way. The early models of language ability proposed by Lado (1961) or Caroll (1961) distinguished between knowledge components (phonology/graphology, grammar, vocabulary) and skills components (reading, writing, listening, speaking), but did not say how these components were interrelated in the concept of language proficiency. It was Chomsky (1965), who first made distinction between the notions of competence and performance asserting that competence is ‘the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language’, and this is different from ‘performance which is the actual use of language in concrete situations’ (Chomsky 1965:4). Chomsky conceives of knowledge as a mental state which has an absolute quality. In contrast to Chomsky’s (1965) obvious interest in the knowledge of language, Hymes (1972) was concerned with the fact that a crucial factor of this knowledge is appropriate language use. Communication is always context-specific and depends on the negotiation of meaning between participants. So Hymes (1972) introduces a socio-linguistic element. His two dimensional model thus reflects a broadened view of communicative competence, which comprises both aspects of knowledge and ability for use. The concept of ability for use encompasses both cognitive and non- cognitive factors which are not necessarily specific to language performance alone. For Hymes, it is part of competence to know ‘when to speak, when not … what to talk about, with whom, when, where and in what manner’ (1972:27). Theorists assert that the communicative competence of a foreign language learner has to be viewed differently from that of a native speaker. Restrictions in a foreign language user’s grammatical and sociolinguistic competence necessitate an additional skill, which came to be called strategic competence by Canale and Swain (1980), later modified by Canale (1983). The components of sociolinguistic competence

54 (sociocultural rules of use and rules of discourse) were separated by Canale and thus, he ended up with the famous four-component model of communicative competence: 1. Grammatical competence (concerned with the mastery of the language code); 2. Sociolinguistic competence (addresses the appropriateness of utterances both in terms of meaning and form); 3. Discourse competence (concerns mastery of how to organise speech or writing into a cohesive and coherent whole); 4. Strategic competence (composed of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to enhance the effectiveness of message conveyance). This formulation of communicative competence thus includes the knowledge of how language is used to achieve a particular communicative purpose. Bachman’s (1990a) model of Communicative Language Ability (CLA) features similar characteristics but is based on research in the field of language testing. He ‘attempts to characterise the process by which the various components interact with each other and with the context in which language use occurs’ (Bachman 1990a: 84). His proposed framework of communicative language ability encompasses three components: 1. Language competence (specific knowledge components utilised in language use) consisting of organisational and pragmatic competence. 2. Strategic competence, which means the mental capacity for implementing the components of language competence in contextualised communicative language use and establishes the relationship between language competence and features of the situation. 3. Psychophysiological mechanism referring to the neurological and psychological process behind the physical execution of language. Mc Namara (1995) notes that Bachman’s framework is a major step on the way to conceptualising language performance in test settings by separating strategic competence from language competence and thus enabling test developers to make theoretically grounded claims of measuring communicative language ability. Bachman’s model was revised by Bachman and Palmer (1996), and underlined the fact that language use has an interactional nature and that interactions are complex and multiple. Both language test performance and non-test language use are proposed to be described by the same components:

55 1. personal characteristics, 2. topical knowledge, 3. affective schemata, 4. language knowledge/ability, 5. strategic competence. Language knowledge (previously termed language competence by Bachman 1990a) comprises (1) organisational knowledge (controlling the formal structure of language), (2) pragmatic knowledge (relating utterances to their meanings and speaker intentions) and is available for use by (3) metacognitive strategies termed strategic competence. The three identified operations of the metacognitive components are goal setting, assessment, and planning, which provide a cognitive management function in language use.

3. 2 ESP tests as communicative language testing In his book of Communicative language testing Weir (1990) involves all the above mentioned concepts, and gives a precise and detailed definition of communicative tests: In testing communicative language ability we are evaluating samples of performance, in certain specific context of use, created under particular test constraints, for what they can tell us about a candidate’s communicative capacity or language ability. (Weir 1990:7) The key-terms of Weir’s definition are the following: communicative language ability, specific context of use, test constraints and capacity. Douglas (2000) proposes that specific purpose language testing has the same characteristics since specific context of use refers to the field specific context, and in these ESP test situations the candidates’ communicative language ability is called the specific purpose language ability.

4. Specific purpose language ability or communicative specific purpose language competence Drawing on Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) Second Language (SL) framework Douglas (2000) developed a model called Specific Purpose Language Ability, which includes three components: language knowledge, a modified formulation of strategic competence and specific purpose background knowledge, In this framework (see Table 2) language knowledge consists of grammatical knowledge (knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, syntax and phonology), textual knowledge (knowledge of how to structure and

56 organise language into larger units: rhetorical organization; and how to mark such organization: cohesion), functional knowledge (knowledge of the ideational, manipulative, heuristic and imaginative functions of language), and sociolinguistic knowledge (sensitivity to dialects, registers, naturalness and cultural references and figures of speech). Strategic competence comprises the process of assessment (evaluating the communicative situation and engaging a discourse domain, a cognitive interpretation of the context), goal setting (deciding whether and how to respond to the situation), planning (deciding what elements of language and background knowledge are required), and control of execution (organizing the required elements to carry out the plan). Background knowledge here refers to specific purpose background knowledge related to academic, professional or vocational contexts. There are a few studies which suggest that, background knowledge does not influence test performance to any significant degree, but, on the other hand, several other studies found significant interactions between background knowledge and language test performance. It appears that under some conditions, where test content and tasks are sufficiently specified, background knowledge makes a difference to language test performance. In ESP test situations specific purpose background knowledge and language knowledge will interact, resulting in a performance that can be interpreted as specific purpose language ability. In Douglas’s model strategic competence serves as a mediator between background knowledge and language knowledge, controlling the interaction between them. Thus the engagement of strategic competence is of central concern in ESP testing. As a cognitive aspect, strategic competence is responsible for assessing the characteristics of the language use situation ( including the language user’s own background and language knowledge, as well as, subsequently, assessing the success of communicative response to the situation), setting communicative goals, planning a response in light of goals, and controlling the execution of the plan. This is the essence of the interactionist perspective of communicative specific purpose language competence, which results an authentic specific purpose language performance that can be measured and evaluated on ESP examinations. Douglas defines specific purpose language ability in ESP testing as follows: “Specific purpose language ability results from the interaction between specific purpose background knowledge and language ability, by means of strategic competence engaged by specific purpose input in the form of test method characteristics”. (Douglas 2000:40)

57 The biggest problem for specific purpose language testers is to understand the conditions that influence ESP test performances. Until such features are understood and controlled, true ESP test development, authenticity in test performance and valid interpretation of language test results are to be elusive goals. Specific purpose test developers need to be aware of this aspect of ESP testing.

Table 2: Components of specific purpose language ability (Douglas 2000: 35)

Specific Purpose Language Ability

LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE

Grammatical knowledge Knowledge of vocabulary Knowledge of morphology and syntax Knowledge of phonology Textual knowledge Knowledge of cohesion Knowledge of rhetorical or conversational organization Functional knowledge Knowledge of ideational functions Knowledge of manipulative functions Knowledge of heuristic functions Knowledge of imaginative functions Sociolinguistic knowledge Knowledge of dialects/varieties Knowledge of idiomatic expressions Knowledge of cultural references

STRATEGIC COMPETENCE

Assessment Evaluating communicative situation or test task and engaging an appropriate discourse domain. Evaluating the correctness or appropriateness of the response. Goal setting Deciding how (and whether) to respond to the communicative situation. Planning Deciding what elements from language knowledge and background knowledge are required to reach the established goal. Control of execution Retrieving and organizing the appropriate elements of language knowledge to carry out the plan.

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Discourse domains Frames of reference based on past experience which we use to make sense of current input and make predictions about that which is to come.

58 5. Conclusion The aim of this paper was to introduce different theories of ESP testing policies and present the latest research on the model of specific purpose language ability. As there is a big demand for ESP learning and ESP testing worldwide, the test developers and the language examination centres have to realise the differences between ESP and general EFL testing, and have to be familiar with the current results of ESP researches in theory and in practice too.

Bibliography: o Bachman, L. F. (1990) (a) Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. o Bachman, L. F., Palmer, A. S. (1996) Language Testing in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. o Bárdos, J. (2002) Az idegen nyelvi mérés és értékelés elmélete és gyakorlata. Budapest: Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó. o Brindley, G. (1989) The role of needs analysis in adult ESL programme design. In: Johnson, R. K. (ed.) The Second Language Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. o Canale, M. (1983) From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy. In: J. C. Richards. and R. W. Schmidt (eds.) Language and Communication. London: Longman. o Canale, M., Swain, M. (1980) Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics. 1. 1-47. o Caroll, J. B. (1961) Fundamental considerations in testing for English language proficiency of foreign students. In: Testing the English Proficiency of Foreign Studies. Washington D. C.: Center for Applied Linguistics. 30-40. o Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press. o Curran, C. (1982) A linguistic model for learning and living in the new age of the person. In: Robert, B. (ed.) Innovative Approaches to Language Teaching. Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers. o Davies, A. (1990) Principles of Language Testing. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. o Douglas, D. (2000) Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

59 o Dudley-Evans, A. and St John, M. J. (1998) Developments in ESP: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. o Hutchinson, T., Waters, A. (1987) English for Specific Purposes: A Learning-centered Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. o Hymes, D. (1972) On communicative competence. In: Pride, J. B., Holmes. J. (eds.) Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 269-293. o Lado, R. (1961) Language Testing. London: Longman. o McNamara, T. (1996) Measuring Second Language Performance. London and New York: Longman. o Munby, J. (1978) A Communicative Syllabus Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. o Spolsky, B. (1995) Measured Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. o Tarone, E. Yule, G. (1991) Focus on the Language Learner. Oxford: Oxford University Press. o Widdowson, H. (1979) Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University. Press. o Widdowson, H. (1983) Learning purpose and language use. Oxford: Oxford University Press. o West, R. 1998. Proficiency Testing. Manchester: The University of Manchester School of Education Distance Learning. o Weir, C. (1990) Communicative Language Testing. New York: Prantice Hall.

TRANSLATION AND INTERCULTURALISM

Tamara Lăcătuşu “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iaşi

Sunt trecute în revistă consideraţii referitoare la valoarea culturală şi estetică a traducerii, precum şi aspecte legate de statutul traducerii şi al traducătorului în viziunea unor personalităţi de frunte ale culturii noastre (Vl. Streinu, Camil Petrescu, Cezar Petrescu, Al. Philippide, Perpessicius, G. Călinescu, M. Sebastian, Pompiliu Constantinescu, Dr.Protopopescu, P. Grimm, M. Eliade, T. Vianu etc), aprecieri prezente în paginile unor reputate periodice literare din România (Viaţa Românească, Adevărul literar şi artistic, Ideea Europeană, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, precum şi în câteva de mai mică anvergură, cu referire specifică la traduceri din engleză în prima jumătate a secolului al XXlea. De asemenea, în consonanţă cu evoluţia conceptului de receptare – cu accent tot mai evident pe factorul receptor – şi în strânsă legătură cu

60 dezvoltarea studiilor interculturale, se fac referiri succinte cu privire la mutaţile care au survenit în ceea ce priveşte abordarea traduceri în deceniile mai apropiate de noi, în deosebi după ce , începând cu anii 70, translatologia a dobândit statut independent.

Translations have been and, - in spite of the present-day globalizing tendencies – will undoubtedly continue to be one of the oldest, most efficient and most widely used means of receiving a literature and a culture, in another culture. In other words, translation is an important cultural mediator. But, besides the cultural value, equally important is its literary, aesthetic value since translations stir creative virtues in the receiving literature, activating and enhancing latent criteria and triggering new ways of thinking by the contact with the sensitivities and imagination of the “other”, obliging and training – creators and public alike – by implying the manipulation of a language capable of capturing and transmitting all this potential in a work of art, of re-creation. Consequently, the way in which a literature is received depends to a great extent on the quality of the translations. That is why aspects regarding the status of both translation and translator – the latter having obtained a social and literary status only in the seventh decade of the last century – have preoccupied men of culture in our country, especially beginning with the XXth century, with the increase of the number of translations from foreign literatures into Romanian, reflecting, at the same time, a greater openness of our reading public to other literatures. Most often prestigious Romanian literary journals such as Viaţa Românească (VR), Revista Fundaţiilor Regale (RFR), Ideea Europeană (Id. E), Adevărul literar şi artistic (ALA) – to mention only the most important ones – housed opinions on this topic, advocating, on the one hand, the role played by translations in the development of national literatures, and on the other, drawing the attention upon the dangers of neglecting the specific requirements implied in translating. Even as early as 1906, Garabet Ibrăileanu1, for instance, included in his perspective of national specificity the necessity of the contact with other literatures, contact that could be achieved through translations, among others, asking imperiously that they should be achieved poetically, based on congeniality between author and translator, and be elaborated by people gifted for translations, who should also master both languages. The literary market in Romania was literally invaded with translations, especially in the third and fourth decades of the last century and since, with few exceptions, they were of very poor quality, the studies dedicated to them increased as well, both in number and in the vehemence

61 of tone. Thus, reviewing the over 200 articles present in the literary journals in the first half of the XXth century, we could identify a great number of issues regarding the theory of translation, some of them extremely topical. There was unanimity as to the necessity of translations – even if occasionally there were voices that still saw in them a danger for the national literature – while opinions differed in as far as the possibility of achieving them was concerned. Although theoretically certain linguists were skeptical about the possibility of achieving an absolute equivalent translation, practice proved the contrary since most literatures of the world have become accessible to the public in different countries and ages by translations first of all. On the other hand, there were others who considered that translating meant paraphrasing with talent, opinion which was shared and put into words later in his well-known guide for translators from English into Romanian, by Leon Leviţchi2: A traduce sau a parafraza bine înseamnă a reda în limba ţintă, cu cea mai mare fidelitate posibilă conţinutul de idei, structura logică şi emoţională a originalului din limba sursă în aşa fel încât transpunerea să aibă asupra receptorului efectul pe care îl are originalul şi, prin corectitudinea limbii ţintă, să nu semene a traducere. Concerning the translatability of a text, very popular at the time was Croce’s idea, namely that prose can be translated but poetry not, since, according to him, it loses in translation its very content, the whole charm of the original creation. Contradicting him, Vladimir Streinu3 argues that the same thing happens in the very act of creating poetry, where there is always something that remains ‘unsaid’. So if we accept such an idea with poetry, why shouldn’t we in the case of translation since both are acts of creativity. Another issue that started controversies at the time was that of literary or literal translations. Criticizing G. Murnu’s translations from Homer, Camil Petrescu4 requires “accuracy” (exactitate) and “not killing grammar”(nesiluirea gramaticii), stating that, by not having observed these, the translator manifested ambitions of reforming the language (“veleităţi de reformare a limbii”). In return, Tudor Vianu5 agrees that there are no perfect translations but then he adds that an “adaptation formula” should be found, like that used by Murnu when translating from Homer. On the same line, regarding the limits of the translator’s competence, Gabriel Ţepelea6, commenting on Ortega y Gasset’s On the Troubles and Splendour of Translations, concludes that a translation should not be the transposition of one word from one language into another but the rendering of one corner of a world to another, the introduction of one civilization to another one. In other words, a larger intellectual frame should be at work, of

62 forming an image about the “other”, of “otherness”. As to its status, the translation is not the original work itself but the way to it, that is the mediator between work and the reader („traducerea nu poate pretinde că repetă sau substituie originalul ci doar că se apropie de original”). In this respect, Gasset does not seem to favour the elegant, fluent translations from the classics but the scientific ones, accompanied by explanations and foot notes. Based on such considerations, Ţepelea rejects what he calls “the parrotism” („papagalismul”) of translations with us, the depreciatory epithet referring both to the inflation of translations in certain epochs and to their not observing the required exigencies, as well as to the professional disqualification of those who carried out such “orders”. In translating poetry, Al. Philippide7 considers that tone represents its capital attribute. Accordingly, a good translation of poetry means finding the necessary equivalent for rendering the tone of the original. Rejecting the idea of a perfect equivalence (sustained exaggeratedly by V. Odobeşteanu8), Philippide considers that a translated poem is “the good sister of the original, never its perfect duplicate”. Regarding translations from theatrical texts, in the first two decades of the last century few remarks were made on their quality and they were usually inserted in the comments on performances, but gradually the necessity of translating from the original is more and more strongly outlined, by highlighting the shortcomings of appealing to intermediary languages – French, German – in translating Shakespeare’s theatre, for example: Hamlet, and Nevestele vesele, (translated by Adolph Stern), Othello (translated in verse by D. Nanu, 1913), King Lear, (translated by Ludovic Dauş). The contradictory comments on such translations were proof of the increased exigency of both specialists and public. Along the same line, Emil Isac9 raises the problem of the imperious necessity of high quality translations from European drama, for the achievement of which he suggests organizing competitions and prize awards in order to select the best versions since, he says, the existing translations “answer neither the current exigencies of language nor the increased expectations of the public”. On the problem of how a dramatic text should be translated, opinions were divided: Al. Davila10, taking as models Baudelaire’s translations from Poe, pleads for a correct translation of verses in prose, while Ion Gorun11 prefers such texts translated in verse (like Goethe’s Faustus). Also, other critics, such as Sân-Georgiu12, N. Kiriţescu13 and Ion Marin Sadoveanu14 share the opinion that the translation of plays should be carried out by theatre people, since they are used to the stage and know how to turn to good use the “literary beauty” of such texts.

63 Critics and outstanding men of letters of the time, such as Perpessicius, G. Călinescu, M. Sebastian, expressed their views on matters regarding the status of translations. Thus M. Sebastian15 considered that “translation can be an instrument for acquiring knowledge”, while Perpessicius16 supported the idea that by translations “literature gets enriched by the direct contact with other literatures”, and G. Călinescu17 believed that “the expanse and quality of translations indicate the level of a culture, marking thus the stage reached by a people”. This was the time when translation began to enjoy “a status of equality with that of the original literature” (Stefan Ion18), becoming not only an exercise, but also “a consciousness for the writer, leaving behind the motive stage...and becoming a domain of creation parallel to the original” (Radu Boureanu19), as proved by the wonderful translations made by Zaharia Stancu (from Esenin, or from Poe). Revealing that translations are almost always dependent upon the system which is destined to receive them, Pompiliu Constantinescu20 insisted on the aesthetic and educational functions of translations, as well as upon their literary consequences, seeing translations not only as “a factor of culture and of cultivating the masses of readers but also as a matter of literary education”. By invoking foreign models, and insisting on the active role of translations, critical voices raised in support of a sustained activity for accurate and valuable translations, militating for a literature of translations (Lucullus21), as they may contribute to the “nationalization of the foreign work, to its getting rooted with us” (I.C22), in other words good translations “enrich the national literary patrimony”, opening wide horizons to our literature, enriching its vocabulary, and improving it both in quantity and in quality” (Leon Donici23), far from the danger of “suffocating the native literature” (Dragoş Protopopescu24). Focussing on the status and qualities of the translator, literary and cultural authorities demanded that the translating activity should have scientific rigour, artistic qualities, and formative finality, that is the translator should: translate from the original, master the two languages, be endowed with artistic sensitivity, render the text integrally, and, possibly, select from a writer’s works the most significant one” (Donici25), underlining the fact that “being a good translator is equally honourable as being a good poet” (Streinu26), that “the translator is a creator”(Cerbu Eman27), not a mere reproducer or imitator. Commenting further on this problem, N. Iorga28 suggests that the translation should be made not by a “philologist” but by a “remarkable writer”, who has gone deep into the soul and ideology of his own language, but has also accommodated the spiritual

64 background of another language, appreciating that the choice made by a people from the literature of another people plays an extremely important part in appreciating the soul of the former at that moment. Pompiliu Constantinescu29 made remarks on the importance of the existence of empathy between writer and translator, and on “the difficulty of finding the ideal translator, endowed with both structural affinities and expressive means”, while S.Grosu30 recommended that translations should not be made by just any literary adventurer but be entrusted to acknowledged men of letters, men of genuine talent recruited from among the writers’ elite, an idea completed by M. Ralea31, who, commenting ironically on the lamentable level of general culture, insisted that the translator should also be a genuine intellectual “in a country with no such species.” The criticism of translations raised polemics at the time, some of the opinions being generated by Lovinescu’s theory of the impossibility of judging objectively a work of art which circulates and is known only through translations; but the opposite view was also sustained by the example set by Andre Gide. Alarmed at the poor quality of the translations circulating at the time, and in view of supervising the quality of translations, Perpessicius32 makes pragmatic recommendations and speaks of the necessity of setting up publishing houses – with “committees for reading”, “quality control offices”, and “publishing projects” – which should guarantee the appearance of good translations, insisting that a national organism should look after all the problems related to writing and publication of books, to be supported by a proper cultural and financial strategy. Cezar Petrescu33, on the other hand, insisted upon the necessity of founding a library meant to popularize world literature, on condition that “translations should be signed by writers and not be improvisations”. Even more pragmatical was M. Sebastian34, who raised the issue of the status and function of the translators, as well as of their small retribution, recommending that the quality of translations should be paid more critical attention to, the same way as it was done with film scripts. Also in view of protecting the author and of stimulating the responsibility for the translated text a recommendation was made to include in the translation contract a clause “of good and trustworthy rendering”‚ as well as to admit the legal rights of paying damages to the foreign writers whose work had been translated poorly. Among the suggestions35 made for the improvement of translation quality – inspired from the translations of the great Greeks tragedians in French – were included comparative analyses of the Romanian versions as

65 well as the use of samples of all the methods employed if the same text was translated in several versions. The causes of the poor quality of translations were identified in: - the rush in which translations were made, especially for commercial reasons, since publishing houses wanted to satisfy promptly the readers’ demand for popular sensational romance and adventure books (Jul. Giurgea, the most “prolific” translator in the fourth and fifth decades, was called by G. Călinescu36 an industrious “grammar killer” - agramat industrios); - absence of knowledge of literature and of literary and historic background, accompanied by omissions from the original texts - The Vicar of Wakefield, wrongly attributed to W. Scott, published by Alcalay was reduced, with no reason, from 600 to 280 pages. Such manifestations were rightly criticized. P. Nicanor (G. Topârceanu)37 took vehement attitude against the translations published by Cultura Naţională, made by incompetent translators, who “massacrated” both the foreign writers and the Romanian language; Ioan Botez “demolished” Adolph Stern’s translations from Shakespeare; - absence of knowledge of English (English began to be taught as an academic subject only starting with the second decade of the last century), which accounted for the fact that most translations were made through intermediaries (French, German) - absence of proper working instruments – accurate bilingual dictionaries, literary histories etc. The only exception was Petre Grimm’s extensive study, published in 1924, Traduceri şi imitaţiuni româneşti după literatura engleză. Besides analyzing a great number of translations and imitations after a considerable number of British authors (Young, Ossian, Byron, Th. Gray, Pope, Th. Moore, Milton, Shakespeare, Th. Hood, Tennyson, Longfellow, Robert Browning, Elisabeth Browning, Wilde, Swinburne, Yeats), the author makes pertinent considerations and recommendations about the requirements of a good translation – the translator should master the two languages, should translate directly from the original, should be congenial with the author. He strongly sustained that the translator should use comprehensive dictionaries in order to find the finest nuances and equivalents, and thus avoid what he called “cultural calamities”, and also enrich our language, as former generations of poets and writers had done. (The other two important tools to help the translator were to appear much later: Dicţionar al literaturii engleze - coordinators: Ana Cartianu and Ioan Aurel Preda - in 1970, and Leviţchi’s Indrumar...,. in 1975.) And Grimm put to practice these recommendations. He was a brilliant translator. His translations from both English into Romanian (all

66 fragments from Traduceri...were translated by him) and from Romanian into English (10 of Eminescu’s poems, in 1938) were highly acclaimed by his contemporaries (“s-a găsit un isteţ şi afectuos traducător în persoana lui Petre Grimm”, Robert Burns, poetul ţărănimei – book review in Id. E, 1925; traducerile lui Petre Grimm redau „duhul lui Eminescu şi expresia limpede şi elegantă a versului englez”, appreciated Jean Naum38). Not the same can be said about the translations made by Dr. Protopopescu, a refined man of culture, fervent propagator of British literature in Romania. His Romanian version of Hamlet (1938) was criticized by G. Călinescu39, who did not consider the Romanian Anglist gifted for translations (chiar dacă foarte adesea versiunea este „netedă şi elegantă” îi lipsesc un „deosebit simţ pentru limbă” sau „un dar remarcabil de exprimare”), which, again, is proof of the fact that mastering the two languages is not enough. Yet, in spite of cases when everything was ruined in translation (language, contents, message, as was the case of Henry Marcus’s translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, (1922, 1935), some wonderful translations were made at the time, especially by poets and writers, thus having a stimulating effect upon the Romanian literature: Şt. O. Iosif’s, Visul unei nopţi de vară, 1913, (from German), was appreciated by Petre Grimm as „una dintre cele mai frumoase, uneori chiar mai frumoasă decât originalul” or Topârceanu’s, (probably from French) 1921, which, although criticized by Iorga - who considered it “useless”- was praised by Dan Grigorescu40, especially for its lyricism, in spite of certain inexactitudes or differences in rhyme and rhythm („este plină de lirism, trădând poetul din traducător şi apropiindu-se prin aceasta de spiritul lui Shakespeare”). Coşbuc’s rendering into Romanian of Byron’s Mazeppa (1877, 1924, from German and probably Hungarian), in spite of its being longer than the original, was highly valued for the dynamic verse, rich and clear language („are vers vioi, curgător, limbă bogată, limpede dar textul e ceva mai lung decât originalul.”41). Good reviews were also written about the beauty of the translations made by two gifted poets and translators: AL. Philippide and Ion Pillat. (Şerban Cioculescu42, commenting upon the latter’s beautiful translations – from Chaucer, Milton, Marvell, Donne, Shakespeare, Shelley, - remarked that, in Yeats’ case, the translator was “attracted by the Celtic specific of his message”, while Dragoş Protopopescu43 was impressed by the beauty of the poet’s translations from Eliot, qualifying them as beautiful - „frumoase”). From prose, highly appreciated for accuracy, atmosphere and beauty of the Romanian language was Wilde’s Prinţul fericit, translated by Igena Floru („făcută cu o rară luare aminte”, „păstrează, discret şi exotic, în

67 ostroavele limbii noastre, mireasma ascuţită anglo-saxonă” – Id. E, 1922, „alegerea cumpănită a cuvintelor, armonia şi libertatea limbii”- ALA, 1923). Also Al. T. Stamatiad’s translations in prose of Wilde’s poems (1936) enjoyed Vianu’s44 positive comments for their minuteness, dynamic equivalence, dignity („reuşeşte să dea o existenţă independentă şi românească artei complicate şi spirituale a lui Oscar Wilde. Este o operă în primul rând de demnitate...”). As to translations for the theatre, the only one worth considering was Haig Acterian’s, included in his monograph on Shakespeare (1938). Mircea Eliade45 admired this translation mainly for the admirable rhythmical prose, and for the selection of the fragments, chosen especially for illustrating the dramatic technique, as the translator was a well-known man of the theatre („traduceri foarte izbutite, făcute de un om care simte firesc ritmul frazei rostite pe scenă, realizând o admirabilă proză ritmică”). This retrospective view on the state of the art of translation in the first fifty years of the last century brings to the fore the conclusion that in spite of the shortcomings and difficulties encountered – understandable to a certain extent, yet not acceptable –, the preoccupations regarding the quality of translations gradually increased both in number and in vehemence of tone, and that the palette of gifted translators diversified, and, as a result, several of the translations, published over the above mentioned period, can be considered successful, even though on the whole, because of deficiencies in a stricter official selection, certain authors and/or works were to “re-live” their existence later, in higher quality versions. Naturally, this increase in quality is closely related to the changes that were to occur in close connection with the evolution of the very concept of reception – focusing more and more evidently on the receivers, on their expectations – which, beginning with the 70’s, and coupled with the development of intercultural studies, has led to mutations regarding the approach to translations, which has thus become the independent discipline of translation studies. Going beyond linguistic boundaries, and considering translation as a cultural factor, this discipline studies systematically the penetration and dissemination of a text across boundaries, as well the bilateral effect, on both cultural systems, of the source as well as of the receiving language. Starting from the old pragmatic precepts of the nature and difficulties of translating, going through the computerized techniques after World War II in USA, new definitions were given to untranslatability, and to the nature of linguistic equivalence. Thus distinctions were made between linguistic un-translatability (Catford, 1965) – based on lexical and syntactic differences between source and target language, and cultural untranslatability – based on the absence in the receiving culture of certain

68 situational characteristics, which are relevant in the source culture). In his turn, the American sociologist, Eugene Nida, (1964) distinguished between two types of equivalence: formal (focused on the form and content of a text) and dynamic (focused on the equivalent effect between receivers in both cultures, source and target). More topically, and laying even greater stress on the receiving culture, in the 80’s, the School of Tel-Aviv, with its polysystems theory, connected translation directly to the history of culture, focusing on the reception of the text in the target culture. Integrating the different trends existing in the theory of literature, cultural and linguistic studies, the Manipulation Group stressed the ideological implications of translation, underlining the role of cultural politics in determining the whats, whys, hows of a translated text, while the American and German schools insisted on the manipulation operated by editors and compilers of anthologies. With deconstructivists, the concept of the original, the problems of meaning, interpretation, and relevance are deconstructed. Other developments see translation as intercultural transfer, the space between the two cultures being no longer regarded as a no man’s land but one with a double status: of both indicator and catalyser for the translation/ interpretation of “otherness”, all of these, naturally, having more pragmatic consequences, with influences on the didactics of analyzing, teaching translation, and/or interpretation, the latter one – especially interpreter for conferences - as statistics have recently shown - having all chances to become an elite profession with our integration in EU. Nevertheless – and observing the proportions, of course – we could conclude by saying that, except for the sophistication and focalizing definitions of these terms, the “kernels” were present in many of the opinions expressed by those who were concerned with issues of translations and translating even back in the first half of the last century.

Notes: 1 G. I., Traducerile, Viaţa Românească, Anul 1, Nr. 9, 1906, p. 451-453. 2 Leon D. Leviţchi, Îndrumar pentru traducătorii din limba engleză în limba română, Bucureşti, Editura ştiinţifică şi enciclopedică, 1975, p.8 3 Valdimir Streinu, Poemele lui Poe în româneşte , în Pagini de critică literară, vol. I, Bucureşti, EPL, 1968, p. 354-367 4 Camil Petrescu, Delimitări critice. Limba literară, Revista română, An I, Nr. 2, 1924, p. 3-16 5 Tudor Vianu, Răspuns d-lui Petrescu, Revista română, An I, Nr. 3,4, 1924, pp. 16-20

69 6 Gabriel Ţepelea, Despre mizeria şi splendoare traducerilor, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, An X, Nr. 7, iulie 1943, pp.181-185 7 Al. Philippide, Arta de a traduce versuri, România literară, An. I, Nr. 30, 1939, p. 708 8 Victor Odobeşteanu, Reminiscenţe, traduceri, înrâuriri, Orizont, 1940- 1941, p.36 9 Emil Isac, Traducerile, Rampa nouă ilustrată, An III, 1919, p.599 10 Al. Davila, Traduceri, Rampa nouă ilustrată, An VIII, Nr. 2108, 3 nov., 1924,p.1 11 Ion Gorun, În versuri sau în proză?,Rampa nouă ilustrată, An VIII, Nr. 2121, 1924, p.1 12 Ion Sân-Giorgiu, Traducerile pentru teatru,Rampa nouă ilustrată, An XIV, Nr. 3487,6 sept., 1929, p. 1 13 N. Kiriţescu, Traducerile, Rampa nouă ilustrată, An XIV, Nr. 3491, 11 sept.,1929, p. 1 14 Ion Marin Sadoveanu, Traducerile, Rampa nouă ilustrată,An XIV, Nr. 3404, 1929,1 iun., p. 1 15 Mihail Sebastian, La nord cu Polonia, Rampa nouă ilustrată, Nr. 5101, 13 ian., 1935, p.1 16 Perpessicius, Traducerile, Cuvântul, An IV, Nr 1171, 2 aug., 1928, p.1 17 G. Călinescu, Traduceri, Adevărul literar şi artistic, An XIV, Nr. 73, 29 sept., 1935, p.9 18 Ştefan Ion, Traducerile, Universul literar, 1941, p. 109 19 Radu Boureanu, Spiritul traducerilor, Flăcări, 1, Nr. 3, 25 dec.,1938, p.7 20 Pompiliu Constantinescu, Problema traducerilor, Săptămâna CFR, An IV, Nr. 26, 25 nov., 1943, p.5 21 Lucullus, Traducerile cu creionul, Rampa nouă ilustrată, An IV, Nr. 834, 1920,p. 756 22 I.C., Traducerile, Patria, An II, Nr. 247, 1920,p.10 23 Leon Donici, Traducerile, Flacăra, An VII, Nr. 40, 1922, pp. 629-630 24 Dragoş Protopopescu, Problema traducerilor, Spectator, An I, Nr. 8, 25 nov., 1943, pp. 1-2 25 Leon Donici, idem. 26 Vladimir Streinu, op. cit., p. 352 27 Cerbu Eman, A traduce bine, Rampa nouă ilustrată, An VI, 1921, p. 64 28 N. Iorga, Stil şi traduceri, Ramuri, An XXI, 1927, pp. 3-4 29 P. Constantinescu, Traducerile, Vremea, An XIV, Nr. 643, 1942, p.3 30 Sorin B. Rareş, Traduttore, traditore, Mioriţa, An XXVIII, Nr. 1535, 11 iunie 1936, p. 2 31 M.Ralea, recenzie la Vedenii a lui Paul Zarifopol, Viaţa Românească, An XVII, Nr. 2, 1925, pp.309-311

70 32 Perpessicius, Editura de stat, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, An XII, 1945, p. 209 33 Cezar Petrescu,Traducerile, Cuvântul literar şi artistic,An 2, Nr. 3, 1925, p. 10 34 M. Sebastian, Note despre traduceri, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, Nr. 219, febr., 1940, pp. 432-435 35 Călin Alex, Valoarea literară a traducerilor, Rampa nouă ilustrată, An VI, 1922, p.2 36 G. Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini până în prezent, Bucureşti, Minerva, 1986, p. 946 37 P. Nicanor, Fond şi formă, Viaţa Românească, An XV, 1923, p. 9 38 Jean Naum, Eminescu în literatura engleză, Convorbiri literare, An LXXII, Nr. 6-7-8-9, 1939, pp.1277-1284 39 G. Călinescu, Hamlet de Shakespeare, traducere ,Adevărul literar şi artistic, An XVIII, seria III, Nr. 910, 1938, p. 17 (Cronica literară) 40 Dan Grigorescu, Shakespeare în cultura română modernă, Bucureşti, Minerva, 1971, pp. 177-178 41 Leon Baconski, George Coşbuc, The Translator, Romanian Review, Nr. 2, 1965, p. 35 42 Şerban Cioculescu, Ion Pillat, traducător, România literară, An XXI, Nr. 21, 1988, p. 7 43 Dragoş Protopopescu, Lirism englez contemporan, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, Nr. 12, 1936, p. 696 44 Tudor Vianu, Traduceri din Oscar Wilde, Sburătorul, Nr. 15, 1918, pp. 351-352 45 Mircea Eliade, Cu prilejul unui Shakespeare, Revista Fundaţiilor Regale, An. V, Nr. 3, 1938, pp. 650-653

Bibliography: o *** (1996) A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory, Edited by M. Paine, Blackwell Publishers, 540-541 o ***(1997) Bibliografia relaţiilor literaturii române cu literaturile străine în periodice (1919-1944), Vol. I, Academia română, Bucureşti: Ed, Saeculum I, O o Călinescu, G. (1941, 1986), Istoria literaturii române de la origini până în prezent, Bucureşti: Minerva o *** (1970) Dicţionar al literaturii engleze, A. Cartianu, I. A. Preda (Coords) Bucureşti: Editura ştiinţifică o Dima, Al. (1974) Aspecte naţionale ale curentelor literare internaţionale. Studii sintetice, Bucureşti: Cartea Românească

71 o Duţu, Al. (1979) Modele, imagini, privelişti, Cluj –Napoca: Dacia o Grigorescu, D. (1997) Introducere în literatura comparată. Teoria, Bucureşti: Editura Universal Dalsi o Grimm, P. (1924) Traduceri şi imitaţiuni româneşti după literatura engleză, în Dacoromania, An III, Cluj o Ionescu, G. (1981) Universul traducerii, Bucureşti: Univers o Iser, W. (1995) On Translability: Variables of Interpretation, in Anglistentag 1994, Proceedings, ed. Wolfgang R. and H. Keiper, Niemeyer, Tubingen o Jaus, H.-R. (1978) Experienţă estetică şi hermeneutică literară, traducere şi prefaţă de A. Corbea, Bucureşti: Univers o Leviţchi, L. (1975) Îndrumar pentru traducătorii din limba engleză în limba română, Bucureşti: Editura ştiinţifică şi enciclopedică o Lăcătuşu, T. (2000) Cultură şi comunicare. Raporturi literare româno- engleze: 1900-1950, Iaşi: Junimea o Nord, C. (1991) Text Analysis in Translation, Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi o Păduraru, O. (1946) Anglo-Roumanian and Roumanian-English Bibliography, Bucureşti: Imprimeria Naţională o ***(1975) The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Harvey, P. (ed), (4th Edition),OUP o Vianu, T. (1956) Literatura universală şi literatura naţională, Bucureşti: ESPLA

Literary journals Adevărul literar şi artistic Orizont Convorbiri literare Revista română Cuvântul Revista Fundaţilior Regale Ideea Europeană Sburătorul Noua revistă română Vremea Rampa nouă ilustrată Universul literar Ramuri Viaţa Românească

THE CHALLENGE OF CULTURE SPECIFIC ELEMENTS

Carmen Maftei

“Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Studiul de faţă abordează problema elementelor de cultură specifice limbii române atât de numeroase şi totodată atât de greu de trasnpus într-o limbă străină. Exemplele au fost selectate din cartea Ilenei Vulpescu, Arta conversaţiei care până în

72 prezent nu a fost tradusă în limba engleză. Propunem şi două modalităţi de clasificare a acestora pe lângă variante de traducere şi câteva noţiuni teoretice.

The present paper aims at providing a broader perspective of the Romanian culture specific elements that frequently create translation difficulties. Since all languages differ both in grammar and vocabulary the issue of untranslatability often raises when confronted with the task of rendering certain words or structures in the target language. As Susan Bassnett (1991: 32) mentions Catford’s dichotomy regarding the concept of untranslability, distinguishing between linguistic and cultural untranslability. Linguistic untranslability refers to the case when there no lexical or syntactical equivalent in the target language for a source language term. Cultural untranslability is said to be due to “the absence in the target language culture of a relevant situational feature for the source language text”. (Bassnett 1991: 32) In both cases it is the translator’s task to render the meaning of a particular word, concept or structure in the target language by providing the most suitable equivalent. The translator is thus placed between the two different cultures, each having its own customs and traditions. Furthermore, the translator explores the culture of the target language in order to identify the equivalent of the source–language term, or if there is no equivalent, to render the exact meaning employing other lexical means. From this point of view, the culture specific elements of the source language may cause translation difficulties whether they are lexical units, collocations, idioms, phrasal verbs etc. The translator has to choose between several translation techniques none of them flawless: word-for- word, literal and free translation. (Croitoru, 1996:17) Some argue that literal translation overlaps the word-for-word translation technique, others regard it as a “close grammatical translation.” (Dimitriu, 2002:21) Since it is not the purpose of this paper to work out this debate we shall resume these words which do not have an equivalent in the target language and which are called realia and for which the specialists have suggested two variants to deal with. One possible variant is to preserve the word as it is in its source language and explain its meaning. The other variant is to try to translate the word by providing an explanatory periphrase in the target language even if it involves the risk of the semantic loss or gain. From this point of view, translation difficulties are caused not only by realia but also by archaisms, archaic words, regionalisms, etc.

73 However, there are cases when a word belonging to an internationally used language is preserved as such in the target language even if there is a semantic equivalent for it in the target language. For example, the Romanian language has taken the term “week-end” from English, currently employed both by young and old people as it is shorter and easier to use than its Romanian equivalent. This kind of terms are called lexical borrowings and their use on a large scale is due to either being shorter and easier to be pronounced or being made public by multi- media. Numerous linguists have praised the expressiveness of the Romanian language, expressiveness which is very difficult to transpose in another language and which is focused upon the meaning of certain words, thus emphasizing the semantic abundance of the Romanian language. Romanian culture specific elements referring mainly to customs and traditions require a great deal of effort to be transposed into another language. When translating poetry, the translator has to provide English equivalents that would render as close as possible the meaning of the word from the source text. Furthermore, this aspect is even more challenging, as the rhetorical equilibrium of the poem has to be preserved as well as its musicality and power of suggestion. In case of prose, the theory of translation suggests, as it was mentioned before, that the translator could preserve the term from the source text, when there is no English equivalent (this is called code switching) and provide some explanatory footnotes. The paper will demonstrate that this method cannot be applied in all cases. Since the Romanian language abounds in culture specific elements we thought it would be more interesting to select these terms from Ileana Vulpescu’s Arta conversaţiei, a well-known book, written by a famous Romanian writer, which has not been translated into English so far. Each term identified is presented in its context and we provide possible variants of translation.

[1.] borş, plachie

“Păi, mă gândeam că burta o frigem pentru Well, I thought we would fry the fish for the ăştia mici, iar noi, adulţii şi adolescenţii – kids, and for us, the grown-ups and teenagers, - şi cu un gest plin de deferenţă o arătă pe showing Maria with a respectful gesture, - for Maria – noi trei, un borşic cu leuştean şi-o the three of us, to cook some nice sour fish soup plachiuţă.” (p.31) with lovage and fried fish with onion and tomatoes.

The dictionary of the Romanian language explains the term borş as being a “zeamă cu gust acru, preparată din tărâţe fermentate; ciorba preparată cu această zeamă”. (Breban, 1980:63)

74 Leon Leviţchi (1994:126) suggests that the term should be translated by “sour bran and water” when it refers to the substance the dish is made of, and by “bortsch” when it refers to the dish itself. According to the Webster dictionary the meaning of the term borscht (or borsch) differs from the meaning of the Romanian term, thus it is explained as “an Eastern European soup containing beets and usually cabbage, served hot or chilled, often with sour cream.” (Webster, 1996:172) Therefore, the suggested term does not render semantically the meaning of the Romanian term. The variant we suggested, sour fish soup with lovage is an explanatory periphrase, which renders the meaning of the source term. The other term selected in this example, plachie, cannot be rendered by one-word equivalent in the target language. Leon Leviţchi (1994:598) suggests “kind of fish meal (cooked with onion and oil)”. We chose an explanatory periphrase for this term as well, fried fish with onion and tomatoes. As it can be noticed the two terms discussed so far are diminutives in the source language, which cannot be rendered in the target language. In order not to be accused of any semantic loss we did not use the adjective little since the source-language term does not refer to quantity but it has an affective connotation that is why we preferred to use the adjective nice. In the next example, the first culture specific element is “bundă”, explained as “un cojocel scurt, fără mâneci pentru femei şi bărbaţi.” (Breban, 1980:69) For this term Leviţchi (1994:137) suggests an explanatory periphrase “sort of long furred coat worn by men”. In this context the term refers to a fur coat without sleeves worn by women during winter. The explanatory dictionary (DEX, 1998:119) also provides the term pieptar, which is a regionalism but which refers to the meaning of the term. Our suggested variant involves an explanatory periphrasis, which we thought it best renders the meaning of the source-language term: sleeveless fur coat.

[2.] bundă, opinci

“Sînziana se gândea la Iulia Vlas, fata aceea Sînziana was thinking about Iulia Vlas, about that zdravănă şi veselă, care parc-atunci coborâse vigorous merry girl, who looked as if she had just din munte şi de-abea apucase să-şi lepede come down the mountain, and managed to take bunda şi opincile ca să se-mbrace de oraş.” off her sleeveless fur coat and opinci (a kind of (p.89) moccasins made of pigskin, worn in ancient times by Romanian peasants) to put on her Sunday clothes.

75 For the other culture specific element identified in this example, “opinci” Leviţchi (1994:558) suggests “peasant sandals” variant that does not entirely render the meaning of the original term. Thus, “opincile” are made of leather, especially pigskin, as the term is explained in a Romanian dictionary, “cu marginile încreţite şi răsfrânte în sus, strânse pe picior cu ajutorul nojiţelor.” (Breban, 1980: 400) An English term which is almost synonymous with the Romanian term is “moccasin” explained as “a shoe made entirely of soft leather, as deerskin, worn originally by the American Indians”. (Webster, 1996: 920) We suggest to keep the original term in the target language and to provide an explanatory periphrase: (a kind of moccasins made of pigskin, worn by Romanian peasants). The term moccasins was preferred as the target readership are familiar with its meaning and as it partly renders the meaning of the original meaning.

[3.] parastas, pomelnic, colaci, colivă

“Bunicii mei dinspre tată muriseră înainte My father’s parents had died long before I was ca eu să mă nasc. De mică-am auzit mereu born. Since I was a little girl I have heard the words cuvintele “parastas”, “pomelnic”, “colaci”, “memorial service”, “diptych” (the list of the dead “colivă” şi le vedeam materializate.” persons in a family), “colaci” (knot-shaped bread), (p.153) “colivă” (boiled wheat, with honey or sugar and nuts distributed at funerals in memory of the deceased) and I have actually seen them happening for real.

According to the dictionary, “parastas” is explained as “(în cultul creştin) slujbă religioasă făcută pentru pomenirea morţilor”. (Breban, 1980:415) Leviţchiţ’s variant is “requiem, office for the dead.” Our variant memorial service renders the semantic content of the original term, besides, it is frequently used in the target language and the natives are familiar with its meaning. The next term to be discussed is “pomelnic”, explained as “lista cu numele persoanelor pe care le pomeneşte preotul la slujbe şi rugăciuni”. (Breban, 1980:452) Leviţchi (1994:608) translates it by “diptych” term which means: “a. A similar tablet of wood or metal containing on one leaf the names of those among the living, and on the other those among the dead, for whom prayers are said; b. the lists of such persons.” (Webster 1996: 326) For the following terms we have no other choice than to preserve them in the target language and to provide explanatory periphrases. Thus, we chose Leviţchi’s variant for “colac”, namely “kind of fancy bread, knot- shaped bread”. (Leviţchi, 1994: 202)

76 Leviţchi’s variant for “colivă” is: “boiled wheat (with honey and nuts) distributed at funerals in memory of the deceased.” (Levitchi, 1994:203) Another variant that can be used is an explanatory periphrasis: sweet wheat porridge that Romanian people make for funerals.

[4.] Mioriţa

“Când am citit prima oară Mioriţa, m-a When I first read Miorita, I was seized with a cuprins un sentiment de revoltă…” (p. 241) feeling of revolt…

Mioriţa is one of the most famous myths of the Romanian culture, which proves the existence of the Romanian people in the space between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube. There are more than one thousand variants of this epical poem, which proves its symbolic value. According to the specialists (Ionescu 2000:123) there are not frequent cases when the title is preserved as in the source language but this can happen in the following situations: a. when it cannot be translated into the target language, meaning that by translating that term too much cultural background would be lost; b. when it is a proper name; c. or when the target readership is familiar with the concept . Since the term has no English equivalent and it is a well-known concept already we prefer to preserve the original term.

[5.] mămăliga

“În momentul acela, ca la teatru, din Just then, as if they were on stage, M’am Leana and bucătăria de vară, care, de fapt era un Alexandru Bujor showed up from the kitchen, şopron în fundul curţii, au apărut coana which was nothing but a shed at the back of the Leana, ducând victorioasă o tavă pe care se yard. She was joyfully fetching a tray, with a roast lăfăia un pui rumen, şi Alexandru Bujor chicken laying on it, whereas Alexandru Bujor had care-ntr-o mână ducea un castronaş iar în a little bowl in one hand and a platter in the other cealaltă un fund de lemn pe care aburea o with a steamy mamaliga (a Romanian dish made of mămăligă bună să saturi din ea o gloată.” boiled maize flour usually used instead of bread) (p. 276) laying on it, big enough to feed an army.

It seems that one of the first English people who mentioned this dish specific to the Romanian cookery was William Wilkinson, British consul in Bucharest, in his book, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, the first edition being published in 1820. We preferred to preserve the original term in the target language and to provide explanatory periphrase. Webster provides another term which has almost the same meaning, belonging to the Italian cuisine “polenta” = (esp. in Italian cooking) “a thick mush of corn meal” (Webster, 1996:1112) but which may

77 be translated into Romanian by “mămăligă de mălai sau grâu.” (Dict. acad., 1974: 546) We don’t know whether the target readership is familiar with this term from the Italian cuisine. Another variant may be to explain the meaning of the original term in the target language – “huge steamy corn mush” but the main drawback is that by back translation the original term might not be reached. A problem of non-equivalence may also be caused by “bucătărie de vară”, which is a room or a space in the Romanian countryside outside the house, where housewives cook during summer, usually having an oven made of clay or bricks.

[6.] sarmale, piftii, caltaboşi, toba

“Aveam şi noi de Crăciun pe masă We had for the Christmas dinner, like all the other oala cu sarmale, piftii, caltaboşi, tobă Christians, a pot of sarmale (forcemeat rolled in – ca tot creştinul.” (p. 187) cabbage or wine leaves); piftii (aspic of pig’s trotter / meat jelly); caltabosi (a kind of black pudding); toba (a kind of pudding boiled in the skin from a pig’s stomach/ mosaic salami).

These culture specific elements selected from this example are also specific to the Romanian cookery. Even if there are certain terms, which are similar to them in English, they do no have the same meaning. Therefore, “sarmale” cannot be rendered otherwise than by preserving the original term followed by an explanatory periphrasis, variant also suggested by Leviţchi (1994:681) “forcemeat roll of cabbage or wine leaves”; piftie – “aspic of pig’s trotters; meat jelly”. (Leviţchi, 1994:594) The Romanian term caltaboş is explained as “un fel de cârnat făcut din măruntaie de porc cu orez şi ingrediente” (Breban, 1980:74). In English there is the term “pudding” or even “black pudding” which can be translated by “caltaboş din sânge şi grăsime de porc.” (Dict. Acad., 1974:569) For the following term, we preferred to explain its meaning in the target language, thus, tobă = a kind of pudding boiled in the skin from a pig’s stomach. Webster provides the term “haggis” = “a dish made of the heart, liver, etc of a sheep or calf, minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned and boiled in the stomach of the animal”. (Webster, 1996: 636) However, this term does not render the semantic content of the Romanian term; its Romanian translation being usually drob.

[7.] ie

“Eram îmbrăcată cu ce-aveam eu mai bun pe- I was wearing the best clothes I had then and

78 atunci şi care şi azi e tot ce am mai bun ca- which are still my best clothes even today: a mbrăcăminte: o fustă neagră de triple voile de black triple voile wooden skirt, (…) and an ie lână, (…) şi cu o ie de pânză topită, cusută cu (Romanian peasant women’s blouse with hand- mărgele verzi, cusută de Maica, mama made embroidery) made of cambric, beaded with Mamei.” (p. 363) green beads, sewed by granny, my mother’s mum.

An important element of the Romanian national costume is called ie and it is “o cămaşă femeiască ornamentată cu broderii sau cusături pe mâneci, pe piept şi la guler”. (Breban, 1980:261) The term cannot be translated into English therefore it will be preserved as such and later explained. The English term “cambric” might render the meaning of the fabric the particular type of blouse is made of “a thin, plain cotton or linen fabric of fine close weave, usually white” (Webster 1996:213), its back translation being: “pânză de in foarte subţire”. (Dict. acad., 1974:100) The source language terms “cusută cu mărgele verzi”, means that it is decorated with “bead”, the term bead being translated as a noun by “mărgea, perlă, mărgăritar” but also by a verb “a împodobi cu mărgele, a coase mărgele la…”. (Dict. acad., 1974:55) We preferred this variant as it is more suggestive and it renders the meaning of the original. The Romanian term “maică” is explained as a “termen de politeţe folosit pentru a vorbi cu (sau despre) o femeie (mai) în vârstă.” (DEX, 1998:593) Out of the possible variants we chose “mum” as it is a term which suggests affection in spoken English.

[8.] Doină

“Brusc, sculptorul mi-a-ntors spatele şi i All of a sudden, the sculptor turned around towards s-a adresat gazdei: “Ioane, te rog fă-mi un the host and said: “Ioane, please do me a favour; sing hatâr; cântă-mi o doină haiducească.” (p. an outlawry doina (elegiac song specific to 365) Romanian lyrical folk poetry and music) for me, will you?”

To render in English the meaning of the Romanian term “doină” we can employ an explanatory periphrasis “outlawry folk song” but which unfortunately does not render entirely the meaning of the original term. According to the dictionary, a doina is “poezie lirică specifică folclorului românesc, care exprimă un sentiment de dor, de jale, de revoltă, de dragoste, etc, fiind însoţită, de obicei, de o melodie adecvată”. (DEX, 1998:314) The English readership was first made familiar with the Romanian term in 1834, when E. C. Grandville Murray translated and published the volume The Doinas or the National Songs and Legends of Romania in

79 London. Therefore, we prefer to preserve the original term in our translation and to explain it.

[9.] clăcaşi, boier

“Ce-ar zice străbunii mei să vadă o fată din What would my great-grandfathers say neamul de clăcaşi ai lu’ Pribeagu ş-ai lu’ when a girl descending from the Pribeagu Dorobanţu, măritată cu un strănepot al boierului and Dorobanţu bondmen families marries Ienache Kreţulescu?!” (p. 459) one of the great – grandsons of boyar Ienache Kreţulescu?

The Romanian term “clacaş” is explained as “un ţăran obligat să facă clacă (= muncă gratuită pe care ţăranul iobag era obligat să o presteze în folosul proprietarului de pământ.” (Breban, 1980: 100 – 101) Its English equivalent might “bondman” and by back translation we reach the meaning of the original term: “iobag, serb, clăcaş”. (Dict. Acad., 1974: 77) The Romanian term “boier” is usually rendered by the term “boyar”. The term also appears in William Wilkinson’s book, “the population is divided into three distinct classes: the Boyars or nobles, the tradesmen, the peasants…”. (Wilkinson, 1820:60) However, it cannot be rendered by “landowner”, as its meaning differs from that of the Romanian term, “an owner or proprietor of land.” (Webster, 1996:805). In Romanian, a “boier” is “mare stăpân de pământ (care deţinea uneori şi o funcţie înaltă în stat); persoană din aristocraţia feudală, nobil, stăpân.” (DEX, 1998:105) The term we preferred, namely “boyar”, is explained as “a member of the old nobility of Russia, before Peter the Great made rank depend on state service; a member of a former privileged class in Rumania.” (Webster, 1996:177) If we try to make a classification of the Romanian culture specific elements selected for this paper, it would have three main branches:  food or dishes, examples in point being: borş, plachie, colivă, mămăligă, sarmale, piftii, caltaboşi, tobă, colaci, etc.;  shoes and clothing: ie, opinci, bundă, etc.  customs and traditions: pomană, parastas, horă, doină, etc. Another classification of these culture specific elements can be made according to their variants of translation into the target language:  terms preserved as such in the target language: Mioriţa,  Romanian terms used with English spelling: boyar,  terms explained in the target language: sour fish soup with lovage, fried fish with onion and tomatoes, sleeveless fur coat,

80  equivalent terms for the original ones: diptych, memorial service, black pudding, etc.  terms preserved in the target language, followed by explanatory periphrases: mamaliga (a Romanian dish made of boiled maize flour usually used instead of bread), doina (elegiac song specific to Romanian lyrical folk poetry and music) ie (Romanian peasant women’s blouse with hand-made embroidery) sarmale (forcemeat rolled in cabbage or wine leaves) According to the specialists, a successful translation is achieved when by back translation the same variant it is be reached conveying the same stylistic effect. (Bantaş, 1998:23) As it was demonstrated, most culture specific elements are preserved in the target language, first of all because the original term’s power of suggestion. Secondly, because the readership of some other languages become thus familiar with these particular terms and there are chances for them to be preserved in these languages as it happened with terms like pizza, pudding, ice tea, etc. When translating a term into another language the linguistic context is of utmost importance as well as the semantic and the pragmatic one. Nevertheless the cultural and social contexts should also be taken into account. When translating culture specific elements it is the translator’s task to render the meaning of the original term which may refer to a certain time and a certain place. That is why the translator is required to master linguistic and cultural competence in both languages. The study and analysis of these culture specific elements as well as the attempt to translate them in a foreign language is important because they can prove the expressiveness and richness of the Romanian language and also through them Romanian customs and traditions can be conveyed in other languages.

Bibliography: o Bantaş A., Croitoru E. (1998) Didactica traducerii, Editura Teora, Bucureşti o Breban, V. (1980) Dicţionar al limbii române contemporane, Ed. ştiinţifică şi enciclopedică, Bucureşti o Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1991) Translation Studies, Clays LTD. London

81 o Croitoru, E. (1996) Interpretation and Translation, Ed. Porto-Franco, Galaţi o *** (1974) Dicţionar englez – român, Academia R.S.R., Institutul de lingvistică Bucureşti o *** (1998) Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române, Academia Româna, Institutul de lingvistică “Iorgu Iordan”, ed. II, Bucureşti o Dimitriu, R. (2002) Theories and Practice of Translation, Institutul European, Iaşi o Ionescu, D. – C. (2000) Translation Theory and Practice, Editura Universal Dalsi o Leviţchi, L. (1993) Manualul traducătorului de limba engleză, Ed. Teora o Leviţchi, L. (1994) Dictionar englez – român, Editura Thausib, Sibiu o Vulpescu, I. (1997) Arta conversaţiei, Editura Tempus, Ploieşti o *** (1996) Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Gramercy Books, Random House Value Publishing, New York o Wilkinson, W. (1820) An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, (first edition)

SUGGESTED WAYS OF EXPRESSING ‘AKTIONSARTEN’ BY RESORTING TO FVPs. CONTRASTIVE SKETCH: ENGLISH, GERMAN, ROMANIAN

Gina Măciucă “Ştefan cel Mare” University of Suceava

Autoarea lucrării de faţă investighează, într-o primă fază, exemplele de locuţiuni verbale funcţionale extrase din varii surse şi le încadrează în subcategoriile aspectuale cărora acestea le corespund din punct de vedere semantic: ingresiv, punctual, iterativ şi egresiv. Într-o a doua fază, analiza părăseşte perspectiva de ansamblu pentru a aduce în prim-plan locuţiuni cu idiosincrasii de interpretare, precum a-şi ieşi din răbdări, care glisează semantic în ambele sensuri – ingresiv şi egresiv - , de unde şi denumirea de „contradicţie în termeni” care li se poate aplica, şi, pe de altă parte, termenul „aspect tranzitiv”, pe care autoarea îl propune ca reprezentativ pentru comportamentul lor deviant.

82 After painstakingly anatomizing in a previous book (s. DIP) the function verb phrase (FVP)1 in German and tracking down English combinations which display the morphosyntactical pattern, comply with the lexicosemantic criteria and assume the stylistic features, characteristic of “Funktionsverbgefüge” (FVGs), I resume in the present contribution my relentless quest for lexicomorphological conveyors of FVGs, this time in Romanian – a Romance language – and then, in a second stage, try to go with a fine tooth-comb through the semantic and stylistic shifts following in the wake of FVPs as employed by the three languages at issue (German, English and Romanian). Verbal aspect is definitely the bone of contention for researchers of both Romance and Germanic languages. Thus, for instance, when forced to come to grips with this particular problem, Florica Dimitrescu ventures the following opinion: În limba română, aspectul verbal, deşi este destul de important, nu reprezintă un sistem (ca de pildă timpul şi modul) […]. Limba noastră exprimă nuanţele aspective printr-o serie de modalităţi […] în afară de mijloacele lexicale, întrebuinţarea unor verbe semiauxiliare, a unor adverbe, prefixe, elipsa verbelor mişcării, folosirea timpurilor cu nuanţe aspective (imperfectul implică noţiunea de aspect, este durativ, prezentul poate reda o acţiune repetată, este iterativ etc). (1958: 116). As for Romanian verb phrases and their availability for reflecting the category under discussion, the above-quoted linguist argues in much the same vein: Pe lângă procedeele amintite pentru a realiza deosebirile de aspect, limba română se serveşte pe scară largă de locuţiunile verbale. De altfel este şi firesc ca locuţiunile să poată indica aspectul deoarece verbul însoţit de un nume poate ‛spune’ mai mult şi mai detaliat, mai concret decât un verb luat izolat. (ib.) Oddly enough – as the excerpts quoted above intimate beyond the shadow of a doubt -, Florica Dimitrescu seems to be rather oblivious to the clear-cut distinction between the grammatical category of ‘subjective aspect’ and the semantic one of ‘objective aspect’, also labelled ‘Aktionsart’ (cf DIP, subchapter II.4). Strongly corroborating my assumption is also the inclusion of ‘aspect’ in the second set of “grammatical characteristics of verb phrases” (translated by me), which apply exclusively to those possessed of “o serie de însuşiri PARTICULARE, de o factură mai deosebită” (1958:110; capitalized by me). Nevertheless, the subtypes listed and exemplified by the above-cited Romanian author on the following pages of her remarkable book on which I base my analysis are an equally clear indication of the fact that reference is

83 actually being made to Aktionsarten and not to ‘aspect’ proper. The “inchoative” subtype is the first in line, and with good reason too: “De altfel majoritatea locuţiunilor care exprimă aspectul, şi în această privinţă limba română nu constituie o excepţie, indică momentul de început al acţiunii.” (Dimitrescu,1958:117). The vast majority of the examples listed are perfect illustrations of function verb phrases: a o lua la fugă (G die Flucht ergreifen, E take (to) flight), a-şi lua zborul (G abfliegen, auffliegen, E take one’s departure), a da în fiert (G zum Kochen kommen, E come to a boil(ing point)), a da în copt / pârg / pârguială (G zur Reife gelangen, E come to maturity), a da în clocot (G zum Sieden kommen, E come to a boil), a da ploaie, a da ninsoare, a lua în discuţie, (G zur Diskussion / Debatte stellen, E raise for discussion), a se face ziuă (G es wird Tag, E it is beginning to get light). However, mention should be made of the fact that, taken out of their original contexts – which Dimitrescu kept on for appropriate exemplification, a scoate grai and a se da pe rod tend to be used rather infrequently in standard Romanian. Of the latter, in particular, native speakers tend to prefer a transitive variant, a da rod (G zum Tragen kommen, E come into bearing). In the very same study to which we are constantly referring the reader, the Romanian linguist deems it her duty to call our attention to the semantics of the verbs employed in inchoative verb phrases, “care, luate izolat, exprimă o acţiune cu caracter momentan […]” (ib.). What is even more important, she also claims that this peculiar relationship obtaining between verb and corresponding verb phrase holds good for other languages too, in corroboration of which theory she cites, among other examples, the German die Flucht ergreifen. A further thought-provoking remark originating with the same author is the one relating to the so-called ‘doubly inchoative’ combinations which are at heart nothing more than inchoative verb phrases amalgamated with the semi-auxiliary verb a începe or various synonyms thereof. A second subtype listed and exemplified by Dimitrescu includes the verb phrases which she labels “momentary”. As with the previous subtype, the bulk of the examples submitted for illustration are bona fide specimens of function verb phrases: a lua fiinţă (G ins Leben GERUFEN WERDEN, E come into being), a slobozi strigăt (G einen Schrei ausstossen, E utter a cry / a shout / a scream / a shriek, raise a shout / scream), a scoate un oftat / suspin (G Seufzer ausstossen, E breathe / draw / fetch / heave / utter a sigh), a-i trece / plesni prin minte / gând (G in den Sinn kommen / einfallen, E cross one’s mind /

84 flash through one’s mind), a da / se pune în genunchi (G auf die Knie fallen, auf / in die Knie sinken, E fall /go on one’s knees). The third and final subtype which Dimitrescu differentiates is represented by “iterative” verb phrases. From among the examples adduced a face greşeli (G Fehler machen, E make mistakes) stands out as a genuine function verb phrase. The Romanian scholar then appositely remarks that: “Valoarea iterativă […] provine din folosirea numelui la plural. Categoria numărului aplicată unui substantiv exprimând o acţiune, corespunde pe plan verbal unei categorii de ordin aspectiv, în speţă iterativ.” (Dimitrescu, 1958: 118). A comparative survey of the Romanian function verb phrases listed under the three subtypes above and of their German and English equivalents is bound to reveal the legitimate FVP-membership of most of the latter. The few ones defying admittance into this category are a-şi lua zborul – the German equivalent of which is a prefixed verb - , a da ploaie and a da ninsoare, for which both Germanic languages have recourse either to a combination of impersonal construction + semi-auxiliary verb (G es began zu regnen, E it was beginning / began to rain), or – if duration is also of the essence – to multi-word verbs, as in G der Regen setzte ein, E it set in to rain. In order to better illuminate the problem under discussion, I am submitting to the reader’s - hopefully, undivided – attention several additional samples of Romanian function verb phrases illustrating the ‘egressive’ subtype, semantically opposed to the ‘inchoative’ (‘ingressive’) one - , both of which fall under the ‘transformative’ type (cf DIP, subchapter II. 4): a lăsa vorba (G aufhören zu sprechen, E stop talking), a ajunge la o concluzie/hotărâre (G zu einem Schluß/einer Entscheidung kommen, E reach a conclusion/decision), a duce la bun sfârşit (G zum Ende bringen, E bring to an end; amalgamated with the causative type of Aktionsart), a ieşi din uz (G ausser Gebrauch kommen, E go/fall out of use). On closer inspection, some of these function verb phrases turn out to be bona fide ‘contradictions in terms’. So, for instance, the structural similarity to the last example cited above, a ieşi din uz, in conjugation with the semantics of the verb employed , a ieşi din uz, in conjugation with the semantics of the verb employed, a ieşi, might as well induce one to assume that the function verb phrase a-şi ieşi din răbdări (G aus der Fassung kommen, E get into a rage) is also an egressive one. However, its one-word – two-word in fact, to be more accurate, if we count the reflexive in – semantic substitute (a se enerva) seems to point in the opposite direction. Considering the matter more carefully, though, we would be well advised

85 not to dismiss the egressive interpretation altogether, since, in order for the Experiencer to get into a rage or into a tantrum, or fly into a passion, (s)he has first to lose her/his temper, hair or shirt, or, even more metaphorically put, to fly off the handle or to jump out of her/ his skin (s. also G ausser Rand und Band /aus dem Häuschen geraten). Both the function verb phrases and the idioms listed above adduce strong evidence in support of my theory which views the Romanian function verb phrase a-şi ieşi din răbdări (as well as its English and German semantic equivalents E lose one’s patience, G aus der Fassung kommen) as expressing the transition from one state to another, and, accordingly, the choice of one or the other of the two Aktionsart–subtypes as an utterly arbitrary one. In view of the above, I suggest the use of a more appropriate term for defining and describing the idiosyncratic semantic pattern under discussion, namely‚ transitive’ Aktionsart or Aktionsart-subtype – which, to be sure, has absolutely nothing to do with the transitive or intransitive syntactic availability of the function verb phrase in question.

Note 1. ‘Function verb phrase’ (FVP) – the term denoting a verb combination the overall meaning of which is a variant of its verbalized nominal core (e.g. sink into despair ≈ despair (of)) – originates with the German linguist Bernhard Engelen (s. “Zum System der Funktionsverbgefüge”, 1968, WW5, pp 289-303). FVPs usually consist of a verb (function verb), which is the grammatical kernel, a noun (function noun), representing the semantic core – these are the major, i.e. indispensable constituents –, a preposition and/or an article – which are the minor, optional components. Their main contributions to the language reside in: 1) ability to express a wide range of ‘Aktionsarten’ (‘modes of action’), such as causative, transformative, progressive – the main ones – e.g. plunge into terror [caus., transf.], keep in fear [caus., progr.], bring to the boil [caus., transf.], keep under control [caus., progr.], come to the realization [transf.], get into debt [transf.], be in debt [progr.], be in use [progr.], etc; 2) ability to lower or to raise the syntactic valency of the one-word verbal substitute, e.g. take courage (↔ encourage sb to …); 3) FVPs can be resorted to as ways of expressing what I took the liberty to label ‘implicit’ or ‘semantic’ passive (a more vivid variant of the explicit, grammatical one), e.g. come to a vote [= be voted.], get into circulation, come under consideration, undergo a change, fall into oblivion, come into production, come to harm, be in use, find expression. 4) ability to attract rhematic focus, e.g. I suggested sth. → I made a suggestion; 5) FVPs can be had recourse to as means of shifting styles, e.g. set fire to (colloquial) ↔ ignite (formal, elevated), give notice (colloquial) ↔ notify, inform, apprise;

86 6) FVPs are sometimes resorted to when there is no one-word verbal substitute in the language, e.g. catch a cold

Bibliography: o Dimitrescu, F. (1958) Locuţiunile verbale în limba română, Bucureşti o Duda, G., Gugui, A., Wojcicki, M. J. (1985) Dicţionar de expresii şi locuţiuni ale limbii române, Ed. Albatros, Bucureşti o Handwörterbuch I Englisch-Deutsch (1980) Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart o Handwörterbuch II Deutsch-Englisch (1980) Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart o Leviţchi, L., Bantaş, A., Nicolescu, A. (1974) Dicţionar englez-român, Ed. Academiei, Bucureşti o Leviţchi, L. (1973) Dicţionar român-englez, Ed. Ştiinţifică, Bucureşti o Măciucă, Gina (2002) Dubla ipostază a unei construcţii lingvistice: sintagma verbală funcţională în limbile germană şi engleză, Editura Universităţii Suceava, Suceava (DIP) o Savin, E., Lăzărescu, I., Ţânţu, K. (1986) Dicţionar german-român, Bucureşti o Savin, E., Lăzărescu, I., Ţânţu, K. (1986) Dicţionar român-german, Bucureşti o Schemann, H., Knight, P. (1995) Idiomatik Deutsch – Englisch, Ernst Klett Verlag für Wissen und Bildung, Stuttgart – Dresden

FROM PSYCHOANALYSIS TO THE SYMBOLISM OF THE LIMIT IN TRANSLATING AND INTERFERING D. H. LAWRENCE’S POETRY

Camelia Mihăilescu “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu

Translation has been regarded as one of the most complex events produced in the history of mankind and ever since it appeared, more than 2000 years ago Livius Andronicus translated The Odyssey into Latin (240 A.D.). Ever since translation has contributed more and more to the process of communication and communication has depended ever more heavily on translation. The need for a systematic study of translation arises directly from the problems encountered during the actual translation process and it is essential for those working in the field to bring their practical experience to theoretical discussion and, on the other hand, the theoretical rules should be made use of in the translation of texts.

87 Along the time, translation has been perceived as a secondary activity, a “mechanical” rather than “creative” process, as a low status occupation accessible to anyone who has a certain command of a foreign language. Yet, the 20th century translation studies have shown that, far from being an easy task accessible to anyone with a minimal knowledge of another language, translation is, as R. Quirk puts it, “one of the most difficult tasks that a writer can take open himself.”(Quirk, 1974: 175) The idea that translation is far more than a familiarization with two languages is emphasized by Jiry Levy when he declares that: A translation is not a monistic composition, but an interpenetration and conglomerate of two structures. On the one hand there are the semantic content and the formal contour of the original; on the other hand the entire system of aesthetic features bound up with the language of the translation. (in Bassnett, 1991: 5) Getting back to the definition of the term translation, different experts have come up with different definitions of translation. For instance, Susan Bassnett shows that: Translation involves the rendering of a source language (SL) text into the target language (TL) so as to insure that the surface meaning of the two will be approximately similar and the structures of the SL will be preserved as closely as possible but not so closely that the TL structures will be seriously distorted. (1991: 2) This definition points out the following ideas: that the structures must be preserved as far as possible in point of style, that through translation the message must be unaltered in both languages and that, since the languages are not identical in terms of grammatical constructions, in most cases the grammatical structures as well as the lexical ones may differ in the two languages. Many definitions of translation are based on the concept of equivalence. Such an instance is Dubois’s definition (1973): “Essentially, the translation process is the expression in a language of what has been expressed in another by preserving semantic and stylistic equivalence”. The same principle of equivalence lies at the foundation of another definition provided by Hartmann and Stork (1972): “Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in the second language”. This equivalence occurs in different degrees ranging from full equivalence to partial one, depending on the levels (grammatical, lexical, semantic), but never reaching total equivalence. This is due to the fact that languages themselves differ from one another; every language functions according to

88 its own codes and rules which regulate various constructions of grammatical and stylistic structures. Another definition of translation is provided by Leon Leviţchi in his Manualul traducătorului de limba engleză. To him “translating means paraphrasing”, that is conveying as faithfully as possible in the target language the ideas as well as the logical and emotional structure of the source language, so that the translation should have the same effect on the receptor as the original. Leviţchi considers this a “plenary” translation through which as many meanings and nuances as possible are conveyed into the target language. (1994: 6) Translation, therefore, involves the idea of transfer, of movement from the source language to the target language, the necessity to find the closest possible equivalent as well as to preserve as much as possible the characteristics of the original text. Another requirement to be taken into account, while translating a text, is that of properly decoding its deep and surface meanings. Lawrence’s poetry can be approached, on the one hand, through Freudian symbolism (which can be related to surface meaning) and, on the other, through what Liiceanu (2005) called “the symbolism of the limit” (related to deep meaning). These two perspectives bring us closer to Nida’s description of the translation process as a decoding of the message in the SL and its re-coding in the TL. (See Bassnett, 1991: 77-78) We have shifted from psychoanalysis to the symbolism of the limit in approaching D.H.Lawrence’s poetry because of the fact that, in spite of the rich Freudian connotations of some Lawrencian patterns, Lawrence him of disagreed with Freud as concerns the unconscious. For Lawrence all experiences are mental ones, because of the individual’s striving for self consciousness. Lawrence proposes a quasi- biological model consisting of two plexuses (the solar and the cardiac one and eight dynamic centres of feeling as opposed tot the Freudian constitutive elements: the id (as the biological component), the ego (as the psychological component) and the superego (as the social component). It was precisely this disagreement that made me contemplate Lawrence’s poetry from a double perspective: to identify Freudian patterns and to attempt to expand them through the symbolism of the limit. I felt encouraged in my attempt due to the rich connotative of the syntagm of the symbolism of the limit which has also become an efficient means of decoding and re-coding the meaning of Lawrence’s poetry in our double enterprise: that of interpreting and of translating two of the most significant and less familiar poems of this British author.

89 So, the concept of the limit can be approached resorting to four Greek terms, closely related to one another. The first one is “peras” (Liiceanu, 2005: 165) which means limit. The second is “pero” (Liiceanu, 2005: 165) and it signifies, either, the idea of moving between two limits (for instance from one point to another) or of surpassing the limit. The third is “poros” (Liiceanu, 2005: 165) and it means “a pathway, a passage, a bridge.” Associated with it, the limit appears as intermediate space, which acquires the configuration of a pathway in order to be outrun. The fourth term is “peiro” as a noun it means experience, as a verb it signifies “to try”, “to make an attempt”. Liiceanu stipulates that the limit associated with human experience and coupled with “will” and “conscience” (2005: 170) dissociates itself from the “inertia of psysically” and can be surpassed. Liiceanu also distinguishes between the “assumed” limit and the “imposed” one. The distinction becomes more revealing with Liiceanu’s argumentation that the assumed limit facilitates one’s opening either to an “indefinite exterior world or to one’s own privacy.” Further grounds for confidence as regards the assumed limit are offered by the same Liiceanu when he argues that any attempt to surpass our biological limit is an experience meant to make as feel accomplished. Two poems by Lawrence will be analysed from the double perspective of Freudian symbolism and the symbolism limit of the We are Transmitters and Fidelity. I have chosen two Romanian variants for the title of Lawrence’s poem We are Transmitters, namely, Noi, cei care transmitem or Noi suntem purtătorii. Lawrence’s main concern in this poem seems to be life instincts, which have their origin in the “id”: As we live, we are transmitters of life And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow Through us. There are two possible Romanian versions for the above quoted lines. Trăind dăm viaţă şi când nu reuşim să o transmitem mai departe viaţa ne părăseşte The second version is consonant with the second title proposed by me and goes as follows: Trăind, suntem purtătorii vieţii şi când nu reuşim să purtăm mai departe viaţa ea-şi opreşte cursul în noi. In spite of the previously mentioned Freudian connotation present in the English word “transmitters” and in the two Romanian equivalents “cei care transmitem” or “purtătorii”, the instinct of transmitting of creating life

90 sends us back to the myth of creation. Liiceanu (2005: 175), closely following Nietzche’s work entitled The Birth of Tragedy, starts his debate on the “symbolism of the limit” with a challenging assumption, namely that the “God of Creation” ends his work as “the artist of forms.” (2005: 176) Nietzche also claimed that the “the need of forms” (Liiceanu, 2005: 176) is the behaviour norm of God himself. The creation of forms is also approached as a therapeutic principle deriving from a crisis, from an intense need of God (called by Nietzche the Primordial One) to put an end to his original suffering through an artistic act of creation. This action first materialized in separating darkness from light. For Nietzche man is the most exquisite form of divine creation. Being a form that generates other forms, man appears as the “highest gratification of the primordial thirst of form, thirst which has become man’s generic instinct.”(Liiceanu, 2005: 178) Man’s entire history is a “bildende Kunst” (Liiceanu, 2005: 179), a never-ending artistic preoccupation with creating forms. Therefore, in We are Transmitters, the individuals as life transmitters can be approached as symbolically reiterating the primordial creative act. The syntagm “it is a flow on wands”, having as its Romanian equivalent “este un curs ascendent”, can be interpreted as the individual being animated by a cosmos pathos of creating life forms. “Sexless people” from “Sexless people transmit nothing” translated into Romanian as “oamenii asexuaţi nu transmit nimic” represent those individuals who are incapable of becoming creative. There is also an implied irony as regards the Freudian patterns which stipulate that sex is the only source of inspiration and of renewal. As concerns the symbolism of the limit it is this biological limit that should and can be surpassed through man’s creative potential. This idea is further illustrated when Lawrence claims that a work of art should also transmit life. Herder, quoted by Liiceanu, claims that the artist is a creative God and thus his artistic work transmits life. (2005: 180) The following lines “And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work / life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be read/ and we ripple with life through the days” have also been variously translated by as: Şi, dacă, lucrând transmitem viaţă muncii noastre viaţa, încă mai multă viaţă se revarsă în noi pentru a compensa, pentru a fi interpretată şi noi fremătăm de viaţă în răstimpul ce ne e dat să-l trăim

91 The second version is focused on the Romanian verbal construction “muncind” which is reiterated as a noun “munca;” the m - alliterative pattern supports the meaning as follows: Şi dacă muncind, putem aduce viaţa –n munca noastră Viaţa încă mai multă viaţă, reizbucneşte –n noi spre a compensa, spre a fi interpreta Şi noi ne unduim alăturea cu viaţa prin zile. Both versions can be interpreted following the same Nietzchean pattern to transmit life by creating forms has become man’s behaviour norm, for ever rewarding him, offering him “a certitude of equilibrium.”(Liiceanu, 2005: 183) The next line “Give and it shall be given unto you” rendered into Romanian as “Dă şi ţi se va da înapoi” recalls a saying from the Bible. According to Panayotis Nellas, the central characteristic of man’s life is a relative or potential unity he is called to improve through a good turning into account of his natural strengths. (1994: 33) Such natural strengths represent man’s main virtues, among which love is the “unifying” virtue, implying all the others. (1994: 33) But giving life is not an easy task, as it means to assume responsibility for it: “but giving life is not so easy it doesn’t mean handing it out to some mean fool or letting the living dead eat you up.” The Romanian version sounds less frightening than the English one: “Dar să dai viaţa nu e uşor nu înseamnă s-o încredinţezi unui nesăbuit josnic sau să permiţi unuia cu mintea şi sufletul sterp să te devore să te anihileze” Both versions stipulate that we should attentively choose the person, to give our love to otherwise “the living dead eat you up.” “The living dead” could be a metaphor for those people who could take advantage on somebody’s good will or it may stand for those people who are attracted by material values becoming totally engrossed in them, or for those people who can not surpass their biological limit. Further on, Lawrence stresses the fact that giving life also means transforming something valueless into something valuable: It means kindling the life quality where it was not, even if it’s only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief. The Romanian version adds spiritual connotations to these two lines through the verbal nucleus “a reaprinde”, followed by the direct object “suflul vieţii” in:

92 A da naştere înseamnă a reaprinde suflul vieţii a reda calitate vieţii acolo unde ea nu era, chiar şi-n albeaţa unei batiste, de la piept, spălate. We can also relate these two lines to the quality of love possessed by man, which enraptures and deifies the smallest and least significant details, such as the “whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief” into something that is really important. This process is neither magic nor mechanic nor accomplished through exterior factors either. It is organic, natural and available to any creative mind that wants to surpass the “inertia of physicality” (Liiceanu, 2005: 190) and grant spiritual significance to material issues. The apologist for the need of forms (Plato, Nietzche, Noica, Liiceanu) stressed the role of the “will of limitation” (2005: 170) in the process of creation. It is the “will” which limits, separates light from darkness the sacred from the profane, the eternal from the ephemeral, the spiritual from the sensual. The “will of limitation” and the “symbolism of the limit”, in Liiceanu ‘s terminology are consonant with Lawrence ‘s poem Fidelity, there “the will of limitation” stands for that will which marks each gesture and feeling in time in order to establish the difference between the ephemeral character of sensual love and the stable almost eternal character of pure love. This distinction is clearly stated in the first stanza of the poem Fidelity and love are two different things like a flower and a gem And love, like a flower, will fade, will change into something else Or it would not be flowery Flowers are just a motion, a swift motion, A coloured gesture That is their loveliness. And that is love. But a gem is different. It lasts so much longer than we do, So much much much longer That it seems to last for ever. The Romanian first variant renders the difference between “fidelity” and “love” following very closely the original: Fidelitatea şi dragostea sunt două lucruri diferite, la fel de diferite ca o floare şi o nestemată. Şi dragostea, asemenea florii se va stinge Se va preface în altceva Ori, n-ar mai fi floare Florile sunt doar un gest, un gest rapid, Un gest colorat În asta constă farmecul lor

93 Şi asta este dragostea. Dar nestemata este diferită. Durează cu mult mai mult decât noi, Mult, mult, mult mai mult, Aşa încât pare că nu se va sfârşi niciodată. The second Romanian version reveals a different association of words, through the repetitive syntagm “înclinare” instead of “gest”, the former implying the “î”, “i”, “a”, and “e” – assonances. Fidelitatea şi iubirea, două lucruri diferite sunt, precum o floare şi un giuvaer şi iubirea, asemenea florii, se va ofili, în altceva va trece, sau nu va fi înflorit florile, doar o înclinare sunt, o înclinare iute, o înclinare colorată ea e a lor farmec. Şi aceasta e iubirea dar giuvaerul e deosebit. Trăieşte cu mult mai mult decât noi mult mult mult mai mult încât pare a dura o veşnicie. This difference between “love” and “fidelity” recalls Freud’s distinction between pure love, based on the attachment between two persons and sensual love which has in view only sexual satisfaction. The flowers are the symbol of sensual love. They are fading quickly just as the sensual love is fading out once the sensual aim is accomplished. Sensual love is like “a motion, a swift motion, a coloured gesture” and has its loveliness which unfortunately disappears rapidly in comparison to the gem. The “gem” is the symbol for pure love. That is why “a gem is different it lasts so much longer than we do.” The word “gem” also sends to Jung for whom is meaning of the precious stone appears associated with that of the philosophical stone, the mysterious stone of the mysterious religious existence. People record on it their moral awakening, being at the same time the sign, the trace, the witness of moral change. When this change is incomplete due to man’s dual nature and moral inconsistency, the immortality of the “gem” is threatened. Yet we know it is flowing away as flowers are, and we are only slower. Şi totuşi ştim că giuvaierul intră cade sub incidenţa timpului la fel ca florile şi noi, doar mai încet As every little thing belonging to this world dies, so, even the “gem” has to vanish some day: the wonderful slow flowing of the sapphire, all flows, and every flow is related to every other flow.

94 Flowers and sapphires and us, diversely streaming Minunata lina alunecare a safirului totul curge şi fiecare şuvoi se împreună cu şuvoiu-i soţ flori şi safire şi noi ropotind spre alte părţi. The “flowers”, the “sapphires” and “us” are put together by the poet because they all belong to the same world; even if they are different, they have the same destiny: they have to die some day. Lawrence further refers to “the old days, when sapphires were breathed upon, and brought forth”; “when time was much slower, when the rocks came forth”, rendered into Romanian as “timpuri îndepărtare când un suflu tainic cobora peste safir şi-l însufleţea”, “când timpul se scurgea, mult mai încet, când stâncile au apărut”. During those times “It took aeons to make a sapphire, aeons for it to pass away” which in Romanian goes as “Eoni au trebuit spre a plăsmui un safir şi eoni pentru ca acesta să dispară”. The idea is that in ancient times, referred to as “old days”, such precious stones like “sapphires”, which are the symbol of fidelity of pure love, were of utmost importance and were much more appreciated. Even the passing of time could not make them fade because they had been shaped during “aeons.” “Aeons” have both temporal and philosophical connotations referring either to endless periods of time or, philosophically speaking, to an ideal, Adamic would, when man unquestionably withstood temptation. That ideal world can be related to the assumed moral limit meant to make us feel accomplished. Lawrence again draws a comparison between the sapphires, symbolizing fidelity and pure love, and flowers, symbolizing sensual attraction. While a sapphire needs aeons to pass away, a flower needs only a summer. Sensual love, just like flowers, swiftly fades away; passion which is the basis for sensual love is like “a little torrent of life”. “All flowers they fade because they are moving swiftly” is rendered into Romanian as: “pălesc ele, toate florile, pentru că se mişcă cu iuţeală”. On the other hand, fidelity, which is the basis for pure love, needs eons to take shape and disappear. Further on, Lawrence argues that the man and the woman are the creators of the flower: And man and woman like the earth, that brings Forth flowers In summer, and love, but underneath is rock. The Romanian version, following closely the original, reveals that: Şi bărbatul şi femeia sunt asemenea pământului care nasc flori vara şi

95 dragostea, dar dedesubt este stânca. It is implied that the man and the woman create passion which does not last unless there is something solid – the rock – beneath it. The last stanza is extremely relevant as concerns the symbolism of the limit: And when, throughout all the wild orgasms of love slowly a gem forms, in the ancient, once more molten rocks of two human hearts, two ancient rocks a man’s heart and a woman’s that is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust, the sapphire of fidelity The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love. The Romanian version goes as follows: Şi atunci, prin toate sălbaticele juisări ale iubirii încet un giuvaer apare, în străvechile, odinioară – lichefiatele stânci a două inimi omeneşti, două stânci străvechi inima unui bărbat şi a unei femei acesta-i cristalul păcii, giuvaierul liniştit de neclintit al încrederii, safirul fidelităţii giuvaierul liniştii reciproce, apărute din sălbaticul haos al iubirii. As far as the symbolic connotations of the crystal, the jewel and the sapphire are concerned, they have the form of a sphere and every sphere is, in Liiceanu’s opinion, an “inebriation of the limit and its celebration”. (2005: 194) Only associated with will and conscience, the limit can surpass the “the inertial of physicality”, can become an assumed moral limit, which equates with fidelity and resistance to temptation. It is this moral limit that makes us feel spiritually and morally accomplished.

Bibliography: o Bassnett-McGuire, S. (1991) Translation Studies, Routledge o Bryant, C. (1983) Jung and the Christian Way. London: Darton. Longman & Todd Ltd o Lawrence, D. H. (1939) Stories, Essays and Poems. Edited by Ernest Rhys, London: Temple Press o Leviţchi, L. (1994) Manualul traducătorului de limba engleză, Bucureşti: Teora o Liiceanu, G. (2005) Om şi simbol. Bucureşti: Humanitas o Nellas, P. (1994) Omul – animal îndumnezeit. Sibiu: Editura D’Eisis. o Quirk, R. (1974) The Linguist and the English Language, London: Edward Arnold

96

CHALLENGES IN TRANSLATING PROPER NAMES FROM DICKENSIAN NOVELS

Nadia Nicoleta Morăraşu University of Bacău

Lucrarea de faţă este un studiu asupra diferitelor tipuri de nume proprii care au relevanţă în traducere şi constituie o provocare pentru traducător: caractonime (numele care exprima caracteristicile persoanei care poarta numele), numele descriptive substitutive (de tipul poreclelor sau pseudonimelor), precum şi numele simbolice, metaforice sau aluzive. Prima parte se axează pe un istoric al traducerilor literare ale romanelor lui Dickens în română, italiană şi franceză şi pune în evidenţă recurenţa unor reeditări ale primelor traduceri, încă neegalate ca valoare. A doua parte a lucrării ia în discuţie semantica numelor proprii ficţionale traduse şi stabileşte corelaţiile acestora cu întreaga operă. Scopul final al cercetării este acela de a sublinia importanţa folosirii unor strategii de traducere eficiente în redarea sensurilor acelor structuri denominative care depăşesc graniţele universului dickensian.

I. The History of Literary Translations from Dickens into Romance Languages Charles Dickens’s relationship with the editors of his original texts and even with their translators has always been a special one. Feared as an over-controlling and very demanding ‘client’, he always struggled for perfection and personally supervised the publishing process of his works. Thus, it does not come as a surprise that Dickens himself declares to have authorized the first Hachette series of his novels: “a complete edition, authorized by myself, of a French translation of all my books” [1]. The problem is that, despite his conviction that he had some “control” over the series, the new texts and all those translations published since then raise the ever-troubling issue of authorship. Apparently Dickens trusted his translators and even appreciated the ‘skill’ of Paul Lorain, the French translator of Nicholas Nickleby as “an accomplished gentleman perfectly acquainted with both languages, and able, with rare felicity, to be perfectly faithful to the English text while rendering it in elegant and expressive French.” [2] In order to judge if Dickens was right in appreciating his French translators, we may come with some relevant examples of different liberties taken in translating the titles of his novels. Anny Sandrin (a translator of

97 Dickens herself) registers the changes of meaning implied in translating A Tale of Two Cities. The Pléiade translation by Jeanne Métifeux-Béjaut (1970) is literally entitled Un Conte de deux villes, which corresponds somehow to our modern expectations of accuracy. In the Hachette series, published in 1861, at a time when the Terror period was still vivid in the mind of Dickens’s French contemporaries, Henriette Loreau invites them to read Paris et Londres en 93. In 1950, a new unabridged translation by Robert Maghe and Albert Waughty was published under the title Le Marquis de Saint- Evremont, a title inspired by the French title of Jack Conway’s film (1935), one more sign of the interrelatedness of the two genres [3]. The common characteristic of other French versions of Dickens’s novels that we found information on is their being edited by Pierre Leyris in the ‘Bibliotheque de la Pleiade’ series, as early as 1954. Each edition comprises two novels (e.g. Dombey et fils and Temps difficiles – 1956; David Copperfield and De grandes esperances – 1954) and the translations are due to the collective effort of two to four translators. There are some recurrent translator names such as Francis Ledoux, Pierre Leyris, Marcelle Sibon and Sylvère Monod, which indicates that translations from Dickens were a constant research project for them. In Italy, there has also been a constant interest in editing Dickensian novels in the original or in translation and these editions have been most often reprints of older translations. The most recent translations we can account for are those of A Tale of Two Cities (1999, translation by M. Domenichelli) and Bleak House (translated by A. Negro, 1995). In 1993, there was a reprint of David Copperfield, translated and introduced by Cesare Pavese more than forty years earlier. Great Expectations was apparently the novel that raised most interest, as long as there are no less than four different Italian versions (the first published in 1975 and the last in 1994). Dombey e figlio was brought out by Rizzoli in 1994, in the prestigious collection entitled ‘I classici della BUR’, the same collection that includes Le avventure di Oliver Twist (1991) and Tempi difficili (1990). And yet, Francesco M. Casotti claims that no Italian publisher, up to now, has succeeded in publishing the complete set of Dickens’s novels [4]. A historical approach to Romanian translations from Dickens shows that few of his works are currently available in a modern and satisfactory translation, since most versions date back to more than forty years. The first translation of a novel written by Dickens appeared in 1964 – Timpuri grele (translated by Valeria Sadoveanu and Profira Sadoveanu), followed by the ones of Costache Popa (Bleak House - 1971), Mihnea Gheorghiu (Martin

98 Chuzzlewitt - 1965), Profira and Teodora Sadoveanu (Oliver Twist– 1976) over the sixties and seventies. As we can easily observe, these are mostly individual translators whose interest in Dickens was shared only by two of our contemporaries: Ionel Jianu who published his version of David Copperfield in 1997 and Vera Călin who came with Marile sperante in 2002. Five of Dickens’s novels – Little Dorrit, The Pickwick Papers, Sketches by Boz, Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood have become familiar to Romanian readers since 1970, thanks to Niculai Popescu, whose impressive translation work must have taken hundreds of hours to accomplish. As we accept that each new translation is a new performance of the text, each one brings out potential meaning and potential emotion. Translations, in other words, like stage or screen adaptations, fertilize, energize and sometimes even rejuvenate the old standard version which in the source-language is, of course, immutable. Whether for better or for worse is a question, however, which cannot be assessed by those for whose benefit translations are intended since they, by definition, have no knowledge of the source-language. Like spectators attending a play that they do not know, these readers discover a text that has been pre-read and pre-interpreted [5].

II. Translation Strategies vs. Semantics of Proper Names In order to cope with the challenge that proper names represent for translators of fiction, we need to explore some strategies and techniques used for solving this problem. Therefore, we shall refer to some of Dickens’s novels with their own personal, place names and other proper nouns, all of which had to be rendered appropriately in the translated versions of his books. In discussing translation strategies, we shall depend upon the general term “cultural transposition” (Hervey and Higgins, 2002), which is used as a cover-term for various degrees of departure from literal translation that one may resort to in the process of transferring the contents of a source text into the context of a target culture. That is to say, the various kinds of cultural transposition we are about to discuss are all alternatives to literal translation. Any degree of cultural transposition involves the choice of features indigenous to the target culture in preference to features rooted in the source culture [6]. Place-names and personal names offer relevant examples of the basic issues in cultural transposition. This is mainly because, in translating a name, there are at least two major alternatives: the name can be taken over unchanged from the ST to the TT, or it can be adapted to conform to the phonic/graphic conventions of the TL. The first alternative called

99 ‘exoticism’ is similar to literal translation, and involves no cultural transposition. It may create problems of pronunciation and comprehension in an oral TT, or problems of spelling and memorization in a written one. The second alternative, transliteration, is less extreme: conversional conventions are used to change the phonic/graphic shape of a ST name so that it comes more into line with TL patterns of pronunciation and spelling. Transliteration is the standard way of coping with names in English texts. A further alternative in translating names is cultural transplantation: SL names are replaced by TL names with similar cultural connotations. However, cultural transplantation of names involves a greater deal of risk. It follows that the translation of names implies awareness of three things: first, existing options for translating a particular name; second, the implications of following a particular option; and third, all the implications of a choice between exoticism, transliteration and cultural transplantation [7]. The recurring pattern in translations from Dickens is that of leaving personal names of the main characters unchanged, as is appropriate. After all, altering such names would alter all the book titles, and much besides. However, first names are sometimes rendered by transliteration as Olivier, Barnabé, Noé, Tobie, Estelle, Camille, Sophie, Agnès, Emilie, etc. in French. Considering that there is a well-represented category of fictitious charactonyms and expressive descriptive names, we shall insist upon this category. The indication of a charactonym is not only complete or partial resemblance with a word but the presence of the characterizing traits in the person or place. The presence of a common stem is suggested by means of motivators. Alexander Kalashnikov defines the term “motivator” as (the term is borrowed from the thesis by А.А. Zhivogliadov) “a part of text, expressing by means of synonyms, homonyms, a semantic similarity with the meanings of a morpheme or morphemes of the proper name and attaching to the name its characterizing function. The main purpose of the motivator is to affirm the presence of the characteristics in the stem of the proper name; therefore it must convey information about the bearer.” [8] There are enough significant names with motivators in Dickens’s novels; however there are plenty of names with just expressive colour. These expressive names do not reflect the traits of a character, but cause association with an expressive subject or notion. Mainly nicknames and proper names containing in the stems expressive words have this kind of significance. An illustrative example is that of the Marshalsea prisoners from Little Dorrit who assume “facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, Old Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man.” [9] Such names take the following forms in Niculai Popescu’s

100 translation: “Ţiglă, Foale, Gogoriţă, Trezilă, Nas-Fin, Mopsul, Speriosul, Negustorul-de-Momiţe” [10]. When these names are not self-given, they are mockingly attributed by others: “Some of these were more or less appropriate: as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative; others, derived their point from their want of application: as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish” [11]. It is also the translator Niculai Popescu who had to cope with the problems such ridiculizing names raised in translation and he successfully did it: “Unele dintre ele, mai mult sau mai puţin, i se potriveau: Ruginitul, Retrasul, Roşcatul, Rotofeiul, Rumenul, Ridiculul, Rozătorul. Alteori, dimpotrivă excelau prin nepotrivire: Răcnilă, Rîcîilă, Răgilă, Răpănosul” [12]. As far as place names are concerned, some are not transcribed, but rendered according to the traditional designation in English: Holborn Hill, Greenwich, Chancery Lane, Lincolnshire, Windsor, Reading, etc. There is another practice of rendering geographical names and place names in particular, by means of transcription or transliteration. But for the many place names, local in particular, in the Dickensian world, translation is done freely, so as to recreate the feel of the place for the benefit of the reader.

English Romanian the Docks, the Excise Office, and the Cartierul Docurilor, al Vămii sau Custom House Accizei Bleeding Heart Yard Curtea-Inimii-Însângerate Blue Lion Inn Leul albastru Blue Boar Inn Mistreţul albastru Cârciuma ‘La cei şase hamali The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters Tavern veseli’ Ghost’s Walk Drumul Stafiei The George and Vulture Tavern and Hotel Hotelul ‘George şi vulturul’

Institutional names represent another category that combines real with invented names, for which literal translations are provided. Thus, we have the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit filled with departments and offices, whereas the ladies are enlisted in tens of useless institutions and organizations with comic/grotesque names. In each case, the translator is faced with coming up with a translation that captures the intended meaning of the original. Obviously, creativity is the best solution, and here is where the art of translation comes into play.

101 English Romanian Circumlocution Office Ministerul digresiunilor The Infant Bonds of Joy Liga Copiilor Fericirii The Superannuated Widows Văduvele la pensie Marea Donaţie Naţională pentru Great National Smithers Testimonial Făurari

Added to linguistic incompatibilities are cultural, geographical, political, historical discrepancies requiring “transposition” or “re-creation” and, sometimes, explanation. Footnotes can indeed be very helpful: they “release” meaning and have the further advantage of emphasizing the dialectical nature of translation, of re-establishing for the benefit of the reader the dialogue that inevitably took place between author and translator during the transformational process; but, unfortunately, they are not very popular with the average reader, who prefers to take the translated text on trust rather than to have his pleasure spoilt by constant interruptions. As a result, footnotes are sparingly provided, even in the best editions and, in many cases, both the author’s meaning and the translator’s intentions are lost on the reader [13]. Translation strategies can be regarded as ways to solve other problems such as the ones caused by allusions. A possible approach is the one proposed by Ritva Leppihalme, who distinguishes three basic strategies: retention, change and omission. She suggests that translators tend to turn to strategies of minimum change, that is, they make the conventionally required changes (if any) and translate as literally as possible [14]. Her list of strategies for translating proper-name allusions includes: (1a) Retention of the name as such; (1b) Retention of the name with some additional guidance; (1c) Retention of the name with detailed explanations (footnotes etc.); (2a) Replacement of the name with another source-language name; (2b) Replacement of the name with a target-language name; (3a) Omission of the name, but the sense conveyed through a common noun; (3b) Complete omission of the name and allusion. Discussions of allusions used for characterisation should be based on a selection of representative and interesting examples, intended to bring into light the scope of the allusions used and illustrate various strategies used.

102 III. Difficulties in Translating Descriptive Metaphorical Names Dickensian novels make no exception to the large bulk of writings that combine real and fictitious proper names. Among the latter, characters with descriptive substitute names, metaphorical titles and allusive place names take a special place. In terms of titles, Bleak House raises many difficulties of interpretation because of the different layers of meaning upon which it resides. In shaping contrasting identities of the place that serves as a source for the title, Dickens could never imagine how debatable its translations would be. The title has been metaphorically translated into French as “La maison d’Apre Vent” (literally “rough wind”), on the basis of the meanings of “bleak” as “providing no shelter or sustenance or exposed to the elements and unfavourable to growth and life” and of the constant references to the weather-conditioned disposition of the owner who turned the house from a ruin into an elegant residence. If the title in this case sends to the present state of the house, the Italian “Casa desolata” (“desolata” = “desolated, devastated, ravaged, ruined, wasted, forsaken, deprived of inhabitants, made uninhabitable”) that appears in a recent translation of Angela Negro at Einaudi is definitely motivated by the original condition of the house that generated the “bleak” labelling: In the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined [15]. Characterized by a character as a “dreary name” and yet by another, as “not a dreary place” at the time of narration, the interpretation is far more accurate than in other versions. There at least two other meanings of “bleak” to be considered in translating the title and they were both disregarded: one refers to the metaphor of “bleak house” as an epitome of the entrapping system, “offering no hope or encouragement as there is no possibility of comfort or success” [16]. The one who first “gave it its present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close…When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his misery upon it” [17] was definitely one of the victims of this system. The other meaning does not depart form the denotative level and considers the physical aspect that gives the pervasive impression of something “dark, gloomy and sombre”. Apparently, this is the level at which the translator Costache Popa interpreted the text and this explains why his only official Romanian version of the novel comes with a

103 less inspired Casa umbrelor. We have already indicated that the following types of personal names are relevant in translation: expressive names and nicknames (Fledgeby Fascination, Conversation Kenge), allusive or significant names of famous figures and characters. One of the most interesting aspects implied in personal name translation is represented by the transposition of the name of the Barnacle clan as “Lipitoare”, on account of the fact that Dickens himself apparently accepted and authorized the French translation of this name as “Barnicle” (which is defined literally as “any of various marine crustaceans of the subclass Cirripedia that in the adult stage form a hard shell and remain attached to submerged surfaces, such as rocks and ships' bottoms” and metaphorically as “a parasite” [18] on the Internet URL http://www.thefreedictionary.com/barnacle). Neculai Popa proposes the treatment of this name as a charactonym and motivates his choice by the intention of respecting the author’s satirical intention. Thus, the title of chapter 34, “A Shoal of Barnacles” is rendered again, by analogy with the French translation (“Tout un banc de Bernicles”), as “Puzderie de lipitori”. Despite the fact there is some overlapping of meaning with two French words “bernacle”=“barnacle” (English) and “bernicle”=”shipworm”, it becomes obvious that the connotative meaning is the one that is aimed at. Dickens’s expressive nicknames for his characters are characterized by their traceable origin. Thus, they may relate to a person’s character, imagined or real, to some physical trait or to a specific incident or event. Most often, they are offensively sarcastic, or simply ironic references to a person’s nationality or place of origin, and even to the person’s occupation. The example we chose to discuss is related to the metaphoric epithet attached to a person’s name, which is part of the same category as the so- called “glorified nicknames” (e.g. Richard the Lionhearted, Charles the Bald). The active solicitor in Bleak House, Kenge, is almost invariably referred to by means of such a denominative device, due to his unusual pleasure taken in talking: He appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I couldn’t wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great importance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with obvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music with his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much impressed by him - even then, before I knew that he formed himself on the model of a great lord who was his client and that he was generally called Conversation Kenge. [19] The special form of this naming pattern, in which “Conversation” is not an appositive structure (it looks more like a premodifying one) raises

104 difficulties in translation and the solutions found are sometimes debatable. The Italian translators preferred an appositive epithet “Kenge il Conversatore,” based on Kenge’s expectations/aspirations of being acknowledged as an accomplished orator. The English equivalent of “conversatore” is the noun “conversationalist”, that is “someone skilled in conversation”. We do not think that eloquence is really the main attribute of Kenge. On the contrary, we should take into account the presence in the text of the adjective “conversational,” associated with the solicitor’s name and its synonyms “loquacious, voluble, talkative, garrulous, chatty” [20]. The Romanian interpretation resides exactly upon the idea that Kenge is nothing but an emphatic talker; the name translated as “Kenge Vorbă-lungă” or Kenge “gură bogată” [21] implies an ironic usage of these epithets and sends us to fairy-tale names given to odd creatures. The range of Romanian adjectives to be considered as alternatives in characterizing Kenge are “gureş”, “clănţău”, “flecar”, “guraliv”, “limbut”, “palavragiu”, “vorbăreţ”[22]. They cover different language styles (familiar, informal) and their usage has stylistic implications. A skilful translator should also decide upon the structure of the Romanian pattern which could be either “Kenge cel limbut/guraliv” or “Kenge vorbăreţul” and even the derogatory “clănţăul/palavragiul de Kenge”. Despite some inherent misinterpretations, we note a high quality of the translations on the whole and a deep knowledge of the system of proper names. We also appreciate the translators’ skill in finding the necessary characterizing information in the names and in conveying the writer’s intention. In the end, each translator deals with the ways of rendering proper names, depending on their significance and stylistic load and tries to find the best translation strategy to achieve this goal.

Notes: [1] Storey, G. and Tillotson, K. (1995) (eds). The Letters of Charles Dickens, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, vol.8 :8 [2] idem [1], vol 8: 263n [3] Sadrin, Anny (1998) ‘The Tyranny of Words: reading Dickens in Translation’, in Dickens: The Craft of Fiction and the Challenges of Reading, Milan: Vescovi Unicopli, 273-282 [4] Casotti, F. (1999) ‘Italian Translations of Dickens’ in The Dickensian, number 447, Vol. 95 part 1, 19-23 [5] idem [3] [6] Hervey, S., Higgins, I. (1992) Thinking Translation. A Course in Translation Method: French-English, London and New York: Routledge, 28-45 [7] idem [6] [8] Kalashnikov, A. (2006) ‘Proper Names in Translation of Fiction’, Translation Journal, vol.10, no.1

105 [9] Dickens, Ch. (1996) Little Dorrit, Wordsworth Edition Limited, ch.4 [10] Dickens Ch. (1975) Mica Dorrit, trans. Niculai Popescu, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească [11] Dickens, Ch. (1994) Our Mutual Friend, David Campbell, London [12] Dickens Ch. (1973) Prietenul nostru comun, trans. Niculai Popescu, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească [13] idem [3] [14] Leppihalme, Ritva, Culture Bumps: An empirical approach to the translation of allusions, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters 1997: 78-9, 84 [15] Dickens, Ch. (1985) Bleak House, Penguin, Harmondsworth [16] Internet URL - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bleak [17] idem [15] [18] Internet URL - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/barnacle [19] Dickens, Ch. (1985) Bleak House, Penguin, Harmondsworth, p.19 [20] Internet URL - http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conversational [21] Dickens Ch. (1971) Casa umbrelor, trans. Costache Popa, Bucureşti, Editura Univers, p.33, 44 [22] Internet URL - http://www.dictionary.ro/vorbăreţ

Bibliography: o Bantas, A. (1994) ‘Names, Nicknames, and Titles in Translation’, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 1994/1, 79-87 o Bantas, A. & Manea C-tin (1990) ‘Proper Names and Nicknames: Challenges for Translators and Lexicographers’, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 35/3, 183-196 o Casotti, F. (1999) ‘Italian Translations of Dickens’ in The Dickensian, number 447 Vol. 95 part 1, 19-23 o Dickens, Ch. (1985) Bleak House, Penguin, Harmondsworth o Dickens Ch. (1971) Casa umbrelor, trans. Costache Popa, Bucureşti, Editura Univers o Dickens, Ch. (1992) David Copperfield, Wordsworth Edition Limited o Dickens, Ch. (1992) Great Expectations, Wordsworth Edition Limited o Dickens, Ch. (1996) Little Dorrit, Wordsworth Edition Limited o Dickens Ch. (1975) Mica Dorrit, trans. Niculai Popescu, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească o Dickens, Ch. (1994) Our Mutual Friend, David Campbell, London o Dickens, Ch. (1982) Oliver Twist, Charnwood, Leicester o Dickens Ch. (1973) Prietenul nostru comun, trans. Niculai Popescu, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească o Dickens, Ch. (1993) A Tale of Two Cities, David Campbell, London

106 o Hervey, S., Higgins, I. (1992) Thinking Translation. A Course in Translation Method: French-English, London and New York: Routledge o Kalashnikov A. (2006) ‘Proper Names in Translation of Fiction’, Translation Journal, vol.10, no.1, Internet URL: http://accurapid.com/journal/35propernames.htm o Leppihalme, R (1997) Culture Bumps: An empirical approach to the translation of allusions, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 78-9, 84 o Monod , J. (1998) ‘Translating Dickens into French’, in Anny Sadrin (ed.), Dickens, o Europe and the New Worlds. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Macmillan o Schlicke, P. (1999) (ed.), The Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens, Oxford: OUP Steiner, G. (1975) After Babel, Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford University Press, Oxford o Sadrin, Anny (1998) ‘The Tyranny of Words: reading Dickens in Translation’, in Dickens: The Craft of Fiction and the Challenges of Reading, edited by Rossana Bonadei, Clotilde de Stasio, Carlo Pagetti and Alessandro, Milan: Vescovi Unicopli, in the series "Collana di Anglistica" o Storey, G. and Tillotson, K. (1995) (eds). The Letters of Charles Dickens, Oxford: The Clarendon Press o http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ o http://www.dictionary.ro/

ANNEX 1

Dickensian novels

o Dickens, Charles (2003) Barnaby Rudge, Oxford: Oxford University Press o Dickens, Charles (1985) Bleak House, Harmondsworth: Penguin o Dickens, Charles (1992) David Copperfield, Wordsworth Edition Limited o Dickens, Charles (1994): Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son – Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation, London: Everyman’s Library o Dickens, Charles (1992) Great Expectations, Wordsworth Edition Limited o Dickens, Charles (1984) Hard Times, Leicester: Charnwood o Dickens, Charles (1996) Little Dorrit, Wordsworth Edition Limited o Dickens, Charles (1994) Martin Chuzzlewit, London: David Campbell o Dickens, Charles (1982) The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Oxford: Oxford University Press

107 o Dickens, Charles (1993) Nicholas Nickleby, London: Everyman’s Library o Dickens, Charles (1995) The Old Curiosity Shop, London: David Campbell o Dickens, Charles (1994) Our Mutual Friend, London: David Campbell o Dickens, Charles (1982) Oliver Twist, Leicester: Charnwood o Dickens, Charles (1998) The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: David Campbell o Dickens, Charles (1995) Sketches by Boz, London: Penguin o Dickens, Charles (1993) A Tale of Two Cities, London: David Campbell

Italian Translations

o Dickens Ch. (1990) Il Circolo Pickwick. Ed. P. Bellocchio. Trans. G. Lonza. I grandi libri. Milano: Garzanti. o Dickens Ch. (1993) La storia e le personali esperienze di David Copperfield. Intr. and Trans. C. Pavese. I grandi libri. Torino: Einaudi, 1939. Rprt. I tascabili. o Dickens Ch., (1994) Dombey e figlio Intr. S. Marcus. Trans. C. Angiolillo Zannino. I classici. Milano: Rizzoli. o Dickens Ch. (1995) Casa desolata Intr. V. Nabokov. Trans. A. Negro. Einaudi tascabili. Torino: Einaudi. o Dickens Ch. (1975) Grandi speranze. Ed. and Trans. M. L. Giartosia De Courten. Gli struzzi. Torino: Einaudi. o Dickens Ch. (1987) Grandi speranze. Ed. G. Almansi. Trans. B. Maffi. I classici della BUR. Milano: Rizzoli. o Dickens Ch. (1991) Grandi speranze. Intr. A. Monti. Trans. C. Mazzola. Oscar Classici. Milano: Mondadori. o Dickens Ch. (1994) Grandi speranze. Trans. M. Sestito. I grandi libri. Milano: Garzanti o Dickens Ch. (1982) Il nostro comune amico. Intr. A. Kettle. Trans. L. Lamberti. Gli struzzi. Torino: Einaudi. o Dickens Ch. (1983) Il mistero di Edwin Drood. Ed.and Trans. S. Manferlotti. Intr. G. Almansi. Archivio del romanzo. Napoli: Guida. o Dickens Ch. (1984) Il mistero di Edwin Drood. Compl. L. Garfield. Intr. E. Blishen. Trans. P.F. Paolini. Milano: Rusconi. o Dickens Ch. (1981) Le avventure di Oliver Twist. Ed. A. Brilli. Trans. U. Dettore. I classici della BUR, Milano: Rizzoli. o Dickens Ch. (1999) Racconti di due città. Ed. and Trans. M. Domenichelli. Milano: Frassinelli.

108 o Dickens Ch. (1990) Tempi difficili. Ed. P. Ruffilli. Trans. B. Tasso. I classici della BUR. Milano: Rizzoli.

ANNEX 2 French translations

o Dickens Ch. (1979) David Copperfield, trans. by Pierre Leyris. <1000 Soleils Or>, 1979 o Dickens Ch. (1979) Souvenirs intimes de David Copperfield – De grandes espérances, trans. Madeleine Rossel, André Parreaux, Lucien Guitard and Pierre Leyris. o Dickens Ch. (1954) Souvenirs intimes de David Copperfield, reviewed and completed by Francis Ledoux and Pierre Leyris, «Bibliothèque de la Pléiade » o Dickens Ch. (1956) Dossier de la maison Dombey et Fils - Temps difficiles, trans. by Georges Connes and Andhrée Vaillant. Edited by Pierre Leyris « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade» o Dickens Ch. (1962) Le Magasin d'Antiquité - Barnabé Rudge, trans. by Marcelle Sibon and Sylvère Monod. Edited by Pierre Leyris, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade » o Dickens Ch. (1966) La Vie et les aventures de Nicolas Nickleby - Livres de Noël, trans. by Jacques Douady, Marcelle Sibon and Francis Ledoux. Edited by Pierre Leyris, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade » o Dickens Ch. (1970) La Petite Dorrit - Un conte de deux villes, traduction de Jeanne Métifeu-Béjeau. Edited by Pierre Leyris, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade » o Dickens Ch. (1958) Les Papiers posthumes du Pickwick-club - Les Aventures d'Olivier Twist, transl. by Sylvère Monod et Francis Ledoux. Edited by Pierre Leyris, « Bibliothèque de la Pléiade »

Romanian Translations

o Dickens Ch. (1971) Casa umbrelor, trans. Costache Popa, 2 vols., Bucureşti, Editura Univers o Dickens Ch. (1970) Documentele postume ale Clubului Pickwick, trans. Ion Pas and Nicolae Popescu, 3 vols., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească o Dickens Ch. (1968) Marile speranţe, trans. Dan Grigorescu, Editura pentru Literatură; trans. by Vera Calin, Editura Regis 2002

109 o Dickens Ch. (1965) Martin Chuzzlewit, trans. Mihnea Gheorghiu, 2 vols., Bucureşti, Editura Pentru Literatură Universală o Dickens Ch. (1975) Mica Dorrit, trans. Niculai Popescu, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească o Dickens Ch. (1970) Misterul lui Edwin Drood, trans., preface and notes by Niculai Popescu, Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească o Dickens Ch. (1973) Poveste despre două oraşe, trans. Antoaneta Ralian, Bucureşti, Editura Eminescu o Dickens Ch. (1973) Prietenul nostru comun, trans. Niculai Popescu, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Cartea Românească o Dickens Ch. (1970) Schiţele lui Boz, trans.Niculai Popescu, Bucureşi, Editura Univers o Dickens Ch. (1964) Timpuri grele, tarns. Valeria and Teodora Sadoveanu, Bucureşti, Editura Pentru Literatură Universală o Dickens Ch. (1969) Viaţa lui David Copperfield, trans. Ioan Comşa, 2 vol., Bucureşti, Editura Tineretului; trans. Ionel Jianu, Editura Tineretului 1997 o Dickens Ch. (1976) Viaţa şi aventurile lui Oliver Twist, trans. Teodora and Profira Sadoveanu, Editura Ion Creangă

TRANSLATING LITERATURE/ CULTURES

Lidia Necula “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Reality and its cultural representation in reality are carved up in various ways, according to the manifold patterns of sameness and difference which various languages provide. Alternatively, the translated texts are examined for ways in which they could suggest a difference from themselves, for interpretations which undetermine the apparently primary interpretation. The present paper forwards the idea that these texts are constructed by a human hand and a human mind – either the author’s or the characters’ and that possible cultural literary worlds are stimulated and not discovered.

110 ‘Literature had long been regarded as a message without a code for it to become necessary to regard it for a time as a code without message.’ (Gerard Genette, Structuralism and Literary Criticism, 1988: 78) Montaigne used to say that ‘we need to interpret interpretations more than we need to interpret things’. The present paper wants itself, above all, as an interpretation of things, or better said, as a deconstructive interpretation of the contrasting and constructing translating/translated literatures, conceived of as different and differing cultural manifestations. Without a doubt, the idea of a constructed translating literature might sound oxymoronic to the reader, given the fact that translating literature presupposes a certain continuity in time while the adjective constructed obviously points to a temporal accomplishment, and therefore, to a lack of continuity. All the same, it is this paradox that might allow the reader to take the freedom of rejecting seeing things as they appear: what we are interested in is actually the translating process that constructs or writes us according to our own translational individuality principles. The constructing translating/ translated literature obviously points to the idea that literatures are contrasting just as they are involved in a continuous and parallel process of construction as the translation process unfolds, revealing language as a polysystem and thus pointing to an absence of boundaries or of independent cultures for that matter. Thus, we thought that the most appropriate way of tackling the phenomenon of translating literature/translated literature and cultures would be to carry out a cultural deconstruction on a series of translated texts, due to the fact that translation itself is a cultural manifestation. With regard to Umberto Eco’s ideas in The Limits of Interpretation (1996), in order to compare, contrast and confront several texts/ literatures one should similarly consider the original text to be translated or transferred into another language/ culture as a (cultural) construct since we perceive the real world through a bulk of images and descriptions of feelings and dispositions, and since it is exactly these epistemic literary worlds that exclude each other. And yet, the knowledge people have of the world is inextricably shaped and conditioned by the language that serves to represent it and, far from providing a ‘window’ on reality, language brings along with it a whole intricate network of established significations. In brief, reality and its cultural representation in reality are carved up in various ways, according to the manifold patterns of sameness and difference which various languages provide. Likewise, there is no

111 knowledge of a true ‘reality’, if not only a symbolised, constructed experience. To put it more simply, ‘knowing the experience’ described in Patricia Potter’s novel (wherefrom the sample texts for analysis are taken) and transferring it into another language/ culture becomes itself mediated knowing, which is the only thing that eventually knowing can be. Alternatively, the translated texts are examined for ways in which they could suggest a difference from themselves, for interpretations which undetermine the apparently primary interpretation. In other words, the present paper forwards the idea that these texts are constructed by a human hand and a human mind – either the author’s or the characters’ and that possible cultural literary worlds are stimulated and not discovered. Besides, reading these translating/ translated texts in a deconstructive mode, is, however, not a matter of ‘decoding the message’: it is a matter of entering into the thoughtful play of contradiction, multiple reference, and the ceaseless questioning of conclusions and responses; the less a translation deconstructs itself, the more we can and must deconstruct it, i.e. show the structures of thought and assumption which ground it and the exclusions which make its meaning possible. The present paper is therefore meant as a cultural deconstruction, analysis and investigation in a globalizing and globalized translational context, of how regulated transformations act upon texts, challenging translators to think and rethink every moment a solution is posed or a sentence inscribed recreating thus the original literary text according to their own subjective and manipulative cultural constructs.

*** ‘Literary translation in the Western world today is a panorama of many shadows, brightened here and there by a ray of light’. (Holmes, “The State of Two Arts: Literary Translation and Translation Studies in the West Today,” in Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies, 1985: 152) From its early beginnings on, the theory of translation in the West has centered on metaphor and simile in order to elucidate that mysterious mental process which underlies the translation of a foreign text into one’s mother tongue. We would be seriously mistaken, however, to think that the use of metaphors is bound to occur in translation theory in its pre-scientific stage only. Since its emergence as a scientific discipline in the late fifties and early sixties, translation studies in its theoretical component has been

112 notably characterized by the permanent use of successive metaphors serving as analogues for what happens when a human being translates. In Eugene Nida’s approach for example, metaphors abound very conspicuously. Let’s take his concepts of dynamic equivalence, transfer, back-transformation by which he literally means that the needs of the target audience should have priority over the forms of language. On the other hand, deconstructionists go so far as to suggest that perhaps the translated text is the one to write us and not the other way round because deconstruction challenges limits of language, writing and reading, by pointing to how the definitions of the very terms used to discuss concepts set boundaries for the specific theories they describe. Such thinking about the nature of translation and the nature of language thus becomes important to translation theorists, not because it necessarily defines another approach, but because it deepens and broadens the conceptual framework by which the very field itself is defined. While not offering a specific “translation theory” of its own, deconstruction, however, does “use” translation often both to raise questions regarding the nature of language and “being-in-language” as well as to suggest that in the process of translating texts, one can come as close as is possible to that elusive notion or experience of différance, which underlies their approach. Jacques Derrida, for example, suggests that deconstruction and translation are inexorably interconnected, intimating that the process of translation, that elusive impossible presence he refers to as différance may, to the highest degree possible, be visible: ‘In the limits to which it is possible or at least appears possible, translation practices the difference between signified and signifier’. (Harold Bloom, Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction and Criticism, 1981: 21) Derrida’ image of translation as a contrast seems as if the human mind were dealing with so self-evident an activity as translating cannot escape from speaking about it in metaphors. Let us not be surprised, however, since even in the most intellectual and abstract of his mental activities, philosophy, man cannot do without the help of images, as J. Derrida had observed time and time again. He bases his theory of deconstruction or non-identity, on non-presence, or unrepresentability. What does exist, according to Derrida, are different chains of signification – including the “original” and its translations in a symbiotic relationship – mutually supplementing each other, defining and redefining a phantasm of sameness, which has never existed nor will exist as something fix, graspable, known or understood. This phantasm, produced by a desire for some essence or unity, represses the possibility that

113 whatever may be there is always in motion, in flux, “at play”, escaping in the very process of trying to define it, talk about it or make it present. In translation, what is visible is language, referring not to things but to language itself. Thus the chain of signification is one of infinite regress – the translated text becomes a translation of another earlier translation and translated words, although viewed by deconstructionists as ”material” signifiers”, represent nothing but other words representing nothing but still other words representing. Metaphors do not simply illustrate or visualize concepts which would otherwise remain vague. Metaphors themselves are a cognitive content, playing an important and irreplaceable part as ‘models’ in scientific research where they are not substitutions for mathematical formulas or other constructs. In Holmes’ view on the translation process of the translator, and more precisely the translator of literature, organizes and resolves confrontation of linguistic, literary and cultural norms and conventions; he selects and makes appropriate decisions, resolves incompatibilities, and makes choices on various planes. The translation of a text consists of a game set by the translator. In seeking counterparts or matchings the translator is constantly faced by choices, every new choice delimiting the range of possibilities open to him in finding solutions to other problems. In his/her attempt to preserve the unity of the literary work despite the heterogeneity of the linguistic, literary and socio-cultural structures which he has to bring into harmony, the translator must resort to a game strategy of illusionism. The translation of texts (or … at least complex texts) takes place on two planes: a serial plane, where one translates sentence by sentence, and a structural plane, on which one abstracts a ‘mental conception’ of the original text, then uses that mental conception as a kind of general criterion against which to test each sentence during the formulation on the new, translated text. (Holmes, Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies, 1988: 83) The idea of the two planes assuming the translator’s choice among alternative solutions for micro-contextual problems is directed by selective instructions deriving from the macro-context. The introduction of this abstract text-rank mental ‘map’ together with Holmes’ further step of distinguishing three sets of rules – derivation rules, projection rules, and correspondence rules – by which specific phases of the entire process would seem to be carried out, is undeniably a major contribution to translation theory and description.

114 First of all Holmes, by positing that the translator’s decisions on the serial level are accompanied by choices on a higher (‘deeper’) level of abstraction, recognizes and emphasizes translating as a mental activity. In this mental stage in which the map of the target text-to-be about is continually being matched with the map of the source text, at least three disparate bits of information are involved, viz. contextual, intertextual and situational (socio-cultural) information. Secondly, Holmes assumes the possibility for the translator to choose among either ‘homologues’ (i.e. features corresponding in form, but not in function) or ‘analogues’ (i.e. features which correspond in function, but not in form), or else ‘semasiologues’ (i.e. features corresponding in meaning but neither in function or form) as substitutes for given source text features. Thirdly, he firmly stresses the interdependence among correspondences: ‘The choice of a specific kind of correspondence in connection with one feature of the source-text map determines the kind of correspondences available for another or others.’ (Holmes, 1988: 86) The literary text, however, demands a more complex hierarchy of correspondences to which various translators respond in various manners – a fact which ultimately accounts for the variety of translations which the literary text allows. For the translator of all literary translation, the alternative choices are basically either ‘exoticizing and historicizing, with an emphasis on retention’ or ‘naturalizing and modernizing, with an emphasis on re- creation’ (1988: 48) Since these choices are made on each of three planes, the linguistic, the literary, and the socio-cultural, the range of theoretical possibilities is fairly large. And the choices that translators actually make are much more complex. In practice, translators perform pragmatic choices on the various planes according to their own reproductive or re-creative needs ‘at this point historicizing or exoticizing, at that point modernizing or naturalizing, and emphasizing now this plane now that, at the cost of the other two.’ (48)

Language and Culture: The Translator – Ethnographer The fields of translation and cultural studies can be seen as encircled within an interdisciplinary framework with fluid boundaries. The best approach to see how the “translation of cultures” works would probably be to explore first the different meanings of the word “translation”, therefore to scrutinize the translator as an interpreter of experience. In so doing, we will try to bring forth the dilemmas of

115 relativism and manipulation of information as a result of the evaluative discrimination the translator sees himself forced to do. The translation of culture has become since the 1950’s an almost banal description of the distinctive chore of social anthropology. Geodfrey Lienhardt’s paper Modes of Thought (1954) is one of the earliest examples of the use of translation to describe a central task of this discipline. He uses the word “translation” to refer not to the linguistic matter but to the problem of describing others from a different culture. In this context, “to translate” is a synonym of “to convert”, and the meaning is thus closer to “to change” or “to exchange”. On the other hand, the one who translates is said to express in one form what has been written or said by another. Under this concept, translation as expression is also linked to the explanation and interpretation of meaning. This adds a social dimension to the understanding of other cultures and faces us with the role of the translator as ethnographer. Thus, the roles of the ethnographer and the translator are quite similar: both are interpreters, the former of experiences and notes, the latter, of a given text. Both face a large disposal of sets of possible responses in their language and both are attached to a certain degree of subjectivity. Let us start with some considerations on the importance of the written text in the Western culture. Orality and Literacy are two different recognized ways of expression. But even today we hold some beliefs about the nature of language and its function in society which were held by men of letters in charge of either educating the natives or justifying the education of the natives in the process of colonization. It is obvious that each language presents a system of conceptual patterns (rules for requesting, discerning, questioning, etc.) that have evolved over a long period of time, and each language has developed its own categories with its own style of expressing them. Therefore, the translator-ethnographer as the experiencer of culture has his/her own style which makes translation – taking the term in its widest sense - much more difficult than for the native. That means that the translator works with the concept of language not as an isolated manifestation of the human activity, but as a polysystem, that is the language system as part of the complex system of human manifestations we know as “culture”. Language functions in a variety of ways other than ‘referring to objects’. Not every utterance is an assertion. There are many things that language-in-use does, and is intended to do, which explains why we may respond positively to discourse that may seem inadequate from a narrow logical point of view. The functions of a particular language, the intentions

116 of a particular discourse, are of course part of what every competent translator – ethnographer tries to grasp before he/she can attempt an adequate translation in his/her own language. (Clifford, J., The Predicament of Culture. Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, 1986:146) Mikhail Bakhtin used the term heteroglossia to define the idea that languages do not exclude each other, but rather intersect with each other in many different ways. This suggests an ambiguous, polyfacetic world, with no boundaries and independent cultures, and the inevitable reality of a cross-cultural representation which implies all the vicissitudes of translation. In the case of the translator-ethnographer, it requires participant observation, this involving arduous language learning, some degree of direct participation and conversation and often of confrontation of cultural expectations. In both cases, the translator-ethnographer faces language problems, either when wanting to write down his/her experience or when dealing with a given text. He/she has a series of possible meaningful sentences, including in this concept the idea of context and textual relationship, in his/her own culture. And before he/she takes the final decision, there is an intermediary step, an imaginary unreal third stage in his/her mind which could mediate between the native culture and his/her own. On the one hand, this could be called methodological invariance – a hypothetical construction over some aspects of the source text (ST) that functions as an intermediate stage in the comparison between this one and the translated text (TT). On the other hand, this step could be explained as the central point in which both cultures (the new one and the translator-ethnographer’s one) meet when writing, although it is difficult to specify certainly at which level or which points of contact are established. The next step will be the process by which the collected information is placed under the parameters (e.g. behaviour, concepts, description, contexts, etc.) of the new culture. In this process, the translator-interpreter has to choose and this evaluative discrimination is always a matter of selection. This selection is not necessarily good or bad but, in most cases, although not necessarily, it implies relativism. This problem connects with the idea of how to understand cultural translation, how persons in cultural translations understand some things and not others. At the same time we must recognize the existence of different levels of speech, production and reception. That means that the translator’s translation is not merely a matter of matching sentences in abstract. Nothing has meaning in isolation and any cultural event is produced in

117 context and the context may be determined by some external facts. The translator must also be conscious of the inside and outside of events and a dialectic of experience and interpretation plus process of transfer. Apart from having problems related to linguistic materials, the translator-ethnographer also faces some problems concerning the socio- economical, and in some cases, political conditions, connected with the production of a new text. At the same time, the translator is subject to different, even contradictory forces, which are a reflection of his/her position in society in many possible senses (age, time, aesthetics, kind of relationship, etc.) and may be influenced by all the different motivations behind an act of communication to concentrate on one particular aspect of a message, asking for a very general translation, an adaptation or a summary. In short, the translated text may reflect the particular identity and motivation of the translator. Every translation (of an original text into a different language) is subjected to a translational individuality principle and as such is basically an unrepeated event. The translator may have a greater or lesser degree of competence, but his/her work will also reflect an inevitable element of subjectivity or style which can be traced through certain lexical usages and syntactic forms, development of mannerisms or a certain approach to translating, i.e. different reactions to the same text or to the contact with reality. Shame washed through her. Deep and profound. She had sensed from the beginning that there was something inherently decent about this Englishman, this Carey, yet she had not let herself believe it. She had wanted to hold on to her hate. A tear made a muddy trail through the dirt on her face just as he turned to her, and she thought to brush it away. But before she could move her arm, he was kneeling next to her, his finger trailing the path the tear had taken, his mouth working jaggedly, and his own eyes suspiciously wet. (ST, Potter, 1990: 172) Un sentiment de vinovăţie îşi făcu loc în sufletul ei. Adânc şi dureros. Simţise încă de la început că acest englez, acest Carey era cumsecade dar refuzase să se încreadă în intuiţia ei. Se încăpăţânase să se agaţe de ura ei. Se gândi să şteargă lacrima care se prelingea pe obrazul ei murdar tocmai cand el îşi întoarse privirea spre ea. Dar înainte ca Elsbeth să-şi mişte braţul, el îngenunche în faţa ei şi-i atinse cu degetul urma lăsată de lacrimă, buzele strânse şi ochii ciudat umezi trădându-i emoţia puternică. (TT, our translation) The above written excerpts prove that in this case the original asks

118 for a general translation, an adaptation that fits the Romanian cultural context. It is very important that the translator uses the linguistic means that he comes across in his own native language, even if this means subjecting the original to a subjective translational principle. Accordingly, besides being an interpreter of experience, the translator proves a manipulator of information, i.e. the collocations specific to the source language text are transferred into correspondent - yet not always similar – collocations specific to the target language text. So, while in English one might discover that it is natural for the noun shame to collocate with the verb to wash, the translator chooses the noun vinovăţie, which normally collocates with the verb a face loc, a would be surrogate for the connotation of to wash. Thus, the whole meaning of the original text is changed, re-projected, manipulated, according to the cultural specific background into which the ST has to be rendered. Translation, current styles of cultural description are historically limited, but they undergo important metamorphoses as a consequence of the crisis of authority. In reality, translation – like any other behavioral activity - is subject to constraints of various types and degrees, including objective, relatively and absolute rules, on the one hand, and fully subjective idiosyncrasies on the other. However, in between these two extremes there lies a substantial middle ground occupied by intersubjective factors, commonly designated norms, which constitute the main set of constraints on it […] the existence of norms of a certain behavioral dimension obviously presupposes a certain rate of conformity to them. However, this by no means implies that any single act of performance in this dimension will in fact reveal the same rate of conformity, or any conformity at all to the norm in question. (Toury, The Translator as a Nonconformist-to-be, or How to Train Translators so as to Violate Translational Norms, 1980: 180) In the case of the translator, it requires intellectual participation. That is, first he/she is a reader experimenting some feelings and reactions in a different culture according to some previous ideas and goals. In order to transfer the text from one language to another, he/she must know not only the languages but also the cultures, and will certainly evaluate some cultural differences. In other words, society and its manifestations are not simply texts that communicate themselves to the reader. They need interpreters. These are people who speak with different voices, and through different patterns – not only by men, women, class, age, power, etc.- and can be affected by different conditions. These voices are in a context that can be translated to a

119 different society. At this stage, Malinowski’s (“The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages” in The Meaning of Meaning. A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, 1958:306) expression context of situation is made relevant. For him, context of situation indicates on the one hand that the conception of context has to be broadened, and on the other hand, that the situation in which words are uttered can never be passed over as irrelevant to the linguistic expression, i.e. the idea of context must be substantially widened beyond the bonds of mere linguistics and be carried over into the analysis of the general conditions under which a language is spoken. Thus, the study of any language, spoken by a people living under conditions different from our own and possessing a different culture, must be carried out in conjunction with the study of their culture and of their environment. As a result, the differences among the languages are one of the major problems that the translator – ethnographer faces. Languages are different, and translations of culture or of a cultural manifestation (e.g. a novel) will be also different. The ‘perfect’ translation does not exist. There exist only more or less accurate - contextual – translations depending on some facts. Some of them are: type of text (novel, poetry, scientific text, cartoons, subtitling, etc.), resources of the translator’s language, translator’s competence, readership intended, purpose of the translation, etc. How should these authorial presences be made manifest? Should the translator’s style be made manifest in the translated text? These questions send us back to the current attitude of cultural relativism. Another relevant element is the readership, an element not always taken into account. But the ‘product’ of the translation – translation of culture or translation of a text into another language – needs a consumer, a reader who is ready to read about another way of life and to manipulate the text according to established rules. On the other hand, the translator has a style, he/she has learned some conventions and uses of the language that imply a choice. At the same time the translation arises from the need to relate one’s interest to that of another and to encode it appropriately. From this point of view, translation involves not only the ability to speak in a particular polysystem, but the capacity to reshape one’s thoughts and actions in accordance with accepted forms. Different historical moments, different modes of writing, different fashions in thought, in short, different discourses, these are the elements reflected in the use of language. But at this point we should remember that language is a cultural manifestation that can be fixed in a text, in other

120 words, language is just a way of expressing culture. The translation of cultures requires one to try to understand other forms of life as the translation of a text requires one to try to understand the original polysystem of the text to be translated. In the epigraph to Language, Counter-memory, Practice (1977), Michel Foucault cites Jorge Luis Borges as saying, ‘The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future’. (1977: 5) The notion that the translator creates the original is one which is introduced by deconstructionists and serves to undermine the notion of authorship and with it the authority on which to base a comparison of subsequent translated versions of a text. In order to sustain the above statement we will support our arguments with an excerpt from Patricia Potter’s novel The Abduction (1990). Thus, the many underlexicalization instances we came up against while translating the texts made us re-project the original by offering its recreated versions according to our own individuality translational principles due to the fact that the texts had to be transferred not only into the author’s reality but also into another historical/cultural reality, completely different than ours. She wanted to disappear into nothingness as she watched – much like an insect drawn to fire before being consumed in it – the man who had become the centre of her world. She saw a muscle move in his hard sculpted cheek, and knew he was exercising masterful control of some violent emotion. (ST, 172) Stând acolo şi privindu-l pe cel care devenise centrul lumii ei şi care o atrăgea aşa cum focul ademeneşte o insectă şi apoi o mistuie, îşi dori să dispară cu totul. Văzu cum tresare un muşchi pe faţa lui bine conturată şi-şi dădu seama cât de bine îşi controla orice reacţie violentă. (TT, our translation) The above sample texts are an obvious example of re-projected meanings rendering a recreated original. The lack of the same grammatical structures, or the difference in the cultural background, the impossibility to render the English connotation into Romanian, all make the translation process even more difficult. Thus, while rewriting the original in a new cultural context, the translator spoils the rich loaded images that sound so beautiful in English but that would sound so awkward if we were to give it a word-for-word translation. Images such ‘nothingness’, or ‘insect drawn to fire before being consumed in it’ or ‘hard sculpted cheek’ are but few of the cultural underlexicalization situations that force the translator transfer the image at the expense of semantic losses or gains. Apart from that, one can easily

121 notice the fact that while the image of the insect consumed in fire or that of the hard sculpted cheek are so powerfully visual and flow so naturally in English, in Romanian they merely render a description that only communicates the image at a surface level, the translation being conceived of as an action in which the movement along the surface of language is made visible. In such a case, the translation is of a communicative type. The translated literary text doesn’t fix the same meaning, it allows further room for play extending boundaries and opening up new avenues for further difference. Deconstructionists argue that original texts are constantly being rewritten in the present and each reading/translation reconstructs the source text. In his essay “What is an Author?” in Language, Counter-memory, Practice, Foucault addresses these problems, noting that traditional notions of original authorship, of original acts of creation, of the unity of an original text, of translation equivalence and similitude, and systems of valorization are at the foundation of our understanding of literature and translation. He suggests that by granting primordial status to writing, we reinscribe in transcendental terms an affirmation of the text’s sacred origin. Traditional translation theory holds dear such notions of both the author and the primordial status of an original text. Any translation of an original into a second language involves a violation of the original, thus the impossibility of ever creating “pure” equivalents. Foucault attempts to break down the traditional notion of the author, and instead suggests we think in terms of “author-function” (1977: 130-1). Instead of a fixed originary identity, Foucault recommends focusing on the relationships of texts with other texts and viewing the specific discourse of a particular text within its historical situation. According to him, the author’s work is not the result of spontaneous inspiration, but is tied to the institutional system of the time and place over which the individual author has little control or awareness. Thus the “act of creation” is in reality a series of complex processes which the designation “author” serves to simplify. Foucault prefers not to think of the author as an actual individual, but a series of subjective positions, determined not by any single harmony effects, but by gaps, discontinuities, and breakages. The discourse of the text will show how these discontinuities destructure the notion of a unified, ahistorical, transcendental, original text. In his essay “Culture and Truth: The Erosion of Classic Norms”, Renato Rosaldo (in Encountering Cultures. Reading and Writing in a Changing World, 1992:477) points out that cultures are learned, not genetically encoded. That means that they need to be encoded the same

122 way a text in another language needs it too. Our century may be seen as preoccupied by meaning and identity through what we call culture and language. Culture is not an object to be described, nor is it a unified corpus of symbols and meanings that can be definitely interpreted. Culture is contested, temporal and emergent. The same applies to translation. The existence of different translations of the same text based on different theories of translations, and different times give evidence to this fact. So, production and reception of both types of texts constantly change despite the fact that, as written texts they are fixed. But words are more than simple labels for specific objects. Summarizing, the translator has first to understand the author and his time and then translate the text into a different language. He has to make some research just as he has to observe a certain amount of conditions – socio-economical, political, time of production, readership, etc and from a theoretical point of view he has to be not only bicultural but also bilingual. But the difficulty of putting this axiom into practice leads us to accept the relativism of the activity of translating transmitted through an apparent crisis of authority that only makes clear the relativism of this activity, without meaning the impossibility of being certain, but only the impossibility of a unique solution, considering the diverseness of cultures and the uniqueness of human being. The translator’s biculturalism does not only depend on his/her knowledge and use of both languages, but also on the culture he/she has grown up in and the degree of adaptation as far as other external conditions. Translators are interpreters of experience and they can never apprehend another people’s or another period’s imagination completely as though it were their own. In short, relativism and manipulation of information are present in the task of the translator. He/she shares a series of characteristics as practitioners of an activity that will never end: the activity of translating.

From Re-Projecting Meanings to Re-Creating Literary Texts It is generally accepted that literary translation differs from other kinds of translation because it is three-fold or three-dimensional. The literary work has to be translated or transferred from one natural language into another, from one time (that of the creation of the original) into another (that of the creation of the translation), from one space (cultural milieu) into another. (Hochel, B., Time and Space in Translation, 1983) Modern translators, as well as translation studies, pay great attention to the phenomena of poetics, to literary as well as non-literary allusions, to

123 intertextual linkings and metatextual segments of the text, to cultural and material specifications and the natural language is as a rule, ignored. It has to be ignored simply because in the literary work, there is no natural language but literary language. In literary texts the grammatical, lexical and stylistic ways of the natural (primary) language enter into specific situations or special relations in which they acquire special and re-created meanings. It can be said that the primary task of literary translations is not to replace this or that linguistic means of the source language by adequate means in the target one, but to find and re-project the means that answers to the usage of the means of the source language in the original, bearing in mind its surroundings, i.e. the artistic text. The language of any work, its grammar, lexis and syntax, stand in a special relationship with conventions of a given national literature and these conventions themselves relate to the national language as a whole. Therefore, the choice of the kind of linguistic means used in a literary work carries with it some advanced information – pre-information that cannot be grasped if the source text is considered merely a text in primary language. The term literary language sounds rather unusual and strange yet it is not, of course, identical with the language of literature understood as the secondary model in semiotics. Literary language can be defined as the choice and frequency of means of national (primary) language used in literature. The way the literary language looks like, or the criteria of this choice in any national literature are derived from local tradition and present day conventions. Thus, the above definition implies also the stratification of means of the literary language from the standpoint of the continuum of national language, i.e. the relations of the literary language to standard form and non-standard forms of language. It is well known that the prudishness of literary language in Europe increases from the West to the East. Contacts with postwar English and American fiction and drama could make Romanian readers feel that English and American characters (sometimes the narrator in fiction also) speak too expressively, vulgarly, even obscenely, in spite of the fact that they speak normally. Let us take as an example a fragment from Patricia Potter’ s novel The Abduction to make our point. Her tongue played with his lips until they opened and then it darted inside his mouth. He had only a second to appreciate what an apt pupil she was until flames made ashes of his conscience. The kiss deepened, need sharpening until they were both shaking

124 with the intensity of the passion that streaked between them like lightning on a warm summer night. Their bodies met and strained against the clothes as the kiss became an inferno of madness, of emotional as well as physical want. Alex felt he was on top of a precipice, ready to dive off into deceptively soft clouds. (ST, 195)

Elsbeth îl sărută jucându-se cu buzele lui. Într-o clipă simţi cum trezise femeia din ea. Sărutul deveni mai pătimaş, şi dorinţa mai acută, până ce trupurile lor fură străbătute de fiorul pasiunii. Trupurile se întâlniră şi se contopiră în vârtejul pasiunii.(TT, our translation) As one can see, from the standpoint of English literary language on the one hand and that of Romanian on the other, the differences between the orginal text and its Romanian versions are so radical that TT would hardly resemble ST in the case of a back-translation. To give a faithful translation of the English ST in Romanian from both a semantic and stylistic point of view is impossible because of Romanian literary language conventions. If we were to submit the text to a semantic translation, then the outcome would be a translation of a porno novel. Nevertheless, since this is hardly the case, as translators we have to submit to our cultural conventions and therefore offer a deconstructed, différante translation that projects new meanings and manages to render at least the overall picture of the intended message. It is hardly customary to hear somebody use such images as that of the tongue which darts inside someone’s mouth, and it sounds even more strange to describe a young woman just learning the games of love as being an apt pupil. However, while there is nothing unnatural or strange about the English description, the Romanian translation, were it not recreated and submitted to the translator’s personal style, might sound cut out from a pornographic novel. Of course, it is clear that differences between two different languages (from the point of view of the translation we have in mind conflicts between the source language and the target language) apply also to less striking phenomena and to all language levels. Let us mention the usage of non-standard units, the distribution of syntactical patterns, the length of sentences, the repetition of expressions, choice from synonymous groups, etc. the extent of the perception of concrete phenomena depends also on the literary genre we are concerned with.

125 If the translator has to provide detailed information about the original, the translator also has to translate the position of the language used in the concrete work, to translate its relations to the literary language in the source culture and to the continuum of the national language of the original. Some strata or grammatical forms or syntactical patterns of the source language may have no equivalents in the target one, but many difficulties are very often caused by the very average language means. Because, traditionally, translation is considered a transparent medium or activity that delivers the essentially inert foreign text, there can be a facile scepticism towards the translated text at hand, as well as an unwarranted naiveté regarding the communication occurring even within a single language system. Romanian readers of English texts can feel falsely secure about the stability of texts in their own respective language. Ultimately, because no text - whether Romanian or English - exists in an idealized, hypostatic space simply waiting to be translated and embodied into a given language, the act of translation is rather an inherent part of the literary text itself, regardless of the particular language it happens to be written and imagined in. Thus, rather than seeing translation within a framework that sees language as a vehicle, in the sense of the delivering of bare content, it may be more instructive to consider translation as integral property of language that all texts share. Pedagogically, this allows for a critical analysis of a given text with the potential to initiate multiple readings, thereby doing justice to the complexity of the literary text, as well as, the reading and interpretive act. The solution chosen depends on the conception of translation, as described in Hochel (1983). Thus, the translation of the primary meaning of the work involves following the modernizing principle and the naturalizing principle; the translation of the later meaning of the work in the milieu of its origin involves using the historicizing principle and the naturalizing principle; the translation of the different-spatial meaning of the work involves using the modernizing principle and the exoticizing principle; the translation of the later different-spatial meaning of the work means the absolutization of the retentive principles (historicizing and exoticizing). In conclusion, literary language is a very important phenomenon, and to observe it during the translation process could help us, if not to acquire more detailed information about the original literary work, then to recreate a new, différant and original literary text – the translation-masterpiece. All throughout our paper we have tried to view translation as a

126 process constantly in operation in single languages facilitating contact not with some sort of original meaning, but with the plurality of languages and meanings. In a similar fashion, the regulated transformations performed on the chosen sample texts can be viewed as a lively operator of différance, as a necessary process that distorts original meaning while simultaneously revealing a network of texts both enabling and prohibiting interlingual communication. The literary language turns out to be a very important phenomenon, and to observe it during the translation process could help us, if not to acquire more detailed information about the original literary work, then to recreate a new, différant and original literary text. In almost all the translated texts the ideal to touch in translating consists in expressing the whole universe of ideas of the source language text (SL). In a wider sense, this re-creation of the SLT in the TLT by different means, reminds of R. Jakobson’s likeness in difference. As translators we have to submit to our cultural conventions and therefore offer a deconstructed, différante translation that projects new meanings and manages to render at least the overall picture of the intended message. Translators consequently turn out as interpreters of experience and they can never apprehend another people’s or another period’s imagination completely as though it were their own. However, due to the fact that among the most important coordinates of literary translation, intentionality determines the translator’s choices, the author’s intention being as important as the recipient that defines the communicative situation and the function of the text, we consider that choosing Derrida’s translation theory according to which one thinks less in terms of copying or reproducing, and more in terms of how languages relate to each other, would better serve our purpose of tracing back and analyzing the phenomenon of translating/ translated literature. Finally, by applying the deconstructive method on our texts, we were able to separate source text from target text or language from meaning proving how the discourse of the text showed how these discontinuities destructured the notion of a unified, ahistorical, transcendental, original text. The process of translation has thus offered a mode of differing/deferring that subverted modes of traditional thinking.

Bibliography: o Bassnett, S. (1989). “Translation, Tradition, Transmission” in Beyond Translation, New Comparison. 8 (Autumn). o Bloom, H., De Man P. & Derrida J. (1981). Deconstruction and Criticism. New York: the Seabury Press.

127 o Clifford, J. (1986). The Predicament of Culture. Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. o Culler, J. (1979). Structuralism and Science; From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida. London: Oxford University Press o Dodds, J.M. (1994). Aspects of Literary Text Analysis and Translation Criticism. Udine: Campanotto Editore Udine. o Eco, U. (1996). Limitele interpretarii. St. Mincu & D. Bucsa (trans.) Constanta: Editura Pontica. o *** (2003). Dire quasi la stessa cosa. Esperienze di traduzione. Milano: Bompiani. o Foucault, M. (1973). The Order of Things. London: The Athlone Press. o Genette, G. (1988). “Structuralism and Literary Criticism” in Modern Criticism and Theory. David Lodge (ed.), London & New York: Longman. o Hermans, Th. (1985). “Images of Translation: Metaphor and Imagery in the Discourse on Translation” in The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation. London & Sydney: Croom Helm o Hochel, B. (1983). “Time and Space in Translation” in Slavica Slovaca, 18, 2. o Holeton, R. (Ed.) (1992). Encountering Cultures. Reading and Writing in a Changing World. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. o Holmes, J.S. (1988). Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi. o Lienhardt, G. (1954). Modes of Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. o Malinowski, B. (1958). “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages” in The Meaning of Meaning. A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (Eds.). New York: Harcout, Brace & Co. o Newmark, P.P. (1991). Approaches to Translation. Oxford: Pergamon. o Nida, E. (1964). Towards a Science of Translating. Leiden: Brill. o Nida, E. (2001). Contexts in Translating. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. o Norris, C. (1982). Deconstruction. London & New York: Methuen. o Ogden, C., Richards I.A. (1946). The Meaning of Meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. o Petrescu, C. (2000). Traducerea între teorie şi realizare poetică. Timişoara: Excelsior. o Potter, P. (1992). The Abduction. London & New York: Harlequin Books. o Rosaldo, R. (1992). “Culture and Truth: The Erosion of Classic Norms” in Encountering Cultures. Reading and Writing in a Changing World.

128 Richard Holeton (Ed.), New Jersey: Prentice Hall. o Seleskovitch, D., Lederer M. (1984). Intérpreter pour traduire. Paris: Didier. o Toury, G. (1980). The Translator as a Nonconformist-to-be, or How to Train Translators so as to Violate Translational Norms. Poulsen, S. A. and Wilss, W. (Eds.), Danemark: Ằrhus o Ullmann, S. (1973). Meaning and Style. Oxford: Blackwell.

ABUSIVE CREATIVITY IN HUMOROUS LITERARY TRANSLATION

Diana-Elena Popa “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

The present study is based on the assumption that the translation of verbally-expressed humour is not fundamentally different from any other form of translation. However, it may be cautiously be posited as follows: just like other kinds of humour-related manifestations, some humorous literary texts travel badly. Judging by the way those texts encompass situational, cultural and linguistic features, we submit that they are deeply embedded in the source language reality. Unfortunately some translators believe that certain strategies, such as an excessive use of creativity may compensate for the lack of a smooth transcoding. Generally speaking, we regard creativity as a key element in the process of linguistic humour translation. Nonetheless, misused inventiveness in translating literary texts may result in a distorted re-thinking of the original that holds up to ridicule. Moreover, such instances of abusive creativity often annul the functions of the translated version (e.g. the ability to amuse or cause laughter). Finally, we wish to stress that if the target language text cannot stand as a valid representative of the original, be it as a faithful expression of the source text or as a creative, independent piece of writing that has its own identity, then there is no such a thing as a feasible successful translation.

Is really the translation of verbal humour fundamentally different from any other form of translation, or from literary translation for that matter? After all, a successful translation involves recreating in the target language text those features of the source language text that are relevant for the text to function for a certain purpose (Kussmaul 1995:90). And with a humorous text, the purpose is, for all practical purposes, always the same, namely, to produce amusement or even to elicit laughter. In other words, just like Ann Leibold (1989: 109) notes, translating

129 the language of humour requires the accurate decoding of a humorous speech in its original context, the transfer of that speech in a different and often disparate linguistic and cultural environment, and its reformulation in a new utterance which successfully recaptures the intention of the original humorous message and evokes in the target audience an equivalent pleasurable and playful response. As is to be expected, equivalence is, under the circumstances, to be understood in Nida’s terms, as a dynamic concept based on the principle of equivalent effect. Further on, Nida (1964: 159) emphasizes the fact that the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptor and the message. As far as the translation of humorous literary texts are concerned, it should be noted that equivalence, both in a more restricted Jakobsonian sense and its dynamic sense can be achieved through two major approaches to the matter. Thus, first there is the traditional model that expects the translator “to participate vicariously in the author’s thoughts and feelings” and to produce a translated text “which is read as the transparent expression of authorial psychology or meaning” (Venuti 1995: 274). Second, there is the innovating creative look on translation. Consequently, the latter releases translation from its subordination to the foreign text and makes possible the development of a hermeneutic that reads” it “as a text in its own right, as a weave of connotations, allusions, and discourse specific to the target language culture (Venuti 1992: 8). In Lewis’ view there are two kinds of translations: one in which there is an “abusive fidelity” to the source text and another one in which there is a “risk to be assumed” and which “values experimentation, tampers with usage, seeks to match the polyvalencies or plurivocities or expressive stresses of the original by producing its own” (1985: 41). The latter could be simply called creative translation and by that we would like to put special emphasis on creativity as the ability of the translator to actively and openly use his/her imagination and inventiveness in the process of transposing a source text into a target text. Generally speaking, creativity is indeed a key concept when translating verbal humour, yet such an approach foregrounds numerous problems when it comes to humour in literary texts. At this point in our discussion, we would like to argue that just as we may speak about the “abusive fidelity” of a translation, we may equally consider “abusive creativity”. We cannot but agree to the fact that any act of translation is bound to be a transformation, “a regulated transformation of one language by another, of one text by another” (Derrida 1987: 20), or as Lewis sees it “an interpretative transformation”.

130 Nevertheless, when the target text deviates from the source text in such a way that we may speak about the death of the author1, the translation results in a mere crippled re-thinking of the original that loses entirely its identity by losing its genuine artistic touch. Needless to say that in such a case the translated humorous literary text is deprived of all its functional dimensions. Usually the first function that is completely annihilated is that of producing a pleasurable effect and with it goes away the functional interaction between the sender of the message, namely the author and the receiver, i.e. the reader. The third function that disappears is that of intra-textual coherence. And last but not least, a fourth function that gets destroyed is that of perpetuating a work of fiction of a given author within a given target context (i.e. a particular time, location and language). The example we have chosen to illustrate our claim is one of Saki’s short stories, called The Treasure Ship. Saki’s work has recently been translated into Romanian2. Still, we strongly believe that a satisfactory Romanian equivalency is problematic. And here we would like to point out to the linguistic barrier as Saki, through his extraordinary play of mind is constantly challenging the language’s potential for making meaning. Moreover, it should also be noted that apart from the linguistic factor there is another one, equally important and even more difficult to transfer in the process of translation, namely, the cultural dimension. Unfortunately some translators believe that an excessive use of creativity may compensate for the lack of a smooth transcoding. Here is what happened to Saki’s original text in the process of an incredibly ‘creative translation’. First we would like to bring forth some of the more important cases in which the text was ‘abused’. We will start with:

1. Inappropriate corresponding words: . northern bay septentrionalul golf (septentrional bay) . the fortune of weather capriciile meteorologiei (the fortune of the meteorology) . the home-life of the Mediterrannean sardines viaţa intimă a sardelelor mediteraneane (intimate life…) . rich at her own computation realmente bogată (~ really rich) . the necessary safeguards in the way of supervision mecenat ştiinţific . water-tight metal (metallic)

We consider the above words as being inappropriate because either they are taken from a completely different register as in the case of septentrionalul, meterorologiei, intimă, realmente, or they intentionally

131 change the meaning of the English words like in the case of water-tight that becomes metallic. “Mecenat ştiinşific” (scientific Maecenatism) is even more inappropriate given the fact that it is the translator’s choice to use it although it was not provided by the original text. The introduction of a different culture-bound term in a text that already abounds in cultural references which have no correspondence in the target language and culture confuses the reader and overloads the translated text.

2. Inappropriate addition of words Saki uses the name Lulu several times to refer to the Duchess of Dulverton. For no obvious reason or rather for no reason at all, the translator of the Romanian version finds it necessary to introduce a supplementary Mrs. (Doamna) Lulu. The translator’s choice appears even more unnecessary and possibly counterproductive when we realize that this extra word works only half of the text since in the other half of the target version the name Lulu is used alone.

3. Meaningless syntagms A good example would be that of “aventurier de casă” (home adventurer), which does not mean anything in Romanian even if it is placed in the meaningful context of profiteering people who enjoy living on their relations’ expense.

4. Misused inventiveness Perhaps the most dangerous part of the translating process is to misinterpret the concept of creativity. Consequently, the usual result of misused inventiveness is a too- far-fetched version of the original that holds up to ridicule. For instance, the original English text goes like this: “(…) the Dulverton property included a few acres of shingle, rock and heather, too barren to support even an agrarian outrage”, whereas the Romanian translation reads as follows: “câteva pogoane de paragină, stâncarie şi măraciniş, prea sterpe ca să se simtă primejduite de vreo tentativă de viol agrar.” So, in the target text the translator chooses to personify the few acres of shingle, rock and heather, which seem ‘to feel’ in danger. But this is not all as the ‘poor’ few acres of land are indeed in danger of being raped by someone or something, it is not perfectly clear from the translated text. Apart from the above examples where the more or less linguistically manifested creativity on the part of the translator renders the target text into a different kind of a ‘humorous’ literary piece of writing, there is another important aspect that drew our attention: the cultural-bound framework of

132 the original text. At this level we may distinguish between two different kinds of cultural-specific references: on the one hand there are those that belong to the universal background knowledge and on the other hand there are those that belong to the British world. The former appear under the form of ironic historic references, whereas he latter come mostly under the form of ethnic humorous hints. Such an ironic historic reference is Medina Sidonia which hints at the times when the Invincibile Armada, the fleet launched by Philip II of Spain wanted to invade England in order to overthrow the Protestant Elizabeth I and establish himself on the English throne. Moreover, Saki chooses to call one of his characters Vasco, a name that reminds us of Vasco Da Gamma, a different kind of adventurer who sets out to discover the unknown. Following under the same category, yet quite intriguing as a name choice is that of using Sub-Rosa as the very name of the treasure ship. It is unusual for a name even from a linguistic point of view since we would generally see it used as an adverb or as an adjective but not really as a proper name. Being of a Latin origin, Sub-Rosa comes from the practice of hanging a rose over the meeting as a symbol of confidentiality. While re- examining the English text we realize that no other choice could have better suited the context since the name of the sunken motor-boat turns into the name of a villa in Florence. Therefore, it is an excellent selection both from a semantic (it preserves its idiomatic content) and a phonetic perspective (it renders the sonority of the Italian language). The second category of cultural-bound references is represented by three separate hints. The first two belong to ethnic humour as Saki lays on the Monegasques and the Irish people and their habits. The last hint involves Raeburn, whose name occurs towards the end of the story. He is no other than Sir Henry Raeburn, a Scottish painter who was highly- regarded by the upper class. And here again Saki makes the perfect choice in words as the villa in Florence seems to be connected to Raeburn’s name – the painter himself spent some time in Florence to study the masters of Italian painting. An exquisitely woven plot rendered by a brilliant lexical selection which led us to a perhaps not unjustified pessimism on the very possibility of finding a reasonable Romanian equivalency. In other words, how can a translator transfer Saki’s text into a completely different linguistic and socio-cultural reality? As Mary Snell-Hornby rightly points out “only rarely (…) does the literary translation attain the stability of an original work” (1995: 114). Yet, in our case we cannot stop wondering: is it really possible to achieve a viable translation of the original given its semantic and cultural complexity? We are of the opinion that this question will not

133 find an answer if we do not take into consideration the purpose of such a translation. Ultimately it is the function of the target language text that determines the strategy and even the feasibility of a translation. Going back to our literary text, we could easily notice that the openly declared function of the translated version is to perpetuate Saki’s original style, impregnated with a sarcastic subtle humour within the Romanian target context3. Nonetheless, what if the Romanian version cannot preserve most of the key elements of the original? What if the cultural references are embedded in the source context and cannot ‘travel’ to the target reality? Is it still worth talking about a successful translation? Could we talk about translation at all? Let us take an actual example from Saki’s Romanian version. Because Raeburn is a sophisticated cultural hint that Romanian audience would probably miss, the translator decided to replace the name with a common noun, namely, seascape (peisaje marine). Reasonable as it may be, by using such a substitute for the key word Raeburn we can hardly expect to have the same impact on the target audience as the original had in the source language. Hence, once the very purpose of the translated version disappears, could we still talk about a feasible translation? Just as Mary Snell-Hornby argues, “a literary translation is bound to have shortcomings and faultfinders somewhere” (op. cit. 114) but if the translated version cannot stand not as a full-scale but, at least, as a valid representative of the original, is it still worth talking about it? We would like to maintain our pessimistic position and not overgeneralize by saying that certain humorous literary texts are not translatable but rather that most of Saki’s texts travel badly. And to conclude, we could say that translating a text at all costs is just like a bad joke: no one gets to enjoy it but for the one who tells it.

Notes 1 In the present study the death of the author is only partly used in the Barthian sense meaning that a reader, in our case a translator is “(…) that someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted” (1977: 161). Moreover, the translator, just like Barthe’s reader is free to do whatever she/he pleases with the author’s text to be translated. Yet, the difference is that the translator is not able to produce a version that can remain faithful to itself. And what is worse is that such a translator does not openly exercise his/her authorial thrust but rather hides her/his intervention under the guise of a paradoxically abusive fidelity. 2 The translated version we have used for the present study is published in

134 2005. 3 These are words taken from the editor’s notes on the back cover of the 2005 Romanian version of Saki’s short stories.

Bibliography: Sources for examples: o Saki. 1976. The Penguin Complete Saki. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. o Saki. 2005. Lighioane si supralighioane (Beasts and Superbeasts) Bucureşti: Leda-Corint. General references: o Derrida, J. (1987) Positions. Trans. Alan Bass. London: The Athlone Press. o Barthes, R. (1977) Image. Music. Text. Trans. Stepen Heath. New York: Hill and Wag. o Jakonson, R. (1959/ 2000) “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” In L. Venuti (ed.). pp. 113-118. o Kussmaul, P. (1995) Training the Translator. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. o Leibold, A. (1989) “The Translation of Humour: Who Says It Can’t Be Done?” Meta XXXIV. 1., pp.109-111. o Lewis, P. (1985) “The Measure of Translation Effects”. In J.F. Graham (ed.). pp.31-62. o Nida, E. (1964) Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: Brill. o Snell-Hornby, M. (1988/1995) Translation Studies. An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. o Venuti, L. (ed.) (1992) Rethinking Translation - Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology. London/New York: Routledge. o ____ (1995) The Translator’s Invisibility – A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge.

135

THE WHO AND WHY IN ETHNIC HUMOUR. A BRIEF THEORETICAL INTROSPECTION

Diana-Elena Popa “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

The literature on humour focuses, among other things, on the elements of discourse. The paper aims at making a brief theoretical introspection of two such basic elements as the who and the reason why in the particular case of ethnic humour.

Despite the popularity of the phrase ethnic humour in fairly recent social literature, it was not used widely in humour studies until the 1970s. Until then, the terms commonly used were race-conscious humour or race humour (Burma 1946), racial humour or racial jokes (Middleton 1959), intergroup humour (Barron 1950) and interethnic humour (Zenner 1970). But although the phrase ethnic humour may be of recent origin, humour disparaging other groups is probably as old as the contact between cultures. The tendency to ridicule and mock groups other than one’s own has always been widespread in human societies (Birnbaum 1971 and Dundes 1975). In the current literature on humour, ethnic humour is approached from different disciplinary backgrounds, using an equally large number of methodologies to formulate diverse goals. Psychologists, for instance, are mainly concerned with the development of theoretical models which predict the factors that make individuals to engage in ethnic humour or the variables that determine their differential responses to it. Controlled experimental studies are then used in order to test and validate such models. In contrast, sociologists, folklorists, and anthropologists are particularly interested in content analyses and with typologies of themes extracted from ethnic humour as expressed in ethnic jokes. A brief chronological overlook on ethnic humour shows that ethnic riddles and jokes have been in oral circulation for a long time, though the group ridiculed may change, depending on contextual factors (Barrick 1970, Dundes 1971). The origins of ethnic humour are explained, in turn, by folklorists, anthropologists and sociologists, etc. but their points of view do not seem to be fundamentally different. The central idea is that human societies acquire knowledge of other societies that accumulates through repeated contacts between them. This knowledge becomes a part of the cultural heritage of all societies and it is passed from generation to generation. Moreover, intercultural contacts and interactions have led

136 societies to formulate opinions, beliefs, and attitudes about people who are culturally different. Such images developed and became the bases of ethnic humour (see Apte 1985: 108). While discussing the issue of ethnic humour, one cannot omit taking into consideration the three closely related concepts of ethnic group, ethnic identity and ethnicity. There is also the notion of stereotype that needs to be developed, since it is the actual trigger in ethnic humour. Because perspective differ and so do the disciplinary inputs of the researchers involved, there is no single definition of ethnic group, ethnic identity or ethnicity that is acceptable to all. Perhaps a disturbing component is the term group itself. Human groups vary in size, composition and nature. In some cases, the term group may overlap with that of society or nation. On the other hand, complex societies consist of several groups. Therefore, no matter how concepts of ethnic groups and ethnicity are defined at an analytical level, they cannot possibly cover all empirical categories. In fact, whether ethnic groups really exist or whether they are only analytical categories for explaining group dynamics are issues that have been and still are much debated by scholars. Here is one of the definitions given to ethnic group that is supposed to be objective in nature: “An ethnic group is a distinct category of the population in a large society whose culture is usually different from its own. The members of such a group are, or feel themselves, or are thought to be, bound together by common ties of race and nationality or culture” (International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences cf. Apte 1985: 112,). A definition of ethnicity that is somewhere in between objective and subjective theories, in the way it is formulated, is the following: “(…) referring to the existence of groups, real or imagined, characterized by some or all of the attributes:” ascribed status, shared cultural traits and values, some degree of internal cohesion and interaction, and self- awareness (Apte 1985: 111-112). Apart from Apte’s approach to ethnicity, in a survey of definitions used in sociological and anthropological studies that also deal with ethnicity, Isajiw (1974) notes that the most frequently mentioned attributes of ethnic groups are: common national or geographic origin or common ancestors; a common culture or customs, religion, race or physical characteristics; and language, in that particular order. On the other hand, there are some attributes that are less frequently mentioned such as consciousness of kind, common values or ethos, separate institutions, and minority and majority status. Geertz (1963: 109-114) has his own view concerning the basic attributes that link members of ethnic group: race, language, blood ties,

137 custom, region and religion, which, according to him are primordial ties. Looking at the above attributes it becomes obvious that common ancestry and geographical location generally but not always lead, though the socialization process, to the acquisition of a common culture that, for the most part, includes language, religion, customs and behavioural patterns, social institutions, and ideologies and values, thus, constituting the socio-cultural dimension of ethnic groups. Individuals share with others of their ethnic group a conscious identity that is based on traits they perceive to be characteristic of the group. Even if this may be a subjective reality, it still counts as the ethnic identity of that group. This dimension is relevant to the ethnic humour analysis because individuals and groups have to believe in the existence of ethnic groups characterized by such attributes as language, religion, race, culture and nationality before ethnic humour can occur. The ethnic identity notion is closely connected to the concept of stereotype. Stereotypes were introduced by the journalist Walter Lippmann (1922). He defined them as mental pictures formulated by people to describe the world beyond their reach. He argued that stereotypes, at least partially, are culturally determined. He makes it very clear that their contents are factually incorrect; that they are the products of a faulty reasoning process, and that they tend to persist even in the face of knowledge and education. From here the controversial issue whether or not stereotypes exist without prejudice (Brigham 1971: 28, Secord, Bevan and Katz 1956, Vinacke 1949). Most scholars though seem to link the two. However, while stereotypes may, and occasionally do contain a kernel of truth (Brown 1965: 172), a very quoted study (La Pierre 1936) showed that they have little or nothing to do with objective reality. Therefore, Dundes (1971: 188) has emphasized the association stereotypes-social reality rather than the stereotype-objective reality one. As far as ethnic humour is concerned, stereotypes are crucial. As they are widely accepted by members of individual cultures, they constitute a shared set of assumptions necessary for ethnic humour. In other words, in order for ethnic humour to have the desired effect, it needs readymade and popular conceptualizations of the target group. Stereotypes fulfill this requirement perfectly. In what follows, we are going to focus on the close connection, already acknowledged, between ethnic humour and culture. Needless to say that ethnic humour is an integral part of expressive culture. As Apte (1985: 121) remarks, ethnic humour reflects a group’s perception and evaluation of other groups’ personality traits, customs, behaviour patterns, and social institutions by the standards of in-group culture, with its positive

138 or negative attitudes toward others. It results that ethnic humour directly or indirectly exhibits the stereotyper’s mental images and deeply-rooted beliefs, attitudes, and strong emotions toward people made the butt of such humour. The most common form of ethnic humour is that of jokes followed by riddles and rhymes. Yet jokes are, by far, the most popular. There have been several attempts (see Jansen 1959) to identify the esoteric-exoteric factor in the jokelore. The esoteric factor “applies to what one group thinks of itself and what it supposes others think of it” (Jansen 1959: 206), while the exoteric factor is “what one group thinks of another and what it thinks that other group thinks it thinks” (ibid: 207). Furthermore, esoteric beliefs of a group may be unconscious, or a group may “know the exoteric concepts held about it” and either may reject them or may “recognize them tolerantly”. Jansen’s exoteric factor seems similar to a group’s stereotype as held by other groups, while his esoteric factor appears to be similar to a group’s self-stereotype and its awareness of the stereotype regarding it that is held by others. But it is also possible, as Jansen himself suggests that exoteric and esoteric factors may overlap. Although most research in the field seeks to identify the stereotypic traits that are assigned to various ethnic groups, some traits have been found to evoke universal negative reactions, and these tend to be assigned to any group that is to be ridiculed and mocked. Such traits as stupidity, dirtiness, brute force, and excessive sexuality are generally viewed negatively (cf. Apte 1985: 127) and can be linked to any target group. According to Apte (1985: 127) “the imputation of universally disapproved traits to any group to be ridiculed amuses the people who narrate and enjoy such humour and expresses their feeling of superiority.” Talking about the more specific case of jokes about stupidity, Davies (1990: 12-13) notes that the members of a joke-telling and joke sharing group enjoy a “sudden burst of glory” as the stupidity of the others is unveiled and their own superiority is briefly confirmed. Yet he stresses out the fact that “we should not mistake the glee of the winners in this successful piece of playful aggression for real hostility” (ibid). Davies’s statement takes us back to the techniques used extensively in ethnic humour, namely, exaggeration and distortion. Once again, it becomes pretty obvious that the portrayal of individuals, groups, actions, personality traits and physical features rarely, if ever, faithful to objective reality. Besides, prejudice and negative attitudes seem to universally play an important part in ethnic humour (see Dundes 1975, Birnbaum 1971, Apte 1985). Consequently, much of the ethnic humour is based on prevalent associations of traits with different ethnic groups irrespective of

139 whether or not such associations actually occur. It goes as far as frequently labeling and portraying a member of a particular group as typical of the entire group. This process implies both exaggeration and distortion but also overgeneralization. Intra-cultural variation and individuality are ignored in this practice. Stereotypes, in general, do tend to be overgeneralized conceptualizations of ethnic groups. And when ethnic humour is predominantly based on a stereotype that is developed without much contact and interaction, it is likely to be quite inaccurate, bearing little, if any, resemblance to objective reality. Similarly, an identical portrayal of a particular group in the humour of many cultures does not necessarily prove that the stereotype is faithful to objective reality, the humour and the stereotype resulting, in such cases, from diffusion. Even in the case when members of ethnic groups tell jokes which are based on negative stereotypes of themselves, the group’s acceptance of its negative stereotype and of the humour based on it does not prove that the portrayal is faithful to reality. There are several possible explanations, among which one indicates the lack of positive self-image and an inferiority complex on the pact of that group and the other is that people who tell jokes derogatory of the ethnic group to which they belong are likely to disassociate themselves from the underlying stereotype. The latter possible explanation implies that those people believe in intra-cultural diversity but also in the existence of several sub-ethnic groups to which he/she does not adhere. To sum up, through ethnic humour, knowledge is accepted, maintained, and transmitted regardless of its ultimate validity or invalidity. As Dundes puts it, ethnic humour and the stereotypes upon which it is based represent “traditional images of reality rather than the reality itself” (Dundes 1975: 24). Given their nature, portrayals of groups in ethnic humour should merely be regarded as “concept-systems with positive as well as negative functions, having the same general kinds of properties as other concepts, and serving to organize experience as do other concepts” (Vinacke 1957: 229). The last part of the present paper puts special emphasis on the “functions” of ethnic humour reviewing some of the instances in which ethnic humour is used, propagated and enjoyed. Meant to rationalize and justify a discriminatory treatment on the part of a dominant group, which, thus, reinforces the existent stereotypes, or to relieve the suppressed aggression and “to preserve the ego identity of minority group members” (Simmons 1963), ethnic humour covers a wide range of functions that matches its complex nature. Therefore, ethnic humour is said to express inter-group conflict when it emphasizes disparagement of ethnic groups “to strengthen the morale of those who use

140 it and to undermine the morale of those at whom it is aimed” (Stephenson 1950-51: 569). Ethnic humour is also considered to reinforce a group’s social position by relegating another’s to an inferior level. Campbell and Levine (1961: 85) believe that “stereotyped imagery is an unconscious rationalization for the hostility” toward out groups, such hostility being a manifestation of ethnocentrism. According to Apte (1985: 142) “prejudice reinforces ethnocentrism, just as negation of the culture values of other people nurtures self-esteem and feelings of superiority.” In the literature on ethnic humour there are two opposing approaches to the phenomenon. On the other hand, it is claimed that it serves to satisfy the forever human need to vent aggression (Dundes 1975, Greenberg 1972, Klymasz 1970). Such a view is deeply-rooted in the Freudian psycho-functional theory of jokes. Yet, this view is strongly criticized, being considered unsatisfactory because it fails to take into account the diverse nature of ethnic humour (Oring 1975). On the other hand, there is the opinion that it serves merely to amuse. Middleton is one of the supporters of the latter view and he argues that “even if a person does not accept the validity of a stereotype, he may be willing to suspend his disbelief temporarily in order to enjoy the humour of the joke” (Middleton 1959: 80). Whether it is used to amuse or it is used for hostile reasons, humour is still the most suitable medium because it “may conceal malice and allow expression of aggression without the consequence of other overt behaviour” (Stephenson 1950-51: 569). To conclude, we do share Oring’s position concerning ethnic humour in the sense that we cannot but agree that its nature is diverse. Yet we also favour the idea that ethnic humour comes from people’s constant need to reinforce their superior status within small ethnic subgroups as well as in more complex ethnic groups. Moreover, we believe that stereotypes are means of rationalizing and justifying ethnocentrism.

Bibliography: o Apte, M. L. (1985) Humour and Laughter. An Anthropological Approach. Ithaca – London: Cornell University Press. o Barrick, M.E. (1970) “Racial riddles and the Polack joke”. Keystone Folklore Quarterly 15. 3-15. o Barron, M. L. (1950) “A content analysis of intergroup humour”. American Sociological Review. 15. 88-94. o Birnbaum, M.D. (1971) “On the language of prejudice”. Western Folklore. 30. 247-268.

141 o Brigham, J.C. (1971) “Ethnic stereotypes”. Psychological Bulletin 76. 15-38. o Brown, R. (1965) Social Psychology. New York: Free Press. o Burma, J.H. (1946) “Humour as a technique in race conflict”. American Sociological Review. 11. 710-715. o Campbell, D.T. and Le Vine, R.A. (1961) “A proposal for cooperative cross-cultural research on ethnocentrism”. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 5. 82-108. o Davies, C. (1990) Ethnic Humor around the World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. o Dundes, A. (1971) “A study of ethnic slurs: the Jew and the Polack in the United States”. Journal of American Folklore. 84. 186-203. o Geertz, C. (1963) Agricultural Involution. Berkeley: University of California Press. o Isajiw, W.W. (1974) “Definitions of ethnicity”. Ethnicity 1. 111-124. o Jansen, W. H. (1959) “The esoteric-exoteric factor in folklore”. Fabula 2. 205-211. o Klymasz, R. B. (1970) “The ethnic joke in Canada today”. Keystone Folklore Quarterly 15. 167-173. o La Pierre, R.T. (1936) “Type-rationalization of group anti-play”. Social Forces 15. 232-237. o Lippmann, W. (1922) Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace. o Middleton, R. (1959) “Negro and white reactions to racial humour”. Sociometry 22. 175-183. o Oring, E. (1975) “Everything is a shade of elephant: an alternative to a psychoanalysis of Humour.” New York Folklore. 1. 149-159. o Secord, P.F., W. Bevan, Jr., and B. Katz. (1956) “The Negro stereotype and perceptual accentuation”. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 53. 78-83. o Simmons, D. C. (1963) “Protest Humour: folkloristic reaction to prejudice”. American Journal of Psychiatry. 120. 567-570. o Stephenson, R. M. (1950-1951) “Conflict and control function of humour”. American Journal of Sociology. 56. 569-574. o Vinacke, W.E. (1949) “Stereotyping among national-racial groups in Hawaii: A study in ethnocentrism”. Journal of Social Psychology 30. 265-291. o Zenner, W.P. (1970) “Joking and ethnic stereotyping”. Anthropological Quarterly 43. 93-113.

142

TRANSLATING TOPONYMS IN ENGLISH IDIOMS

Floriana Popescu “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

The translation of idiomatic structures may reveal unexpected traps possibly due to their colourful cultural touch. In addition to this, the particularity of meaning assigned to some geographical names which may sometimes be part of the whole lexical pattern overload the translator’s task. To simplify things one should consider three major strategies applicable in the translation of toponymous idioms: the literal translation, the transposition of English structures into meaningfully similar Romanian ones and the translation with explicitation. The explicitation of toponymous idioms involves the already existing lexicon-grammatical instruments Romanian possesses, which is not enough; the recourse to this strategy involves some additional information which should semantically explicitate the concept suggested by the idiom in focus.

Idiomatic constructions have been a challenge both to teachers or learners and to translators or interpreters of English as a foreign language. This approach will accept any idiom to be “an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meaning of the constituent elements”, i.e. with its Late Latin sense of “individual peculiarity of a language.” (WEUD 1994: 951) The literature of English idiomaticity considers word groupings from the perspective of their origin, nature, structure and criteria of classification. For teaching and learning purposes idioms were structurally divided into clause idioms and phrase idioms (Seidl and McMordie 1983: x). While clause idioms consist of a verb and possibly of its constellation, a phrase idiom may be so simple as to consist only of a noun and its determiner. This explains why the structure of idioms is so diverse and the term idiom has become an umbrella term for any word chain whose meaning cannot be inferred from the core meaning of the words in the chain. Nevertheless, irrespective of their belonging to one set or another, the idioms considered in what follows have a peculiarity of their own: they have a particular class of proper nouns in their structure. Proper nouns in idioms did not constitute a particularity to be considered by the authors of the foregoing classification. Even if the structural presence of proper nouns may be of little interest to lexicographers or even teachers, it may create difficulties to translators. The paper intends to continue describing the difficulties regarding the translation of idioms including proper nouns. Since a previous study focused on idioms

143 including proper names, also known as eponyms the current approach will further on idioms based on geographical names. (Popescu, 2004) Therefore, this sequel to the previously mentioned study will focus on geographical names or toponyms from now on. The presence of toponyms within the structure of idiomatic patterns will provide them a special feature, enabling us to label them as toponymous idioms. This idea was constructed on analogy to McArthur’s (1996:350), definition of eponyms which are assigned: three designations (a) “a personal name from which a word has been derived” (the source-eponym, in our approach), (b) “the person whose name is so used” and (c) “the word so derived”. Therefore, toponyms, in turn, may denote (a) “a geographical name from which a word has been derived,” (b) “the place whose name is so used” and (c) “the word so derived”, which, in the current approach becomes part of an idiom. The toponymous idioms represent an overlapping of toponyms and of idioms. This translation-oriented approach will consider toponymous idioms in English and their possible Romanian versions as rendered by specialized bilingual dictionaries or, when they were not included in such dictionaries, as matched through the author’s interpretation of their semantics so as to serve the purposes of our study. Unlike eponyms which have been included in at least five specialized dictionaries, toponyms still play Cinderella’s part from the lexicological perspective. No specialized toponymous dictionary, or at least glossary of toponyms has been produced so far, and this has rendered our lexical investigation more difficult. The present research is based upon a large corpus standing for part of the toponyms and toponymous-structured data base, which is the outcome of the scanning of some well-known monolingual and bilingual general or specialized dictionaries (listed in the corpus and reference lists). Translatability is the key word for this classification which also considers the origin and the structure of eponymous idioms as useful instruments in the process of idiom decoding. The translation-oriented structural classification of these special kinds of idioms reveals both instances of equivalence (which considers literal translations and transpositions) and instances of translations with losses.

1. The literal translation 1.1. This method applies when idioms suggest identity or similitude in meaning and structure. Due to the grammatical patterns of the two languages in focus, in many instances the method of literal translation may involve a change in the order of the idiom words, but this change will not affect the meaning of the source language (SL) eponymous phrase idioms. Simple patterns illustrative for the noun phrase idioms show cases of literal

144 translations as the tower of Babel ( a huge tower built by Noah’s sons in Babylon) which involves the meaning of confusion and which has a similar form in Romanian, turnul Babel, where the possessive construction does not apply. The origin of this proper name in the Genesis (XI: 1-9) accounts for the similar meaning in the two languages and associates it to ‘noisy place or conditions’. English, nevertheless, has two more idioms including the toponyms, a perfect Babel or a Babel of sounds and both suggest ‘an uproar in different languages.’(Gulland and Howell 1994: 211) The idiom castles in Spain, with its Romanian version, castele in Spania (Berg 1969: 75) is used in both languages to denote ‘possessions that have no real existence’ or refer to something which ‘is visionary and unsubstantial’. (DPF 1995: 41) The origin of the two idioms is French and it was initially the title of a very successful comedy which was on stage for fifty years, beginning with February 1789. (Berg 1969: 75-76) The name of the Rubicon river is part of the idiom to cross/pass the Rubicon or a trece Rubiconul, to suggest the same meaning: to do something irrevocable, to take a decisive step or to venture on a great and dangerous understanding or deed. Rome, the eternal city, ‘which has always possessed a special importance as capital of the ancient world, then as capital of Christendom’ (Gulland and Howell 1994:210) is part of the toponymous idiom all roads lead to Rome, literally translated into Romanian as toate drumurile duc la Roma.

1.2. The literal translation applies to set patterns including the toponym Jericho, the name of a town situated in West Jordan as well as the name of an ancient Palestinian city near site of modern Jericho, to fall like the walls of Jericho, used to mean any sudden unexpected collapse (Gulland and Howell 1994: 212) This idiomatic structure may be literally translated into Romanian as a se nărui ca zidurile Ierihonului, but the dictionaries in our corpus do not include such an entry. The walls of Jericho didn’t fall down in a day is another form of the same idiom which is used to mean that ‘if you want to defeat your enemy you’ll have to fight very hard’ (Gulland and Howell 1994: 212) The saying is literally translatable into Romanian as zidurile Ierihonului nu s-au dărâmat într-o zi, but it would stir no reaction to the Romanian reader without an explicitation intended to point to its real meaning. Therefore, in spite of the possibility of being translated literally, this idiom should better be included in the section of transposition.

2. Transposition.

145 2.1. The toponyms under this division come from the world of the Ancient Greek involving derivatives or names of cities or countries, in their majority. The Romanian versions of the idioms in focus involve a switch which is due to the Romanian syntax rules. A Trojan horse or un cal troian will refer to any disguised means of introducing something harmful or disadvantageous. The name of Sparta, the ancient city in Peloponnese, the capital of Laconia, is associated with two idioms, Spartan simplicity or simplitate or rather austeritate spartană and Spartan endurance or rezistenţă spartană. The ‘Spartans were the most disciplined and austere people in ancient Greece’ (Gulland and Howell 1994:218) and therefore the two idioms have the same meanings in the two languages as describing a certain walk of life: Spartan simplicity referring to an absolute simplicity in a person’s way of life, this meaning ‘the simplest diet and the avoidance of luxury or comfort in any form’. (Gulland and Howell 1994: 218) The set pattern Spartan endurance concentrates another characteristic of the Spartans, their great fortitude and discipline. Having connections with ancient times, the idiom to have Philistine tastes reveals an interesting transformation: while, in ancient times, it referred to a person interested in matters of culture, in present-day English it is used in relation to someone without any cultural interest. In Romanian the same toponym is never used as an adjective but as a noun which describes a self-contented, coward and limited person (DEX 1998: 379) Bohemia, mistakenly believed in the Anglo-Saxon world to be the country where the gypsies come from, is included in three idiomatic constructions, suggesting possible connections with the culture of the Roma community. The best illustration is a flavour of Bohemia, ‘a tone of unconventionality, of neglect of social rules’. (DPF 1995: 28) Romanian possesses the lexical instruments to render the idiom literally as un aer de Boemia, but such a solution would convey a different meaning and implicitly, a translation loss for, in the Romanian culture, Bohemia is known as ‘1) the territory where the feudal Czech state came into being or 2) the name of the Czech republic when part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, between 1526 and 1918’. (DE 1993: 234) The syntagm Bohemian tastes/dress is closely connected to the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the country name and it suggests ‘bright, colourful, unconventional tastes or dress.’ (Gulland and Howell 1994: 218) This syntagm has not become a dictionary entry in any Romanian lexical record; nevertheless, the derogatory set pattern gusturi/haine ţigăneşti is rather frequent in every day speech. A Bohemian life is rendered in the Romanian vocabulary with viaţă boemă, viaţă de boem, involving as in English, an irregular, unconventional way of life, often applied to writers and artists (Gulland and Howell 1994:

146 218) The Mexican wave (Gulland and Howell 1994: 219) could simply be translated into Romanian by val mexican, but the Romanian dictionaries have not included it in the lexicon, even if the language of the media has accepted and used it for some time. The comparative idiom like Chinese water torture and its imitative equivalent the drip-drip-drip Chinese torture are transposed into Romanian through the meaningfully similar restricted pattern picătura chinezească, where the toponymous element has been preserved. Many other examples of toponymous idioms could be easily translated into Romanian on account of the simplicity of their structures, but all of them should require some parenthetical or additional information since the meaning of the toponymous combination is hardly known to the Romanian readership; and this could be the case with Jerusalem syndrome, or the Gallic humour.

2.2. This division discusses some of the situations where the toponymous idioms, mostly proverbs, sayings or famous citations, are translated by the meaning-for-meaning solution. Thus, Rome was not built in a day involving that nothing of value has ever been achieved without great effort (Gulland and Howell 1994: 210) has its Romanian counterpart in the saying încetul cu încetul se face oţetul, while to fiddle while Rome burns has a perfect equivalent in ţara arde şi baba se piaptănă both of them meaning to occupy oneself with trifles during a crisis. To meet one’s Waterloo, a phrase coined by Wendell Phillips, is turned into Romanian in the form of a-şi afla sfârşitul. A tentative solution for the equivalent of this idiom could be a-şi afla bacăul (where bacăul resembles the name of a Romanian town); nevertheless, this false toponym has hardly a connection with the Romanian set phrase for, probably due to the false analogy, the last word has been assimilated to the name of the town. In fact, bacău comes from bakó, a term of Hungarian origin, meaning executioner or hangman (Dumistrăcel 2001: 39-40). Moreover, to meet one’s Waterloo refers to circumstances making the defeat, while a-şi afla bacăul refers to persons providing for the defeat. Therefore, it is advisable to use the first version, since it is meaningfully similar, even if it exemplifies a case of translation loss, the lack of the toponym Waterloo diminishing the imaginary dimensions of the defeat. Two different toponymous idioms, to take/carry coals to Newcastle and to send owls to Athens that have the same meaning to take something to a place where there is already a great deal of it (Freedman and Freedman 1996: 61) are suggestively translated into Romanian by a saying a vinde castraveţi grădinarului.

147 Originating in the following nursery rhyme Ride a cock-horse / To Banbury Cross, / To see an old woman / Ride on a white horse. / With rings on her fingers / And bells on her toes, / She shall have music / Wherever she goes. (DPF 1995: 18), the idiom to take a child to Banbury Cross (to swing it up and down on one’s foot) would find its correspondent in the syntagm a da huţa (pe picioare). A particular case within this analysis regarding the possibilities of translating toponymous idioms was noticed with two idioms, to come from Missouri and a road-to-Damascus(-style) conversion. The former is rendered in Romanian by means of an eponymous idiom, a fi Toma Necredinciosul (Nicolescu et al 1982: 73). The latter, a road-to-Damascus(- style) conversion, which suggests a dramatic change of mind on some burning issues, could have as a tentative equivalent o întoarcere ca la Verdun/Ploieşti, conveying the same meaning, but, as in other cases referred in the foregoing, it is part of the every day speech, and due to its having an oral character it has not been included in any monolingual idiomatic dictionary yet. The final example of this division comes from the American variant of English, all’s right along the Potomac and illustrates a case of transposition where the form is ignored and where the meaning plays the major role, its Romanian version being totul este calm/în ordine/ în regulă or nu există motive de alarmă, îngrijorare.

3. Translatable through explicitation 3.1. The nominal toponymous idioms active in the English language span a wide variety of geographical names (towns, counties, streets, and even London spots) and they basically consist of two elements, the toponym and a common noun, as a Norfolk dumpling. The inhabitants of Norfolk, the county in Eastern England bordering on the North Sea and with the capital at Norwich, are reputed for being ‘dull and stupid’ ‘for reasons which are not apparent’ (Gulland and Howell 1994: 210) The London spots include the names of Chelsea and of Sloane Square, ‘popular with the young and wealthy yuppies during the 1980s.’(Freedman 1996: 238) Therefore, a Sloane ranger is an attribute assigned to members ‘of the rich and fashionable set who seek to flaunt their wealth and status. The term Sloane arose from people (and the satirical magazine Private Eye) mocking a certain stereotypical young rich person flaunting expensive cars and horse riding equipment. Harpers and Queen invented the term Sloane Ranger in 1975.’(Freedman 1996: 238) Its Romanian version would require an explanation for the solution fiţos does not succeed in conveying the same content as the source language idiom,

148 and it exemplifies another case of translation loss. Chelsea, the former borough and the present-day district of West London, has its name tied to the nouns bun and pensioner. Thus, a Chelsea bun is a special kind of rolled currant bun sprinkled with sugar while a Chelsea pensioner is a person living in the Chelsea Royal Hospital for old and disabled soldiers. A Glasgow magistrate is a salt herring, not a special kind of magistrate, the way a Philadelphia lawyer is not a lawyer, educated in or working for justice in Philadelphia but a very clever person. The Vicar of Bray, ‘a 16th century vicar who changed his views in accordance with the views of each new government’ (Gulland and Howell 1994: 273) is an idiom intended to describe anyone who changes his views for profit. Since the Romanian culture has no character name established in an idiom, the only possible version will have to resort to explicitation, thus giving details about the renown of the vicar. A toponym used as a qualifier is a rare practice, and it will be illustrated by Grub Street, from the name of a street in London, which was once the home of many inferior writers, and which euphemistically refers to writings of very poor quality. The average reasonable person, the layman or the man in the street is sometimes referred to as ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’ which is a coinage belonging to Lord Bowen who used it in a court case in 1903. To translate it word-for-word into Romanian would mean no expressiveness to the target language reader, thus a glossing or a parenthetical explanation would partially compensate for the translation loss involved by the omission of the toponym. The verb-including idioms, or the clause idioms, exemplify the verbs to be, to send, to go, to talk, to dance, to come and to wish. The verb to be suggests localization in two streets (in Queen Street whose idiomatic meaning is ‘to be in unfortunate circumstances’ (DPF1995: 181) or to be/end up in Carey Street that is, to go bankrupt. Etymologically, there has to be an explanation for this idiom since the Courts in Bankruptcy are situated in Carey Street off the Strand (Gulland and Howell 1994: 209). The verb to be is also used in the toponymous idiom to be for/off to Bedfordshire, i.e. to be anxious to retire to bed (DPF1995: 21). Bedfordshire is a county in the South Eastern central England area and an inscribed stone in the castle wall of Blarney, near Cork in Ireland is supposed to give the person kissing it powers of persuasion; consequently, the name of Blarney is part of two toponymous idioms, to kiss the Blarney Stone means to have the ability or intention to flatter, persuade or deceive people with one’s talk, and to be full of Blarney/to talk Blarney to make

149 wild promises, to flatter and deceive. (Gulland and Howell 1994: 210) Very few toponymous idioms are used euphemistically, as it is the case with to dance the Tyburn jig ( a sfârşi în ştreang) or with to talk Billingsgate (to talk like fish mongers at Billingsgate, which was formerly ‘the principal fish market in London, and notorious for its bad language’, (Gulland and Howell 1994: 209). Full of flavour as the Romanian variant is, nevertheless, it belongs to the colloquial speech: a înjura ca un birjar; this solution could represent the proper equivalent for the latter example. It is, indeed, a case of translation loss for the toponym disappears in the Romanian equivalent, but stylistically they are meaningfully identical. A translation loss is obvious in the case of the idiom to wish somebody at Jericho/at York where either Jericho or York would have no content for the Romanian reader, while the version put forward by the biligual dictionary is not only the best equivalent but it also involves a traditional colouring, a trimite pe cineva unde a dus mutu iapa /şi surdul roata/(Nicolescu et al 1982: 526). Euphemistically also are used the idioms to come Yorkshire over a man and to send (somebody) to Coventry. The former idiom, having the sense of to cheat/swindle a person, was the result of an extension of meaning for ’Yorkshire jockeys were known for their tricky dealings in the sale of horses’ (DPF1995 : 252). Its peculiar feature is the use of the toponym plays as a circumstantial adverb of manner, which is a rare thing to notice, since in their great majority, toponyms play the part of circumstantial adverbs of place. Thus, an incident during the English Civil War when groups of Royalists captured in Birmingham were sent for safe- keeping to the Parliamentary stronghold of Coventry is the root of the latter saying mentioned in the foregoing, and its meaning of excluding from companionship ’signifies in disgrace or disfavour with one’s associates. It is ’used by schoolboys, who inflict the punishment frequently on their fellows.’(DPF 1995: 198)

3.2. In addition to the toponyms which belong to the British culture and there were also recorded toponymous idioms whose origin pertains to the non-British culture. To make a Roman holiday, that is to say to organize a gruesome spectacle for the public (Gulland and Howell 1994: 218) will have to be rendered in the target language by an explicitation, a organiza un spectacol înspăimântător/ terifiant/plin de cruzime for the intended reference of the idiom sends the imagination of the arenas of ancient Rome). An Olympian detachment translated by detaşare olimpiană would hardly outline a vague idea of the English meaning, unless the Romanian version were completed by some additional information, pointing to an impersonal, unemotional view of human conflict (Gulland and Howell

150 1994: 211). The colourful India has bequeathed two idioms of the type in focus to the English lexicon, the black hole of Calcutta and the Delhi belly, which sounds like a rhymed compound. The former is used to denominate a very hot, crowded and uncomfortable building or place. The idiom has its roots in an incident which took place in India in 1756, when a large number of English prisoners were crowded into a small room overnight where many of them died. The latter refers to food poisoning which sometimes tourists suffered from when visiting Delhi or other places in India (Gulland and Howell 1994: 212)

4. Conclusions When translators have to evaluate the possibility of rendering English toponymous idioms into Romanian they must not accept the easy way out, that is the word for word translation, for in very many instances a considerable number of other factors which concern the linguistic as well as the extralinguistic context should be borne in mind. In addition to that, it is worth mentioning that many of the idioms included and considered under this approach have not been included in specialized dictionaries, so translators will have to visit monolingual specialized dictionaries to find the proper solution fitting their translation context.

Bibliography: o *** (1994), Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. New York: Gramercy Books, p. 951 (=WEUD) o * * * (1995), Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. New Lanark: Brockhampton Press (=DPF) o * * * (1993), Dicţíonar enciclopedic, Vol.I, A-C, Bucureşti: Editura enciclopedică (=DE) o * * * (1998), Dicţíonarul explicativ al limbii române, Ed. a II-a, Bucureşti: Editura Univers Enciclopedic o Berg, I. (1969), Dicţíonar de cuvinte, expresii, citate celebre. Bucureşti: Editura ştiinţifică o Dumistrăcel, S. (2001) Pînă în pînzele albe. Dicţionar de expresii româneşti, Iaşi: Ed. Institutul European o Dumistrăcel, S. (1997) Expresii româneşti. Biografii – Motivatii, Iaşi: Ed. Institutul European o McArthur, T. (1996), The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press

151 o Popescu, F. (2004) “Translating English Eponymous Idioms” Analele Universităţii “Dunărea de Jos” Galaţi, fasc. XIII, Limbă şi literatură, pp. 107- 110.

Corpus o * * * (1990), Chambers Concise Dictionary. W& R Chambers Limited (=CCD) o Freedman, T., Freedman, D. (1996) The Wordsworth Dictionary of Cliché, Wordsworth Editions Ltd o Manser, H.M. (1983) The Dictionary of Contemporary Idioms, London, Pan Books Ltd. o Nicolescu, A., et al. (1967) Dicţionar frazeologic englez-român, Bucureşti, Ed. Ştiinţifică o Nicolescu, A., et al. (1982) Dicţionar frazeologic englez-român, Bucureşti, Ed. Ştiinţifică o Gulland, D.M., Hinds-Howell, D. (1994) The Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms, London: Penguin Group o Kirkpatrick, E.M., Schwarz C.M.(eds.) (1996) The Wordsworth Dictionary of Idioms, Newcastle: Wordsworth Editions Ltd.

TEACHING TRANSLATION TO ESP STUDENTS

Teodora Popescu “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia

The aim of this paper is to address the issues of teaching translation to ESP students, in particular to business students. Business English courses taught to Romanian students need to include a translation component, which will familiarize students with terms, style, and wording of authentic business texts (in both SL and TL). Through a series of in- class Romanian  English translation exercises, students learn to understand, decode and reproduce actual business texts from one language into the other. Clearly aimed at perspective business users, this teaching method is designed to unveil the phrasing and content of real-life material used in the broadest range of business situations. This practice will clearly empower the future business actors to perform daily business tasks in English and/or Romanian, as assigned by employers and dictated by the market. We will try to exemplify this teaching method with some authentic translation tasks.

152 Introduction

Translation as a classroom technique has long been discarded by ELT practitioners, who have rather favoured tasks based on authentic texts, considered as the only linguistically reliable. Grammar translation techniques already proved rather ineffectual and artificial, and for the sake of a more communicative-functional approach, most non-native teachers of English nowadays avoid using translation in class. Nevertheless, there is a natural tendency in learners to translate: “…rather than ‘thinking in English’, when you cannot express yourself in the L2, you naturally fall back into L1, and search for a translation from a starting point in L1. Translation is thus an instinctive part of the way the mind approaches learning a second language.” (Lewis, 2002:60) We should therefore not ignore the potential that translation activities may bring into an English class. These tasks may be designed in such in such a way that students could perceive the relationships that exist between L1 and L2, at the same time avoiding the counter-productive word-for word translation. Especially in the case of ESP students, in particular business students, translation may be a challenging and rewarding undertaking, considering that their future career will, most likely, involve translation activities. As Wilga Rivers has noted, “much of the discussion of the place of translation in language teaching has been at cross-purposes since the kind of translation and its function in the language learning process have not been specified” (Rivers and Temperley, 1978:325). It is not the purpose of an ESP course for business students to delve into the theoretical aspects of translation theory. We should rather focus on the most appropriate translation techniques that students need to acquire in order to develop this professional skill. Furthermore, we should make a distinction between the role of translation in language learning and teaching translation as a skill in its own right. Our endeavours as educators have to encompass both dimensions. Translation entails the analysis of the potential of both L1 and L2, in terms of lexical, morpho-syntactic, stylistic and textual equivalence. We have chosen to start with the lexical equivalence since, as Lewis (2002:3) pointed out, “language consists not of traditional grammar and vocabulary but often of multi-word prefabricated chunks”. In other words, language consists of grammaticalised lexis, not lexicalized grammar. Therefore, we have to raise our students’ awareness as to the importance of finding the best lexical units, without ignoring the generative element of grammar. We will analyse in the following some problems that an insurance

153 text may raise in terms of translation equivalence at different levels, and how these could possibly be dealt with. The following Romanian text “Condiţii privind asigurarea de accidente persoane şi asigurarea medicală pentru călătorii în străinatate” brings forth the issue of the specific language used in an insurance contract, imposed by the Romanian legal language norms: – the elliptical “accidente persoane” (the word-for-word translation would sound illogical and grammatically incorrect: “…accidents people”) – “Condiţii privind …” should not be translated by “conditions concerning…”, which, although a grammatically correct utterance, is not common in the English legal language. We need to reach a deeper understanding of the meaning implied by this title, and of the specific content covered by the concepts in question. The first thing that students are encouraged to do is try to separate the text into lexically meaningful units, translate them and then check the collocability as well as the semantic/grammatical/textual appropriateness of their utterance. A good dictionary, or an on-line concordancer would reveal the occurrence of “personal accident” – a very good example of how sometimes interference is helpful. Another issue that we need to tackle is that, semantically speaking, the text above refers in fact not to some conditions, but to the terms of a contract. Our solution would be “Personal Accident and Travel Medical Insurance Plan”, which, in our opinion would render, most closely, the lexical, morphological and semantic load of the L1 text. We have chosen to leave out the word abroad or international (in the context of international travel), since some insider knowledge of the insurance field would clarify that travel usually refers to international travel. One of the chapters in the above-mentioned contract reads: Începutul şi încetarea răspunderii 8. Răspunderea Asiguratorului începe la data menţionată în poliţă ca fiind data începerii perioadei de valabilitate a asigurării, dar nu înainte de trecerea frontierei ţării de origine, pentru efectuarea călătoriei în străinatate şi încetează la data expirării perioadei de valabilitate înscrisă pe poliţa de asigurare sau din momentul în care Asiguratul trece graniţa în ţara de origine. We have previously stated that grammar translation is counterproductive and that we encourage the truncation of L1 into lexical chunks, which are then translated into L2. The final step would be the

154 refinement of the translated utterance from a paradigmatic, stylistic and syntagmatic point of view. The head noun is “răspundere”. This is the first problem that arises. In Dicţionar român englez. Romanian-English Dictionary (Leviţchi, 1998:810) we can only find responsibility1, as well as some of the most common phrases in which it occurs. Bantaş and Năstăsescu’s Dicţionar Economic englez-român român-englez (2003:637) provides another alternative – liability2, which is slightly better, but still not good enough. At this point we have to acknowledge the existence of a “meaning world” of business and economics. We know that the main function of an insurer is to “cover risks” – an insurance-specific collocate, less frequent in other genres. The noun equivalent would consequently be “coverage3”. The meaning of “răspundere” is not that the Insurer is or may be held responsible for the damage that occurs, but that they undertake to pay benefits in case of an accident. “Începutul” [= beginning, outset, commencement, start (in Leviţchi, 1988:544 and Bantaş and Năstăsescu, 2003:637)] is probably best translated by beginning. “Încetarea” [= ceasing, cessation (in Leviţchi, 1988:544)] may be again problematic. Neither of the two translations found in the dictionary seems appropriate. In the business lexis, a contract is usually terminated or annulled (cf. Business Collocations: English- Romanian Dictionary, Popescu-Furnea and Toma, 2003:69). An insurance policy expires. Similarly, the risk coverage will expire. “Data începerii perioadei de valabilitate a asigurării” is a lexical unit in its own right and this is how we should try and translate it. “Asigurarea” (= insurance) in this context refers, obviously to the insurance policy, which, by definition, is a contract. We know that in English, a contract comes into effect on a certain date. Within the same thematic and semantic area, a date may therefore be effective. Transformational grammar is indeed very helpful in translation practice. “Menţionată în poliţă” and “înscrisă pe poliţa de asigurare” (synonymous phrases) refer to the legality of the dates in question. The English legal language norms impose the use of a stock phrase: “under this policy”. The other lexical units are, hopefully, not so difficult to translate: “a trece frontiera/graniţa” = “cross the border”; “ţara de origine” = “home country” (“country of origin” is rather used in connection with export goods) Let us now turn our attention to the two possible translations of the above text.

155 A. Grammar/word-for-word translation In the first case, that of word-for-word rendering, we will break the sentence into morpho-syntactic categories: Răspunderea Asiguratorului începe la data menţionată în poliţa ca fiind data începerii perioadei de valabilitate a asigurării, dar nu înainte de trecerea frontierei ţării de origine, pentru efectuarea călătoriei în străinatate1. şi înceteaza la data expirării perioadei de valabilitate înscrisă pe poliţa de asigurare sau din momentul2. în care Asiguratul trece graniţa în ţara de origine3. I. Răspunderea începe

Asiguratorului la data dar nu înainte de trecerea

menţionată frontierei pentru efectuarea

în poliţa ca fiind ţării călătoriei

data de origine în străinătate …

începerii

perioadei

de valabilitate

a asigurării

II. … şi încetează

la data sau din momentul …

expirării

perioadei

de valabilitate înscrisă

pe poliţa

de asigurare

156

III. … Asiguratul trece

… în care graniţa în ţara

de origine

If we ignore the considerations that we have made in terms of lexical and semantic equivalence, a grammar-translated L2 text would read as follows: The Insurer’s liability begins on the date designated in the policy as the date of commencement of the insurance validity period, but not before the Insured crosses the border of the country of origin, in order to take the trip abroad and ends on the expiry date of the validity period written on the policy or at the moment the Insured crosses the border to his country of origin. The text sounds grammatically correct, but the meaning is rather obscured and may be rather cumbersome for a native speaker.

B. “Lexical approach” translation 1. Lexical equivalence The strategy that we have proposed, in line with the Lexical Approach, would first focus on the lexical equivalence between L1 and L2.

L1 lexical chunks L2 lexical chunks Răspunderea Asiguratorului Coverage4 data începerii perioadei de valabilitate effective date of coverage a asigurării data menţionată în poliţă under this policy [data] înscrisă pe poliţa de asigurare a trece frontiera/graniţa cross the border ţara de origine home country pentru efectuarea călătoriei în in order to travel abroad străinătate data expirării perioadei de valabilitate the expiry date of coverage

2. Grammatical/paradigmatic equivalence The next step is to analyse the issues raised by grammatical equivalence:

L1 L2 equivalence începe5 shall6 start nu înainte de trecerea7 frontierei not before the Insured crosses the border8

157 3. Textual/syntagmatic equivalence

L1 L2 equivalence trece graniţa9 în ţara de origine returns to the country of origin

The L2 text we therefore suggest is the following:

BEGINNING AND EXPIRATION OF COVERAGE 8. Coverage shall begin on the effective date of coverage under this policy, but not before the Insured crosses the border of the home country in order to travel abroad and shall end on the expiry date of coverage under this policy or at the moment the Insured returns to his home country10. We do not claim, nevertheless, that this is the only possible translation of the text under discussion. We have only tried to exemplify the way in which one can use the Lexical Approach when translating a specialist business text.

Conclusion In conclusion, we would like to sum up the stages and strategies of the translation paradigm that we have propounded in this study: 1. Analyse the L1 text in terms of meaningful lexical units. 2. Translate these lexical chunks and check their collocability and semantic appropriateness. 3. Analyse the paradigmatic equivalence of the two texts. Make any changes that are imposed by the L2 morphological and syntactic norms. 4. Review the different textual/discourse elements that are conducive to an even better/subtler L2 rendering. 5. Go over the L2 text again and scrutinize it globally. Have it checked, if possible, by a native speaker/English teacher/business specialist.

Notes 1a duty to deal with or take care of sb/sth, so that you may be blamed if sth goes wrong (Oxford Advanced Genie CD ROM) 2 the state of being legally responsible for sth (Oxford Advanced Genie CD ROM) 3 the range or scale of protection given to the insured under an insurance policy (Adam, 1989:150) 4 See footnote 3. “Coverage” refers to the Insurer’s duty to offer protection and pay benefits in case of an accident. 5 Present simple 6 Modal auxiliary, formal language

158 7 Subject-elliptic 8 In English the subject should always be mentioned and since there is no cataphoric reference in our context, we need to use an S + V construction. We prefer this construction (finite / time clause) to the non-finite, -s genitive premodification + verb-ing + of-genitive postmodification: “the Insurer’s crossing of the border”. 9 The textual reference of the phrase “a trece granita” (= “cross the border”) is actually two-sided: 1. cross the border out of/leave the home country and 2. cross the border into/return to the home country. 10 One should note the difference in the number of words used in the two translated texts (which, although not essential, may contribute to better readability): in the first case there are 69 words as compared to 58 in the second. The L1 text counts 61 words.

Bibliography: o Adam, J.H. (1989) Dictionary of Business English. Harlow: Longman o Bantaş, A. and Nastasescu, V. (2003) Dicţionar economic englez-român român-englez. Bucureşti: Niculescu o Bassnett, S. (1991) Translation Studies. London: Routledge o Greenbaum, S. and Quirk, R. (2004) A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. Harlow: Longman o Leviţchi, L. (1998) Dictionar român-englez. Romanian-English Dictionary. Bucureşti: Gramar o Lewis, M. (2002) Implementing the Lexical Approach. Thomson Heinle o ------. (2003) Oxford Genie CD-ROM. Oxford University Press o Popescu-Furnea, T. and Toma, M. (2003) Business Collocations. English-Romanian Dictionary. Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă o Rivers, W. M., and M. S. Temperley. (1978) A Practical Guide to the Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language. New York: Oxford University Press

159

TRANSLATING RELIGIOUS POETRY (EQUILIBRIUM WITHIN CONFLICT – SOME STATEMENTS ON INDIVIDUALITY AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS) Ioana Sasu-Bolba “Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca

La globalisation, phenomène typique du vingt-unième siècle, doit inclure aussi l’intensification de la communication humaine. Bien qu’ apparemment la traduction de la poésie religieuse n’a rien à voir avec ce phénomène, chaque poème bien traduit représente un possible pont entre deux nations, ce qui favorise une meilleure compréhension réciproque. Comme ce type de connaissance ne peut pas être niée, la globalisation suppose, en principal, l’habileté d’avoir affaire avec de gens qui appartiennent aux nations et aux croyances differentes. Dans la relation auteur-traducteur, les deux parties jouent alternativement un rôle important, chacun. Les deux parties offrent une „feuille” de vie aux lecteurs de poésie et augmentent l’héritage culturel national avec de nouvelles sources d’inspiration, du vocabulaire et des figures de style.

The requirements of the 21st century, the so-much-mentioned globalization, should include (and may be it already does) besides so many other fields of human activity, those which can intensify human communication (a necessity of the moment) and, therefore, all means able to quicken it. Although, at first sight it might seem far-fetched, the translation of religious poetry is also part of this process, as each well-translated poem represents in itself a possible bridge between at least two nations, favouring a better understanding of human nature. And this kind of knowledge cannot be denied as globalization supposes fore and foremost the ability to deal with various people belonging to different nations and beliefs. In the relationship author-translator, a seemingly unequal one, both factors play an important part, each of them having alternatively the main role. They are both expected now to achieve similar goals to those they have always been, but perhaps more refined ones: to offer a “slice” of life to poetry-readers (and not only) and increase the national cultural inheritance with new sources of inspiration, vocabulary and various figures of speech. From this viewpoint, religious literature deserves a special place both in national literature and translation if only we were to mention that

160 religiosity is one of man’s essential archetypes that lies at the bottom of his very self and is able to go deeper into his subconsciousness and look for truths there. Religiosity, faith in God, is connected to the double aspect of life: the seen and the unseen, as well as the awareness that we believe mostly what we may see or touch, although we have often experienced the power of something else, beyond comprehension, but guiding our lives. Doubtlessly, it is the same religiosity (our strong belief that God exists), that has brought about a conflictual state in almost each man’s mind: if I believe more in what I see or touch, if I enjoy life and its material goods; if I live in a society and have to obey its rules, then how can I believe in God, who is invisible, how can I love Him more than anything else on earth, give up material possessions and follow his Son? We consider that the right answer is given by a man like Fulke Greville, a Calvin and political man of the 17th.century, who once said: “I know the world and believe in God,”1 meaning that we should find a path in-between, to reconcile conflicts. There hardly exists any period of time lacking religious literature, but it seems that almost nothing has been changed in it. Poets use about the same biblical themes or comments on various aspects in the Holy Scripture. They describe the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; sing the purity and complain the sufferings of Jesus’s mother, The Virgin Mary; try to find answers to define man’s relation to God. This latter statement reminds us of T.S Eliot’s demands regarding literary criticism. He says that literary criticism should improve its approach to literature by including an ethical and theological viewpoint, so that it may also comment upon the theological value of a certain religious poem.2 According to T. S. Eliot, the religious poet does not deal in his whole poem with a religious spirit. What he actually does is to treat in this way only a limited part of it. Therefore, Christian poetry belongs almost exclusively to minor poetry3. However unchangeable religious poetry might seem as far as its theme is concerned, not the same thing can be said about the poet’s specific way of producing verse, the means of expression he uses in order to make his “story” unique. We chose from among so many religious poems one that deals with the above-mentioned conflict between man and man on the one hand, man and God on the other; one in which the poet, George Herbert, approaches the field in a most particular way: The Collar, having in view its translation into Romanian as well.

161 The Collar

1. I struck the board, and cried, “No more, 2. I will abroad. 3. What? Shall I ever sigh and pine? 4. My life and lines are free; free as the road, 5. Loose as the wind, as large as store. 6. Shall I be still in suit? 7. 7.Have I no harvest but a thorn 8. To let me blood, and not restore 9. What I have lost with cordial fruit? 10. Sure there was wine 11. Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn 12. Before my tears did drown it. 13. Is the year only lost to me? 14. Have I no bays to crown it? 15. No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted? 16. All wasted? 17. Not so, my heart: but there is fruit, 18. And thou hast hands. 19. Recover all thy sigh-blown age 20. On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute 15. Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage, 21. Thy rope of sands, 16. Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee 22. Good cable, to enforce and draw, 23. And be thy law, 24. While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. 25. Away; take heed: 26. I will abroad. 27. Call in thy death’s head there: tie up thy fears. 28. He that forbears 29. To suit and serve his need, 30. Desrves his load.” 31. But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild 32. At every word, 33. Methoughts I heard one calling, “Child”: 34. And I replied, “My Lord.”

162 Gulerul

A m dat în masă:“E’n zadar, Nimic mai mult. Cum? Mereu să murmur, să suspin? Viaţa, drumul, mi-s libere să zboare Ca vântul; pline’n hambar. Mereu d’acord, e’un chin! Nu recoltez nimic doar spinul, Să sângerez şi să nu am, Ce am pierdut cu prietenosul fruct? Da, vin aveam, Înainte ca of-ul meu să-l usuce; grâu, Înainte de lacrimi-pârâu.

Deci anul l-am pierdut de tot? Cunună de lauri să-i dau nu pot?

Nu tu flori, vesele ghirlande? Totu-i stricat? Totu-i împrăştiat? Nu-i chiar aşa: mai este fruct, Mai poţi lucra. Refă-ţi anii bătuţi de suspine, Cu două plăcerii: renunţă la cearta ce vrea Să ştie de-i bine ori rău. Lasă-ţi cuşca, Funia de nisip, Ce gânduri mici făcea; şi să purcezi, Să faci o funie care să lege, (Să-ţi fie lege), Când ai clipi, dar nu vrei ca să vezi. Acum să fii atent: Nimic mai mult. Retrage capul morţii ca teama să n’ascult. Cel care nu’L slujeşte Şi la nevoie nu îi ia suspinul, Îşi merită destinul.” În timp ce vehement eu blestemam mereu, În toat’aceste zile, Mi s-a părut că cineva a spus: “Copile”. Şi am răspuns doar: “Domnul meu.”

163 The Collar is considered the most virulent of the poems included by George Herbert (1593-1633) in his volume “The Temple”. The poet openly fights against the constraints imposed by the “new law”, Jesus’s law, namely that of refusing the joke not accepted by the Holy Fathers either. This is the joke Jesus Christ offered them: “Take my joke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lonely in heart and: ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my joke is easy, and my burden is light (Mathew 11, 29-30). The title implies a double metaphor: the divine Law is a joke, but becomes a collar with George Herbert. In English the word “collar” has two meanings: 1. Part of a man’s dress; 2. A dog collar. Whatever its meaning may be, it still is uncomfortable, and hinders. Behind it stands Jesus himself, wrongly understood; he warned the people of the dangers and cruelty imposed by the old Law. As far as the metrical structure is concerned, the poem is written in decasyllabic lines, alternating with lines of 8 and 4 syllables. The poem is rhymed. The rhyme scheme is: abcba. The use of three rhymes only is specific for the 17th century poetry, and much used by George Herbert. Both the metrical structure and the form of the stanza were entirely preserved in the translation, George Herbert being an expert in geometrical stanza structures. As far as the meaning is concerned, as well as the peculiarities a good translation has to take into consideration, we mention the existence of some key-words which we preserved unchanged as they are taken from biblical quotations. Among them thorn (7), line 12, bays to crown it (14), no garlands gay (15), rope of sands (22). In the translation, we used the same quotations, but took the Romanian equivalents for the English ones. This is a sample of how we have done it:

e.g. for thorn: “Yet shall know them by their fruits (the false prophets). Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?” (Mathew 7, 17) The Romanian version says: “Din roadele lor îi veţi cunoaşte. Oare se culeg din spini struguri şi din scai smochine?” Before my tears did drown it: “And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vinegard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eathen up; and break down the wall thereof, and it will be trodden down: and I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it” (Isaiah 5, 5-6).

The Romanian version: “Vă voi spune însă acum, ce voi face viei

164 mele: îi voi smulge gardul, ca să fie păscută de vire; îi voi surpa zidul, ca să fie călcată în picioare; o voi pustii; nu va mai fi curăţată, nici săpată, spini şi mărăcini vor creşte în ea! Voi porunci şi norilor să nu mai ploaie peste ea.” In the translation we used a metaphor, lacrimi-pârâu, for rain. We did it this way because of the rhyme, without altering the original meaning.

bays to crown it: Ps.64, and so on.

We kept rope of sands as it makes reference to the Greek proverb about the possible reconcilitation of contradiction, that is to say the impossible: “to make rope of sands or nets”. It was rather difficult to translate the second line (important for the meaning of the whole poem, and consequently also repeated twice): I will abroad. The Bible says about this idea:“…nu mai este nici o osândă pentru cei ce sunt în Hristos Isus, care nu umblă după trup, ci după spirit. Pentru că legea spiritului vieţii m-a izbăvit de legea păcatului şi morţii.” (Romani 8, 1-2). So we translated it with: nimic mai mult. The end is very impressive. The idea is taken from Romans 8, 15: Pentru că oricâţi sunt purtaţi de Spiritul lui Dumnezeu sunt fiii lui Dumnezeu.” (Romani 8,15). Hereof the Romanian word: copile.

Notes 1 Apud: Helen Gardner, “The Metaphysical Poets,” in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism, Edited by William R.Keast, Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 1971, p.43. 2 Apud: T.S.Eliot, “Religion and Literature” (1935), in Selected Essays of…, New Edition, Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., New York, 1964, p.343. 3 Idem, p. 346.

Bibliography: o Eliot, T. S. (1964) Selected Essays of…, New Edition, Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., New York o Keast, W. R. (ed.) (1971) Seventeenth-Century English Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism, Oxford University Press, U.S.A.

165

TRANSLATING STYLE: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Daniela Şorcaru “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Defining translation and the translator is much more intricate than one would assume initially. Many dictionaries supply synonyms for the verb to translate without any specification of the material being translated. The translators’ task is therefore to continually search and research, to deconstruct and to reconstruct the text, as their world is one of dichotomies pertaining to the traditional areas of activity of translators (technical, literary, religious translator, etc.), to modes of translating (written, oral) and to the translator’s priorities or focus (literal vs free, form vs content, formal vs dynamic equivalence, semantic vs communicative translating, translator’s visibility vs invisibility, domesticating vs foreignizing translation). In a large sense, the translator is identified with any communicator or mediator (whether listeners or readers, monolinguals or bilinguals) as they receive signals containing messages encoded. As the goal of translation is to ensure that the source and the target texts communicate the same message while taking into account the various constraints placed on the translator, a successful translation can be judged by two criteria: faithfulness, also called fidelity, which is the extent to which the translation accurately renders the meaning of the source text, without adding to it or subtracting from it, and without intensifying or weakening any park of the meaning, and transparency, which is the extent to which the translation appears to a native speaker of the target language to have originally been written in that language, and conforms to the language's grammatical, syntactic and idiomatic conventions. The interest in translation studies parallels the need of the written text to travel across countries, cultures and linguistic communities in order to make its message known to the world. Defining translation and the translator is much more intricate than one would assume initially. Many dictionaries supply synonyms for the verb to translate (to render, to describe, to transliterate, to put or turn into, to construe, to rephrase, to reword, to transmit, to re-express, to transmute, to interpret, to convert, to transform, to transpose, to express, to transfer), without any specification of the material being translated. The translators’ task is therefore to continually search and research, to deconstruct and to reconstruct the text, as their world is one of dichotomies pertaining to the traditional areas of activity of translators

166 (technical, literary, religious translator, etc.), to modes of translating (written, oral) and to the translator’s priorities or focus (literal vs. free, form vs. content, formal vs. dynamic equivalence, semantic vs. communicative translating, translator’s visibility vs. invisibility, domesticating vs. foreignizing translation). In a large sense, the translator is identified with any communicator or mediator (whether listeners or readers, monolinguals or bilinguals) as they receive signals containing messages encoded. Two or several translators may be translating from the same source text and into the same or different target language and yet the results may be very different. Reasons for this variation include:  The purpose of the translation;  The translator as a person;  The target language audience for whom the translation is intended. The results are translations that fall someplace on a continuum from literal translations to idiomatic translations. Literal translations follow very closely the grammatical and lexical forms of the source text language, whereas idiomatic translations are concerned with communicating the meaning of the source text using the natural grammatical and lexical items of the receptor language. The translation process, whether it is for translation or interpreting, can be described simply as: . Decoding the meaning of the source text, and . Re-encoding this meaning in the target language. To decode the meaning of a text the translator must first identify its component ‘translation units’, that is to say the segments of the text to be treated as a cognitive unit. A translation unit may be a word, a phrase or even one or more sentences. A complex cognitive operation lies behind this seemingly simple procedure. To decode the complete meaning of the source text, the translator must consciously and methodically interpret and analyze all its features. This process requires thorough knowledge of the grammar, semantics, syntax, idioms and the like of the source language, as well as the culture of its speakers. The translator needs the same in-depth knowledge to re-encode the meaning in the target language. In addition, knowledge of the subject matter being discussed is essential. As the goal of translation is to ensure that the source and the target texts communicate the same message while taking into account the various constraints placed on the translator, a successful translation can be judged by two criteria: faithfulness, also called fidelity, which is the extent to which the translation accurately renders the meaning of the source text, without

167 adding to it or subtracting from it, and without intensifying or weakening any park of the meaning, and transparency, which is the extent to which the translation appears to a native speaker of the target language to have originally been written in that language, and conforms to the language's grammatical, syntactic and idiomatic conventions. Nevertheless, no matter how difficult the translator’s task may be, had it not been for such people who took these risks, the beauty of literature would have probably never travelled around the world. All these theoretical guidelines considered, we thought of comparing and contrasting several translations of William Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVIII so as to investigate how translation studies theory functions at the level of the literary text. With a view to performing such an analysis, six translations into Romanian, belonging to different stages in the development of the translation process in Romania, and a translation of the sonnet into French (see Appendix). From a formal perspective, the sonnet is a fixed form lyrical poem consisting of fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter, linked by various rhyme patterns. Although it originated in Italy, the sonnet underwent some formal altering as it was molded by the literary genius of Shakespeare. Considering the prosodic elements, although the Romanian sonnet takes after the Italian structure as a rule, as TT2 and TT4 prove, some translations, including the French one, remain faithful to the features of the original Shakespearean sonnet (TT1, TT3, TT5, TT6, and TT7). The fourteen lines of the sonnet are divided into three quatrains (statement, development and climax of the action), and a rhyming couplet acting as the conclusion. The quatrains have an alternate rhyme pattern, while the rhythm used is the iambic pentameter. Therefore, when considering the translation of such a sonnet, a twofold problem arises: if the form is the main aspect to be preserved, then we must agree that the versions of Tomozei (TT1), Pintilie (TT3), Bosca (TT5), Clonţea (TT6) and Garnier (TT7) may be considered as being the most appropriate. On the other hand, however, a translator must always pay attention to the target language and its specific characteristics; hence, bearing this aspect in mind, we should consider Chirică’s (TT2) and Frunzetti’s (TT4) versions as more adequate to the task. The most difficult problem that the first two lines of the sonnet raise is to translate the archaic forms thou, thee and art. The pronominal archaic forms are impossible to render, therefore the focus falls exclusively on the verb, as we need an equally archaic but poetic verb at

168 the same time. That is why the choice of a asemui is the best in both Frunzetti’s (TT4) and Clonţea’s (TT6) versions. A asemăna, used in Chirică’s (TT2) and Bosca’s (TT5) translations is close as content to the original but lacks the archaic dimension. On the contrary, Tomozei’s (TT1) a semui is too archaic, whereas Pintilie’s (TT3) a compara and Garnier’s (TT7) te comparer are neither archaic, nor poetic enough to match the ST. Furthermore, although almost all translators agree on blând(ă) when translating temperate, except for Bosca (TT5) who favours senin to match his choice of the noun chip, actually a synecdoche when compared to the original thou, it is Clonţea’s (TT6) translations that should be considered as the most appropriate in terms of transferring as many connotations of the word as possible: cumpătată. The French translation (TT7) displays a shift in meaning, as aimable is used to translate the ST word, a situation that should have been avoided by choosing a more adequate synonym. The issue changes when tackling lovely: all the translators considered in this analysis made a different choice. According to rendering the meaning of the ST, plin de farmec (Tomozei, TT1) seems to match this principle better, as all the other solutions, namely dulce (Chirică, TT2), plăcută (Pintilie, TT3), caldă (Frunzetti, TT4), gingaş (Bosca, TT5), and douce (Garnier, TT7), result in a semantic gain, adding a much more [+AFFECTION] perspective to the original meaning. Lines three and four again raise the problem of rendering the archaic dimension of hath. In Romanian, this can be achieved both at the level of verbs and at that of nouns. Hence, the meaning and the archaic value of the original are best rendered in Frunzetti’s version (TT4), where both the metaphor and the general poetic dimension of the original may also be regarded as being best preserved. Nonetheless, if the rest of the Romanian translators only render this aspect partially, the archaic dimension is completely lost in the French translation (TT7). Because of its peculiar interwoven meanings and poetic connotations, the lines of the second quatrain prove quite challenging to translate. That may be the reason why some translators completely missed or altered some of the meanings in the original text. This is the case of Tomozei (TT1), in whose translation dimmed turns into precede-ntunecat and declines into descinde, both of which are inappropriate to the context. A more effective effort is to be noted with Garnier (TT7) who chose to solve the problem by using the double verb solution, i.e. se

169 ternit et s’efface; moreover, the choice of l’or de son teint seems more appropriate when compared with the ST. All the other versions rely on a smaller or higher degree of interpreting the original text and of trying to adapt the target text to target language readers. However, such non-poetic instances as smalţu-i auriu (Bosca, TT5) should have been avoided. From a different point of view, in terms of achieving both rhythm and rhyme and adding the transfer of meaning and image from one language into another (also preserving the metaphors involved in creating the meaning), Chirică’s version (TT2) of these lines may be regarded as more accurate. The third quatrain may be looked upon as the most archaic part of Sonnet XVIII, as it is laden with archaic forms or contractions of words, an aspect which makes it all the more difficult and challenging to translate. Therefore, we may again identify several instances of semantic gain / loss and of meaning shift. In Tomozei’s translation (TT1), for example, there is a clear loss of fair in Nor lose possesion of that fair thou ow’st which turns into Şi n-ai să pierzi ce astăzi stăpâneşti; this semantic loss should have been avoided as the noun has particular importance in the poem, as it can be identified in a range of epithets laying the basis for the portraying of the author’s friend: lovely – temperate – fair. Tomozei also reverses agent and affected roles in translating Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade as În umbra morţii n-ai să plimbi caleşte. On the contrary, the French version of the poem (TT7) preserves the meaning in employing beautés immortelles, with no reversal of the semantic roles, e.g. Ni la Mort se vanter de ton fantôme errant. All the other translations also translate fair by frumuseţe / farmec, and they preserve death as an agent, as well. Remark should, however, be made concerning Pintilie’s (TT3) use of vara-ţi veştejită, which results in lowering the register by not translating the poetic dimension of the ST properly. Nevertheless, the metaphors are all preserved in the translation and this obviously improves the quality of the target texts considered. As for the concluding couplet, all translators chose to interpret the ST and, as a result, they favoured rhythm and rhyme over meaning transfer. They do not operate a complete change in meaning, but rather alter it so as to match the TL structures that obey rhythm and rhyme. A possible comment may be that some translators should have taken into consideration an enhanced poetic dimension, rather than making some choices as Cât lumea ochi şi guri va mai avea (Pintilie, TT3), Cât ochi vor

170 fi şi guri vor răsufla (Frunzetti, TT4), or Cât oamenii privesc şi cât respiră (Tomozei, TT1). Therefore, as the analysis shows, a better translation would probably be a combination of all these target texts – yet, the problem of rhythm and rhyme will impose, in such a case. One should, nonetheless, be aware that it is much easier to compare and contrast the hard and dedicated work of others than to produce an individual contribution, a personal translation of the ST.

Bibliography: o Bantaş, A., and Croitoru, E. (1998) Didactica traducerii, Galaţi: Editura Porto Franco. o Basnett, S. (1991) Translation Studies, London and New York: Routledge. o Bell, R. (1991) Translation and Translating. Theory and Practice, London and New York: Longman. o Catford, J. C. (1965) A Linguistic Theory of Translation, London: Oxford University Press. o Croitoru, E. (1996) Interpretation and Translation, Galaţi: Editura Porto Franco. o Hatim, B. and Mason, I. (1992) Discourse and the Translator, London and New York: Longman. o Leviţchi, L. (1993) Manualul traducătorului de limba engleză, Bucureşti: Editura Teora. o Newmark, P. (1981) Approaches to Translation, Oxford: Pergamon. o Newmark, P. (1991) About Translation, Great Britain: Multilingual Matters Ltd. o Nida, E. (1964) Toward a Science of Translation, Leiden: E.J. Brill. o Nida, E. (1996) The Sociolinguistics of Interlingual Communication, Bruxelles: Éditions du Hazard. o Nida, E. (2000) “Principles of Correspondence” in Venuti, L., and Baker, M. (eds.). (2000). The Translation Studies Reader, London and New York: Routledge. o Nida, E. (2001) Contexts in Translating, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company. o Snell-Hornby, M. (1988) Translation Studies. An Integrated Approach, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company.

171

Appendix

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVIII

ST1: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the lovely buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all to short a date. Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By change or nature’s changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possesion of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade When in eternal lines thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

TT1: Cu-o zi a verii pot să te semui? Tu eşti mai plin de farmec şi mai blând! Un vânt doboară creanga şi blestemu-i Ca frunza verii moare prea curând. Ades e ochiul cerului fierbinte Şi aur îl precede-ntunecat Precum frumosul din frumos descinde Sub cerul simplei firi netulburat. Dar vara ta eternă nu păleşte Şi n-ai să pierzi ce astăzi stăpâneşti În umbra morţii n-ai să plimbi caleşte Când într-un vers etern ţi-e dat să creşti. Cât oamenii privesc şi cât respiră Trăieşti şi tu în cântu-nchis în liră.

TT2: Să te aseamăn cu o zi de vară? Tu eşti mai dulce şi surâzi mai blând! În Mai e vânt şi mugurii-i doboară Şi timpul verii trece prea curând.

172 Cerescul ochi e uneori fierbinte, Şi-ades umbrită-i geana lui de foc, Căci de frumos frumosul se dezminte Şi-ntâmplător şi-n al schimbării joc. Dar vara ta nu va păli vreodată Căci frumuseţea-i veşnic anotimp; Nici moartea s-o umbrească n-o să poată Când vers etern o-nalţă peste timp.

Cât va fi suflet, văz şi versul meu, Prin tot ce-am scris tu vei trăi mereu.

TT3: C-o zi de vară cum să te compar? Ţi-e firea mai plăcută şi mai blândă. Căci vântu-i smulge mugurii-n Florar Şi-i scurt sorocu-i: iarna stă la pândă. Ne arde ochiul soarelui ades, Dar uneori păleşte-a sa lumină Urmând al soartei mers neînţeles Şi floarea frumuseţii fruntea-nclină. Dar vara-ţi veştejită nu va sta Cu toată-a frumuseţilor mulţime, Nici moartea n-o să-ţi fure umbra ta, Căci vei trăi-n nemuritoare rime. Cât lumea ochi şi guri va mai avea Aceste versuri viaţă au să-ţi dea.

TT4: Cu-o zi de vară-ţi pot asemui Făptura? Ţi-e mai caldă şi mai blândă! Cad flori în mai când prinde-a vremui Şi verilor li-s toamnele osânda. Jar viu ne pare soarele-uneori Şi-ades păleşte ochiul lui, cerescul. Splendorile decad dintre splendori Şi sorţii răi norocul vitregescu-l. Dar veşnica ta vară dăinui-va Şi frumuseţea nu-ţi va fi furată, Nici moartea-asupra-ţi n-o să-şi urce stiva: Vei creşte-n vers cu secolii deodată.

Cât ochi vor fi şi guri vor răsufla,

173 El va trăi şi viaţă va să-ţi dea.

TT5: Să te aseamăn cu o zi de vară? Tu ai un chip mai gingaş, mai senin; Vânt aspru-n Mai flori tinere doboară, Şi-arenda verii ţine prea puţin. Cerescul ochi e uneori dogoare, Şi-ascuns e smalţu-i auriu adese, Şi-n tot ce-i farmec, farmecul dispare, Când firea-n mers ori soarta i-l desţese. Dar vara ta eternă nu apune, Nici farmecul ce azi te-mpodobeşte, Nici val asupra-ţi Moartea nu va pune, Când tu, prin timp, în vers etern vei creşte. Cât inimi bat, şi-n ochi mai e scânteie, Mi-e cântul viu, şi viaţă o să-ţi deie.

TT6: C-o zi de vară să te-asemui dar? Mai dulce-ai firea, mai cumpătată: De vânt în mai se scutur muguri iar, Şi viaţa verii-i mult scurtată: Prea-ncins e ochiul cerului vreodat’, Şi-obrazul şi-l ascunde după nor; Şi ce-i frumos azi, mâine-a scăpătat Urmând al vremii mers neiertător; Dar vara ta trăi-va veac de veac, Iar frumuseţea ta nu va pieri, Chiar morţii hâde ai să-i vii de hac, Prin vers etern ce-n timp va dăinui; Cât duhul vieţii-n om va adăsta, Prin versu-mi ţie viaţă îţi voi da.

TT7: Comment te comparer aux beaux jours de l’Été? Ta grâce est plus aimable et ton humeur plus douce: Son vent rude abolit les burgeons veloutés Et son bail est bien court: déjà l’Hiver le pousse. Parfois l’oeil du soleil nous brûle en son ardeur, Souvent, l’or de son teint se ternit et s’efface,

174 Suivant le cours changeant d’un hasard destructeur Toute fleur de beauté perd sa fleur et sa grâce. Mais toi, point ne verras se flétrir ton printemps, Ni se faner jamais tes beautés immortelles, Ni la Mort se vanter de ton fantôme errant: Tu grandis à toujours en rimes éternelles. Tant que vivra le monde, et l’amour et l’envie, - Vivront ces vers, et ces vers-là donnent la vie!

TT1 – Translated by Gheorghe Tomozei TT2 – Translated by Neculai Chirică TT3 – Translated by Nicolae Pintilie TT4 – Translated by Ion Frunzetti TT5 – Translated by Teodor Bosca TT6 – Translated by Procopie Clonţea TT7 – Translated by Charles-Marie Garnier

SUBTITLING A BILINGUAL FILM IN A THIRD LANGUAGE: SOME PARADOXES OF TRANSLATION

Emma Tămâianu-Morita “Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca

Problema subtitrării unui film bilingv într-o a treia limbă: cîteva paradoxuri ale traducerii. Lucrarea examinează modalitatea în care filmul japonez Chi to hone (Blood and Bones, 2004, regia Yōichi Sai) a fost prezentat publicului japonez pe de o parte, şi publicului român pe de altă parte, cu focalizare asupra strategiilor de traducere adoptate în fiecare caz. Constituţia verbală a filmului este bilingvă (japoneză – coreeană), în consonanţă cu tema principală, şi anume confruntarea socio-istorică şi culturală dintre cele două etnii în Japonia primei jumătăţi a secolului XX. Traducătorul care lucrează pentru un alt public decît cel japonez şi cel coreean trebuie să răspundă la cîteva întrebări cruciale, de natură să influenţeze semnificativ receptarea operei cinematografice de către publicul său: (a) însăşi existenţa bilingvismului se impune oare semnalată spectatorului prin intermediul subtitrării şi, dacă da, cum anume se poate realiza aceasta?; (b) o versiune tradusă poate ea să reflecte cu autenticitate nu doar expresia bilingvă în calitate de procedeu material, ci şi, mai important, funcţia de sens îndeplinită de configuraţiile bilingve în original?

175 Analiza noastră este condusă în cadrul conceptual al lingvisticii textului de orientare integralistă întemeiată de Eugenio Coşeriu, avînd drept reper în particular viziunea coşeriană asupra proceselor construcţiei sensului în textele transsemiotice.

1. Introduction. Donald Richie, the leading foreign critic of Japanese film, as well as the first translator of many classical Japanese movies for the benefit of English-speaking audiences, observes in an essay dedicated to the issue of subtitling Japanese films: All translation is a compromise but I doubt that any translation is so thoroughly compromised as that of film dialogue subtitles. The translator is given only so much space and within it is supposed to render spoken dialogue as written dialogue in the amount of time it takes to say it. This is impossible. (Richie 1991/1995: 89) What then if the spoken dialogue is constructed not in the substance of one language, but in the substance of two languages, while the written dialogue is confined to the substance of a – single – third language? The starting point for the present discussion is the way in which the Japanese film Chi to hone (lit. Blood and Bones, 2004, directed by Yōichi Sai) was brought before Japanese and Romanian audiences, and our focus lies on the choice of translation strategies in each of the two cases.

1.1. The movie Chi to hone, based on Sogil Yan’s highly successful and equally controversial autobiographical novel published in 2001, unfolds the destiny of Kim Shunpei, a Korean immigrant who arrives in Osaka in 1923 having as sole possession his own version of the “Japanese dream”. The lead role was assigned to Beat (Kitano) Takeshi, the much acclaimed actor and himself an iconoclastic director rewarded with numerous prizes at Japanese and European film festivals. Kim’s personal history, set on the background of his community’s history, is related through the eyes of his son, both a participant to the events, and the narrative voice in the film, as in the novel. The film revolves around two main themes: ethnic discrimination (i.e. discrimination of Korean ethnics by the Japanese majority) and discrimination of the weak, of women in particular, within the Korean family and community. The director, himself a Korean ethnic, chose to tackle both themes in a realistic manner, confronting the viewer with the crude image of a wide range of manifestations of abuse and extreme violence.

176 A marginal note in this respect. The film’s title was accurately translated into English as Blood and Bones. In Romanian, however, the title inadvertently became Carne şi oase. The adequacy of this equivalence can be questioned first of all because the Romanian phrase evokes the idiomatic expression în carne şi oase (as in a vedea pe cineva în carne şi oase, a veni în carne şi oase etc.), which is of no relevance to the film. Secondly, the phrase obscures the «blood» imagery and symbolism. This is a crucial sense-constitutive unit that holds together a vast and otherwise contradictory field of significance, stretching out from the pole of blood relations and animal vitality to the pole of cruelty, physical violence, death and cold-blooded murder.

1.2. The film displays in an explicit manner or evokes1 many elements of the historical, social and political background of Kim’s story, such as: ▪ the Japanese occupation of South-East Asian countries, which came to an end only with Japan’s defeat in World War II; ▪ the ideological split of the two Koreas, with all the tragic consequences of this political act on individuals, families and communities, which found themselves divided overnight by borders within, more destructive than mere geographical frontiers; ▪ the mass murder of intellectuals in North Korea, along with other acts of power characteristic for totalitarian régimes (propaganda through utopian images and catch-phrases about the “paradise on earth” of the new “flawless” society, suppression of all communication with the outer world, confiscation of individual property, the economic polarization of society etc.); ▪ the complex relationship between the Japanese mafia and its Korean counterpart. Although the plot unfolds mainly between the 2nd and 6th decades of the 20th century, this thematic configuration represents, without a doubt, a poignant comment on the present status of the Japanese-Korean issue.

1.3. I saw Chi to hone first when it was released in Japan, in the autumn of 2004, and later in Romania, at TIFF (Transsylvania International Film Festival). I was thus able to assume two markedly different points of view. This personal experience fostered the reflections put forward in the present paper. I will address the issue of the movie’s impact on the general audience in the two countries, with special focus on

177 the role played by translation in the reception process. I therefore intend to: (a) examine the translation strategies applied in the presentation of the film to the two audiences, (b) discuss the lines of interpretation suggested to the spectator by virtue of those strategies, and (c) illustrate several paradoxical questions and empirical limitations of the translation process that became apparent in the given case.

Before proceeding to these three aspects, some peculiarities of the category of texts Chi to hone belongs to must be highlighted. First of all, we are dealing with a contemporary cinematographic work that has, from the start, a twofold textual signifié (or, in Eugenio Coseriu’s terms, a twofold Textkonstitution, “textual constitution”), made up of two articulated components, image and sound. All the present considerations will be restricted to the verbal sub-component of the latter. In its turn, the verbal constitution of this movie is twofold in its idiomatic nature, comprising sequences in Japanese and sequences in Korean, in accordance with the main theme mentioned above – namely the cultural and historical clash between the two corresponding ethnic groups, especially during the first half of the twentieth century. When any such cinematographic work is presented to the public, the verbal signifié may be accompanied – or not – by its inter-idiomatic echo / reflection, i.e. by a translation in the form of subtitles2.

2. Chi to hone and the Romanian spectator. 2.1. At TIFF, as already shown, the Romanian version of the title did not assist the viewer in forming a preliminary intuition of the film’s thematic evocations. Thus, prior to the viewing the only minimal clue as to the general drift of the film was the brief description included in the presentation leaflet, which read as follows: Faimosul actor şi regizor Takeshi Kitano este Kim Shunpei, un imigrant coreean din Japonia a cărui viaţă alcătuieşte un tablou al cruzimii, al abuzului şi al violenţei. Shunpei e, cu siguranţă, un supravieţuitor, dar care e teribilul preţ al metodelor sale? (The famous actor and director Takeshi Kitano is Kim Shunpei, a Korean immigrant in Japan whose life paints a picture of cruelty, abuse and violence. Shunpei is surely a survivor, but what is the terrible price of his methods?) According to the conventions of this (para)textual species, the descriptive note is purely factual and contains no reference to the artistic

178 configuration or the textural units relevant for the process of sense- construction. It only indicates what the movie refers to (Kim Shunpei’s destiny), and not how the movie makes sense, “saying something about”3 Kim Shunpei’s destiny. Thus, nothing prepared the Romanian viewer for a cinematographic text with bilingual verbal expression. The viewing itself was also placed under the sign of a complete absence of clues to suggest the bilingual constitution. The movie was presented, like many others, with full subtitles in Romanian (and, in fact, in English as well). We were offered, I might say, the thorough subtitles of an industrious translator, matching closely and faithfully each utterance of each character.

2.2. It is now time to outline the types of situations in which Chi to hone manifests its bilingual constitution: (1) alternating scenes in which one of the two languages is spoken, with a clear dominance in length of Japanese, but a length of the Korean- spoken scenes significant enough to justify the term of ‘alternation’, instead of mere ‘insertion’ of Korean scenes in a Japanese texture; (2) presence of both languages in the same scene, more specifically in alternating lines within the same dialogue; (3) bilingual speeches (presence of both languages within the same sentence), a symptomatic phenomenon with speakers of a language placed in the medium of another language. It is important to emphasize that what I refer to are situations where Korean ethnics act in these three verbal hypostases4. It can be stated that the selection of the idiom signals either: (a) the psychological state of the character, or (b) his/her intentions and motivations from the angle of self- definition with respect to the immediate community (the Korean minority), the national community (“the Japanese people”) and the community beyond national borders (“the Great Japanese Empire”). As in real life, selection of the idiom amounts to a personal and political statement. I doubt that the Romanian viewer was at any point aware that two distinct languages were in fact spoken. – At least not the ‘average’ viewer, the one who has no previous acquaintance with these two languages and is not a linguist trained to distinguish even languages unknown to him by perceiving functional differences in the phonetic expression of a verbal stream. The reason is not to be found solely in the “exoticism” of both languages in the perception of the native speaker of Romanian. An even more important role may have been played by the … industrious subtitles:

179 though necessary from every practical angle, their side effect was a systematic obliteration of the above-mentioned idiomatic difference. A solution to avoid such failure would not have been completely beyond reach. We are all familiar with the technique of dissociation through graphic substance, e.g. marking by italics vs. regular font: metatext vs. primary speech, quoted speech vs. the character’s own speech “in real time”, inner speech (“thoughts”) vs. externalized speech etc. It is no less true, however, that using such a device in this case would have required an initial explicitation of the convention (e.g. ‘italics are used for sequences spoken in Korean’), and such explicitation cannot be easily reconciled with the artistic nature of the work.

2.3. There was, nevertheless, one moment when the translator attempted to do justice to the bilingual constitution. I refer to a scene where young Koreans apt to join the army are given a boost speech that ends with a cry of “Banzai!” (in Japanese, approx. “Hurrah!”), repeated in chorus by the future soldiers of the Empire. One young man sets himself apart from the rest, shouting “Mansei!” – the Korean equivalent of the word – only to be reprimanded and even physically aggressed by the group. Later in the film the scene will resurface in a cynical reversal: the dissenter returns from the war and, now changed, wants to conform, shouting “Banzai!”. But the tide has turned in his community, and he is met once more with verbal and physical aggression. The same individuals who had previously declared submission to the imperial system through denial of their ethnic identity now yell, in chorus, “Mansei!”, under the protection of a newly asserted nationalism. The words banzai and mansei were kept in the original form in the subtitles, both italicized, no doubt for the purpose of signalling their crucial role in the act of self-definition and assertion of the individual and collective identity. Once again, however, I am compelled to express my doubt as to the effectiveness of this device. For someone who does not know the respective languages, or at least the respective words, these might have appeared simply as two units given “in the original”, not necessarily as units belonging to two different languages. Naturally, in the case of a Japanese audience such a risk does not exist, as the idiomatic difference is automatically grasped, and in fact the Korean word mansei belongs to a cross-cultural lexical repertoire well known to the Japanese speaker. For Japanese audiences, the contrast between the exclamations “Banzai!” and “Mansei!” spontaneously activates evocative relations of the whole social and historical background of the period.

180 2.4. Let me sum up the points of general relevance that result from this illustration. The first general question is one familiar to many translators: in what way – by what kind of strategies and devices – can the very existence of two different languages in the constitution of a text be indicated in the translation (/film subtitles in particular). Two techniques are, in principle, at the translator’s disposal. One is to translate into the target language (Romanian in our case) only the dominant stream (here, the Japanese sequences), leaving the insertions of the other idiom as they are in the original. It seems rather obvious that such a solution can only work if the receiver actively engages in the game of that convention. For instance, confronted with a translation of the novel Chi to hone undertaken in this manner, the reader would design his interpretation in the register of as if: he/she would read the Romanian text as if it were the Japanese text, and the understanding of the Korean segments left in the original would be made possible by paratextual structures, such as explanatory notes. The unnaturalness of the device would probably be accepted as an inevitable side effect. However, the material constraints that govern film subtitling preclude the use of a strategy of this sort. A different approach entails replacing the original bilingualism with a bilingualism related to the target language, provided the latter bilingualism can be perceived by the target receiver as analogous in its cultural and historical evocation. More striking and far more risky than the first option, this solution is also dependent on paratextual explicitation. Moreover, even setting aside the empirical impossibility of finding truly “analogous” inter-idiomatic relationships, from a psychological perspective the intrusion of the substitute bilingualism is infinitely more difficult to accept as mere ‘artistic convention’ and is bound to arouse suspicion. In our example, replacement of the Japanese – Korean bilingualism with, say, a Romanian – Hungarian bilingualism would have been ludicrous at best.

2.5. Chi to hone generates one further question of general relevance, perhaps even more important than the first. I will formulate it starting from a second illustration. The film contains recurrent scenes of prayer performed by Kim Shunpei’s wife. The prayer, an intensely personal discourse act, by definition without (human) interlocutor and without spectators, is carried out in Korean. The content of these prayers was also faithfully transcribed in detail in the Romanian subtitles. As is to be expected, they refer to the abused woman’s wish to be freed from her seemingly endless plight.

181 It is only justified to ask ourselves at this point: in the process of sense-articulation is the prayer important by virtue of its actual content, or merely as a unitary sign in the film’s texture, as an act of prayer? As mentioned above, the content (or type of content) is entirely predictable by plot and thematic context, and the discourse act can be unequivocally identified as an act of prayer on the basis of visual elements in the scenes (the image of the altar, specific posture and gestures, tone of voice etc.). Beyond such circumstantial suggestions, however, a clearer answer is offered by the way in which the film was presented to the Japanese public.

3. Chi to hone and the Japanese spectator. In Japan, the movie was released in the autumn of 2004, completely without translation (i.e., in the given situation, without Japanese subtitles for the relatively extensive part spoken in Korean). 3.1. In principle, in Japan two categories of spectators were expected to view the work: Japanese ethnics on the one hand, and the Korean minority on the other hand. The latter does not exceed a total population of approx. 540.000, which means that in any case the first category of potential viewers was utterly predominant. It can therefore be stated that the absence of subtitling was, in and by itself, a sense-constitutive unit in the cinematographic work, as an “expressive gap” in Coserian terminology (Ausdruckslücke)5, a clearly intentional device on the director’s part. In the framework of text analysis6 we apprehend, or, rather, reconstruct contingent intentionality as “intent” or purport of the text itself, precisely by interpreting the constitutional strategies that the work uses to make sense. In the case of Chi to hone, I believe that the absence of translation in Japan essentially had the function of creating an explicit, striking disjunction between the two types of public. Japanese ethnics were placed in their real-life role, artistically enhanced: we can presume that not being able to understand the Other’s language engenders a complex range of individualized responses, from the mere apprehension and acceptance of inescapable otherness to the opposite extreme of frustration, exasperation, open rejection. The Japanese spectator who does not know Korean finds him/herself unexpectedly placed in the position of an outsider, paradoxical to any Majority – surely the very epitome of insecurity for a Japanese, given the emphasis on conformity and ‘belonging’ that is so typical of Japanese society.

182 3.2. Also, the absence of translation produces in fact an additional, equally significant division, this time among spectators of Korean descent. It is attested that, whereas the first and second generations of Koreans born on Japanese soil preserved the knowledge and use of the Korean language, among younger people, already of the fourth generation, a growing number can no longer speak Korean. The reasons are varied, but political interests lie at the core: the difficulty of obtaining Japanese citizenship, even for persons born in Japan and who have lived their whole lives in Japan, with consequences such as denial of the right to vote, ineligibility for public office etc. A more acute and direct cause, in my opinion, can be found in the fact that, although schools in the minority language have existed in Japan for quite some time now, until a legal reform in 2003 highschool studies in Korean were not automatically recognized and therefore did not grant access to state universities. This, in turn, in the highly hierarchy- conscious Japanese society, also entailed a drastic limitation of employment opportunities. I believe that what the film achieved with respect to its Korean-ethnic audience was no less than this: present-day Korean youths, coaxed into “conformity” by softer means than the ones applied in the days of the “Great Japanese Empire” are made painfully aware of the loss of cultural identity through the loss of their language. Such effects on the viewer are only possible by means of a bilingual text, or, more precisely, by means of a text defined through irreducible bilingualism, through the confrontation and unsolved tension of the two verbal streams. Judging from this point of view, it seems to me that in the West, Romania included, the cinematographic text was overdetermined, by artificially imposed full subtitles. It seems rather obvious that, for instance, in our second illustration (the prayer scenes) the mere absence of translation would have been an adequate strategy to suggest the overall function of the Korean segments.

3.3. Incidentally, let me point out that very similar effects on the (Japanese) spectator can also be generated through a strategy opposite to the significant absence of translation, namely through the redundant presence of translation. A poignant example can be found in the movie Hotaru (The Firefly, 2001), a human drama touching, among other things, upon the issue of Korean ethnics who fought in World War II as soldiers of the Japanese imperial army. In what is perhaps the climactic scene of the film, Shūji Yamaoka, a former kamikaze pilot and accidental survivor of the war, visits Pusan, the hometown of Kaneyama (or Kim Song-Jae), his lieutenant of Korean descent, killed in action. Yamaoka is on a self-imposed mission

183 to make amends: pay his respects to his friend’s family, tell them the story of his unfailing courage, reassure them that Kim/Kaneyama ultimately acknowledged his ethnic identity. At first met with resentment and open accusations, Yamaoka gradually succeeds in conveying his message, in the course of a lengthy dialogue constructed with painstaking care. The discussion between the Japanese Yamaoka and his wife on the one side, and the Korean family on the other, takes place with the help of an interpreter. Rather than speeding up the rhythm, Hollywood style, through subtitles or conventional switch to Japanese after the initial exchanges, the Japanese director (Yasuo Furuhata) follows the dialogue to its full extent in real time, with speeches on each side ‘repeated’ by the interpreter in their translated form. The spectator, either Japanese or Korean, is thus urged to assume the point of view of the respective participant in the dialogue, and gain awareness of his own identity and position in the complex ethnic interplay.

4. Concluding remarks. A bilingual text is, by this very nature, bi-cultural. Not so in reverse: A text can be bi-cultural in its evocations without displaying expression units in two different languages. Some works, Chi to hone among them, do not merely designate (refer to, ‘say something about’) the issue of bilingualism and cross- cultural interaction, with its implications in individual, social, or political areas, but also make full use of bilingualism as a technique in the process of sense construction. In other words, bilingualism becomes the expressive means by which the work is semantically articulated and therefore the key which opens the reader’s / spectator’s access to a maximal interpretation of the work. In such situations what must be assessed from the very beginning is whether or not translation (be it in the form of subtitling) is opportune. When one confronts a bi/multilingual text, the first question that comes to mind tends to be: “In what way shall we translate a bi/multilingual constitution?”. The point that I aimed to advocate using the case of Chi to hone is that in fact, in a rational order, this is not the question to start with. The question to start with should always be: “Do we translate or not within a multilingual text?” or, more specified, “What do we translate and what do we leave untranslated in a multilingual text?” The translator of Chi to hone working for an audience that is neither Japanese nor Korean is thus faced with two crucial decisions that have a direct bearing on the way his audience will respond to the film: (a) should the very existence of bilingualism be signalled to the viewer by means of

184 the subtitles, and if so, in what way can this be achieved?; (b) can a translated version accurately reflect not only the bilingual expression as a material device in itself, but also, more importantly, the semantic function performed in the original by the bilingual configurations? This understanding derives from the premise that bi/multilingualism is not relevant in itself as a material device in the constitution of an artistic work. What really matters is always its function in the work as a whole. And if we believe that translation aims at re-constituting the dynamics of sense-construction in the original work7, then the sense-constitutive strategies are the true object of the translator’s endeavours and cannot be left out of the picture. On the level of principles, this statement may be qualified as a trivial truth. On an empirical level, however, things are quite different. In the case of the film analysed here, this statement translates into a most troubling series of questions on how to signal to a real, localised Romanian viewer the existence of a central axis of sense-construction, namely the identity dissociation(s) that characters and spectators undergo in unison, as described in section 3: by what concrete means and devices can this viewer (and not an ‘ideal’ viewer) be oriented towards interpreting the text in its objective articulation? In (general) text linguistics, the researcher takes upon himself the role of a maximal interpreter, looking for everything that is given objectively in the text, in a privileged endeavor to unravel how the text makes sense in itself and by itself. The translator, however, always works for his public, and the analysis that precedes translation is an analysis of the ways in which the semantic impact of the original can be re-generated for a particular receiver, individualized through his circumstances – space, time, native tongue, cultural background. Issues pertaining to the strategies of translation can never really be addressed “in principle”: for, in Coseriu’s terms, there is no maximal objective standard of translation, just as there can be conceived no maximal invariant standard for the activity of speaking as such. Un ideal de traducción único y universalmente válido es una contradictio in adiecto, pues una invariación óptima genérica y abstracta es tan poco admisible para el traducir como un «óptimum» genérico para el hablar. El traducir es análogo ante todo al hablar; por ello, para el traducir, como para el hablar, sólo tienen vigencia normas diferenciadas y motivadas en sentido finalista. Por la misma razón, la «mejor traducción» absoluta de un texto cualquiera simplemente no existe: sólo puede existir la mejor traducción de tal texto para tales y cuales destinatarios, para tales y cuales fines y en tal y cual situación histórica. (Coseriu 1976: 239)

185 What was brought to the reader’s attention in the present paper only serves to reinforce the truth of Donald Richie’s final statement on the issue of film dialogue translation: I suppose the way one ought to think of this enterprise is not with chagrin that so much gets lost, but with surprise that so much gets through. (Richie 1991/1995: 92)

Notes: 1 The concepts of ‘evocation’ and ‘text constitution’ are used here in the acceptations established in the framework of Eugenio Coseriu’s integral text linguistics (see esp. Coseriu 1955-56: 310-320 and 1981: 68-109). A detailed discussion and full bibliographical references can be found in Tămâianu 2001: 40- 49, 124-133 and Tămâianu-Morita 2002: 126-130. 2 Subtitling is, in my opinion, the only medium of translation that deserves to be taken into account, at least in the case of artistic works. The possible interaction or interference of subtitles with the image seems to be a much lesser evil than the invasive procedure of dubbing, which is an act akin to forgery, as it replaces the genuine verbal expression of the text with a counterfeit. 3 This formulation echoes Eugenio Coseriu’s definition of “sense” (Sinn, sentido) as the specific semantic content of the text as an autonomous level of linguistic knowledge (see Coseriu 1955-56: 286-287, 1981, chapters 1 and 2, 1988: 158- 185). 4 In other words, I do not include in the object of this discussion the cases where Japanese ethnics speak – predictably – Japanese. Also, there are no instances of Japanese ethnics speaking Korean. 5 Cf. “Die Ausdruckslücke als Ausdrucksverfahren”: “Das Schweigen als nicht- einzelsprachliche Erscheinung hat zwar keine bestimmte Bedeutung, es kann aber in beträchtlichem Ausmass zum Sinn der Texte beitragen […]. Das im wahrgenommenen Text (“Text1”) erkannte Nich-Sagen macht somit den Adressaten zum Mitarbeiter an der Konstitution eines ‘vollständigen’ Textes (“Text2”), der dann den eigentlichen Gegenstand der Interpretation ausmacht. Besser gesagt: die erste Phase, der erste Akt der Interpretation ist in diesem Fall, eindeutiger als in anderen Fällen und sozusagen explizit, zugleich Textkonstitution.” (Coseriu 1987: 373) 6 The term ‘textual analysis’ designates, in integral linguistics, one of the three distinct epistemic levels in the study of textualiy (general text linguistics, text linguistics, textual analysis) (see the presentation in Tămâianu 2001: 31-34). 7 See Coşeriu 1976, 1988: 70-75. The matter is discussed extensively in Tămâianu 2001: 143-154.

186 Bibliography: o Coşeriu, E. (1955-56) ‘Determinación y entorno. Dos problemas de una lingüistica del hablar’, in Coşeriu (1962), 282-323 o Coşeriu, E. (1962) Teoria del lenguaje y lingüistica general. Cinco estudios, Madrid: Gredos o Coşeriu, E. (1976) Lo erróneo y lo acertado en la teoría de la traducción, in Coseriu (1977), 214-239 o Coşeriu, E. (1977) El hombre y su lenguaje. Estudios de teoría y metodología lingüística, Madrid: Gredos o Coşeriu, E. (1981) Textlinguistik. Eine Einführung, Tübingen: Narr o Coşeriu, E. (1987) ‘Die Ausdruckslücke als Ausdrucksverfahren (Text- linguistische Übung zu einem Gedicht von Kavafis)’, in Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 189, "Sinnlichkeit in Bild und Klang". Festschrift für Paul Hoffman zum 70. Geburstag, 373-383 o Coşeriu, E. (1988). Sprachkompetenz. Grundzüge der Theorie des Sprechens, Tübingen: Francke o Richie, D. (1991/1995). ‘Subtitling Japanese Films’, in Richie (1995), 88-92 o Richie, D. (1995) Partial Views. Essays on Contemporary Japan, Tokyo: The Japan Times o Tămâianu, E. (2001) Fundamentele tipologiei textuale. O abordare în lumina lingvisticii integrale, Cluj-Napoca: Clusium. o Tămâianu-Morita, E. (2002) Integralismul în lingvistica japoneză. Dimensiuni - impact - perspective, Cluj-Napoca: Clusium.

Films o Chi to Hone (Blood and Bones), 2004. Directed by Yōichi Sai. Written by Wui Sin Chang and Yōichi Sai, based on the novel by Sogil Yan. With Beat Takeshi, Suzuki Kyōka, Arai Hirofumi, Odagiri Joe, Tabata Tomoko o Hotaru (The Firefly), 2001. Directed by Yasuo Furuhata. Written by Yasuo Furuhata and Hiroshi Takeyama. With Takakura Ken, Tanaka Yūko, Ozawa Yukiyoshi, Harada Ryūji

187 LATEST VIEWS ON TRANSLATION

Anca Trişcă “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Ultimele păreri despre traduceri reprezintă un studiu asupra traducerii ce a cunocut o dezvoltare deosebită, dar nu are încă un statut foarte clar definit. Există încă foarte multe controverse deoarece procesul de traducere este complex şi implică vaste cunoştinţe de sociolingvistică şi psiholoingvistică, alături de cele de lingvistică , studii asupra culturii limbii-ţintă şi a celei sursă. Departe de a epuiza subiectul, această abordare prezintă succint ultimele date şi opinii ale unor cercetători din domeniul studiilor de traduceri. Cu toate că procedeele de traducere au cunoscut o îmbunătăţire substanţială, nu s-a ajuns încă la un produs perfect al traducerii.

The etymology of the very word translation (Latin “the carrying from one place to another”) provides the simplest definition of the term: translation is an effort to carry a text from one language into another. As elementary as this may sound, the possibility of translation itself is universally in doubt, with none more pithily expressed than in the ancient Italian pun traduttore tradittore (“translator, traitor”). Despite such misgivings, translators have tried to bridge the linguistic gaps between cultures in a variety of fields, resulting today in such specialized work as commercial translations, scientific translations, and literary translations. Since all but literary translations are usually ephemeral, sustained study in the art of translation has been limited to literature. The consequences of mistranslation of political, legal, or commercial discourse can prove catastrophic, however, and the literary debate about the nature of accuracy in translation is of wide relevance. At the heart of the debate about the nature of accuracy in translation is the recognition that a translator is a carrier of culture, not just of language, from one place to another. The Romans were the first in the West to comment on translation. Cicero, in reference to his own translation of Demosthenes, insisted that the translator must remake the original to conform to the conventions of Latin usage. Saint Jerome (the 4th-century Latin translator of the Bible) went further, describing the text as a prisoner to be dealt with by the translator as if by a conqueror. This notion was expanded by Renaissance theorists to examine the effect of translation on the stylistic possibilities of

188 a host-language. The crowning achievement of Renaissance translation demonstrates such an effect the influence of the King James Bible (1611) on succeeding English literature is widely recognized. In the 19th century, however, a far more radical theory on translation was offered. The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher proposed in the 1813 treatise that, rather than convey the foreign work to the reader by remaking it to observe the reader’s conventions of usage, the translator might actually convey the foreign text to the reader. Rudolph Pannuntz, a later theorist, went so far as to argue that the task of the German translator was not to turn Hindi into German but to turn German into Hindi. This shift of perspective ushered in the great modern age of translation, which is distinguished by such masterworks as Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Thousand and One Nights (or Arabian Nights), 1885-1888, C.K. Scott Montcrieff’s translation of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (Proust, 1983) and Arthur’s Wally’s translation of Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji (Ohikibu, 1993). The issue of untranslatability became a central preoccupation of 20th century theoristsm such as Ezra Pound. Although actually first suggested by Dante in his Convivio (Dante, 1997), the notion of poetry as what is lost in translation was a truism in the 20th century. Despite such concerns many of the finest modern poets have produced such poet-translators such as Elisabeth Bishop, Richard E. Howard, W.I. Merwin, and Bishop Wilbur. Similar achievements in the translation of fiction have led to wide acclaim for such distinguished translators as Helen Lane, Ralph Manheim, and Gregory Rabassa. Finally, it should be noted that the 20the century witnessed the invention of a new form of translation, the dubbing of foreign films. The future of translation will be undoubtedly be linked to the development of computer translation programmes. When computers do finally evolve beyond simple electronic bilingual dictionaries and begin to use contextual clues in the tent to choose correctly among the possible definitions of a word, as well as to interpret accurately the ambiguities of syntactical structures of sentences, machine translation may very well transform the practice of this ancient art. The study of translation had been dominated, and to a degree still is, by the debate about its status as an art or as a science. This supposed dichotomy between art and science is taken to distinguish “pure” linguistics from applied linguistics. But the main emphasis is still on literary translation since, we are told by Malone in his The Craft of Translation (Malone, 1988: 2) that “the quintessence of translation as art as is anything, even more patent in literary texts” (Malone, 1988: 2).

189 According to James Holmes “Literary translation in the Western World today is a panorama of many shadows, lit here and there by a ray of light” (Holmes, 1985: 152). The literary translations tend to be associated with the Translation Studies as a branch of Comparative Literature. In translating literary texts, both translation theory and practice, on the one hand, and translation criticism, on the other, have to be consider a series of criteria for the analysis of the original and foreign texts, covering both extralinguistic and linguistic factors that are very important in interpreting and translating the text, Among the most important coordinates of literary translation, intentionality determines the translator’s choice, the author’s intention being as important as the recipient that defines the communicative situation and the function of the text. In spite of Holmes’ work, the majority of academic writings dealing with translations between the First World War years and early 1960’s were based on a linguistic approach. As a result, a pertinent principle emerged: rigour and objectivity in the study of translation. The main issue was the concept of equivalence, especially at the level of words and phrases. Between 1972 and 1984 the German writings developed the “pragmatische Winde”, i.e. changing the focus of interest from the language system of the language use, from the individual linguistic sign to the text and furthermore to the “extralinguistic insights from neighbouring fields such as philosophy, sociology and psychology.” We should also consider Hans Vermeer’s “skopos” theory, i.e. the dominant approach is no longer the source text, but the function of the translation as an integral part of the target culture as a functioning part of the world around. We share Vermeer’s opinion because a very important aspect in translating, interpreting a translation with the original text is that the specific “flavour” of a text, “the genius” of a language, the ‘richness” of a culture are ideologically charged labels which may prevent the translation Operator from analyzing the specific source text characteristics, and led to the conclusion of “untranslatability”. A thorny problem of translation is the translation aids. Holmes claimed that “our bilingual dictionaries and grammars are still a disgrace and a despair (Holmes, 1985: 21). It seems that the general lexicographers are still unaware of the basic needs of translators and, on the other hand, contrastive grammars are mainly wishful thinking. Words may have connotative meanings derived from the first dictionaries meaning(s). These connotative meanings are special meanings given by a certain context or by a particular setting. The translation of connotations should be locked upon not as a word-for-word but as a text- oriented correspondence. Connotations are thought to be the “genius” of a

190 language. For example, the noun style in a structure such as to live is style is translated by a trăi pe picior mare: “Although they lived in style, they always felt an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money” → „Deşi trăiau pe picior mare, o nelinişte bântuie necontenit casa. Niciodată nu erau bani îndeajuns” (from D.H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner, translated by Dan Faur. The verb to spin cannot be translated by the primary meaning, i.e. “a roti” because the phrase expression to spin yarns has completely different connotations and matches the Romanian syntagm a spune poveşti fără sfârşit. We should also mention that the concept of text as a sequence of sentences is unsatisfactory for the translator. According to Holmes the translation process consists in “abstracting from the source text its structure as a textual entity, analyzing the interrelationships of the various parts in this structure, and defining the way in which this entity functions in its structure of the translated text-to-be, the relations of the parts to the whole, and the functions to have in its new socio-cultural situation” (1988: 102). This was the dominant perspective upon the 1980’s translation study. The debate of translation as art or science divided the translating scholars into two groups: the Americans and the Western Europe group. The Americans needed to provide rules or norms, whereas the West Europe group tended to reject such a regulatory point of view. The actual tendency is to link these two groups with a process of decision making and with creative strategies. The panorama of translation studies has evolved from the emerging of the discipline. Nowadays the barrier between literary translation and other types of translations has disappeared since the translation studies cover a spectrum including all kinds of translations and extend to the field of interpreting. Gideon Toury’s interdisciplinary point out to the tendency to look for a multi-dimensional linking between various fields such as: special language studies, lexicography, machine translation, semantics, contrastive grammar psycholinguistics, literary translations. According to James Holmes, “Literary translations in the Western world are a panorama of many shadows, lightened here and there by a ray of light. To paint this panorama in all its vast complex display would challenge the skills of a chiaroscuro master. To try one’s hand at sketching it in a few brief paragraphs is a vain endeavour that only a fool would undertake” (Holmes, 1985: 152). Mary Snell-Hornby makes this attempt and tries to give a panorama of translation studies between 1940-1985, being guided by Holmes’ ideas. In the light of these ideas she even makes

191 a prognosis of the future, which will loose its finer shading and will be at least partially offset. Let us now turn to Holmes who stipulates his subject, i.e. Translation Studies, as a subdivision of another discipline which limits its domain to literary translations. Actually, the Translation Studies tend to be associated to literary translations as a branch of Comparative Literature. In spite of Holmes’ work, the majority of academic writings dealing with translations between the first post-war years and early 1970’s were based on a linguistic approach. As a result, a pertinent principle emerged: rigour and objectivity in the study of translation. The main issue was the concept of equivalence, especially at the level or words and phrases. Between 1972 and 1985 the German writing developed and the “pragmatische Wende” shifts the focus of interest from the language system to the language use, from the individual linguistic sign to the text and furthermore to the “extralinguistic” insights from neighbouring fields such as philosophy, sociology and psychology. Hans Vermeer postulates the “skopos” theory where the dominant approach is no longer the source, but the function of the translation as an integral part of the target culture as a functioning part of the world around. Besides the general theory, Holmes lists a number of partial translation theories such as: medium-restricted theory (e.g. machine translations). Some of them are fashionable: the “text-type restricted” theories used by Eugene Nida and his colleagues in the Bible translations; the “problem- restricted” theories are dated now (the “equivalence” type exemplifies it); the translation of metaphor is of recent interest for translators. In order to illustrate the Translation Studies field we may use figure 1. From figure 1 the most significant area is the Descriptive Translation Studies for its product-oriented studies (description and comparison of existing translations) carried out by the Lower Countries (the “Manipulation School”) and in Gottingen (based on psycholinguistic approach), whereas function-oriented is studied in Honing and Kylmaul in Germersheim. However, a theoretical problem of translation is the translation aids. Holmes claimed that “…our bilingual dictionaries and grammars are still a disgrace and a despair” (1985: 52). The general lexicographers are still unaware of the basic needs of translators and on the other hand contrastive grammars are mainly wishful thinking. In this sense, the translators in Straelen are pioneers with their glossaries. Last but not least, translation critique has proved particularly popular for the present diploma paper. A start has been made by Katharina Reiss’ work (1971, 1976).

192 The discipline of Translation Studies anticipated several important areas of future research: the inadequacy of the purely linguistic approach and the importance of concrete field work. With regard to these areas of research, Snell-Hornby examined the concept of text in translation, the concept of norm and the lack of international communication. Firstly, the concept of text as a sequence of sentences (“string” of linguistic items) is unsatisfactory for the translator. Holmes anticipated the holistic approach to the translation process which consists in “… abstracting from the source text its structure as a textual entity, analysing the interrelationships of the various parts in this structure, and defining the way in which this entity functions (or functioned in the past) in its structure of the translated text-to-be, the relation of the parts to the whole, and function it is to have in its new socio-cultural situation” (1988: 102). This was the dominant perspective upon the 1980’s translation study.

TRANSLATION STUDIES

Pure Applied Descriptive

Theoretical Product Process Function Translator TranslatorTranslator oriented oriented oriented Training Aids Criticism General Partial

Medium Area Rank Text Time Problem Restricted Restricted Type Restricted Restricted Restricted Figure 1. TRANSLATION STUDIES (Holmes, 1988: 102)

Furthermore, the concept of norm divides the translator scholars into two groups: the Americans and Western Europe group which needs to provide rules or norms and, others, tend to reject such a normative point of view. Nevertheless, the actual tendency is to link these two groups with a process of decision-making and with creating strategies.

193 Finally, the international communication in academic studies has generally improved, but not in the field of translation studies due to the political barriers which part the Eastern and Western Europe. Let us now turn to the panorama of translation studies’ evolution from the emerging discipline outlined by Holmes in 1972. Firstly, the barriers between the literary translations and others have disappeared because the translation studies must embrace a spectrum including all the kinds of translations and should extend to the field of interpreting, as does the German term Translationwissenschaft. The tendency to look for points of contact is best described by Gideon Toury’s interdiscipline, a multi- dimensional complex linking varied fields such as: special language studies, lexicography, machine translation, semantics, contrastive grammar, socio and psycholinguistics; literary translation and neighbouring fields of interest from literary history to psychology. Altogether, “the state of the art of translation studies is better than ever before. It is not good. There is so much still to be done.” (Holmes 1985: 152). Therefore it needs communication and cooperation among the scholars in the discipline, with scholars outside the discipline and across the borders of nation and language. Communication and cooperation continue to increase, consequently the ideal basic conditions for the translator and translation studies are assured and the interdiscipline is not entirely utopian. The Translation Studies have made a first step towards the ‘perfect” translation because it focus upon the problem at how meaning travels. The borders of interdisciplinarity have been opened and translations are viewed as both literary and non-literary works. There is no clear distinction between right and wrong, formal and dynamics, literal and free, art and science. They combine towards a good translation, or, at least, a better translation than ever before. New questions were posted regarding the subject of investigation, the nature of the translation process, how meditation occurs, and how the process affects both the original (redefined as source text) and received (redefined as target text) works. Even the distinction between original writer and translator was called into question. The Russian formalists attempted to isolate and define what they called “literariness”. They have focused upon the literary facts separating them from psychology, sociology and cultural history. They attempted to determine what makes literary texts different from other texts and what determines literary status by privileging specific surface-structural features and analyzing them. They analyzed how the thematic concepts were expressed by determining position to a concept dependent upon the culture and language in which they are embedded. The Translation Studies reveal

194 the diachronic effect of translated texts on two traditions: that of the source culture and that of the target culture (they attempted to measure the text’s relation to its tradition). For example, proper nouns have always tended to have a specific meaning: Tănase in the Romanian language defines a silly and stupid person, but it has not an adequate correspondence; the gypsies are called Faraons or Stanciu or Gaşper, etc. The special resonance gets lost in the process of translation. We have studied the Romanian nick-names in chapter 2, i.e. Cultural Equivalence and Non-Equivalence. With regard to the Translation Studies we can also add that Holmes breaks Translation Studies down into three areas of focus: (1) the descriptive branch: to describe phenomena of translations as they manifest themselves in the world; (2) the theory branch: to establish principles by which these phenomena can be explained; and (3) the applied branch: to “use” information gained from (1) and (2) in the practice of translation and training of translators (Holmes, 1972/5: 9-10 apud Gentzler, 1993: 93). Our last observation concerns the relationship between translation and original along the imaginary path, for texts documenting the path. The shifts are systematically analyzed and they incorporate a synchronic and structural textual analysis as well as diachronic literary inter-textual and socio-cultural analysis, in order to determine the meaning and function of any specific translated text. This latest views on translation have been presented in order to illustrate the translation process viewed as a dynamic system that changes with the time and with the new discoveries in the field of technology.

Bibliography: o Anman, M., Vermeer, H.J. (1990) Entwurf eines Curriculum für einen Studiengang Translatologie und Translatorik, Heidelberg. o Bassnett, S., McGuire, S. (1980) Translation Studies, Londra: Methuen. o Bell, R.T. (2000) Teoria şi practica traducerii, Iaşi: Polirom o Brown, G., Yule, G. (1983) Discourse Analysis, New York: Longman o Candrea, I.A. (2001) Lumea basmelor, Bucureşti: Paideia o Caroll, J.B. (1973) Limbaj şli gândire, Bucureşti: Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică o Carroll, L. (1999) Alice in Wonderlands, Bucureşti: Editura Cantemir o Chomsky, N. (1988) Teorii ale limbajului. Teorii ale învăţării, Bucureşti: Editura Politică o Cristea, T. (2001) Stratégies de la traduction, Bucureşti: T.U.B. o Croitoru, E. (1998) Interpretation and Translation, Brăila: Porto Franco o Croitoru, E. (2002) Mood and Modality, Iaşi: Institutul European

195 o Călinescu, G. (1983) Estetica basmului, Bucureşti: Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică o Dimitriu, R. (2001) Disocieri şi interferenţe, Bucureşti;: T.U.B. o Eco, U., (2003) Dire quasi la stessa cosa, Milano: Bompiani o Gentzler, E. (1993) Contemporary Translation Theories, London and New York: Routledge o Grimm (2000) Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Wordsworth, Routledge o Grimm (2000) Basme de fraţii Grimm, Bucureşti: Editura Univers o Greene, K. (1998) Vântul de prin sălcii, Bucureşti: Editura Rao pentru copii o Greene, K. (1992) The Wind in the Willows, Wordsworth Classics, Routledge o Holmes, J. (1988) Translated! Essays and Papers on Translation and Translation Studies, Amsterdam: Rodopi o Jakobson, R. (1959) On Translation, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press o Leech, G.N., Short, M. (1981) Style in Fiction, Longman, Harlow o Leviţchi, L. (1997) Manualul traducătorului de limba engleză, Bucureşti: Editura Teora o Lawrence, D.H. (2003) Pandora’s Box – Cutia Pandorei; The Miraculous Pitcher – Ulciorul fermecat, Bucureşti: Edtiura Paralela 45 o Newmark, P. (1988) Approaches to Translation, Prentice Hall International English Language Teaching, Prentice Hall International Ltd., Oxford: Pergamon Press o Newmark, P. (1991) About Translation, Multilingual Matters Ltd., Great Britain o Piaget, J., Inhelder, B. (2000) Psihologia copilului, Bucureşti : Editura Didactică şi Pedagogică o Reiss, K. (1976) Textyp und Übersetzungsmethode. Der Operative. Text, Berlin. o Swan, N. (1991) Practucal English Usage, Oxford: O.U.P. o Toury, G. (1980) In Search of a Theory of Translation, Tel Aviv: Porter Institute o *** (2004) Once upon a Time, Craiova: Editura Aramis. o *** (1995) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, London: Longman o *** (1999) Macmillan Adcvanced Learnersv Dictiona

196

NEW POETS, OLD POLITICS

Daniela Ţuchel “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi

Politicul în şi prin poezie va fi explorat în acest articol ca eliberare interioară în prezenţa unor constrîngeri de exterior. Rezultatul poate fi constatat ca supunere intelectuală generatoare, în mod ideal, de forme ale emancipării. Textelor analizate li se aplică testul exerciţiului de traducere, astfel încît anume ambiguităţi în formulare devin întrebări de ordin cultural pentru traducător. Selecţiile de poeme s-au făcut, aleatoriu şi idiosincretic, din cele semnate Robert Şerban, Liliana Ursu şi Sînziana- Maria Stoie. Incercînd în mod dramatic să însoţească contingentul cu absolutul, noua poezie românească creează un brand al ei (şi al nostru tuturor), de „precaritate de noi înşine” – formulă lansată de Horia-Roman Patapievici într-o discuţie televizată (emisiunea „Inapoi la argument”). Este şi însemnul precarului un mod revelator de a te manifesta politic în cultura contemporană românească.

Romanian readers should be happy with the burgeoning number of poets in our culture and country. Or shouldn’t they? The problem is, for poetry fans, to be self-reliant in assessing value and never duped in their capacity of consumers of culture. Asking myself who or what can direct our choices when we mean to read, to interpret, to translate – although we alter what we can, strengthening or weakening values while working on the message – I have found a clue: a couple of recent issues of România literară (16, 17/ April 2006) have already operated a professional selection of poetical material. The rest is a matter of taste. Here are my challenges: a Romanian text, a version in English (mine) and a commentary, comparing and contrasting. Our translation tasks will imperatively be linked to an analysis of levels of culture like the skins of an onion, a metaphor teeming with suggestions for whatever lies precariously or solidly at varying levels of approach. Through the additive presence of symbol, myth, archetype and fable, cosmic potentialities are accommodated, poetically speaking, in a text. And if it is true that a literary text is systematically made up of archetypes/ archaic types, then this very text – through them – is a reconstruction of the past. We mean to analyse the archetypes which provide a condensation of past and present meanings in two poems by Robert Şerban, published in România literară (2006, 16: 8). Şerban comes out with a few pieces to be

197 included in the volume of poetry entitled Cinema la mine-acasă/ Cinema at Home, forthcoming at “Cartea românească” Publishing House. The texts below, in our version in English, will refer thematically to: woman, man, child, dog, loneliness, oneness (Femei) and wise man/ father figure, the self, one versus many versus One, speaker as gossipmonger and as storyteller (Dumnezeu nu vorbeşte cu nimeni). These archetypes can all be found in any reference book of cultural archetypes (e.g., Evseev, 1994). Femei o femeie singură/ alta cu un copil/ o alta cu un câine/ alta singură/ alta cu un bărbat/ alta singură/ alta singură/ alta singură/ alta singură/ alta singură Women a lonely woman / another with a child/ one other with a dog/ another alone/ another with a man/ another all alone/ another all alone/ another all alone/ another all alone/ another all alone The personae of the first poem cross the stage like a medieval pageant. The historical pretentious display is missing. It could have concealed a lack of real importance or meaning by means of an outer glamour, but it does not. The indefinite determiner attracts the attention as the most constant companion – in grammar, not in the world of the poem – under the circumstances in which the personae are shown to remain companionless. And indefinite determination is definitely ambiguous: a can be glossed as any, the feature of ‘anonymity’ ensuing; or a is glossed as one, the feature of quantification entailing ‘measurement’, implicitly ‘value assessment’; eventually, a glossed as ‘a new individual’ is substituted by another repeatedly, with addition seen as the crowning achievement of populating space. The elliptical nominal group composing the monomaniac latter half foregounds the nexus of the poem: atomistic existence is no cure to loneliness, on the contrary, it helps towards its perpetuation. The ambiguity of oneness is that, even though multiplied, it cannot become many. The condition of solitude is everlasting. M. Short (1989: 172), briefing his readers on the aims and results of the science he calls “comparative textology”, proposes a very handy sample to us, the imagist poem In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound, while discussing also “the relations between verblessness, the unmediated presentation of objects and the literary movement of imagism” (ibidem): The apparition of these faces in the crowd;/ Petals on a wet, black bough. Pound’s and Şerban’s poems are related constructionally in juxtaposing nominal strings and doing away with verbs; ideatically too, in part, in finding forms of existence for the ‘crowd’. With the American poet, the compositional score holds, with the Romanian poet coagulation fails. This is something

198 conducive to one molecular Romanian pattern in today’s culture, but only after we have surveyed the atoms of archetypical atoms put in by the poet himself. The world of the first poem begins and ends, traumatically, with a woman’s loneliness. The schema will add up the cultural load of each of the two terms: ‘loneliness’ spells an encounter with one’s inner reality and ‘woman’ spells the archetypal mother, the ever present ‘anima’ principle associated with emotions and the urge to offer protection. So companion relationships are shown here in this specific order: child-dog-human male, which may cause wonder about its priorities. The poem’s fixation on ‘woman’ builds up an opposition with the ‘animus’ principle proposing a dominant father-figure and a content of reason and willpower. Unbalanced, feminine existence will seek a fulfilled identity with what ‘child’ stands for – pre-sinning purity and the power of a new, healthy beginning – and what ‘dog’ stands for – unconditional love and steadfast companionship. Lonely women, such as Antigone (the inflexible heroine thinking it was better to obey the gods than men), Phaedra (a victim of Aphrodite’s), Medea (in love with Jason looking for the golden fleece), Helen (the cause of the Trojan War), all let sacrifice get into their lives in order to preserve the unity – yet, practically, entailing the breakup – of a family. The tensions created between connections and disconnections lead to the reign of a feeling of tragic solitude in womanhood. The reduplicated line (6 – 10) in English version (another all alone) can be noted for its more emphatic wording when compared to the original. The defence of the translator is that, politically and historically, the British have developed a one-woman cult unparalleled in our culture. The Elizabeth royal cult entails the glorification of a woman’s power of mixing the divine with earthly resilience. The same emblem was looming in one of the preceding lines as well (3), with the suggestive potential of ‘woman with dog’: this takes us directly to Artemis, the protectress of women in labour and newborn children, the goddess armed with a bow and arrows indeed, but one cannot omit her dogs, swifter than the wind and capable of knocking down even lions, according to Callimachus (Comte, 1991: 52). Ultimately, the prevailing idea of this poem is dissociation, not association, and a speculative connection with Romanian phraseology may be made with a umbla creanga (Dumistrăcel, 1997: 61). Twigs and branches get blown and swept away by the wind and occupy the marginal position in the picture, beyond a community’s control. Marginality and marginalization, added to an implicitly commiserated self-reliance can enter the typology of today’s Romanian condition, sometimes consciously analysed, at other times seething submerged in the subconscious layers.

199 If the first poem foregrounds physical connections, the second poem by Robert Şerban foregrounds the metaphysical connections man experiences on earth. Existence becomes a story, and this is basically a cultural pattern weaving together fact and fiction – or fiction and fact – function of what we value over what. The message of Şerban’s poem is utterly topical: our contemporaries undoubtedly value (while dreading!) fiction over fact, according to recent developments in social and political life. In the old days, people used to say a vinde gogoşi (Dumistrăcel, 1997: 98), the tall tale being compared to a pastry similar to doughnuts: the pasty mass swells in hot oil and acquires deceitful size. Ancient wisdom was imperious on the matter of ‘telling’. We herewith compile three excerpts from the New English Bible, Ecclesiasticus: (1) To delight in wickedness is to court condemnation, but evil loses its hold on the man who hates gossip; (2) Tell no tales about friend or foe; unless silence makes you an accomplice never betray a man’s secret; (3) Have you heard a rumour? Let it die with you. (Eccus., 19: 5, 8, 12)

Dumnezeu nu vorbeşte cu nimeni de ceva vreme/ aud despre mine aceleaşi poveşti/ mai toate urâte mai toate triste/ şi mă bucur/ asta înseamnă că tot ce am făcut în ultimul timp/ e/ poate/ bun şi frumos/ adică plictisitor/ şi cine-ar pierde vremea cu lucruri de-astea // nu-mi fac sânge rău/ fiindcă aud că Dumnezeu nu vorbeşte cu nimeni/ despre nici unul dintre noi God speaks to no one for some time now/ I’ve heard the same stories about me/ most of’em bad most of’em sad/ and I’m happy/ it means that all I’ve done lately/ is/ perhaps/ a nice thing/ which is boring/ and who’d waste time on that// I’m not scathed/ for I hear God speaks to no one/ about any of us These fundamental ideas are recoverable in Robert Şerban’s second poem: line 11 echoes Eccus. 1 above, line 12 echoes Eccus. 2, and lines 1 and 2 echo Eccus. 3. Moreover, the poem digs deeper into story-telling psychology. One major question is raised about distortions: what becomes subsequent to reporting, urât and trist, has been known by the author of deeds to be bun and frumos. There are two aspects in the politics of telling. One is that any telling seeks to stake a claim to a certain form of reality against other claims and, through the modality contained in line 7 (poate), the one talked about tries to come to terms with the ‘political’ stake of others. Storytelling can be the politics of an epoch to rework unsolved problems. The second aspect consists in a factor of power: all tellings are political in the sense that they reflect a hidden structure of power and privilege. It is interesting to see that the poet’s reactive state of emotion when faced with this powerful structure is the (ironical and self-ironical)

200 invocation of boredom. There are two parties in the conflict and an ambiguous arrangement: who is bored and who is boring? The distinction is not worth making, for everything comes to waste and a biblical vanitas vanitatum without any shred of animosity, since the Divinity knows the truth without speaking it. We undertake our present exploration being based on the truisms that myth and archetype are preoccupied with the typical in human behaviour, whereas a preoccupation with the individual is a projection onto the situation of the cultural expectations of the modern community. With (very) young poets, it does not seem hard to negotiate the past within a techno- cultural space of marketable products. Teenager Sînziana- Maria Stoie remembers (RL 17/ 2006 : 30), inspiring us with the sensation that she has already acquired a coherent philosophy of life: Imi amintesc (fragment) Un timp ai fost tăcut precum existenţa unui iepure cu urechi de diamant;/ ţi-ai privit destinul, de pe tronul zeilor plecaţi sâmbătă seara la film,/ cu pupilele efervescente inundate de culorile televizoarelor durdulii/ atomii din moleculele solare ţi se gudurau la picioare purtând măşti/ de acetonă, asfaltul îşi etala degetele fusiforme;/ ca un camion cu cozi de arme împletite în loc de volan; te-ai ciocnit/ de gurile de canalizare duhnind a formol, de ţevile de gaz subterane,/ ai inventariat stelele teleghidate pe câteva coli de hârtie/ creponată scrise cu mercurul din bateriile ruginite […] I remember For a while you’ve been silent like the life of a hare with diamond ears;/ you watched your destiny, from the throne of the gods gone out to the Saturday night movies,/ with effervescent eye-pupils flooded by colours from plump television sets/ the atoms of solar molecules fawned at your feet wearing masks/ of acetone, the asphalt displayed its fusiform fingers;/ like a lorry with tails of plaited guns instead of a wheel; you knocked against the sewage openings with a stink of formol, of subterranean gas pipes,/ you drew up the inventory of teleguided stars on a few paper sheets/ corrugated and written in the mercury of the rusty batteries […] The fragment above is a good illustration of transubstantiation: from eternal incorruptible art to secular everyday life. A more synthetic image aestheticizing life we have read in William Carlos Williams (1923): a red wheel/ barrow// glazed with rain/ water (NAMP: 319). Teenagers will be groundbreakers, particularly with the notions that they find inspirational. The poetic fragment written by Stoie contains the paradigm of a scientific and technical society ending in the basic behavioural model of recycling. The sensation is that every development,

201 whatever the differences among them, has a hard core from where to make a new beginning: the hard core of a diamond, the hard core of silence, the hard core of a molecule, of the stars, of batteries, of what not. The concepts Stoie’s poem is packed with can be called pan-cultural. Fascination with physical synaesthetic details is in the foreground, and, at the same time, supplies the easy task for the translator who only follows – step by step – the verbalisation of a world wrapped in corrugated paper, the ridges and the grooves on the outside, the preserved worthy fragility inside. The world of ambiguous present-past intermingling is eventually a jumble of diverse chemical and technological (no longer biological) processes over which humans are still trying to have some authority. The discoursal steps of Stoie’s fragment are three sequential formulae for life itself: existence is listening; existence is traffic; existence is chemistry. And all experiences become remembrances. Nowadays, young age gets wise both to fact and to vision. A perhaps bizarre aspect with Stoie is that, although the expression of remembrance is focused chiefly on the idea of acknowledgement of the dead, this is not present in her poem. Memory for a peacetime society is shown to contain unexpected sights and smells. The poet apparently realises that there is danger in living in a society without memory, because in such an extreme case the continuity and finality of things can slip off. One may begin a commentary on Liliana Ursu’s poem below (RL 17/ 2006 : 8) and its translated version, thinking of what the Introduction (page 1) to NAMP (1988) states: “Many modern poems exhibit what Paul Valéry calls a drama of mintal images; a drama which is made out of the different and conflicting gradations of reality or irreality which mental images seem to possess. Modern poets need not confine themselves to a single stance. At times they may veer towards a Platonic world of essences, beside which material things offer only ghostly semblances; at other times they may recognize the stubborn powers which lurk in what Richard Wilbur calls ‘things of this world’ and their ability to reshape them by imaginative will”.

Cîte puţin despre îmblînzitori Imblînzitorul de lupi s-a întîlnit/ cu îmblînzitorul de albine/ şi cu acordorul de piane la o cafea Capuccino. // Cît despre îmblînzitorul de urşi/ el stătea retras, în casa de la marginea pădurii/ şi citea despre mierle, nori şi nacele. / Adeseori asculta „Simfonia celor 12 insule”/ şi-şi spunea că o să se lase de meserie./ Parfumul fragilor era însă irezistibil/ în acea seară. Iar umbra ursului se suprapunea perfect/ peste umbra lui./ Cine pe cine îmblînzea oare? // M-a cercetat un vis. Se făcea că sunt albină./ Se

202 făcea că sunt lup./ Se făcea că sunt urs./ Se făcea că sunt om. // M-am trezit. Se făcea ziuă./ Lumina îmblînzea întunericul. A few things on tamers The wolf tamer met/ the bee tamer/ and the piano tuner over a Capuccino coffee cup. // As for the bear tamer/ he lived withdrawn, in the house at the forest end/ and read about blackbirds, clouds and nacelles./ He would often listen to “Symphony of the 12 islands”/ telling himself he was going to forsake his craft./ Nonetheless the fragrance of wild strawberry was irresistible/ that night. And the shadow of the bear was perfectly superposed/ on his own./ Who was now taming who? // A dream came to me. I seemed to be a bee./ I seemed to be a wolf./ I seemed to be a bear./ I seemed to be a person. // I woke up. It was daybreak./ Light tamed darkness. The politics discernible in Ursu’s poem is rooted in the admission that one (any) community and the zoo send forth mutual challenges that determine the ‘superposition’ (hinted at in the poem) which ambiguates and disambiguates ontological situations. The nexus of the poem is the interrogative line “Who was now taming who?”, immediately reminiscent of Thom Gunn’s Tamer and Hawk. Gunn poetically declares: “I […] want the feel […] of catcher and of caught” and concludes his poem anadiplotically: “I fear to lose/ I lose to keep, and choose/ Tamer as prey.” If Gunn’s and Ursu’s poems are metaphysical explorations of the relation between human consciousness and Nature, then their interpreter needs to look into the zoological symbolism: ‘bee’ is possibly spelled out as wisdom in communal life and the spirit of justice (there is always a sting!); ‘wolf’ couples devilish ferocity with godlike benefaction, in different proportions with different peoples; ‘bear’ will symbolise strength and power to renew natural cycles. Actually, each nominal part of Ursu’s poem falls under suspicion of ambivalence and a potential to convey much more than the surface reading. This effect also comes from the nonconventional adjacency of the nominals. Still, this is the trick of any tamer; even the poet may be cast in the precarious drama of ‘dreaming’ and ‘seeming’ as the master-tamer or an archetypal trickster. In a Jungian perspective, we note the central occurrence of the shadow, precisely because the shadow is interpreted to be the part of us we reject. And then, for the latter half of the poem, what happens is part of a dream which is, like any dream, a combination of energy and shape. In the poem, the plurality of shapes gets reduced to a singular ‘I’ and the ultimate message is the one about the Self as archetype of unity winning the battles fought. The I/ self has tamed the wilderness within and without.

203 In connection with Ursu’s text, the translation task is not, or at least it does not seem, complex: crossculturally, the conceptualisations discussed above mean the same. One difficulty can relate to memes, in Chesterman’s (1997) view, the propagation of a cultural idea. Ursu quotes the symphony of the twelve islands which can be constituted into a meme, in case a reader recognised it as part of a frame, or of a schema. If no recognition is possible, its close translation is the only solution, unless the modern Greek Dhodhekanisos group of islands in the Aegean Sea is the intended decoding – not satisfactory enough, however, for further speculative analysis. There is also a shadow of dissatisfaction felt about the explicitation strategy applied to the Capuccino reference in the first stanza. The English version sounds clumsy herewith. In reconsidering the functionalist-approach transfer we have opted for in translating the poems above, we must point out that there has been adjustment (bun şi frumos vs. a nice thing), reduction (ar pierde vremea cu lucruri de-astea vs. would waste time on that), explicitation (ai inventariat stelele vs. you drew up the inventory of stars), changes pertaining to word order (despre mine aceleaşi poveşti vs. the same stories about me), gloss rather than literal construction (nu-mi fac sînge rău vs. I’m not scathed). The translator is compelled to a correct reading, after all, of somebody else’s score. In order to conclusively emphasize an idea of precariousness that is found to mix well with our national ‘brand’, it is worth remarking on faithfulness, while translating, to every detail that builds up the small-size samples of ethopoiesis which the selected poems are. Ethopoiesis (in Romanian, ‘etopee’ in Bidu-Vrânceanu, 2005: 165, 205) contributes a description of morals, vice and virtue (La Bruyère’s Caractères). Thus, Romanians eager to shape a favourable image for themselves, also anxious not to taint this image, need to become very sharp in stabilizing both the reflected image (chipul nostru) and the reflecting surface (oglinda noastră), through ‘political’ action. In an odd congruence with conclusions drawn by political analysts, the poems analysed in this article put forth self-love blending with self-doubt and frenzy blending with withdrawn detachment as ambivalent markers of a Romanian profile which is ambitious, despite apppearances, to be that of a good team-player. Considering patterns in retrospect, an analyst lands on archetypicality; as for contemporary creators, they set up the prospects of ‘relativisms’ (see Cornilescu, 2003). If we are right in generalizing about any tendency whatever, we see that our century constrains towards union at the level of (capitalized) History; yet secessionist, perfunctory, individualistic tendencies are working at the level of (small-initial) history.

204 About those, we may discover poetry of great freshness in one place, characteristically postmodern unsentimental work in another, formal elegance on many poetical occasions. With all that, no one can presume to judge in today’s world of relative commitments and admitted incommensurability.

Bibliography: o *** România literară nr. 16, 21 aprilie 2006, pag. 8 o *** România literară nr. 17, 28 aprilie 2006, pag. 8 o *** România literară nr. 17, 28 aprilie 2006, pag. 30. o *** The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry /NAMP/ (1973/1988). Eds. R. Ellmann & R. O’Clair. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. o Bidu-Vrânceanu, A., C. Călăraşu, L. Ionescu-Ruxăndoiu, M. Mancaş, G. Pană Dindelegan (2000/2005). Dicţionar de ştiinţe ale limbii. Bucureşti: Nemira. o Chesterman. A. (1997). Memes in Translation. J. Benjamins P.C. o Comte, F. (1988/1991). The Wordsworth Dictionary of Mythology. Wordsworth Reference. o Cornilescu, A. (2003). “Can Culture Be Naturalised? Notes on Culture and Other Relativisms”. R. Mihăilă and I. Grigorescu Pană (eds.) America in/from Romania. 55-70. o Dumistrăcel, S. (1997). Expresii româneşti. Biografii – motivaţii. Iaşi: Institutul European. o Evseev, I. (1994). Dicţionar de simboluri şi arhetipuri culturale. Timişoara: Amarcord. o Short, M. (ed.) (1988/1989). Reading, Analysing & Teaching Literature. London and New York: Longman.

205 APPROPRIATING THROUGH TRANSLATION: SHAKESPEARE TRANSLATIONS IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA

George Volceanov “Spiru Haret” University of Bucharest

Lucrarea încearcă să dea răspunsul la o serie de întrebări incomode: în ce măsură a confiscat regimul comunist opera shakespeariană odată cu traducerea acesteia în limba română, în anii 1955 – 1960. În ce măsură şi-a pus amprenta asupra esteticului presiunea politică a acelor ani tulburi?Cum au reacţionat traducătorii aşa-numitei „generaţii de aur” la comanda politică a epocii? Evitând capcana generalizărilor, încercăm să argumentăm că produsul estetic finit al fiecărui traducător în parte reflectă talentul individual şi fibra morală a celor care au dat României prima integrală Shakespeare. Ne încheiem lucrarea cu unele concluzii pe care le propunem ca puncte de plecare pentru o cercetare aprofundată a traducerilor shakespeariene în limba română, prin comparaţie cu cele din alte spaţii culturale.

PROLOGUE

The idea of this paper originated while I was translating Edward III into Romanian. One of the source texts I was relying on was Eric Sams’ 1996 edition of the play1. Sams is a great hunter of concordances within the Shakespeare canon: his method of drawing textual parallels between long established canonical texts and new contenders to canonical status prompted me to have a look at the way in which my Romanian predecessors had translated various recurring Shakespearean words, phrases, and images. The first Romanian ‘complete’ Shakespeare was issued between 1955 and 1960 in eleven volumes by E.S.P.L.A. The ominous acronym stands for the State Publishing House for Literature and the Arts, the central institution that controlled the entire book production in the early phase of Communist Romania. This edition was the result of the joint efforts of sixteen translators, who were later referred to by Communist propaganda as the ‘golden generation’ of Romanian Shakespeare translators. While scrutinizing these post-war translations, I grew aware of the fact that all that glitters is not gold. The point at issue in my paper is that the 1955-60 Shakespeare edition mirrors the political pressures of the age, as well as the opportunistic behaviour and/or unacknowledged anxieties, and, ultimately, the moral fibre of those who

206 constructed the Bard’s work in Communist Romania. In 1964, the year of Shakespeare’s fourth centennial anniversary, a bulky anthology of critical texts appeared under the title Shakespeare and His Work. The author of the preface, the renowned Romanian literary critic and theorist Tudor Vianu, himself a Shakespeare translator, proudly stated: ‘… it was only after the Second World War that our ties with Shakespeare’s work multiplied due to its rendering in Romanian, in versions that are truthful to the original and, poetically, much more valuable than the older translations, as well as due to the rise of original critical contributions’. It was a statement that brought to the foreground the cultural merits of the new regime2.

BURYING THE PAST, BUILDING THE NEW ERA

The year is 1954. Sixteen Romanian intellectuals take the initiative in a first ‘complete Shakespeare’ in Romanian. Romania had had 150 years of translations, mostly from indirect sources, via French and German. Very few translators had tried their hand at metrical translations based on original English texts. The leading authority in the field had been Professor Dragoş Protopopescu (1892-1946), the founder of the English Department of the University of Bucharest. With a Ph.D. degree at the Sorbonne, Protopopescu had done his best to propagate the English culture in a Francophile country. By the 1940s he had established himself as the best Romanian translator of Shakespeare. He had translated Hamlet, HenryV, The Winter’s Tale, King Lear, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Coriolanus, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night. In the 1930s, Protopopescu, like so many dissatisfied, marginalized intellectuals, joined the ranks of the Iron Guard, the Romanian Fascist party. Although a mere sympathizer rather than an active militant, he paid dearly for his political allegiance. His fate was sealed in 1936, when Corneliu-Zelea Codreanu, ‘the Captain’ of the Iron Guard praised his merits in a propaganda booklet titled Pentru legionari (For the Legionnaires). After the Soviet invaders had installed the first ‘freely elected democratic government’ in 1945, Protopopescu knew that the Securitate henchmen would come after him. After three failed suicide attempts, he finally killed himself: on April 11, 1946, he stretched his neck out over an elevator pit and let the elevator squash his head flat. He was the first notable victim of the newly established Communist regime3. One of the major tasks of the 1954 initiative group was to fill the gap left behind by the banning of Protopopescu’s works. The man was dead

207 and the very memory of his texts had to be erased, too. His Shakespeare translations are still preserved by the National Library and the Academy Library in Bucharest but nobody has ever since bothered to reassess or reissue them. After 1970, his name started being mentioned, in passing, in doctoral theses dedicated to Shakespeare’s Romanian career4. In recent years, his heritage has been retrieved in reference works such as The Essential Dictionary of Romanian Writers5 but his long forgotten translations still await a necessary revaluation by the younger generations.

‘GOOD ENOUGH TO TOSS; FOOD FOR POWDER’

The socio-professional structure of the 1954 initiative group was incredibly heterogeneous. Tudor Vianu (1897-1962) had been raised at the school of German philosophy and French literary criticism. Vlaicu Bârna, who was to translate The Merry Wives of Windsor, was a poetaster who had eulogized the Fascist doctrine of the 1930s and was now eulogizing the triumph of Communism. Ion Vinea (1895-1964), a left wing journalist, was also a reputed avant-garde poet. Curiously, between 1938 and 1964 the authorities quietly banned his original writings: in an age of Socialist realism, there was no need for experimental forms and genres. So, Vinea had to earn his living through massive translations. Even more curiously, a Hamlet translation of his was published in the early 1950s as ‘translated by Petre Dumitriu’. Due to this trick, Vinea could earn some money at a time when he could not publish even translations. Soon after this incident, Dumitriu settled down in France. Post-communist literary dictionaries and histories haven’t yet thrown light on the mystery of Vinea’s banning. Like Vinea, Virgil Teodorescu was yet another talented poet who held no degree in English studies. Nor did Barbu Solacolu (an economist), Ion Argintescu- Amza (a journalist and an art critic), Ion Frunzetti (another art critic, but a versatile translator of sonnets), Taşcu Gheorghiu (a philosopher), Florian Nicolau (yet another philosopher), and Dan Lăzărescu (a lawyer). The most fascinating personality among these translators may have been Dan Botta, the talented poet who held graduation degrees in no less than three fields (Greek and Latin, law and physical education). Only five of the sixteen translators involved in the project were graduates in English studies, four of which had also been Dragoş Protopopescu’s students: Leon Leviţchi, Dan Duţescu, Mihnea Gheorghiu, Petre Solomon, and the younger Dan Grigorescu. The leading figure of this group was Leon Leviţchi (1918-1991), the great professor, lexicographer, translator, and Shakespeare scholar whose unparalleled contribution to the development of English studies in

208 Romania will be hard to surpass. Leon Leviţchi proposed back in 1954 that 100 lines of English poetry (Elizabethan drama included) should be rendered in Romanian in no more than 107 lines: English has a basically monosyllabic vocabulary, while Romanian, like all the Romanic languages, consists mostly of polysyllabic words, hence the difficulty of preserving the original metrical patterns.) Leon Leviţchi and his lifetime friend Dan Duţescu did produce the most rigorous Romanian versions of Shakespeare’s plays. Conversely, some of the 1954 team members had only scarce knowledge of English. Some of them even resorted to ghost translators, who furnished them with raw, first-hand translations. Objectionable as it may be, the method turned out to be efficient in the case of Ion Vinea’s HenryV, Hamlet, and Othello, and Virgil Teodorescu’s Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It, which are still regarded as standards of artistry. Both of these professional poets illustrate those rare cases in which individual talent and versatility can compensate for the lack of linguistic competence. Needless to say, not all the translators in the original cast made it to the next historic edition of Shakespeare’s Works, the one edited by Leon Leviţchi and issued by Univers Publishers in nine volumes, between 1982 and 1995. Argintescu-Amza was remorselessly removed from the Univers edition, and Leon Leviţchi undertook the translation of Measure for Measure and Cymbeline. As early as 1977, the author of A Dictionary of Contemporary Romanian Literature had dubbed Argintescu- Amza ‘a translator concerned in the least about source language, literary genre or fidelity to the authors’ intentions’6. Leon Leviţchi also produced a new version of Antony and Cleopatra: Tudor Vianu’s discarded translation had been 1,000 lines longer than the original – a text hard to stage as such. Barbu Solacolu’s translation of the HenryVI trilogy was heavily revised, and Leon Leviţchi retranslated about 800 lines. Florian Nicolau’s prolix rendering of Richard III was replaced by Dan Duţescu’s specially commissioned new version. The telltale socio-professional structure of the 1954 initiative group, ‘good enough to toss, food for powder’, as Jack Falstaff would have said, betrays the haste with which the authorities embraced the idea of having a complete Shakespeare published in Romanian. The completion of the project could teach the people a few lessons: first, the great classics of world literature got what they really deserved from the Communist rulers, i.e. they were being published and disseminated among the masses like they had been never before; secondly, Shakespeare was an exemplary friend of the multitude, ‘one of them’, and he, in turn, could teach the people a few lessons about unjust political systems, tyranny, social inequality, and so on. Under such circumstances, the Bard’s appropriation by the Communists seemed to be inevitable…

209 CENSORSHIP AND SELF-CENSORSHIP

Sonia Leviţchi, Leon Leviţchi’s widow, has recently told me, in answer to a questionnaire, that the Shakespeare translations of the 1950s were not censored by the authorities, and ‘Shakespeare was too great to be censored’7. And yet, in an age when dozens of thousands of Romanian intellectuals were rotting in jail, excavating needless canals, or harvesting the rush crops yielded by the Danube Delta, thinking freely was a luxury. Not all of the enthusiasts embarking on the ambitious project of having a ‘complete’ Romanian Shakespeare could boast a ‘sound’ social origin. Nor were all of them party members. Tudor Vianu, the great scholar, could be persuaded to become a party member only eighteen months before his death. Despite a ‘clean’ record, Ion Vinea was being banned for having been an ‘avant-garde’ writer. Leon Leviţchi was the son of an Orthodox priest, the sixteenth priest in the family genealogy. Leviţchi was persuaded to join the Communist Party in 1968: it was a condition for his being appointed Dean of the Faculty of Germanic Languages in Bucharest. In 1979, when his younger daughter married a Swiss citizen and settled down in Switzerland, Leviţchi was publicly rebuked by his party organization. A year later, he went into early retirement and dedicated himself to several projects including the revised critical edition of the Bard’s work, the first scholarly edition with full critical apparatus. Dan Duţescu, had no ‘sound’ background either. He had been the private secretary of the Communist leader Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, who had been executed after a framed-up trial at the order of the authoritarian party leader Gheorghiu-Dej in 1953. As a penalty for his past connections, Duţescu was kept unemployed for nearly a decade. He completed his studies as late as 1962, and he had to spend two years working in a factory before he was at long last admitted in the staff of the English Department. I have dwelt upon such biographical details because if we are to apply ‘the man in the work’ formula to these translators we may stumble upon instances of self-censorship where actual censorship did not exist as such, but life was full of ominous portents…

COMRADE BOWDLER AND MR. AUTOLYCUS

As if to compensate for the lack of the critical apparatus of the 1955- 60 edition of Shakespeare’s Works, Mihnea Gheorghiu, the recipient of several scholarships in London and Stratford-upon-Avon, produced the first Shakespeare biography written by a Romanian8. It was published in 1958 and massive reprints followed in 1964 and 1968. Mihnea Gheorghiu’s ‘Shakespeare’ had nothing in common with A.L. Rowse’s

210 conservative and nearly reactionary Bard. He had nothing in common with the versatile entrepreneur envisaged by Michael Bristol, either. Gheorghiu’s Shakespeare was a diligent, patriotic, thrifty proto- Communist with a deep concern for the past misfortunes and the future welfare of his people and of mankind, in general. The author’s lower (or, to use a Communist cliché ‘sound’) origin was emphasized to the detriment of his impressive ancestry on his mother’s line. This Shakespeare implicitly endorsed the view that any low born rustic without much learning but endowed with an industrious and enthusiastic spirit could earn fame and acquire a good job. This ‘popular’ version of the Bard was fabricated in the heyday of the so-called popular schools of literature, which were cloning dozens of mini-bards eager to write the true chronicle of ‘Merry Romania’ under the flag of the then fashionable ‘Socialist realism’. Having become the patron of the newly bred literary upstarts, Shakespeare was perforce presented as a man of irreproachable morality. He poached deer, as Rowe’s anecdote claims, only in order to provide for his hungry children, thus re-enacting the exploits of the legendary Robin Hood. In 1988, Peter Levi was desperately writing: ‘God forbid that some lunatic should suggest Anne Hathaway was the Dark Lady9!’ But back in 1958, Mihnea Gheorghiu had already proclaimed that in the Sonnets there was no Dark Lady other than Anne Hathaway, the tender, loving mother and wife. Gheorghiu even took the pains to explain that the less than flattering physical description of Sonnet 130 perfectly fitted the condition of a woman who, having given birth to three children, was no longer in her prime. In a biographical essay included in the 1964 anniversary volume dedicated to Shakespeare and his work, Gheorghiu strongly insisted on Will’s working class background. He contended that the ‘lost years’ were spent by Shakespeare as an apprentice in Dick Field’s printing workshop. (The 1958 biography claimed that Dick Field married Vautrolier’s daughter, but the 1964 edition made the necessary correction and the ‘daughter’ was turned into Vautrolier’s widow.) Shakespeare’s apprenticeship and menial duties provided the Romanian writers with a perfect example. They had to know ‘the aspirations of the people’, to descend from their studies to the farms and factories where the working people were building the new world. It seems that even Gheorghiu must have realized how stupid his identification of the Dark Lady had been, so that this time he came up with another contender. He proposed Jane Davenant as Will’s mysterious mistress. But even as an adulterous husband involved in an extramarital affair, Shakespeare appeared as a ‘tormented

211 soul, devoured by a grave passion’ opposed to the woman’s ‘frail and whimsical love’. In order to whitewash Shakespeare’s irreproachable morality, Gheorghiu had to paint the woman black10. (According to recent Anglo-American biographers, Jane Davenant was, unlike Gheorghiu, indeed, a person of irreproachable morality.) A man of many accomplishments (one of them being an excellent translation of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass), Mihnea Gheorghiu cannot be suspected of stupidity. On the contrary… His appropriations and distortions bear witness to the strategies of a man who, from the age of twenty-five on, held only leading positions such as those of chief-editor, vice-president, chairman, president, etc. of various periodicals and cultural or political bodies. In 1965, he became a member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. It is, therefore, no wonder that such an active apparatchik was also extremely careful about how he should translate Shakespeare. He chose to render anew three of the plays formerly translated by Dragoş Protopopescu: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, and King Lear. According to Eric Partridge, ‘Shakespeare may have had a dirty mind, yet certainly had not a filthy mind’11. What about his Romanian translators’ mind? During the early phase of my research I took a random sample of 306 Shakespearean words and phrases that describe sexual acts, the pudendum muliebre, the penis and so on, and compared the Shakespearean text with its Romanian translations. Objectionable and obsolete as it may be, the statistical method (applied to 29 plays and two poems) convinced me that our translators were truthful to the original or, at least, honest in their endeavour. I counted 179 instances of meaning for meaning translation, 93 instances of lost sexual connotations, and 34 instances in which the translators may be said to have surpassed the ingenuity of the original12. Mihnea Gheorghiu ranks as the first and foremost among Shakespeare’s Romanian bowdlerizers. His translations purged ‘bawdy’ terms just like his biography purged Shakespeare’s ‘capitalist’ and ‘feudal’ features. Here are some examples of how a good translator chose to turn a blind eye to sexual matters: LAUNCE: …of her purse she shall not, for that I’ll keep shut: now, of another thing she may, and that cannot I help. (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, III. 1. 357-9) The thing, Shakespeare’s famous synonym for the pudendum13, vanishes from Romanian, and Launce’s final statement reads ‘the rest doesn’t matter’. The same lack of truthfulness to the original is apparent in the translation of Sir Toby’s pun on Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s hair: ‘I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off’ (Twelfth Night, I.

212 3. 109-10). In Romanian, thee is metamorphosed into it. The entire pun on hair, interpreted by Partridge as ‘male pubic hair’, and spin off (meaning ‘cause to have an emission’, i.e. ejaculation14) is deliberately missed by the cautious, self-censored translator. Malvolio’s reading of Maria’s forged letter, with his famous comment on ‘my lady’s hand: these be her C’s, her U’s and her T’s’, in which the capital letters overtly point to Olivia’s vagina, was translated literally, signifying nothing to the Romanian readers15. Fortunately, Andrei Şerban, the renowned art director who has been living and working in the West for more than three decades, has prepared a much better stage version of Twelfth Night. It retrieves all the wordplays of the original and it has been used by the younger art directors in recent performances. Mihnea Gheorghiu similarly turned a blind eye to many sexual allusions encoded in King Lear, as in the Fool’s song, ‘She that’s a maid now and laughs at my departure / Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter’ (I. 5. 55-6) turning the pun on thing (meaning ‘penis’16) into a lullaby about a cuckoo. Edgar’s ‘Pillicock on Pillicock hill’ in one of his scenes of feigned madness is de-sexualized, too, although Romanian has the lexical means to render this sexual quibble. Lear’s ‘I will die bravely, like a bridegroom’ (IV. 6. 202), with its pun on male orgasm17, was translated by Gheorghiu as follows: ‘I will die bravely, I will advance like a bridegroom’; thus, the author’s point was missed once again18. Dan Lăzărescu, whom ‘Rumour painted full with tongues’ presents as a former informer of the Securitate, emerged as the head of the Romanian freemasonry after the collapse of Communism. Like Gheorghiu, Lăzărescu was a champion of blunders. Unlike Gheorghiu, Lăzărescu made blunders that do not bear the mark of deliberate bowdlerization, but rather that of shallow talent and competence. Petruchio’s ‘Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee’ (II. 1. 103), hinting at copulation and pregnancy19, was rendered in Romanian, quite inexplicably, as ‘Kate, you could do with a donkey’. ‘Women are to bear’ (201) and ‘Buzz’ (206) (described by Partridge as a ‘rude noise’20) were omitted in Romanian and Hortensio’s sexual quibble on ‘the order of my fingering’ (III. 1. 65) was rendered in abstract terms, as ‘my principles’, which shows how far the translator really was from the spirit of the original. Curtis’ ‘Away, you three-inch fool!’ (IV. 1. 27) was rendered in Romanian simply as ‘Beat it, fool!’. I must make it clear once again, that Romanian has plenty of lexical resources to make a translator cope with any specific problem. Some people considered Dan Lăzărescu a man of moral fibre. He resigned from his leading position in the freemasonry when he could not take in the very idea of compromise. He asserted himself as a senior

213 member of the National Liberal Party. Then he resigned from his high position in the party, to let the younger generation take over. And he started a very profitable lucrative venture: a paperback collection of Shakespearean works published by an obscure publishing house in Târgovişte. This initiative was (still is) more than outrageous insofar as Lăzărescu printed, before his death, botched nineteenth and early twentieth century translations (all of them from indirect sources) apparently ‘revised’ with a view to this brand new old edition. The quality of these revisions is highly questionable, if we consider Lăzărescu’s antecedents as a Shakespeare translator. Moreover, the critical apparatus of these one-play books consists of meagre prefaces based on reference works from the first six decades of the past century. First appropriated by the Communist ideologues, Shakespeare later became merchandise in the hands of a liberal entrepreneur, who chose to betray scientific rigour and aesthetic value in favour of profit. Like a twenty-first century Autolycus from The Winter’s Tale, Dan Lăzărescu may have laughed up his sleeve and said to himself, ‘Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery…’ And when one sells ‘expired’ products, the salesman’s moral fibre may be questioned notwithstanding the tricky wrapping or the low prices of the respective products.

THE HENRY IV PLAYS: A CASE STUDY

For a present-day Romanian translator of English literature, to be compared by a reviewer with Dan Duţescu or Leon Leviţchi is a greater honour than any translation award. Duţescu and Leviţchi did set up the norms of literary translation into Romanian. Duţescu is, probably, one of the very few translators who have managed to have Chaucer’s complete works published in a language other than English. His Romanian version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales has enjoyed tremendous success in the past four decades. But even the translations of these two giants bear the stamp of the age when they were carried through; unacknowledged anxieties lurk between the lines of their Shakespeare translations produced in the days of Big Brother. In 1Henry IV, Falstaff notoriously boasts about one of his tricks: ‘I have misused the king’s press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons…’ (IV.2.13-7). In Dan Duţescu’s Romanian version, king is rendered as vodă, a shorter form of the Slav word voievod, signifying a medieval prince or ruler. In Romanian, it instantly brings back the memory of the Vallachian

214 and Moldavian rulers who opposed the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. So, Bolingbroke is indirectly depicted as a heroic, patriotic, father figure. Shakespeare’s good householders are translated as bogătani. The Romanian word is an augmentative noun for ‘the rich’, the upper classes hated by the multitude. Yeoman, which, in this context, signifies ‘a man holding a small landed estate, a freeholder below the rank of a gentleman’, ‘a commoner or countryman of respectable standing, esp. a person who cultivates his own land21,’ is rendered in Romanian as chiabur. The Explicative Dictionary of the Romanian Language issued in the Communist age defined chiabur as ‘a rich peasant who belonged to the village bourgeoisie and earned his living by leasing land, by employing farming labourers, by usury, etc’22. It had an extremely negative connotation during the Communist propaganda campaign aimed at liquidating the peasants’ private property and setting up the Soviet-inspired, state-controlled ‘collective farms’. It took the party years and years to ‘persuade’ the peasants to give up their land, and all those who fiercely opposed the process were denounced as chiaburs, imprisoned, deported or executed as ‘enemies of the people’. In Dan Duţescu’s translation of 1Henry IV Henry IV emerges as a popular figure, the fat knight’s dupes stand for the ‘bourgeoisie’ which must be mercilessly abolished, while Falstaff stands for the folklore type of a righteous hero in the vein of, say, Tyl Ulenspiegel. Was this deviation from the original a persecuted man’s (vide ante) desperate attempt to prove his allegiance to the Communist dogma by paying lip service to the Newspeak of those days, or was it the brutal intervention of an unscrupulous censor? The question invites endless speculations as the translator is dead and the last survivors of those times contend that Shakespeare was ‘above all censorship’. At a time when God’s name was banned from the print and many priests were turned into collaborators of the Securitate, Dan Duţescu was rather truthful to the original as regards the rendering of religious terms. He freely used ‘Dumnezeu’ and ‘Domnul’, the Romanian equivalents of ‘God’ and ‘the Lord’. In English these two words occur in 1Henry IV fifty times in greetings, wishes, vows and oaths. In Romanian, the two words occur 33 times in word for word translation, 6 times in paraphrases like Cel-de-Sus (‘the Almighty’) or cerul (‘heaven’); they are omitted 11 times but the ratio is still good for the 1950s. Mrs. Quickly’s comic resumption of her favourite exclamation, ‘Jesu’, has been preserved throughout the Romanian text. Even ’Sblood has been literally rendered in Romanian four times and paraphrased just twice. There is a telling difference in the ratio between the literal translation and the omission of religious terms in Leon Leviţchi’s version of 2Henry IV. The Orthodox priest’s son seems to have attempted to somewhat attenuate the presence of religious words in his translation. May he have tried to escape any accusation of

215 being one bent on making proselytes? In his text, ‘God’ and ‘the Lord’ are translated literally 26 times, paraphrased 21 times (with ‘the Almighty’ occurring 13 times and ‘heaven’ 8 times) and omitted 23 times. He also avoids the translation of ‘by the mass’ and ‘by heaven’, using instead secular phrases like ‘by my honour’. While Duţescu has translated Prince Henry’s ‘Thou owest God a death’ (1 Henry IV, V.1) literally, as ‘Îi eşti dator lui Dumnezeu cu o moarte’, Leon Leviţchi avoids using the name of God in his rendering of Feeble’s ‘We owe God a death’ (2 Henry IV, III. 2), and translates it as ‘moartea n-o poţi ocoli’, i.e. ‘one cannot shun death’. Here is yet another telling lapse, this time with a political tinge. Says the Archbishop of York, who wishes he could turn back time: ‘O earth yield us that king again’ (I. 3). A literal translation of this sentence would have instantly reminded the Romanian audience of the deposed King Mihai I, who had been forced to abdicate his throne on December 30, 1947. York’s invocation might have stirred the feelings of not few nostalgic sympathizers of monarchy. The Romanian version reads ‘O earth yield us that one and take away this one’. The use of indefinite and demonstrative pronouns saved again the translator from the potential threat of being charged with monarchic propaganda.

A few conclusions: 1. The confines of this paper obviously prompt me to think of a ‘great reckoning in a small room,’ hence it might be just the point of departure for an ampler study, which in turn might be construed as the Romanian counterpart of Shurbanov and Sokolova’s Bulgarian Painting Shakespeare Red23. 2. Such a research project might be part of an even wider scheme focusing on the contrastive analyses of East-European ‘Shakespeares’, aimed at assessing whether, by what means, and to what extent they were appropriated, abused and mistreated in formerly Communist countries. 3. Moreover, it would be interesting for scholars from various countries to compare their notes as regards the bowdlerization of Shakespeare’s plays not only in formerly Communist countries but also in those countries in which the church (especially the Roman-Catholic Church) has always had a word to say about mores and morals displayed in such public places as the theatres.

Notes: 1 Eric Sams, ed., Shakespeare’s Edward III, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1996. 2 Tudor Vianu, ed., Prefaţă la Shakespeare şi opera lui: culegere de texte critice (Preface to Shakespeare and His Work: A Collection of Critical Texts), Bucureşti, Editura pentru Literatură Universală, 1964, p. 12.

216 3 For details about Dragoş Protopopescu’s untimely death I am indebted to Professor Ştefan Stoenescu (b. 1936), a distinguished specialist in English and American literature, who taught at the University of Bucharest between 1964 and 1987. In 1987 he settled down in the United States, where he kept teaching for a while at the Cornell University. Now in retirement, Professor Stoenescu is still contributing introductions and afterwords to books published by leading Romanian publishing houses. 4 See, for instance, Aurel Curtui, Hamlet în România, Bucureşti, Minerva, 1977, pp. 30-1. 5 Mircea Zaciu et al., Dicţionarul esenţial al scriitorilor români (The Essential Dictionary of Romanian Writers), Bucureşti, Albatros, 2000, p. 697-8. 6 Marian Popa, Dicţionar de literatură română contemporană, Ediţia a doua, Bucureşti, Albatros, 1977, p. 36. 7 Sonia Leviţchi, personal communication, Oct. 28, 2003. 8 Mihnea Gheorghiu, Scene din viaţa lui Shakespeare, Bucureşti, ESPLA, 1958. 9 Peter Levi, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare, London, Papermac, 1989, p. 40. 10 Mihnea Gheorghiu, ‘Replici şi scene din lumea lui Shakespeare’, in Shakespeare şi opera lui, ed. cit., pp. 595-608. 11 Eric Partridge, Shakespeare’s Bawdy (1947), London and New York, Routledge, 1990, pp. 8-9. 12 I am well aware of the fact that ‘gauging’ or ‘measuring’ artistic skills is a risky, arguable thing, but I rest my case upon my conscience and my expertise as an experienced literary translator and author of several slang dictionaries. 13 Eric Partridge, op. cit., p. 200. 14 Idem, p. 187. 15 There is a consensus among interpreters about the meaning of these capital letters: see Eric Partridge, op. cit, pp. 151-2; William C. Carroll, ‘The Virgin Not: Language and Sexuality in Shakespeare’, in Shakespeare Survey 46, Cambridge, C.U.P., 1994, p. 110; Valentine Cunningham, In the Reading Gaol, Oxford UK and Cambridge US, Blackwell, 1994, p. 286. 16 Cf. Eric Partridge, op. cit., p. 199. 17 Idem, p. 93. 18 For more details about the bowdlerization of Shakespeare’s plays in Romanian, see George Volceanov, ‘Bowdlerizing Shakespeare: Here, There, and Everywhere’, in British and American Studies, Vol. XI, Editura Universităţii de Vest, Timişoara, 2005, pp. 117-30. 19 Idem, p. 73. 20 Idem, p. 105. 21 The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Volume 2, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 3747. 22 Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române, Bucureşti, Editura Academiei R.S.R., 1984, p. 145.

217 23 Alexander Shurbanov, Boika Sokolova, Painting Shakespeare Red. An East- European Appropriation, Newark, University of Delaware Press, London: Associated University Presses, 2001.

Bibliography: o Carroll, W.C. (1994) ‘The Virgin Not: Language and Sexuality in Shakespeare’, in Shakespeare Survey 46, Cambridge: C.U.P. o Cunningham, V. (1994) In the Reading Gaol, Oxford UK and Cambridge US: Blackwell o Curtui, A. (1977) Hamlet în România, Bucureşti: Minerva o (1984) Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române, Bucureşti: Editura Academiei R.S.R. o Gheorghiu, M. (1958) Scene din viaţa lui Shakespeare, Bucureşti: ESPLA o Gheorghiu, M. (1964) ‘Replici şi scene din lumea lui Shakespeare’, in T. Vianu (ed.) Shakespeare şi opera lui, Bucureşti: Editura pentru Literatură Universală, 595-608 o Levi, P. (1989) The Life and Times of William Shakespeare, London: Papermac o (1993) The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Volume 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press o Partridge, E. (1990) Shakespeare’s Bawdy (third edition) London and New York: Routledge o Popa, M. (1977) Dicţionar de literatură română contemporană (second edition), Bucureşti: Albatros o Sams, E. (ed.). (1996) Shakespeare’s Edward III, New Haven and London: Yale University Press o Shurbanov, A.; Sokolova, B. (2001) Painting Shakespeare Red. An East-European Appropriation, Newark and London: University of Delaware Press and Associated University Presses o Vianu, T. (ed.). (1964) ‘Prefaţă’, in Shakespeare şi opera lui: culegere de texte critice (‘Preface’ to Shakespeare and His Work: A Collection of Critical Texts), Bucureşti: Editura pentru Literatură Universală, 11-12 o Volceanov, G. (2005) ‘Bowdlerizing Shakespeare: Here, There, and Everywhere’, in British and American Studies, XI, 117-30 o Zaciu, M. et al. (2000) Dicţionarul esenţial al scriitorilor români (The Essential Dictionary of Romanian Writers), Bucureşti: Albatros

218

FRENCH CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

REGARD CROISÉS SUR LES SENS DE LA NOTION DE BELGITUDE SUR LE WEB

Carmen Andrei Université « Dunărea de Jos » de Galaţi

Încă din anii 80, oamenii de cultură belgieni intră într-o dispută deschisă împotrivă academismului oficial. Cearta porneşte de la probleme literare, legate de hegemonia modelului cultural francez, centru incontestabil şi matrice pentru perriferia francofonă şi ajunge să antreneze probleme extraliterare, sociale, psihologice, politice şi chiar economice, toate în raport direct sau indirect cu identitatea culturală, naţională şi regională a belgienilor. Aşa se naşte noţiunea de belgitate, din momentul conştientizării publice a sentimentului de inadecvare identitară, care trebuie asumată ca marcă specifică. De atunci, luările de atitudine publice au continuat cu argumente rezonabile, vehemente, aberante. Cercetarea pe web care a constat în survolarea a sute de site-uri pune în evidenţă faptul că definiţiile date azi belgităţii sunt lacunare, superficiale, chiar contradictorii. Cele patru mari semnificaţii uzuale derivate din sensul de bază sunt : zeflemeau şi auto-zeflemeau, patriotism calm sau vehement, imaginar excesiv şi indolenţă tolerantă. Concluzia e că noţiunea de belgitate a devenit sinonimă cu (specific) belgian.

 Objectifs et méthodes Le but de notre article est à la fois la présentation et l’analyse de la riche pléthore sémantique de la notion de belgitude telle quelle apparaît sur le Web. Le survol sur l’un des fureteurs les plus utilisés, ayant comme terme de recherche avancée toutes les pages qui contiennent le simple mot belgitude, et en choisissant comme langue de recherche seulement le français, s’est avéré dans un premier temps déconcertant : google.com affiche 81.500 pages. Un coup d’œil rapide sur plusieurs pages nous conduit à trois constats préliminaires :

219 1) Des centaines de pages servent uniquement de portail fourre-tout, non pas pour ce qui est spécifiquement belge, mais pour des annuaires ou des glossaires de ressources variées, classés alphabétiquement en : actualités, animaux, arts-culture, assurances-finances, emplois, entreprises, etc., qui n’ont, dans leur majorité, aucun rapport au sens premier de la notion de belgitude. Pour gagner du temps, la navigation sur des sites comme : www.repertoire.net, http://belgitude.refannuaire.com,www.socialsquare.com, www.viavous.com, http://diogene.ibelgique.com doit se faire rapidement. Notre commentaire la-dessus ne peut que reprendre l’étiquette suggestive d’un tel annuaire : Inclassables.Belgitudes ; 2) Il convient de mentionner un grand nombre de forums qui proposent comme sujet de discussion la belgitude (www.evene.fr) ; 3) La notion de belgitude apparaît dans le cadre des programmes universitaires qui proposent divers cours sur la civilisation, la culture et les lettres francophones de Belgique comme concept à discuter avant d’entamer le cours proprement dit. La simple mention ne suffit pas pour développer un commentaire ou une analyse.

 Définition de la notion de belgitude Dans les années ‘80, la question du malaise identitaire est incontournable. Elle suit la reconnaissance constitutionnelle des trois régions (Flandre, Wallonie, Bruxelles). Dans un dossier intitulé Une autre Belgique, inlassablement cité depuis, publié dans l’hebdomadaire de l’actualité culturelle (du 4 au 11 novembre 1976, no. 2557), Les Nouvelles Littéraires, Pierre Mertens considéré comme « le père du concept de la belgitude » sur www.belgium.net) et Claude Javeau lancent la notion de belgitude1. Dans «Y a-t-il une belgitude ?», le sociologue de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, Claude Javeau, part du constat que la pénurie d’études sociologiques sur les Belges est le signe d’un manque d’intérêt qui en dit long : Disons, pour simplifier les choses, que les clivages d’origines linguistiques n’affectent guère en Belgique, la gauche radicale, le mouvement de libération des femmes, le cinéma belge, les luttes contre la répression policière, psychiatrique ou autre. Chacun parle sa langue, sans complexe (ni de supériorité, ni d’infériorité) et il existe de plus en plus de gens qui, s’ils éprouvent des difficultés à se parler, en arrivent cependant à se comprendre de mieux en mieux.2 Malgré la spécificité politique et administrative de la Belgique, il y a une autonomie communale qui n’existe pas en France. Donc tout partait

220 d’une querelle littéraire, et comme il n’y avait pas de langue belge, on a senti le besoin de parler d’une identité belge. A son tour, la notion d’identité, définie comme rapport qui s’établit entre un individu et sa communauté de vie et de décision devient un levier qui favorise la prise de conscience de son environnement culturel, social, économique. Elle entraîne automatiquement celle de non-identité, qui a comme conséquence directe le repli sur soi, la réflexion individuelle, donc, paradoxalement, la construction d’un monde imaginaire. Elle va de pair avec le contour imprécis d’un no man’s land, d’un pays de l’imaginaire, d’une aire personnelle où toute consciente critique se réfugie pour mieux y subir les aléas de son existence. Un nouveau territoire pour des apatrides… belges ? Identité et non-identité culturelles mènent à un autre constat : la notion de belgitude relève, certes, des sens paradoxaux, voire contradictoires, résumés par Jacques Sojcher par l’oxymore « sédentarité diasporique ». Sur www.blam.be, nous retrouvons le même identitaire chez le scénariste belge assez connu, Jerry Frissen qui s’est expatrié aux Etats- Unis. Récemment, dans un entretien sur www.critiquelibres.com, l’écrivain Daniel Charneux avoue se servir de la belgitude dans le seul but de créer une ambiance, une toile de fond pour ses fictions et rien de plus. Le mot belgitude est calqué selon la négritude, notion qui est apparue au lendemain de la guerre, lorsque les auteurs africains Léopold- Sédar Senghor et Aimé César osaient affirmer leur état « noir ». La belgitude est, dans son sens primaire mentionné ci-dessus, le sentiment d’appartenance aux points de vue sociologique, esthétique, culturel à une Belgique ayant ses propres caractéristiques. Dans ce sens, la belgitude devient une marque qui permet à ceux qui parlent la même langue, à savoir le français, de se reconnaître entre eux, de se retrouver en fonction de leurs affinités. Elle s’est manifestée au début comme une prise de conscience publique des écrivains qui, en dénonçant le charabia baroque belge, refusaient de déclarer leur appartenance à la culture belge officielle, pâle imitation du modèle français. Le mouvement de la belgitude s’est avéré complexe : né justement du besoin de sortir de sous la tutelle de la culture française écrasante pour l’écrivain belge, il a renié tout complexe d’infériorité afin d’affirmer, au contraire, sa fierté d’être soi-même. C’est, dans d’autres termes, une sorte de Cendrillon bien vêtue qui épouse finalement son prince charmant. Dans son article « De la difficulté d’être Belge », Pierre Mertens insiste sur l’idée des mini-génocides culturels qu’ont subis les Belges : […] quand donc rendra-t-on vraiment au surréalisme belge l’hommage qu’il mérite ? Cet honneur et cette indignité seraient bien dus à un pays tantôt épargné, tantôt négligé ? Et de là bien des choses découlent

221 au plan des mentalités et d’un état d’esprit qui fait si souvent de l’intellectuel d’ici, en particulier un non-belge, un anti-belge ou un a- Belge. Sois-Belge et tais-toi ! No man’s land ou cul du monde ? Absurdie ou Cacanie ?3 Même si Mertens arrive à la conclusion qu’il s’agit d’un certain sentiment en creux, d’un manque, c’est justement ce manque qui est à assumer afin de rendre plus créer la différence. On parle pour la première fois de bâtardise, de métissage, du statut ingrat de « fils de personne », d’exil, de cosmopolitisme. Le « défi belge » consisterait à se frayer « une troisième voie », à l’opposé des deux grands pôles, Paris et Amsterdam, « à égale distance d’une vergogne imbécile et d’un orgueil déplacé » (loc. cit.). Par l’expression métaphorique « retrancher dans une tour d’ivoire aux portes battantes », Mertens propose à ses compatriotes, gens de lettes ou non, d’au moins tenter d’être Belges, à tout prix, même s’ils sont marginaux ou minoritaires. Dans « Pourquoi pas la belgitude ? », Claude Javeau défend le concept par la présentation de ce qu’il ne veut pas être, à savoir l’épouvantail pour les régionalistes pépères : « Ni projet politique, ni programme partisan, ni nostalgie belgicaine, la belgitude ne veut rien expressément d’autre que ce désir de résistance à l’égard de l’ordre social belge ». Le créateur en Belgique est le « nègre » des puissances d’argent et des bureaucrates de tous acabits, soutient Javeau. Il convint de préciser que cette crise identitaire naît dans la région bruxelloise, chez des auteurs bruxellois et non pas chez des auteurs flamands, fiers de leur appartenance culturelle, de leur identité, de leur économie et de leur langue. Les ennemis de fond sont les académiciens belges dont le but est de s’approprier la culture française, de l’imiter dans la lettre et dans l’esprit, ce qui, pour les contestataires équivaut à la dépersonnalisation culturelle. En littérature, la belgitude représente la volonté d’insertion dans la quotidienneté belge qui n’est plus gommée, comme l’ont préféré les écrivains néo-classiques des années 1950), ni folklorisée par les régionalistes et les provincialistes. Bruxelles est une ville sur pilotis, dépourvue d’homogénéité, bourgade flamande à l’origine, mais rapidement francisée dès le Moyen Âge, une ville qui n’a pas de passé linguistique proprement dit. Elle n’est plus la Villette de 1850, telle qu’elle apparaît dans la caricature féroce de la pension Héger, dans le roman de Charlotte Brontë. Capitale de l’Europe à l’heure actuelle, elle ne vit plus entre deux langues, le français et le flamand, elle ne doit plus trancher net la question linguistique puisqu’ici affleurent toutes les langues européennes.

222 Dans le même dossier, Jacques de Decker affirme que la Flandre s’est forgée une identité propre faute de rayonnement international, tandis que la Wallonie reste attachée à la France4, donc seuls les francophones de Belgique ressentent le malaise identitaire. A l’affirmation d’une identité flamande distincte ont contribué des raisons économiques : au XXe siècle la Flandre agricole de jadis, est devenue prospère, plus peuplée, ayant un marché d’art abondant. Le rapport de force s’est donc inversé, elle n’est plus pauvre, opprimée, marginalisée par la grosse bourgeoisie francophone comme au XIXe siècle. Dans un autre article, Jacques Bourlez soutient l’idée paradoxale qu’il n’y pas de roman belge, mais des romanciers belges comme les Wallons Conrad Detrez et Jean-Pierre Otte, qui choisissent de se forger un univers poétique fantastique, quotidien, sensuels5. Dans « Le double exil des poètes » du même numéro, Liliane Wouters analyse la condition particulière des poètes belges. La situation d’exil est double dans le cas du Belge puisqu’il est exilé à Paris et exilé de l’intérieur, bref « marginal partout ». Comme tout poète en exil, le poète belge se voit obliger de se réfugier ailleurs. La solution de ce double exil est suggérée par la solution québécoise : c’est devenir Belge « jusqu’au plus petit orteil », ensuite c’est faire un bout de chemin l’un vers l’autre6. La Libre Belgique du 20 novembre 1978 accueille dans ses pages « Six personnages en quête de la Belgitude » : deux littéraires – Jacques de Decker et Marc Quaghebeur, deux animateurs et directeurs de théâtre – Patrick Roegiers et Frédéric Baal et deux plasticiens appartenant au groupe Cap, d’art expérimental– Jacques Lennep et Michel Mineur7. Tous les six partagent les mêmes idées. Ils estiment que c’est une chance d’être Belges, même « bâtards » et que « La Belgique, c’est [leurs] racines ». Même s’il s’agit des redites, Cette nouvelle prise de position s’inscrit dans le mouvement d’éclosion et de revalorisation du fait belge, en littérature et en art. En 1980, la parution du numéro spécial de la revue de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles sur le fait belge, intitulé La Belgique malgré tout, constitue un moment-clé dans la question identitaire. La thèse de départ est que, chez les jeunes écrivains de la génération ’80, il existe une sorte de conflit irrésolu, viscéral même, entre amour / haine, besoin / refus, répulsion / adhésion à l’égard de la Belgique8. La tonalité des articles est variable : on y retrouve des accents pulsionnels, voire exacerbés qui ne peuvent pas être étouffés par des arguments raisonnables. Sous la direction de l’écrivain-philosophe Jacques de Sojcher sont rassemblés beaucoup d’écrits où les soixante-dix participants concluent, contre les régionalistes, les racoleurs politiques, les doctrinaires de l’irréel que la Belgique existe, malgré tout :

223 Beaucoup d’écrivains ressentent aujourd’hui, à l’heure où le nationalisme régionaliste se lève, que la Belgique dans sa négativité même, dans son creux offrait aussi une autre chose : une possibilité d’espace, d’entre-deux, une situation mouvante, de carrefour, de traversée et d’errance, une sédentarité baroque, diasporique, une chance de bâtardise (Jacques Sojcher, loc. cit.). Dans La Belgique malgré tout, la prise de position de Pierre Mertens reste tout aussi véhémente : « […] Pays où l’on parle plusieurs langues, mais où l’on n’a rien à dire dans aucune […] Au sud un coq aptère à la voix de fausset, au nord un lion malade de peste brune ; laissons-les donc aux prises. Cette affaire ne nous regarde point. La Belgique est un mauvais rêve qui, au réveil vous empoisse encore. » Claude Javeau, continue à développer l’idée d’un pays vide, en creux, un non-état, qui se trouve ailleurs, nulle part et partout, « un trou sur la plage du monde »9. L’écrivain Luc de Heusch voit l’avenir de l’artiste dans les grandes métropoles où les langues se métissent, comme à Bruxelles par exemple. Les pamphlets de R. Swennen (Belgique Requiem) et les saynètes de l’ardennais Guy Denis servent de contrepoint à la belgitude. Lors de sa parution, ce livre provoque des polémiques violentes : dans l’article de Marcel Bauwens publié dans un numéro du 25 novembre 1980 du journal Le Soir, on trouve sous l’étiquette généreuse « Enquêtes. Reportages. Chronique » une prise de position patriote : « Ils [les écrivains contestataires] sont des enfants qui auraient honte du niveau intellectuel de leur parente, la Belgique ». Les droits à la réplique ne tardent pas : un forum de l’opinion provoqué par les Dissidents de l’intérieur de Marc Rombaut. A l’occasion de l’Europalia 80, la cent cinquantième anniversaire de la Belgique, l’article « Nos lettres en 1980 : être ou ne pas être "écrivain belge" » rouvre les polémiques. En 1988, la Faculté de Droit des Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis a organisé une rencontre-débat sur le thème « Belgitude et crise de l’Etat belge » dans le sillage de la question actuelle de l’identité belge. Les conclusions sont les suivantes : 1) la notion de belgitude, telle qu’elle a été proposée entre 1976 et 1980 par Mertens, Javeau et Sojcher se réfère à l’identité culturelle bruxelloise. C’est Bruxelles et non la Flandre ou la Wallonie qui se caractérise par les idées de négativité et de creuset et c’est elle un espace d’entre-deux, métissé, bâtard et un carrefour cosmopolite ; 2) il y a indubitablement une société civile et une culture belge, nées des deux sociétés, flamande et wallonne ; 3) du point de vue culturel, Bruxelles reste un territoire flamand10. Le survol de multiples définitions et prises de positions au sujet de la belgitude nous amènent à la conclusion qu’il s’agit en fait d’une non-

224 définition, puisque la belgitude se définit justement par ce qui ne l’est pas. Les définitions virtuelles de la belgitude sont lacunaires, superficielles, comme le montre le site richement ramifié autour et sur la Belgique (www.webelge.be). A part le renvoi au concept de négritude, on résume l’essence de la notion par le caractère mondain non pas sans un certain laconisme : « le terme de belgitude fait fureur chez les intellos francophones coutumiers à l’écartèlement entre les réalités culturelles françaises et belges ». Sur le modèle de belgitude, il naît sur plusieurs sites des termes patriotards comme : ardennitude (à consulter à ce sujet l’article de Philippe Destatte sur www.wallonie-en-ligne), bruxellitude, wallonitude et flandritude (pour les trois derniers, à consulter www.ecolo.be) et même frititude, terme retrouvable sur les sites qui font de la promotion pour les frites belges et qui apparaît sans aucune connotation péjorative. Les articles des encyclopédies virtuelles, comme celui de l’encyclopédie libre Wikipédia, sont tous très sommaires, évasifs, et les informations qu’ils nous fournissent ne servent pas à notre recherche. Au contraire, un bel exemple de ce qui est la belgitude pour mieux comprendre ce qui ne l’est pas, est le test de belgitude sur http://belgitude.membot.com. La présentation du test se veut aguichante, elle contient in nuce une définition sommaire correcte de la belgitude : La Belgique, aaah, ce plat pays magnifique, avec ses particularités et ses chaleureux habitants, les Belges ! Mais, peut-être ne le savez-vous pas, être Belge, ce n'est pas seulement posséder une carte d’identité du Royaume. Etre Belge, c’est partager des habitudes, un savoir, un patrimoine, une culture, qui dépassent largement nos frontières. Sans le savoir, chaque humain est potentiellement Belge ! Pour déterminer votre taux de belgitude, et découvrir quel type de Belge vous êtes, une seule solution : répondre à ces quelques questions ! PS : Ceci est une initiative citoyenne dans le cadre des 175 ans de la Belgique. Le test contient 50 questions. Le premier critère qui regroupe 27 questions n’est pas précisé. Il s’agit de questions hétéroclites, disons d’un passe-partout stéréotypé sur : un festival de musique, la bière, un glacier, un fleuve, un monument d’architecture bruxelloise (le Manneken Pis), la « drache » belge (un vrai piège pour ceux qui la prennent pour une fête nationale), les liens de parentés royales, quelques belgicismes, quelques personnalités du sport, les objets-totems (sic !) de la ville de Namur, la course de 24 heures en vélo, la qualité de l’éclairage des autoroutes, etc. Le deuxième critère (7 questions) concerne la gastronomie belge (des notions élémentaires sur les spéculoos, les frites ou la bière) et les habitudes alimentaires, le troisième, assez frêle, s’appelle Langage et interroge sur une pratique linguistique discutable, à savoir une insulte et un équivalent français d’un syntagme en néerlandais (« e kwé châle »). Ensuite, d’autres questions portent, de nouveau, sur la royauté (1), le sport (3), la géographie (2), la politique (2), d’autres sur le folklore et les loisirs (4) pour finir par une catégorie floue « divers » qui

225 contient une question sur les courses quotidiennes dans une surface bon marché, méprisée par les « bourgeois » belges et une dernière sur un anthroponyme supposé notoire. En consultant des dizaines de sites qui renvoient à ce test, nous constatons qu’il passe pour un fort vecteur de belgitude, étant donné le nombre de visiteurs qui se sont soumis à ce questionnaire (plus de 500) et le taux élevé de leur belgitude. L’évaluation finale a toujours été positive, on n’enregistre qu’un seul cas de « belgitude » négative.

 Sens et significations de la belgitude sur le Web Les sens de la notion varient à tel point que, sur certains sites, la belgitude désigne explicitement le contraire de ce que le savoir collectif a admis comme sens commun. Nous avons établi quatre significations dérivées du sens de base, celui de sentiment « en creux », réparties en quatre catégories auxquelles nous avons rajouté une corbeille (ce sera la cinquième catégorie), une sorte de « poubelle » dans laquelle nous avons rejeté tout ce qui ne répondait pas à nos critères d’analyse, ou, en bref, tout ce qui mérite l’étiquette « tout et n’importe quoi qui contienne le mot belgitude ». Les quatre significations que nous avons établies sont : dérision et auto- dérision ; patriotisme paisible ou véhément ; imaginaire débridé ; indolence souriante.

1. Dérision et auto-dérision. Exemples :  Le site www.hahaha.com présente Un musée de la Belgitude, un musée itinérant né de l’initiative de Wallonie-Bruxelles. Le descriptif du portail mérite d’être cité à juste titre comme modèle d’auto-dérision poussée à l’extrême, frisant l’ironie mordante: La Belgique, pays de petite taille, a pu dissimuler longtemps dans le concert des nations les mystères qu’elle abrite. La loi du silence s’est imposée telle une chape de plomb, laissant ses habitants dans l’ignorance de leurs origines réelles. Il fallait qu’un jour, des hommes courageux ou inconscients révèlent à la face du monde la véritable essence de la Belgique. A l’approche d’un nouveau millénaire et devant les risques cumulés de la pollution, de la crise économique et du cataclysme nucléaire, nous n’avions plus grand chose à perdre, à dévoiler ce secret d’État. Nous avons donc rassemblé sous haute surveillance, dans un musée itinérant, des preuves irréfutables collectées au cours de nos folles expéditions jusqu’aux confins des territoires ardennais. Vous pourrez ainsi découvrir l’histoire de notre bon vieux pays comme on ne vous l’a jamais racontée. Depuis la dérive des plaques tectoniques jusqu’à l’homme de Spa, des laboratoires clandestins de chicons, aux mains du terrible Cartel de Mechelen, jusqu’aux élevages de frites sauvages, rien ne sera laissé au hasard durant cette visite bouleversifiante ! Parce qu’il fallait enfin que la vérité éclate, les guides du Magic Land Théâtre ont décidé de parler !

226 Les comédiens de ce Théâtre de rue ont leur site : www.magicland.theatre.com. L’internaute curieux y retrouvera de vraies « révélations » sur l’identité belge, des vestiges et des témoignages d’extrême importance comme « le biotope reconstituant le cycle de reproduction de la frite sauvage » ou « le spécimen unique de crâne de flamand rose de six millions d’années ayant gardé une dent » et, c’est à lui de deviner contre qui.  Sur www.francparler.com et www.cedimho.net, les Snuls pratiquent une attitude critique aiguë sur la petitesse de la Belgique et de la belgitude ayant comme arme principale la dérision programmatique. 2. Patriotisme paisible ou véhément. Exemples :  Jacques Brel fait l’objet des dizaines de sites où nous trouvons : des interviews imaginaires avec le « Grand Jacques » sur « le plat pays ». Il affirme mieux vivre / sentir son pays en le quittant et renvoie aux textes de ses chansons, exemplaires pour sa belgitude, tels que Les Flamandes, Marieke, Bruxelles, Il neige sur Liège, Les Flamingants ou L’Ostendaise. La conclusion de l’interview est qu’il n’a jamais renié sa belgitude ; l’image de Jacques Brel est l’exemple le plus édifiant de belgitude dans sa variante de patriotisme paisible, de sorte que sur www.interdits.net, Giovanni Petrucci, le biographe de Brel va jusqu’à inventer les mots brelge et brelgité (calqué sur belge et belgité) pour définir la situation identitaire du chanteur, flamand et francophone à la fois. Brel avoue s’ennuyer parfois d’être belge, puisqu’il avait de grandes colères en Belgique : « Je suis belge sans l’être encore tout à fait », déclaration qui va à l’encontre de l’image fétichiste artificiellement construite que le public non averti s’est faite du chanteur belge.  Dans le cadre de la 27e édition du festival de cinéma « La Belgitude interrogée » de Douarnenez, l’ethnologue et cinéaste Luc de Heusch condamne l’Etat belge dans le documentaire « Quand j’étais belge ». A consulter : www.cinergie.be ou encore www.fasti.org sur « Les Belgiques ». A l’opposé, www.artfact.ulg.ac.be présente l’exposition « La Belgique visionnaire ». Le nom de Victor Horta, grand architecte belge, promoteur de l’Art Nouveau fonctionne comme argument dans la défense de l’authentique esprit belge. Un site comme www.francoffonies.be invite à participer au festival Simenon, corollaire de belgitude dans l’univers du polar.  La somme du patriotisme s’est enfin matérialisée. L’exposition Made in Belgium, placée sous le slogan « Réveillez chez le visiteur la fierté d’être belge » rassemble 4.000 objets pour célébrer éminemment la belgitude : (http://courrierinternational.com).

227  L’article en ligne de Roger Mounege : «Au-delà du décor des mots… Propos sur une identité culturelle wallonne» s’avance peu à peu vers le patriotisme extrême. www.opcommunication.com, site nationaliste wallon se met sous le patronage de septante et de nonante considérés comme marques d’une démocratie pluraliste légaliste pour clamer l’intégration de la Wallonie en France. Un autre article qui fait preuve d’un patriotisme difficilement admissible appartient à José Fontaine, « Socialisme et question nationale », sur www.toudi.org. A l’opposé, nous retrouvons sur www.annales.org, site de la Gazette de la société et des techniques, un autre article, « Comprendre la Belgique pour deviner l’Europe » qui trouve sur un ton juste des arguments pertinent pour défendre les valeurs nationales belges. La belgitude est manifestement liée à la colonisation du Congo sur www.territoires- memoire.be.  D’autres articles revendiquent la belgitude sans en avoir l’air. Un titre trompeur ayant un parfum de whisky, comme Johnny Walker-Globbe- Trotter sur www.liraloeil.be invite à une lecture qui s’avère intéressante sur les acceptions de la belgitude par le prisme du nationalisme.  Sur http://perso.wanadoo.fr, les mouvements des chômeurs sont volontiers associés à la belgitude au nom d’une démocratie exacerbée ;  Sur http://users.skynet.be nous retrouvons des poèmes dédiés à la belgitude, d’inspiration mièvre, selon les réactions des internautes, cherchant à tout prix l’originalité ; citons La Belgitude, le poème de Jocelyne V. La Belgitude, est l’inquiétude du sourire du présent Mes racines enfouies ébahissent mon coeur Je suis en léthargie de mon présent bonheur Mes ancêtres oubliés ressurgissent en moi On ne peut renier nos aiëuls d’autrefois J’aime la mer du Nord, inlassable berceau J’aime ma terre natale, plaine de Wallonie Ils sont encrés en moi ; Ultime héritage D’un père Flamand qui a fait la croisade D’aimer un jour une belle Wallonne Ils ont fait des enfants chantant la Brabançonne Pourquoi se déchirer dans les mêmes racines ? Un Pays si peuplé de choses si divines Arrêtons ce dilemme du Nord et puis du Sud N’est-ce pas nôtre emblème ? Toute cette fine culture La terre qui nous porte est un bien si précieux Arrêtons ces colportes qui veulent en faire deux Une seule et même Belgique sera toujours plus forte Et nul analgésique trahira cette force.

228  Sur www.inreallife.be nous trouvons un refus catégorique de tout sentiment d’appartenance à une communauté spirituelle belge. « Je ne supporte pas ce mot de belgitude » affirme avec véhémence et à maintes reprises Georges Thinès dans un article en ligne caché sous un titre anodin « De 1989 à 2003. Culture, société, vie quotidienne » ; le même mal de la belgitude hautement clamé apparaît sur www.opalis.be, lié aux problèmes actuels concernant les tensions entre les trois Régions et les Communautés de Belgique ;  Le site des Belges du Grand Duché de Luxembourg, www.urb.lu prêche, au nom de l’Union Royale Belge, la cohésion de la communauté, signe incontestable de leur belgitude.

3. Imaginaire débridé. Exemples :  Via www.vivat.be, nous arrivons sur le site concernant les frites belges dont le libellé annonce la bravoure exceptionnelle du peuple belge, ce qui autorise les créateurs à organiser, au nom de la frititude, des «rendez-vous des piqués de la toile belgo-belge!»

L’affirmation de la belgitude à travers l’imaginaire débridé touche à la fois les trois autres significations dans un admirable pêle-mêle qui effraiera la rhétorique ancienne : Le site utile notre trio national noir-jaune-rouge sans pour autant tomber dans le nationalo-tristounet. Pas plus que dans la bête. provoc. Frites.be est un site humoristique (NDLR : en tout cas, pour nous, Belges) avec ses "Belgo Infos", ses "Friteurs d'or" qui évoquent les Frites et "leur" Belgique, ses échanges "entre Friteurs". Ou encore sa "Belgalerie", répertoire de sites garantis 100% belgo-belges, ses blagues "pour Frire" (sur les Belges, les Français, les Bruxellois, les Flamands, les Wallons,...), ses dessins et montages ("Cartoons"). A côté du "jukebox", le site s'est doté d’une rubrique cinéma, "Toile Frite", où tous les Friteurs recensent toutes les scènes de Frites au cinéma. Et même si Frites.be se défend d’être un site sur les Frites, celles-ci ont droit à leur rubrique où elles sont à l’honneur, tout comme les fritkots. Pour continuer dans le même registre ludique, nous vous conseillons à suivre le site www.marmiton.org pour avoir la recette des vraies frites belges imprégnées de la plus authentique belgitude huileuse.  Gaston Lagaffe, héros des BD belges est un cas de belgitude incongrue ; un autre « hérisson de la belgitude » serait Yvon Sondag ; Bod Fisk (80), le double négatif d’Hercule Poirot, créé par Yves Chaland illustre la BD policière et fait ressortir une belgitude sous-jacente, source d’humour bien venu, parfois grinçant (http://bernadac.club.fr). Le même genre d’humour surréaliste est proposé par le Théâtre bruxellois Varia pour la

229 mise en scène de la pièce de Th. Gunzig, La Mort d’un parfait bilingue ; en échange, sur http://superwallon.skyblog.com on découvre une référence floue un super-héros, défenseur de la belgitude francophone au sud de la frontière.

4. Indolence souriante. Exemples :  Sur http://belgologie.be nous découvrons l’existence virtuelle d’une Faculté Universitaire de Belgologie qui illustre de manière exemplaire cette catégorie. Une première observation renseigne sur la qualité du site : un taux de popularité assez bas. Les articles en ligne qui s’y trouvent suscitent des débats véhéments entre le groupe qui prend la belgitude pour un sentiment de fierté nationale et les ainsi dits indolents qui se moquent d’eux. Le manifeste des trois « universitaires » témoigne d’un discours non pertinent qui recherche à tout prix l’originalité et la spécificité belge à l’état pur où se mêlent tous les types d’arguments comme le montre l’extrait ci- dessous dont nous ne nous sommes pas permis de corriger les fautes d’orthographe et de grammaire : Il y a dix ans, en décembre 1995 (prononcez nonante-cinq), l’association de faits « Sauf Tintin » réalisait une exposition ayant pour thème principal « La belgitude », l’exposition avait réuni de nombreux artistes qui avaient sus exhiber l’espace d’un moment, un échantillon de ce qu’était la culture belge. Il y avait là une installation, digne des photos de François Hers dans « Récit » ou encore « intérieurs », d’un intérieur, qualifié par le public de « borain » : une télévision affublée d’un joli napperon en dentelle, surmonté d’une photo d’enfant déguisé en gille alors que sur l’écran passait en boucle une vidéo des « Dégueule beef ». Plus loin, une oeuvre de Laurent Lenclud nommée « Le belgonaute »,...  Cette exposition devait prouver que le belge existait et que la culture belge n’est pas un mythe ! Depuis, la belgitude est resté pour moi un fer de lance, malgré le discourt séparatiste et ra tachiste, je me sens toujours plus proche des flamands que des français, même si entre nous, les flamands et les wallons, c’est un peu les Le Quesnoy et les Groseille (voir « La vie est un long fleuve tranquille » d’Etienne Chatiliez) où le flamand est un Le Quesnoy catholique et bourgeois donnant de l’argent aux Groseille famille peu instruite et démunie représentant très bien la wallonnie (C’est une images, bien entendu !). Même si la politique veut que le pays se déchire, les destinations préférées des wallons restent le nord de la Flandre et pour les flamands le sud de la Wallonnie. Que ce soit au nord comme au sud, il existe de nombreux points communs dans la culture belge : Le surréalisme,

230 l’auto-dérision, voyez Urbanus (humoriste flamand) et Pic-pic André ou encore les Snuls, la bière et Ostende. C’est parce qu’il est toujours savoureux de se replonger dans nos racines et qu’avoir un support culturel familier, avec des codes naturellement acquis qu’il est bon de se replonger dans ce qui fait notre identité. C’est d’ailleurs à ce titre que la Faculté de Belgologie organisera des séminaires (sous forme très ludique) sur la culture belge, savoureusement illustrés par le son, l’image ou encore le goût. Et pourquoi pas devenir à votre tour « licencié » en belgologie afin de perpétuer l’aspect culturel de notre pays qui rappelons-le « est un plaisir et doit le rester ». Un article récent, du 16 février 2006, où l’on s’interrogeait sur l’existence même de la Belgique en tant qu’Etat unitaire, provoque la réaction immédiate des universitaires belgologues, accusés d’avoir dénigré l’esprit belge (nous reproduisons le texte tel quel sans rien corriger) : Rappelez-vous, la Belgique est un plaisir et doit le rester et si il n’y a plus de culture de l’auto-critique, il n’y a plus de culture belge. Il en va de même pour le suréalisme. Ce que nous faisons, même si cela ne paraît pas, c’est rendre hommage à ce qui fait la Belgique, mais aussi dénigrer ceux qui s’en moquent, comme la collectionneuse de Ferrari qui doit sa fortune à la communauté qui a investit en elle et qui se tire à Monaco dés qu’elle doit rendre des comte, le fameux virus de la grippe avarièrre le virus H5 Henin. Nous somme aussi opposé à ce que la culture belge soit réduite à Jacque Brel et Tintin, or la culture belge va bien au delà Bucquoy, Noël Godin, Les Snuls, Le grand Jojo, JL Fonk, .... Si vous voulez protester, allez-y, rédigez et nous publierons. Nous sommes les enfants des Snuls, Geluck, Magic Land Théâtre, ... ces gens qui ont ris de la Belgique, lui ont en fait rendus le plus grand hommage, car c’est là la plus grande part de la culture belge. La belgitude est bien une maladie, dont le malade ne semble pas souffrir, mais au contraire se sent bien et le seul traitement palliatif, reste la dérision. Nous en rions, mais n’allez pas croire que nous ne l’aimons pas. Qu’est-ce qu’il y a de pire ? S’auto-critiquer sur notre manière d’être ou prétendre représenter le peuple wallon et signer des contrats en anglais, disant « J’y comprends rien, mais je vous fais confiance » ? C’est plutôt là le foutage de gueule, non ? Savez-vous que les articles écrits sur les gilles de Binche, les sont par des Binchois ? Moi-même j’y suis né, ainsi que mes parents et même grands parents et j’y ai vécu de nombreuses années. Je suis, bien que vous sembliez penser le contraire, très attaché à notre culture, laquelle m’est bien intégrée et je pense que tous ceux qui ont le titre de professeur le sont aussi, si nous en rions, c’est que nous la vivons pleinement. Ne dit-on pas « Qui aime

231 bien, châtie bien » ? Allez, savourons la Belgique tant qu’elle existe encore et après peut- être il sera temps de pleurer.  Sur www.talus.be nous observons un mariage inédit entre l’indolence et l’amusement. Le Petit Glossaire de la sous-France par Pierre René Mélon propose une thérapie par le rire et l’autodérision, thérapie qui tourne, malencontreusement, dans un pamphlet vitriolant sur trois défauts majeurs des Belges: l’obsession de l’unité (que l’auteur appelle unitaroglossie), le culte du petit comme principe d’identité combiné avec les rites de la médiocrité (ou micromanie) et l’aplatissement de la raison devant le roi totémique (ou sirolâtrie).

5. Corbeille : « Tout et n’importe quoi qui contienne le mot belgitude pour dire tout court belge. » Exemples :  Même le Gaz de France, sponsor européen actif de nombreux événements sportifs, pénètre sur le marché belge et ouvre une succursale qui a, sans doute, sa « touche de belgitude » sans en préciser , pour autant, en quoi elle consiste exactement ; à avoir : www.gazdefrance.be ;  Sur une dizaine de sites nous trouvons une information « vitale » sur le chanteur Johnny Hallyday qui est menacé d’être « privé de sa belgitude », pour faire référence à sa nationalité ;  www.restomania.be présente un restaurant de Waterloo, appelé Ma Belgitude, qui propose de la cuisine belge, traditionnelle et du terroir ; pour les touristes affamés, nous avons trouvé sur www.brusselslife.be le café- restaurant Manneken, « représentant par excellence de la belgitude à Bruxelles », situé en plein centre-ville qui leur offre dans un cadre folklorique de la gastronomie belge (bière, waterzooï ou les fameuses moules-frites) ; www.mirti.com invite au tourisme pour saisir la belgitude où pire, belgitude devient synonyme de promenade dans Bruxelles avec un parcours pédestre bien dressé sur www.busbavard.be;  www.fredjobars.be fait une promotion pour la Belgica, un bar gay qui « affiche sa belgitude » et invite les amateurs non conformistes de ce genre de party à en tirer profit. Les photos des personnalités royales accrochés aux mur du bar y jouent un rôle indéterminé ; à consulter encore www.bielbel.com, un site très documenté popularise les bières belges. Pour tout ce qui est de la popularisation des valeurs belges de n’importe quel domaine, nous vous conseillons la visite du site www.belguim.org.  www.bloggingthenews.info fait de la publicité cinématographique pour un vrai « bijou de belgitude », une série du bien-être belge, très dans le vent, Le Septième Ciel ; www.theatre-enfants.com offre à son tour un « parangon de belgitude » sans aller plus loin pour autant ;

232  Un site qui revendique une culture électronique, étiquetée de Belgitude Electro et autorisée à organiser des événements de grande ampleur, des festivals, des clubs exquis, nous conduit à www.francopholies.be pour mieux connaître la musique belge ;  www.lagrandeoda.over-blog.com propose des albums photos illustratifs de la belgitude, autrement dit, des photos des paysages belges. Belgitude devient synonyme de pittoresque sur le forum www.fugitif.net dont le but principal est de « ravir les yeux de notre BELGITUDE ». Dans ce dernier exemple, le rôle des majuscules est d’accrocher l’attention des fans sur de petits chefs-d’œuvre photographiques ;  www.tvclassic.be, www.marenchanson.be et www.ramadam.com affichent des artistes comme Arno, Sharko, Girls in Hawaï, Julos Beaucarne, Annie Cordy, etc., pris pour les plus belges des Belges, les meilleurs ambassadeurs de la belgitude à l’étranger ;  www.ebay.com propose n’importe quel objet de vente de provenance belge en jouant sur la notoriété de la notion de belgitude qui pourrait impressionner les potentiels acheteurs en ligne ; http://pages.joueb.com se veut un magazine d’humeur et de belgitude, tout en jouant sur un rapport abscons entre les deux ;  Sur www.anarkismo.net, on arrive à défendre au nom de la belgitude la compagnie Arcelor, menacée d’être engloutie par le holding indien Mittal, l’un des leaders mondiaux de la sidérurgie. Bien que profitable pour l’économie wallonne, cette tentative est intolérable pour les esprits anarchistes qui prennent position.  Nous signalons un côté inédit de la belgitude ; elle peut également se placer sous l’angle de l’érotisme hétérosexuel ; www.antipode.be avec le Théâtre de Poche de Bruxelles proposent quatre auteurs, quatre metteurs en scène et quatre comédiens dans Les contes érotico-urbains ;  Sur un forum quelconque, la belgitude arrive même à désigner le nom d’un utilisateur qui livre sa réponse « intelligente » à un message d’origine du type « Comment reconnaître mâle et femelle ». Nous nous contentons de ne plus faire de commentaire supplémentaire.

 Pour faire le point Les interrogations identitaires qui sous-tendent la question du multilinguisme et du multiculturalisme se sont aggravées lors de différentes étapes de la fédéralisation de la Belgique, état fragilisé à cause de la querelle éternelle entre Flamands et Wallons. Cette préoccupation n’apparaît pas seulement dans la littérature et la chanson, mais aussi dans le cinéma et le théâtre, dans les médias (télévision, journaux, publications de spécialité). La génération actuelle d’écrivains en parle moins ou n’en parle

233 plus. Ce n’est nullement le signe d’un manque d’intérêt, de la dissolution des crises identitaires, mais simplement une autre manière d’assumer l’Histoire, la métamorphosant dans des histoires, dans des expériences individuelles. Aujourd’hui, on assiste à un mouvement inverse de la belgitude, à une reconquête identitaire idéologique : le malaise d’être belge est devenu une grande fierté qui se fait entendre dans tous les domaines de la culture et de la civilisation. L’art, le sport et la cuisine portent leur spécificité que les Belges proclament à haute voix. Les Belges ne raffolent pas seulement de moules-frites, de bière et de chocolat, mais ils sont très fiers d’avoir les surréalistes René Magritte et Paul Delvaux, les écrivains Maurice Maeterlinck et Georges Simenon, le chanteur Jacques Brel, des personnalités qui jouissent d’une gloire mondiale, des dessinateurs excellents, voire géniaux, le plus grand nombre de B.D.-istes du monde11. Une interculture est née dans une aire d’intersection courageuse et pacifiste qui s’appelle littérature et où l’on n’entend plus le fameux « accent belge ». Les dernières trente années, la notion de belgitude s’est raffinée, a acquis des nuances, des connotations qui méritent d’être analysées de plus près. Le terme a connu des glissements de sens sensibles, ce qui a entraîné des phénomènes importants relevant tant de la sémantique que de l’imaginaire collectif. Nous finissons notre itinéraire virtuel par une dernière invitation sur www.ledevoir.com afin de contempler la toile controversée du peintre belge James Ensor, L’Entrée du Christ à Bruxelles, quintessence d’une belgitude provocatrice.

Notes : 1 C. Javeau reprend sa prise de position publiée auparavant sous le titre Les 24 heures du Belge, Bruxelles, Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1970. 2 C. Javeau, « Y a-t-il une belgitude ? », in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no. cité, p. 15. 3 P. Mertens, « De la difficulté d’être Belge », in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no. 2557/1976, p. 14. L’expression « Sois Belge et tais-toi ! » est calquée selon la phrase célèbre de Baudelaire « Sois belle et tais-toi ! ». 4 J. de Decker, « Du côté de la Flandre », in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no. cité, p. 15. 5 J. Bourlez, « Le roman belge, connais pas ! », in Les Nouvelles littéraires, no. cité, p. 16. 6 L. Wouters, « Le double exil des poètes », in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no. cité, p 18. 7 Les deux plasticiens sont les fondateurs du groupe artistique « Art Made in Belguim ». Ce sigle est choisi par dérision. 8 Voir J. Sojcher (sous la dir. de), La Belgique malgré tout, Ed. de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1980, 560 p. La couverture du volume est construite selon les règles de la sémiotique argumentative : un dessin d’Hergé présente le capitaine Haddock qui

234 laisse tomber sa pipe de surprise en voyant tant de vrais artistes (69 plus exactement) proclamer leur conviction contre les arrivistes du communautaires. Dans la boule il y a un grand « Quoi ? » admiratif. 9 C. Javeau, « Le chocolat des Trois-Rivières », in La Belgique malgré tout, p. 211. 10 Depuis les manifestes des Nouvelles littéraires nombreux sont les sociologues, les historiens et les écrivains qui ont fait couler de l’encre sur le chagrin ou la fierté des Belges. Citons quelques titres significatifs récents à ce sujet : La Belgique toujours grande et belle sous la direction d’Antoine Pickels et Jacques Sojcher (Bruxelles, Editions Complexe, 1998) : Belgitude et crise de l’Etat belge (Bruxelles, FUSL, 2002) ; La Mal du pays. Autobiographie de la Belgique de Patrick Roegiers (Paris, Seuil, 2003). 11 Voir à ce titre l’exposition Made in Belgium, ouverte entre septembre 2005 et mars 2006 à Bruxelles, exposition qui a connu un très grand succès auprès d’un public international. A titre anecdotique, l’exposition en question finit par une image éloquente, expression de l’auto-dérision qui caractérise les Belges : un trône fait en moules sur lequel règne la reine-frite.

Bibliographie: o Berg, C. et Halen, P. (sous la dir. de) (2000) Littératures belges de langue française. Histoire et perspectives (1830-2000), Bruxelles : Le Cri, coll. « Histoire ». o Bourlez, J. (1976) ‘Le roman belge, connais pas !’, Les Nouvelles littéraires, no. 2557, 16. o Decker, J. de (1976) ‘Du côté de la Flandre’, Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no 2557, 15. o La Libre Belgique, 20 novembre 1978. o Le Soir, 20 novembre 1980. o Javeau, C. (1976) ‘Y a-t-il une belgitude ?’, Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no 2557, 15. o Quaghebeur, M. (1998) Balises pour l’histoire des lettres belges, Bruxelles : Labor, coll. « Espace Nord ». o Denis, B. et Klinkenberg, J.-M. (2005) La littérature belge. Précis d’histoire sociale, Bruxelles : Labor, coll. « Espace Nord. Références », no. 221. o Mertens, P. (1976) ‘De la difficulté d’être Belge’, Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no. 2557, 14. o Otten, M. (1984) ‘Identité nationale, identités régionales dans la littérature française de Belgique’, in : Ecriture française et identifications culturelles en Belgique, (colloque de Louvain-la-Neuve, avril 1982), Bruxelles : CIACO, 49-83.

235 o Sojcher, J. (sous la dir. de) (1980) La Belgique malgré tout, Ed. de l’Université de Bruxelles. o Wouters, L. (1976) ‘Le double exil des poètes’, Les Nouvelles Littéraires, no. 2557, 18.

SUR LES TRADUCTIONS EN FRANÇAIS DU « BEST SELLER » DE TOUS LES TEMPS : LA BIBLE

Sofia Dima Université « Dunărea de Jos » de Galaţi

Istoria Bibliei nu este numai istoria redactării sale, ci, într-o foarte mare măsură, şi cea a interpretării, a traducerii şi a transmiterii sale de-a lungul secolelor, pe toate meridianele lumii. Articolul de faţă propune o trecere în revistă a traducerilor franceze ale Bibliei punând în evidenţă faptul că traducătorii au adoptat fie o traducere dinamică, fidelă atât sensului cât şi publicului aflat în continuă evoluţie (care privilegiază mesajul cu riscul de a se îndepărta de textul de origine, de a nu gusta subtilităţile sale stilistice), fie o traducere literală, fidelă textului în cauză căruia îi pun în valoare frumuseţea, muzicalitatea, jocul de cuvinte, chiar cu preţul de a ambiguiza sau de a opacifia mesajul. Între aceste două orientări fundamentale, favorizarea semnificatului sau a semnificantului, traducătorii Bibliei au fost, pe rând, dar nu deliberat, deviatori ai mesajului, în ciuda eforturilor lor considerabile. Aceasta pentru că, subestimând sau supraestimând semnificantul, au pervertit, într-un fel sau altul, semnificatul. Or, semnificantul face parte din semnificat, între cele două elemente existând un raport de interdependenţă de netăgăduit.

La Bible est un ensemble de livres que la religion juive et le christianisme considèrent comme inspirés par Dieu, d’où ses autres noms : La Parole, L’écriture sainte, Les Saintes Écritures, etc. Il est, pour ces raisons, interdit de changer un mot, une lettre ou une ponctuation. La Bible est divisée en deux grandes parties, l’Ancien Testament ou Alliance de Dieu, rédigé en langue hébraïque et en araméen, et le Nouveau Testament, ou Nouvelle Alliance, réalisée avec le Christ, rédigé en grec. Les premiers textes reconnus sont datés du XIe siècle avant notre ère. La Bible débute par le Pentateuque, c’est-à-dire les cinq livres de la Torah et se termine par l’Apocalypse de Jean, au terme du Nouveau Testament.

236 De l’hébreu, la Bible fut d’abord traduite en grec, du IIIe au IIe siècle avant notre ère par soixante-dix docteurs de la Loi ; c’est pourquoi on lui donna le nom de Version des Septante, puis Septante. Saint Jérôme en fit ensuite (390-405) une traduction latine complète que l’on appela la Vulgate en raison de sa grande diffusion. Cette version proposait un retour au texte source, à l’ « hébraïcam veritatem ». Depuis, le corpus biblique ne cesse de produire de nouveaux avatars. Après le latin, le guèze, l’araménien, le gothique, le copte, le syriaque… À la Renaissance, la promotion des langues vulgaires, l’invention de l’imprimerie, le renouveau religieux se conjuguent pour produire de grands textes historiques. Les protestants réformés proposent les premières traductions en français à partir des langues sources, notamment celle d’Olivetan (1535). Une Bible était toujours censée créer une vulgate de textes sacrés. Il en est ainsi pour les grandes traductions fondatrices comme celle de Luther, en allemand, qui paraît en 1534, et celle en langue anglaise dite King James, éditée en 1611. Par sa genèse et son destin, la Bible a marqué, non seulement de son empreinte, mais aussi en quelque sorte de son être, la nature même d’une importante partie de la civilisation et de la culture antique et contemporaine. Par la suite, elle a restitué ce qu’elle avait pris, au cours d’une très longue carrière où l’on n’a cessé de l’écrire et de la dire, et, pour ce faire, d’abord, de la traduire. Paradoxalement, quel que soit l’arsenal linguistique dont dispose le savant qui la scrute dans ses langues dites originales – l’hébreu, l’araméen et le grec – on peut affirmer aisément que la Bible comme Bible n’a vraiment d’autre histoire que celle de ses versions : née comme traduction dans l’Alexandrie hellénistique du IIe siècle avant J.-Chr., elle est également grecque par le nom qu’elle y reçut, hè Biblos, « le Livre ». Dans l’Antiquité et jusqu’à nos jours, elle n’a pu s’imposer que parce qu’elle fut toujours traduction. Il n’y a même de Bible véritable qu’avec l’habit d’une vulgate, c’est-à-dire quand la totalité des membres d’une communauté peut la reconnaître et la lire en sa langue propre. Après sa phase de fécondation et de gestation, qui fut hébraïque, la Bible naquit grecque pour mûrir et s’épanouir ensuite dans une multitude de langues qui sont autant de langues bibliques, en quelque sorte originales. Ce paradoxe en commande ou en reflète bien d’autres. La Bible se présente comme un livre unique, que son nom désigne d’emblée comme tel ; mais elle est aussi une vraie bibliothèque, évoquant et signifiant les longues étapes d’une évolution culturelle et religieuse dont on ne cessa dans le passé et on ne cesse aujourd’hui de décrire l’ordonnance et de démonter la logique.

237 La Bible a été longtemps le seul recueil littéraire connu de la culture ancienne du Proche-Orient et elle en reste un des témoins majeurs, même si les découvertes du XIXe siècle ont permis de la replacer dans un contexte plus large. Nous employons le mot recueil parce que la Bible est une collection d’œuvres, de genres divers, appelées généralement « livres », malgré leur étendue souvent faible, écrits au long de plus de neuf siècles, en deux ou trois langues, le plus souvent à partir de traditions orales bien établies, chaque œuvre étant à son tour relue et corrigée en fonction de nouveaux écrits, de nouveaux événements. Ce recueil a pris son nom actuel dans le contexte de la civilisation hellénistique. Il était toujours désigné en grec par un neutre pluriel τa βιωλιa, les livres par excellence ; le mot fut simplement transcrit en latin biblia, puis passa dans diverses langues occidentales : bible en anglais, Bibel en allemand, biblia en espagnol et en roumain, bibbia en italien. Une dénomination correspondante avait cours dans les communautés de langues hébraïques ou apparentées, sepharim, les livres, ainsi qu’une autre désignation : kithbe haqqodesh. Cette dernière a aussi son équivalent en grec qui signifie les écritures saintes, les écrits sacrés, l’écriture, les écritures, d’où, l’expression française « la (les) sainte(s) Écriture(s) ». Le recueil étant lu publiquement, il est aussi appelé dans les écrits rabbiniques hammiqra, la lecture. Mais le nom traditionnel du corpus hébraïque est tanak, mot formé des initiales de ses trois parties, torah, loi, nebhi’im, prophète, ketubhim, écrits, division fort ancienne puisqu’elle se trouve déjà dans le prologue de l’Ecclésiastique (ou Siracide), environ 130 avant J.-Chr. Lorsque, au cours du IIIe siècle, les chrétiens prirent conscience que s’était constitué, dans le prolongement de la Bible hébraïque, un nouvel ensemble d’œuvres proprement chrétiennes, on l’appela η καιυη διαθηκ, la nouvelle alliance, berith, en hébreu, par opposition à ηαλαiα διαθηκη, l’ancienne alliance, correspondant au corpus synagogal. En raison du double sens du mot grec : testament et alliance, les deux expressions furent mal traduites en latin puis dans les langues occidentales par Novum et Vetus Testamentum, Nouveau et Ancien Testament. Ces deux dernières désignations, ainsi que la dénomination plus large de « Bible », sont les plus usuelles aujourd’hui, bien que l’expression tanak soit encore employée dans les cercles orthodoxes israélites. Se trouvant à la confluence des civilisations antiques, égyptienne et sémitique - surtout pour sa première partie - et des civilisations orientale et hellénique - pour la seconde, son influence s’est exercée sur tous les plans : dans la façon de parler et d’écrire, dans la façon de penser, de juger, de créer et de rêver des hommes, dans leurs rapports et dans leurs lois qui, pour la plupart ont une origine biblique. Beaucoup de langues ont abouti à

238 être écrites pour la première fois pour que son enseignement puisse être disséminé, intégralement ou du moins en partie. Ce n’est là qu’un seul exemple de la mission civilisatrice que la Bible a accompli dans le monde et qui est l’effet direct du message central de la Sainte Écriture. Polyphonique par excellence, tant en synchronie qu’en diachronie, l’enseignement de la Bible a été disséminé par voie écrite, orale, mais surtout par la voie des traductions, transpositions, adaptations et mises en équivalences. En fait, la Bible n’a pu pénétrer et s’imposer dans d’autres espaces géographiques et culturels que par l’intermédiaire des traductions. C'est parce que, dans ces espaces, le véritable enseignement et la véritable dissémination de la Bible ne commencent qu’avec l’apparition d’une « Vulgate » qui a justement le but de faire connaître la Parole de Dieu à tous les membres de la communauté pour lesquels la traduction a été faite. En tant que produit scriptural, la Bible a une histoire qui est non seulement l’histoire de sa rédaction, de sa composition, mai aussi l’histoire de son interprétation, de sa traduction et de son utilisation. Comme on le sait, l’hébreu ne note que les consonnes et non pas les voyelles, ce qui a comme conséquence le fait que chaque mot puisse être prononcé de plusieurs façons ce qui autorise plusieurs significations. C’est cette polysémie de l’hébreux qui rend illusoire toute tentative de traduction exacte. La tradition talmudique, à partir du IIe siècle tout en dévoilant ces trésors sémantiques, ne fait que multiplier les points d’interrogation. À partir du XIIIe siècle, les grands textes de la kabbale (particulièrement le Zohar) commenceront à livrer des clés plus secrètes, des clés syntaxiques, analytiques, syllabiques, calligraphiques, qui permettent de découvrir toujours des sens inédits, de nouvelles associations. Comptons aussi le fait qu’entre le texte écrit et la traduction il se glisse toujours la liberté, mais aussi les limites du traducteur. Traduite - en partie - en 4000 langues et intégralement en 400, la Bible est, de loin, le livre le plus vendu dans le monde : 250.000 volumes/an en France et 450.000 volumes/an dans l’espace francophone. Si actuellement, au niveau mondial il y a environ 700 chantiers de traduction, en exercice de la Bible1, nous ne nous demandons plus pourquoi le nombre des traductions en français est tout aussi impressionnant. Pour ce qui est des cinquante dernières années, le tableau des traductions françaises de la Bible, est le suivant : 1. La Bible de Jérusalem (1956, 1998) – traduction catholique réalisée par une trentaine de traducteurs et une centaine d’exégètes de l’École biblique de Jérusalem ;

239 2. La Bible de la Pléiade (1956, 1959, 1971) – traduction non confessionnelle faite par des biblistes de qualité sous la direction d’Édouard Dhorme ; 3. La Bible du rabbinat (1966), la plus couramment étudiée par les Juifs religieux de langue française. Elle reprend avec des retouches la traduction de la Bible hébraïque (Ancien Testament) publiée en 1899 sous la direction du grand rabbin Zadoc Rahn ; 4. La Bible d’Osty (1973) – traduction réalisée par le chanoine Émile Osty. 5. La TOB (Traduction Œcuménique de la Bible) (1975) – traduction réalisée par une centaine de spécialistes catholiques, protestants et orthodoxes. 6. La Bible en français courant (1982, 1997) – première mise en équivalence suivant un principe fonctionnel. La variante de 1997 est révisée dans le sens d’une élévation du niveau de la langue. 7. La Bible d’André Chouraqui (1985) – traduction littérale très poussée avec la retranscription des subtilités et des jeux de mots présents dans la langue d’origine dans l’intention de donner au lecteur un aperçu du génie de la langue hébraïque ; 8. La Bible des peuples (1998) – traduction de deux prêtres, Bernard et Louis Hureau, qui, ayant travaillé dans les communautés de base d’Amérique Latine, font une révision amendée de la Bible des communautés chrétiennes (retirée du commerce après une polémique sur le caractère antisémite de quelques notes) ; 9. La Bible Parole de vie (2000) – traduction interconfessionnelle en « français fondamental », avec un vocabulaire usuel de 3500 mots qui s’adresse aux jeunes ou à ceux qui souhaitent redécouvrir le message biblique à travers les mots de tous les jours ; 10. La Bible de Bayard (2001) – traduction qui, afin de pouvoir toucher la culture contemporaine, évite le vocabulaire hérité de la tradition ecclésiale ; chaque livre de la Bible est traduit par un écrivain et un exégète ; 11. La Nouvelle Bible Segond (2002) – la traduction la plus prisée dans le groupe des protestants : c’est la révision de la première traduction de Louis Segond (1880), version renommée pour la précision du vocabulaire et sa fidélité à l’original. La version de 2002 accroît la cohérence pour favoriser une lecture diachronique des textes. 12. La Bible expliquée (2004) n’est pas à proprement parler une traduction puisqu’elle utilise la Bible en français courant, mais ce qu’elle apporte de nouveau c’est que chaque page est accompagnée de courtes notes explicatives destinées à des non-spécialistes. C’est un travail

240 monumental réalisé par une équipe interconfessionnelle composée de 80 biblistes. Devant ce le tableau d’un tel travail repris inlassablement tous les cinq ans, on a de bonnes raisons de se demander si ce n’est l’acte même de traduction qui est en question. De tous ces ouvrages, on observe que les traducteurs ont préféré - soit une traduction dynamique, fidèle au sens et au public en continuelle évolution qui privilégie le message au point de s’écarter du texte d’origine, d’ignorer la couleur, le rythme et par conséquent le lyrisme du texte de départ ; - soit une traduction littérale, fidèle à ce même texte au niveau duquel elle met en valeur la beauté, la musicalité, les jeux de mots, au prix d’ambiguïser ou d’opacifier le message. Partagés entre ces deux orientations fondamentales (favoriser soit le signifié, soit le signifiant) les traducteurs de la Bible ont été forcément des déviateurs du message, en dépit de leurs efforts considérables car, en sousestimant ou en surestimant le signifiant, ils ont perverti, d’une façon ou d’une autre le signifié. Or, le signifiant fait partie du signifié, entre les deux existant un rapport d’interdépendance indéniable. Les traductions répétées de la Bible témoignent aussi du fait que ces actes de transposition d’une langue en d’autres langues ou d’un registre de langue en un autre sont doublés d’un travail critique de plus en plus poussé qui, dans le langage des spécialistes s’appelle critique inférieure, et qui, chaque fois, se donne la peine, soit de restaurer la forme d’origine du document, en corrigeant les éventuelles erreurs de traduction ou de transcription des prédécesseurs, soit de l’adapter à l’intelligence d’un certain public contemporain à la traduction en question. Avant l’invention de l’imprimerie, il était très difficile aux traducteurs et aux scribes de ne pas faire d’erreur. Dans le cas de la conservation du manuscrit autographe les erreurs des copistes peuvent être corrigées par confrontation avec l’original, mais si ce dernier a disparu et que les copies qui en restent diffèrent les unes des autres sur certains détails, la formulation primitive ne peut être reconstruite que par une étude attentive et par la comparaison scrupuleuse des copies, opérations qui, en termes du métier s’appellent « concordances » et qui exigent des qualités vraiment spéciales. Comme aucun document original (protographe) de quelconque partie de la Bible ne s’est conservé jusqu’à nous, il s’ensuit que les traductions et la critique des manuscrits existants restent les opérations les plus importantes dans l’étude biblique. Dans ce travail dans lequel l’acribie philologique est l’une des qualités les

241 plus importantes, on se pose des questions sur l’habitude des copistes et leurs erreurs typiques, c’est-à-dire les plus fréquentes. Ces erreurs ont été encadrées dans une typologie bien définie par les chercheurs : 1. la haplographie – l’omission de la répétition d’une lettre ou d’un mot ; 2. la dictographie – la répétition d’un élément qui n’apparaît qu’une seule fois ; 3. le faux rappel d’un passage similaire ou d’un autre manuscrit ; 4. l’homeotéléuton – l’omission d’un passage situé entre deux mots identiques ; 5. l’omission de toute une ligne ; 6. la confusion de certaines lettres qui ont une graphie similaire ; 7. l’introduction, dans le texte, des annotations marginales ; 8. l’harmonisation – l’altération d’un mot par un autre, plus familier. Pour revenir aux variantes françaises citées, prenons l’exemple de la Bible de Jérusalem, dans sa variante de 1956 dans laquelle les traducteurs écrivaient que Jésus fit venir à lui les petits enfants et qui les « baisa », mot qui a disparu dans les variantes suivantes appartenant au même collectif de traduction (1973, 1998). À l’opposé se trouve André Chouraqui, érudit de Jérusalem se situant au confluent de trois cultures juive, chrétienne et musulmane qui, dans le souci de refléter aussi bien que possible la structure du texte hébreu d’origine, postule que le sens actuel d’un mot est déterminé par sa racine étymologique et forge des mots nouveaux à partir d’une seule racine. Un des exemples les plus frappants de sa traduction se trouve dans l’Evangile selon saint Matthieu, chap. 5 (Les béatitudes) où, pour le verset 7 nous lisons : Heureux les matriciels car ils seront matriciés Là où les Évangiles grecs et les versions françaises ont traduit le mot hébreu rahim par miséricordieux, Chouraqui, respectant le principe étymologique qu’il s’était proposé trouve que la racine du terme est rhm, ce qui signifiait le « sein de la femme », d’où il décide de traduire rahim par matrice avec les dérivés respectifs. Dans ce cas, il est évident que le traducteur ne sert pas le message, mais qu’il obéit à une sorte de littéralisme poussé à l’extrême. L’exemple suivant, de nature différente, nous est offert par la Bible Bayard qui s’est proposé de renoncer aux formulations presque à l’identique, apprises et transmises d’une tradition à l’autre dans le but d’en

242 faire ressusciter la lecture, trop lassée par l’emploi de telles formulations. À l’opposé des autres versions et surtout à l’opposé d’André Chouraqui, les traducteurs de la Bible Bayard refusent l’attachement à des formes figées car ils considèrent la langue comme un phénomène en perpétuel mouvement. Pour ce faire, ils remplacent le mot péché par faute, Église par Assemblée, Évangile par Annonce, gloire de Dieu par splendeur, pour n’en citer que quelques exemples. Considérant les nouveaux termes plus évocateurs que leurs « prédécesseurs », les traducteurs de la maison d’édition Bayard s’adressent plutôt à un public intellectuel, mais non pratiquant qui en est séduit, alors que le lecteur traditionnel, le catholique fervent, ne s’y retrouve plus. Si Chouraqui pèche par son inactualité sémantique, la Bible Bayard évite trop le vocabulaire hérité de la tradition ecclésiastique. Retenons encore l’opinion avancée par Henri Meschonnic, un autre traducteur de marque de certains fragments de la Sainte Écriture, qui prouve avec des exemples concrets à quel point la Septante, traduction en grec de l’Ancien Testament (IIIe siècle av. J.-Ch.), a contribué à la christianisation de la Bible hébraïque. Le traducteur cite l’exemple du mot alma signifiant « jeune fille » qui dans Isaïe 7, 6 est traduit par le mot vierge (betoula) ce qui a ouvert la voie à l’un des dogmes de la religion chrétienne : l’immaculée conception. La où le mot Torah est traduit par « loi » Henri Meschonnic prouve que le vrai sens en est « enseignement » et par cela il met en question tout le formalisme juridique du judaïsme par rapport au christianisme, voilà pourquoi il se propose de ré réhébraïser la Bible, de la déchristianiser, la déshelléniser et la délatiniser. Ce qu’il se propose donc est de traduire un texte écrit dans la langue de la sainteté, mais sans le faire en religieux. Toutes les traductions françaises citées ainsi que beaucoup d’autres parues tant dans l’espace francophone que dans l’espace non francophone prouvent la difficulté et l’immense responsabilité que l’acte de traduction d’un tel ouvrage impliquent. Situés entre le fétichisme littéral et la fidélité au sens et au public, ces traductions se trouvent souvent sous le signe d’a priori idéologiques, religieux ou bien linguistiques. Le débat reste et restera toujours ouvert tant qu’on reste fidèle à l’un ou l’autre de ces a priori. Cela parce qu’il n’y a pas de traduction parfaite, pas d’interprétation définitive, pas de clé universelle, pas de sens ultime. Si la Bible est revendiquée par tous, c’est qu’elle n’appartient à personne car aucune langue ne se superpose exactement à une autre. La Bible a et continuera d’avoir autant de versions que de traducteurs.

243 Note: 1 La statistique est donnée par l’article « Traduire la Bible, une enquête éternelle », Le Monde 2, n°51, Supplément au Monde n°18672 du samedi 5 février, 2005, pp. 17-25.

Bibliographie: o *** ENCYCLOPÆDIA UNIVERSALIS, Dictionnaire de la théologie chrétienne, Albin Michel, Paris 1998. o *** Dicţionar enciclopedic al Bibliei, trad. lb. rom. de Dan Sluşanschi, Humanitas, Bucureşti, 1992. o *** Dicţionar biblic, Editura “Carta creştină”, Oradea, 1995. o Tincq, H. « Traduire la Bible, une enquête éternelle », Le Monde 2, n°51, Supplément au Monde n°18672 du samedi 5 février, 2005, pp. 17- 25. o *** « Le nouvel Observateur », Nr 1921, 30 août, 2001.

LES TRADUCTIONS ALLOGRAPHES ET AUCTORIALES – ŒUVRES DE PROPAGANDE CULTURELLE

Mirela Drăgoi Université « Dunărea de Jos » de Galaţi

Traducerea unui text literar este un demers care presupune interpretarea unui întreg univers artistic şi nu doar o transpunere a textului într-o altă limbă. Receptarea mesajului pe care acesta îl transmite include o cunoaştere aprofundată a viziunii de ansamblu şi a universului specific autorului în limba-sursă. Dacă traducerea ştiinţifică are ca atribut esenţial obiectivitatea, traducerea literară apelează în mod obligatoriu la subiectivitatea şi creativitatea traducătorului.

Depuis toujours, la critique littéraire accorde une large place à la présentation des facteurs qui facilitent les relations culturelles internationales, à ce qu’ils nomment « des courriers », « des intermédiaires » du comparatisme. Ces facteurs-colporteurs des relations directes entre les littératures regroupent toute une somme d’agents individuels et collectifs, [1] dont les plus importants sont : la connaissance des langues étrangères, la circulation des livres, des revues, des journaux, l’activité des cénacles et des salons littéraires, les traductions et les adaptations, les influences et les sources, l’image des peuples dans de différentes littératures étrangères etc.

244 Les relations entre les différentes cultures ou littératures peuvent s’établir par le biais des facteurs individuels (les écrivains français du XVIIIe siècle - l’abbé Le Blanc, l’abbé Prévost ou La Place - sont devenus les ambassadeurs de la littérature anglaise en France ; Bonneville et Liebault, les messagers de la littérature anglaise en Allemagne ; la littérature française a eu Voltaire comme illustre représentant en Angleterre, et Mme de Staël en Allemagne. Il y a même des situations où la liaison étroite entre deux cultures nationales s’opère à l’aide des personnalités qui n’appartiennent ni au pays émetteur, ni au peuple récepteur : c’est le cas de l’Hollandais Erasme, important facteur de consolidation de l’Humanisme occidental). Les voyageurs qui parcourent et répandent dans toute l’Europe de nouvelles idées engendrent, à leur tour, toute une littérature permettant à des personnalités comme Walter Scott, Goethe ou Lev Tolstoï de connaître des aspects propres à l’étranger. Les facteurs collectifs regroupent certains pays (la Suisse par exemple, dont les citoyens parlent plusieurs langues, la Hollande par sa position géographique), certaines villes qui ont joué un rôle extrêmement actif (Paris, Lyon, Rouen, Frankfurt sur Main, Venise etc.), des académies et des universités (les grands centres universitaires italiens – la Bologne, dès le Moyen Age, français – Paris, allemands – Berlin) qui ont entretenu une atmosphère d’harmonie internationale et qui ont véhiculé les valeurs littéraires de plusieurs pays (n’oublions surtout pas le grand rôle joué par les académies italiennes de la Renaissance dans la transmission de l’héritage antique aux générations futures). D’autre part, les bibliothèques publiques et particulaires se sont depuis toujours intéressées aux littératures étrangères ; à leur tour, les typographies, les librairies, les éditions et les centres de colportage des littératures étrangères ont eu un rôle essentiel dans la diffusion des idées (le centre typographique et éditorial de Venise, d’une importance essentielle dans l’épanouissement de l’Humanisme occidental et de l’Est de l’Europe). Les périodiques représentent d’autres facteurs collectifs essentiels dans la circulation internationale des valeurs ; le Journal étranger en France, la Gazette littéraire de l’Europe, au XVIIIe siècle, les Archives littéraires de l’Europe, la Revue britannique, la Revue de deux mondes, la Revue de Paris, Mercure de France, l’Année littéraire, Deutscher Merkur, Conciliatore, - voilà des titres de gazettes et de périodiques contenant des nouvelles sur les littératures étrangères. La diffusion de ces idées débute en Roumanie au XVIIIe siècle : Le journal encyclopédique, Le journal littéraire, Mercure de France, des périodiques italiens - Notizie del mondo et Il redattore italiano, ou allemands - Die fliegende Post ou Offene Zeitung – propagent les idées de la révolution française et les opinions progressistes de l’Europe du temps. A côté des

245 dictionnaires, les encyclopédies, les grammaires et les œuvres pédagogiques contiennent beaucoup d’informations sur les écrivains étrangers ; les traductions, les anthologies, les numéros spéciaux des revues étrangères, les manuels de littérature universelle représentent autant d’œuvres de propagande d’une grande importance dans le développement d’une littérature nationale. Les livres étrangers intensifient eux aussi les relations entre les littératures ; les préfaces ou les introductions contenant des expositions critiques et des commentaires de l’œuvre proprement dite représentent, d’une part, un facteur décisif dans la circulation des valeurs littéraires et de l’autre, une source très riche pour les recherches comparatistes. Il faudrait également mentionner l’importance des cours princières ou régnantes de tous les degrés, qui représentaient, depuis l’Antiquité et surtout au Moyen Age, le refuge des poètes, des savants et des philosophes (la cour de Frédérique le IIe ou celle de Catherine de Russie). D’autre part, les cénacles et les salons littéraires ont facilité depuis toujours la circulation des valeurs littéraires étrangers (à voir l’importance de l’école lyonnaise du XVIe siècle, qui représentait la tradition de Marot à la Pléiades et qui groupe des poètes (Maurice Scève) et des poétesses (Louise Labé) annonçant l’influence allemande et italienne. Les cénacles développent le goût pour les littératures étrangères (la Pléiade groupée autour de Ronsard qui a privilégié l’héritage antique et les relations avec la littérature italienne, considérée à l’époque comme la troisième littérature classique. Un autre cénacle qui mériterait une mention particulière est le Sturm und drang du XVIIIe siècle, situé à la base du romantisme européen et formé autour de Goethe, Herder et Maximilian Klinger. Chez nous, les exemples typiques de cénacles sont Junimea, Literatorul, Sburătorul, et tout particulièrement celui de Macedosnki, qui a joué un rôle essentiel dans la circulation des idées modernistes françaises. Il y a également des cénacles groupés autour des revues qui jouent un rôle vivant dans la diffusion des valeurs étrangères : le cénacle formé autour de la revue Athenaeum de Friedrich et August Wilhelm Schlegel, publiée à Berlin en 1798 et qui faisait référence à des noms comme Novalis, Schleiermacher, Schelling etc. Elle développe une vive admiration pour les écrivains de la Renaissance, pour Dante, Pétrarque, Boccace. C’est toujours autour des cénacles que s’est organisé le mouvement romantique français ; le cénacle de Charles Nodier, par exemple, qui groupait Hugo, Vigny, Sainte-Beuve, Dumas, Musset. Les revues qui fonctionnent en tant que sources de cristallisation sont : La muse française (1823) et Le Globe (1824). La préface de Cromwell est orientée vers la redécouverte d’Ariosto, Cervantès et Rabelais, les trois Homère bouffons, et surtout de Shakespeare. D’une

246 fonction analogue dispose en Italie le périodique Conciliatore (1811-1819). Les salons stimulent d’une façon insistante les relations entre les littératures (par exemple, « la chambre bleue » de Catherine de Rambouillet, qui reçoit un grand nombre d’écrivains, d’artistes, de savants, amateurs de plaisirs spirituels et de littérature étrangère, surtout italienne. On assiste jusqu'à la Révolution française à une véritable mode des salons, dont la tradition sera reprise au XIXe siècle par Mme de Staël qui réunit chez elle Mme de Récamier, Mme de Beaumont, Benjamin Constant, Fauriel etc. La mode des salons se répand à cette époque-là en Allemagne, en Autriche, en Italie, en Russie, en Roumanie aussi (à Iassy et à Bucarest, où l’on organisait « des soirées » sur le modèle français et où l’on s’entretenait sur de divers aspects de la littérature française). Les feuilles du temps – Curierul românesc, Albina românească et la revue bilingue Le glaneur moldo- roumain publient des comptes-rendus concernant ces réunions mondaines. De tous ces agents qui assurent la liaison entre les diverses littératures, on se propose de s’arrêter dans cette courte étude sur la traduction. Il faut faire dès le début la distinction entre les traductions et les adaptations. Traduire une œuvre, c’est la transposer d’une façon presque exacte, d’une langue dans une autre ; l’adaptation d’un texte suppose une déformation des valeurs originales, ce qui détermine son rôle secondaire. Le traducteur G. Murnu, par exemple, a employé beaucoup d’archaïsmes et de régionalismes roumains afin de rapprocher le milieu homérique au nôtre, en suggérant des analogies de moeurs; Romulus Vulpescu a remplacé l’atmosphère de la Renaissance des poèmes de Villon par des images de la réalité roumaine ; les transpositions des poèmes de La Fontaine réalisées par Tudor Arghezi reflètent beaucoup l’auteur roumain. Tous ces exemples nous aident à observer que l’adaptation a une fonction déformante, représentant le point de vue du récepteur et non pas, comme ce serait normal, celui de l’émetteur. Dans son étude statistique portant sur les traductions élaborées dans la période 1780-1860, Paul Cornea [2] enregistre l’existence de 679 traductions groupées en 935 recueils ; le critique roumain observe également que les traductions des textes français représentent le plus grand nombre de transpositions en roumain - 385 titres. De nos jours encore, la traduction jouit d’un grand intérêt de la part des créateurs littéraires ; témoin, l’Index Transalionum, le répertoire international des traductions, édité par l’Organisation des Etats-Unis. Tous ceux qui ont analysé cette forme de transposition et de circulation des valeurs d’une langue à l’autre s’accordent à dire que la langue française est l’intermédiaire le plus fréquent entre les littératures du nord et celles appartenant au sud de l’Europe.

247 Il y a une multitude de règles à observer et à respecter si on veut réaliser une bonne traduction : tout premièrement, s’il s’agit de transposer une œuvre en prose, il faut insister sur le rythme de la phrase ; si l’on veut traduire une poésie, il faut tenir compte de la structure générale du style et de la fonction du mot dans le contexte sémantique et musical de la phrase lyrique. Une condition essentielle dans la transposition des textes d’une langue dans une autre exige la considération intégrale du texte. La fidélité par rapport au texte original est un élément imposé de plus en plus par les nouvelles relations internationales, tout cela à cause des déformations enregistrées à travers le temps, qui provoquaient une certaine méconnaissance des littératures étrangères (par exemple, les traductions réalisées au XVIIIe étaient incomplètes ; les transpositions françaises de Werther supprimaient les douze pages qui enregistraient les fragments écrits par Ossian, et Clarissa de Richardson a subi de nombreuses mutilations au moment de sa parution en France ; les transpositions en roumain des romans russes et anglais de l’entre-deux-guerres étaient souvent elliptiques). Une autre condition essentielle dans la traduction des textes concerne la considération de leur contenu et de leur forme. Le chercheur soviétique F.M. Dostoievski considère qu’il y a des langues moins accessibles à la traduction ; le français, par exemple, ne peut pas rendre de façon adéquate les classiques russes, car il s’intéresse davantage aux aspects essentiels, généraux, raisonnables, conceptuels ; l’anglais, par contre, vise les aspects concrets, singuliers, individuels. Al. Dima s’oppose totalement à cette théorie : même si la base des traductions est assurée par la parenté linguistique, il faut savoir que chaque langue possède la capacité intégrale de la traduction, en exprimant, en fait, la même structure de la spiritualité et de l’humanité qui pour l’essentiel, ne change jamais. Ce qui causerait les éventuelles déformations, c’est, d’une part, la méconnaissance des langues en question, de leurs règles grammaticales ou de leur organisation interne, et, de l’autre, les conceptions philosophiques du traducteur (ce qui a fait de l’écrivain chrétien Young un déiste dans la version française de ses œuvres, et d’Ossian - un troubadour). L’exactitude de la traduction dépend dans une grande mesure du type de l’œuvre transposée. Les textes classiques sont plus facilement transférables d’une langue à l’autre, car on y met l’accent sur leur contenu d’idées, tandis que les textes romantiques et symbolistes peuvent être mutilés au cours de la traduction. Ioan Oprea repère l’existence de certaines correspondances [3] entre les traits spécifiques de chaque langue et l’aspect de la philosophie créée

248 entre les limites de celle-ci. Chaque langue reflète une certaine manière d’observer le monde. L’espagnol, par exemple, ne dispose d’aucun verbe pour dire devenir, mais, en tant que langue ibérique, a à sa disposition deux mots pour exprimer le verbe être (être par son essence = ser, être par l’état = ester). L’espagnol se caractérise, de ce point de vue, par une prédisposition pour le statique et compense les possibilités de l’allemand d’exprimer l’idée de devenir (langue marquée par l’omniprésence de werden, qui exprime l’existence par l’essence, l’existence instantanée et permanente). Hans Georg Koll constate que « la structure moléculaire du français correspond à sa structuration sous forme mosaïquée, s’accordant parfaitement au sens déductif ou linéaire de la pensée cartésienne ». Tout cela nous aide à conclure que, dans ces conditions, toute traduction est illusoire, car les traits spécifiques des langues ne sont pas transmissibles. Les particularités de profondeur des modalités de communication, spécifiques à chaque langue, peuvent déterminer des difficultés majeures dans l’élaboration des correspondances appropriées dans la transposition du message véhiculé dans la langue - source dans la langue - cible, et même la création effective d’une fausse image. Aussi les traducteurs des poésies d’Eminescu, surtout ceux d’origine roumaine, « ont-ils rendu le poète hermétique, et Eminescu ne l’est pas du tout, ou comique, analphabète », affirme Jean-Louis Courriol, le traducteur des œuvres lyriques de notre poète national. La traduction n’a pas l’unique rôle de remplacer les mots d’une langue par des lexèmes d’une autre langue ; le but de ce procédé consiste à transmettre des textes à une autre culture en restituant le contenu de ceux-ci. La pratique de la traduction a été accompagnée, le long des siècles, par un exercice moins fréquent, l’auto-traduction. On sait que Saint Jérôme a été le premier à illustrer son double statut d’auteur converti en traducteur de son œuvre. Cette technique a été fréquemment employée jusqu'à la fin du Moyen Age et pendant la Renaissance, surtout par les poètes qui rédigeaient leurs œuvres dans leur langue natale, vernaculaire, parlée uniquement à l’intérieur de leur communauté et qui étaient obligés à la transposer dans une langue véhiculaire. Joachim du Bellay considère, dans sa Défense et illustration de la langue française, que chaque langue possède un pouvoir particulier et intraduisible. C’est en elle que se trouvent toute beauté et toute vérité transmissibles. Si la langue imite, se répète, s’affadit ; si personne ne l’élabore ni ne l’enrichit, c’est le génie d’un peuple qui s’affaiblit. Selon cet illustre représentant de la Pléiade, les poètes uniquement peuvent traduire des poésies ; en outre, le meilleur traducteur est le poète lui-même, celui qui a écrit la poésie en question.

249 Cette conception a été perpétrée à travers les siècles, jusqu'à l’époque moderne ; le meilleur exemple en ce sens serait celui des écrivains qui se sont exilés au XXe siècle et qui n’ont pas trouvé de traducteurs pour leur œuvre.[4] Voilà, par exemple, le cas de Panait Istrati [5] qui a transposé en roumain son œuvre rédigée initialement en français ; Zamfir Bălan opère dans son étude liminaire de l’édition bilingue Tsatsa Minnka – Ţaţa Minca et de La maison Turingher [6] une intéressante comparaison entre le texte français et la version roumaine : Le texte roumain relève d’un niveau sémantique plus nuancé que son antécédent. Malgré le fait qu’il n’y a plus d’exotismes, la traduction est plus riche stylistiquement par une plus grande flexibilité du lexique. L’acte de la création généré par la traduction tend à dépasser les limites fixées par la rédaction en français. L’œuvre d’Istrati s’enrichit en couleur locale au moment où on veut la mette en roumain. Les termes ressentis comme neutres en français deviennent plus expressifs, plus nuancés et interfèrent dans une grande mesure avec l’aspect oral de la langue. [7] La variété du lexique est évidente dans les exemples qui suivent : chien – cotei, des voituriers – o droaie de căruţaşi, des vieilles – bătrâioare, elles – nenorocitele astea, rien qui vaille – n-am făcut nici o brânză.

Il avançait ainsi vers la Aşa, de pildă, făcând pe clientul, se adresă marchande à laquelle parlait Anna, ţărancei cu care Ana tocmai sta la tocmeală şi o roulait des yeux amoureux et întreba, cu miorlăieli de cotoi şi dând ochii peste cap, demandait: ca un june amurez la teatru: -Ces oeufs, n’y a-t-il pas un -Spune-mi mata, te rog, dacă nu cumva astea poulet dedans? Dans ce cas, il faut au pui în ele, căci, în asemenea caz, vreau să ţi le que je vous paye au prix du poulet! plătesc cu preţul puilor! N-aş vrea să te înşel, doamne Je ne veux pas vous tromper! fereşte!

La présentation du comportement du professeur, neutre en français, est transposée en roumain par la voix du narrateur, ce qui la rend sarcastique et ironique : Aşa, de pildă, făcând pe clientul… Toute aussi significative s’avère être la description de l’atmosphère d’une place publique (cet exemple sert à mettre en parallèle les correspondances existantes au niveau morphologique de la phrase) :

Les appels flatteurs, l’énumération Fiecare îşi striga clienţii şi îţi făcea aux multiples diminutifs des articles exposés, pomelnicul mărfii, amestecând cuvinte les arguments attendrissants, se croisent dans deopotrivă de dezmierdătoare, şi l’espace avec la parole amère, le sarcasme, petrecându-te cu un iureş de sudălmi, dacă l’expression injurieuse, selon que vous avez nu cumva gustai din unt ori din smântână apprécié ou méprisé la marchandise. şi plecai strâmbând din nas.

250 On peut observer également que, dans la version française, la description est en général nominale, ce qui confère au fragment un caractère statique, tandis que la traduction transforme l’image du marché dans un scène dynamique, centrée sur des formes verbales qui suggèrent le frémissement spécifique à une place publique. Au niveau de la syntaxe, Istrati préfère des énoncés plus courts en roumain, qui rendent le texte plus dynamique, plus rythmé ; mais toutes ces différences imposées par l’adaptation d’une première version en roumain ne modifient pas de façon essentielle le roman. Istrati se place près du texte original, en l’imitant servilement et ce qui en résulte, c’est un calque. Cependant, l’analyse parallèle des deux versions nous aide à prouver le fait que choisir le roumain signifie pour Istrati revenir à l’unité établie entre la réalité racontée et la langue grâce à laquelle il avait initialement déchiffré les significations de celle-ci. Les œuvres auto-traduites de cet écrivain roumain d’expression française ont en commun quelques aspects spécifiques à cet exercice de transposition linguistique, à savoir : la conversion, le calque et le hapax. La conversion représente le passage d’un mot à une autre classe grammaticale (d’un adjectif à la classe du nom, par exemple). L’œuvre de Panait Istrati contient un grand nombre de tels procédés : « Tant pis pour les boudeurs » devient en roumain « S-au bosumflat ? Atâta pagubă ! » – donc le nom français a un équivalent roumain appartenant à la classe des verbes [8]; en outre, le syntagme « les genoux repliés» est traduite par « Ţinându-şi genunchii în braţe.» [9] Il y a d’autres écrivains aussi qui ont préféré l’auto-traduction, aboutissant à des résultats surprenants ; il suffit de rappeler les noms d’Ilie Constantin, auteur et traducteur du Marchand de sabres (1997) / Neguţătorul de săbii, de Miron Chiropol, devenu Kiropol (Les morts s’en mêlent (1991) / Diotima, (1997) et celui de Virgil Tănase, Apocalipsa unui adolescent de familie (1992) / Apocalypse d’un adolescent de bonne famille (1980). Le calque est un procédé linguistique qui attribue de nouveaux sens, à partir d’un modèle étranger, à des mots déjà existants dans la langue ; il peut même former des expressions ou des mots nouveaux par la traduction de leurs éléments dans une autre langue. Du verbe roumain a se (îm)păienjeni, Miron Kiropol obtient s’araigniser, en évitant le mot français voiler recommandé par les dictionnaires bilingues roumain - français. La phrase « Răutatea, calicia, cruzimea adăugau o altă geană pleoapelor lor care se "păienjeneau" » devient dans la version française du traducteur Miron Kiropol « La méchanceté, la lésine, la cruauté ajoutaient un cil à leurs yeux qui "s’araignisaient"». Le verbe roumain du contexte: «

251 Cel mai mărunt pas de fiinţă mă isterizează » devient: « Le moindre pas d’être "m’hystérise"». Conscient de l’inédit de ces verbes, l’auteur avertit le lecteur par l’emploi des guillemets. Virgil Tănase recourt encore à ce procédé au moment où il présente le Père Noël dans la version communiste : « Moş Crăciun de acasă se numea aici [la serbare] Moş Gerilă », qui est transposé en français par « le père Noël des foyers s’appelait ici père la Gelée ». Le hapax représente la création des vocables sui generis et on l’emploie pour construire des mots appartenant à toutes les classes grammaticales. Miron Kiropol invente quelques épithètes insolites qui coexistent parfois avec leur doublure consacrée (céleste et célestielle, dans le syntagme « la femme célestielle »). Mais généralement leur rôle consiste à mettre en relief les noms qu’ils déterminent ; c’est le cas du syntagme « ce présent clochardesque ». Le nom « porcinité », tout en traduisant le mot roumain « porcie », dénonce le sentiment frustrant ressenti par l’étranger dans l’immensité parisienne : « Eşti un porc. Continui să fii un porc, să te bucuri de porcie », écrit Miron Kiropol et la phrase traduite devient : « Tu es un porc. Tu continues à être un porc, à te réjouir de ta porcinité ». Construction hybride, mélange de calque et de hapax, le nom douceâtreries (« les plus ignobles douceâtreries ») est la réplique du mot roumain « dulcegării », qui joue sur l’étymologie latine commune de l’adjectif et sur les possibilités offertes par la dérivation suffixale. La variété des procédés de construction du traducteur Virgil Tanase surprend le lecteur en attirant son intérêt. L’imagination créative de cet auteur auto-traduit va parfois jusqu’au délire, tout comme dans le passage: « Juchée sur sa bicyclette, la demoiselle, en quête d’un nouveau monde océan et tropicant, hyacinthique, sentimental, andalou, porcelinesque, gorge-de-pigeon, flûtentil et rocibel, prend de très nobles allures, des allures de capitaine, capitaine au long cours … ». Cette énumération luxuriante comprend cinq épithètes inventées par le traducteur qui devient ainsi créateur ; il invente des mots en ajoutant des suffixes, ou par l’anagramme (« căci cuvântul rocibel ascunde un altul, bricole »). On observe donc que, de nos jours, le traducteur fait un grand effort de virtuosité artistique en essayant de comprimer sa personnalité pour respecter intégralement les œuvres originales. Ce qui en résulte, c’est un repère essentiel dans la circulation des valeurs littéraires. Les traductions développent une connaissance réciproque des littératures et constituent même un examen de résistance et de durabilité des créations. En tant que moyen de communication interhumaine, la langue se transforme parfois en objet d’investigation philologique, essayant d’identifier certaines particularités spécifiques à chaque langue observée

252 séparément, et en même temps, l’empreinte fixée par une langue sur une communauté et sur une culture par ses mécanismes spécifiques.

Notes : [1] Cf Alexandru Dima, Principii de literature comparata, EER, Bucuresti, 1972 [2] Paul Cornea, Introducere în teoria lecturii, Editura Minerva, 1988, p. 27 [3] Ioan Oprea, Lingvistică şi filosofie, Institutul European, Iaşi, 1992, p. 76 [4] La théorie de la traduction désigne cette conversion de l’écrivain en son propre traducteur, cette modification de son statut par le syntagme – le passage de la traduction allographe à la traduction auctoriale. (cf Gérard Genette, in Michaël Oustinoff, Bilinguisme d’écriture et auto-traduction, 2001, p. 26) [5] Le critique roumain Perpessicius considérait Panait Istrati comme un écrivain roumain authentique par le contenu de ses récits, et français par la langue utilisée. George Călinescu, à son tour, estime que Panait Istrati ne se rattachera jamais à la littérature roumaine, car ses auto-traductions ne sont pas spontanées ; elles n’imitent pas servilement les idiotismes tellement exotiques en français. [6] Panait Istrati, Tsatsa Minka – Tata Minka, Editura Istros, Braila, 1997 et Panait Istrati, La Maison Thuringher. Vie d’Adrien Zograffi, Editura Istros, Braila, 1998, pp. VII- XLVII [7] Zamfir Balan, “Studiu introductiv”, in Panait Istrati, La Maison Thuringer. Vie d’Adrien Zograffi, Editura Istros, Braila, 1998, p. XLIV (la traduction nous appartient) [8] Panait Istrati, op. cit., p. 39 [9] idem, p. 40

Bibliographie: o Călinescu, G. (1941) Specificul naţional, în Istoria literaturii de la origini până în prezent, Bucureşti : Minerva o Craia, S. (1995) Francofonie si francofilie la romani, Bucureşti : Demiurg o Cornea, P. (1988) Introducere în teoria lecturii, Bucureşti: Minerva o Diaconescu, M. (1999) Istoria literaturii daco-române, Bucureşti: Alcor Edimpex o *** 100 cei mai mari scriitori români (2003) Bucureşti : Lider o Dima, Al. (1972) Principii de literatură comparată, Bucureşti: EER o Istrati, P. (1998) La Maison Thuringer. Vie d’Adrien Zograffi, Braila : Istros o Istrati, P. (1997) Tsatsa Minka – Tata Minka, Braila : Istros o Kiropol, M. (1991) Diotima. Les morts s’en mêlent, Paris : La Bartavelle o Martin, M. (1981) G.Călinescu şi „Complexele literaturii române”, Bucureşti: Albatros o Oprea, I. (1992) Lingvistică şi filosofie, Iaşi: Institutul European

253 o Tanase, V. (1980) Apocalypse d’un adolescent de bonne famille, Paris : Flammarion

L’AUTOTRADUCTION - ACTE CREATEUR COMPLEXE : ENTRE L’EQUIVALENCE ET LA PROLIFERATION

Ana Guţu Université Libre Internationale de Moldova

La traduction en tant qu’acte créateur réalisé par l’auteur du transfert intersémiotique est une reproduction en alter ego de l’original conçu par l’auteur. La dualité en tant qu’essence de la traduction se projette dans le duo auteur-traducteur, qui est extériorisé, extrinsèque. Nous définissons l’autotraduction comme une internalisation de la transcendance intersémiolinguistique, dont la phénoménologie implique plus d’avatars de la création, de la surcréation, débouchant vers une prolifération idéique, causée par l’essence dialectique de l’acte communicatif en soi. Le moment présent n’existe pas comme tel (G. Guillaume), celui passé et celui futur se prêtant à une analyse dissécable, via des exégèses passionnantes et altérables dans l’espace et dans le temps. De ce point de vue l’autotraduction est une fixation conventionnelle du mouvement mobilisé de l’esprit humain (auteur-traducteur dans la même personne), valable pour le moment présent de la «pensée pensante» (Ch.Peirce), allant d’une langue vers une ou d’autres. Cette fixation est éphémère, soumise, comme nous le montre l’expérience, à des re-pensées multiples, entraînées par la dialectique de l’axe ascendante des mondovisions, souvent monadiques (monade – dans l’acception de Leibniz). De point de vue conceptuel l’autotraduction est aussi un phénomène rare. En vertu de ce «déficit» praxiologique, les réflexions autour de l’autotraduction ne constituent pas trop souvent le sujet des études volumineuses. Nous avons décidé de faire part de notre modeste expérience dans ce sens.

Sur une terre qui se mondialise et la connaissance des langues s’instrumente à tel point que les polyglottes ne sont plus des «raretés», les habiletés langagières, dont la traduction représente l’activité la plus répandue, commencent à jouer un rôle importantissime dans l’affirmation sociétale des personnalités. Le mixage linguistique et multiculturel, dû d’un côté, à la géopolitique des pays, d’autre côté, aux mariages interethniques,

254 mène aux bilinguismes et même tri ou polylinguisme, exercés au sein des communautés diverses. Selon nous, la traduction en tant qu’acte créateur réalisé par l’auteur du transfert intersémiotique, est une reproduction en alter ego de l’original conçu par l’auteur. La dualité en tant qu’essence de la traduction se projette dans le duo auteur-traducteur, qui est extériorisé, extrinsèque. La traduction a constitué l’objet de nombreuses études à la longue des siècles, en commençant par Cicéron jusqu’à Nida, Meschonnic, Ladmiral, Lederer et d’autres savants bien connus en la matière. Le phénomène d’autotraduction auquel nous consacrons cet article, a été l’objet d’un nombre de recherches génétiques (Sardin-Damestoy, 2002; Gunnesson, 2005) à la base des œuvres de certains auteurs bien connus au public large et dont la création représente l’expérience déjà classique dans le domaine: Thomas More, Du Bellay, Calvin, John Donne, Goldoni, Mistral, Tagore, Beckett, Aitmatov ou Julien Green. Il y a trente ans Anton Popovici a défini l’autotraduction comme «traduction d’un ouvrage original dans une autre langue effectuée par l’auteur lui-même» (Popovic, 1976 : 19). Traitée jusqu’à présent comme une activité «rarissime» (Balliu, 2001: 99; Grady Miller, 1999:11), l’autotraduction surgit de plus en plus comme une activité allant de pair avec l’exercice intellectuel contemporain non seulement pour les littéraires, les linguistes, les écrivains, mais également pour les savants, confessant des sciences exactes. Aujourd’hui l’autotraduction est un exercice bien répandu aux Etats Unis, au Canada, en Inde, en Belgique, en Espagne, en Afrique du Sud, en Russie, en France (Santoyo, 2005: 2). Il est évident que l’autotraduction a trait à l’aspect social, économique, politique, culturel, scientifique des activités humaines. Le fondement de l’autotraduction a un caractère profondément intrinsèque et il est constitué de l’apanage linguistique-langagier de chaque personne exerçant l’autotraduction. Nous définissons l’autotraduction comme une internalisation de la transcendance intersémiolinguistique, dont la phénoménologie implique plus d’avatars de la création, de la surcréation, débouchant vers une prolifération idéique, causée par l’essence dialectique de l’acte communicatif en soi. Selon la théorie de Guillaume, le moment présent n’existe pas comme tel, celui passé et celui futur se prêtant à une analyse dissécable, via des exégèses passionnantes et altérables dans l’espace et dans le temps. De ce point de vue l’autotraduction est une fixation conventionnelle du mouvement mobilisé, de la démarche unique de l’esprit humain (auteur-traducteur dans la même personne), valable pour le moment présent de la «pensée pensante» (terme de Ch.Peirce), allant d’une langue vers une ou d’autres.

255 Cette fixation est éphémère, soumise, comme nous le montre l’expérience, à des repensées multiples, entraînées par la dialectique de l’axe ascendante des mondovisions, souvent monadiques (monade - dans l’acception de Leibniz, Didier, 1995: 175). En vertu du «déficit» praxiologique de l’autotraduction, les réflexions autour de cette expérience ne constituent pas trop souvent le sujet des études volumineuses. Nous avons décidé de faire part de notre modeste expérience dans ce sens. Nous devons souligner, d’abord, que l’autotraduction est un cas de figures à plusieurs volets. Tout d’abord, l’autotraduction est une création complexe. On pourrait étendre l’affirmation de Bishop à propos de Beckett et constater que l’autotraduction est une quadruple création: a) textes écrits initialement dans la langue A (première); b) leur traduction dans la langue B (deuxième); c) textes écrits initialement dans la langue B; d) leur traduction dans la langue A. La langue A, à supposer, est considérée, traditionnellement, la langue maternelle. Les partisans du bi- et même trilinguisme (Steiner, par exemple), sont embarrassés de définir avec précision quelle est leur langue A (maternelle), Steiner affirme, par exemple, qu’il lui est difficile de dire avec précision quelle a été la langue qu’il a commencé à parler la première, il a l’impression qu’il a commencé à parler toutes les trois langues à la fois – le français, l’anglais et l’allemand: Je n’ai pas le moindre souvenir d’une première langue. Autant que je puisse m’en rendre compte, je suis aussi à l’aise en anglais qu’en français ou en allemand. Les autres langues que je possède, qu’il s’agisse de les parler, de les lire ou de les écrire, sont venues par la suite et sont marquées par cet apprentissage conscient. (Steiner, 1998: 173) Il les considère, d’ailleurs, toutes les trois, comme langues maternelles. Les connaissances linguistiques-langagières acquises nativement ou par formation sont une condition sinequa non pour l’exercice de l’autotraduction. Il y a donc, deux sources de polylinguisme: par acquisition native et par formation. Toujours Steiner affirme que la traduction en tant qu’activité professionnelle peut être exercée par des personnes qui ont acquis une ou plusieurs langues, car le processus de l’acquisition –apprentissage implique une approche consciente dans l’assimilation du phénomène linguistique : Le meilleur traducteur est quelqu’un qui a consciemment appris à parler couramment une seconde langue. Quand on est bilingue, on ne voit pas les difficultés, la frontière entre les deux langues n’est pas assez nette dans l’esprit. (Steiner, 1998: 178) Pour ce qui est de l’autotraduction, il nous semble que le vecteur de son exercice est bidirectionnel: s’autotraduisent les personnes qui ont acquis les langues à la naissance, aussi bien que celles qui ont acquis les

256 langues par formation. Par formation – citons une liste incomplète, d’ailleurs, de noms: Leonardo Bruni, Etienne Dolet, Du Bellay (latin – français); Dimitrie Cantemir (latin – roumain), Antioh Cantemir (roumain – russe – anglais), Nicolae Iorga (roumain – français), Victor Banaru, République de Moldova, (roumain – russe – français), Ion Druţă, République de Moldova, (roumain – russe). Par nativité : Elsa Triolet (russe – français), Samuel Beckett (français – anglais), Vladimir Nabokov (russe – anglais), Chingiz Aitmatov (kirghiz – russe) en nous référant à l’exemple des langues acquises. Il y a aujourd’hui encore une frontière assez floue et non-tranchante entre la langue dite maternelle (la langue de la mère - père, des grands parents) et la langue acquise excellemment dans son enfance (par exemple, l’espace de l’ex-URSS), mais qui n’est pas la langue des parents ou des grands parents. Tel est le cas d’une bonne partie de la population de la République de Moldova où la génération qui a vécu en URSS s’exprime aussi bien en ruse qu’en roumain. Il n’en est pas déjà de même pour la jeune génération. Le roumain est ma langue maternelle, le russe est la langue que j’ai acquise à l’âge de 5 ans grâce à la communication quotidienne dans la maternelle. Le français est la langue étrangère première que j’ai acquise professionnellement à l’université. L’espagnol est la langue étrangère seconde acquise également à l’université. La question laquelle des langues peut être considérée pour une personne langue maternelle («langue de la mère, par abus de langage, langue première d’un sujet donné, même si ce n’est pas la langue de sa mère» - Mounin, 2004: 198) a eu plusieurs réponses dans les études sociolinguistiques. Certains sont d’avis qu’une fois que la personne pense dans une langue, celle-ci peut être considérée sa langue maternelle. Je dois avouer que je me surprends souvent de penser (à part le roumain) en russe, en français, et même en espagnol. Des fragments de raisonnements m’arrivent aussi en anglais, langue que je n’ai jamais apprise, mais qui s’est emparé de mon esprit en vertu de son utilisation à toutes les échelles de la communication. De point de vue scientifique on pourrait rajouter à cette caractéristique de la pensée les quatre composantes de la connaissance professionnelle d’une langue afin d’exercer d’une manière plénipotentiaire l’acte de la communication – expression écrite, expression orale, compréhension écrite, compréhension orale. A mon avis, pour compléter la définition des caractéristiques de la langue maternelle, il faut y rajouter, une, fort importante: la communication poétique au niveau de la création – expression. Autrement dit, si la personne fait des vers, de la poésie, dans une langue sans difficulté et empêchement, cette dite langue en est pour elle maternelle.

257 Pour revenir à l’autotraduction, c’est une figure de haut pilotage linguistique-langagier due à une appartenance culturelle (présentielle ou à distance), à une habileté extrêmement poussée de l’esprit humain. Je ferais une distinction entre les autotraductions scientifiques qui sont stigmatisées de la nécessité de communication savante, nécessité dictée par la réalisation de la transmission du patrimoine via un instrument unifié de communication – qui est, de nos jours, sans aucun doute, l’anglais. Je laisserais de côté ces autotraductions scientifiques qui passent dans la plupart des cas par le stylo du rédacteur de langue anglaise et sont «instrumentées» consciemment, logiquement et raisonnablement. J’aborderai l’autotraduction de point de vue de la complexité de ce phénomène qui se manifeste chez les écrivains parfaitement bilingues, l’autotraduction qui souvent me semble une impulsion de l’inconscient. Je fais de la poésie depuis mon enfance. A cette époque-là j’ai fait des vers en russe surtout, j’écrivais mon journal en russe. Ce n’est pas difficile à expliquer. Faute de littérature de belles lettres en roumain dans les années ’70 du siècle dernier, j’ai lu un tas de créations littéraires en russe, y compris des oeuvres littéraires roumaines, françaises, anglaises – toutes des traductions en russe. D’ailleurs, à l’époque, l’URSS était le pays où l’on traduisait le plus au monde vers le russe. La machine à traduire soviétique était extraordinaire, ce qui est intéressant, c’est que les chefs-d’oeuvre de la littérature universelle étaient ensuite traduits du russe vers les langues nationales des républiques socialistes. Le russe était la langue-pilote de la traduction littéraire. C’était la seconde langue maternelle pour nous, les enfants, les adolescents, les étudiants de cette époque-là. J’étudiais aussi le français à l’école, mais j’étais encore loin de la création poétique francophone. Cela m’est arrivé après mes études à l’université, après avoir exercé durant quelques années le métier de professeur de français, après avoir soutenu ma thèse de doctorat que j’ai faite à la base du corpus des exemples tirés des œuvres littéraires françaises. A partir des années ’90 avec la déclaration de la souveraineté de la République de Moldova, le russe a connu un recul important dans son utilisation sociétal. Le déclanchement de la création poétique et publiciste francophone dans mon esprit peut être qualifié comme un phénomène de compensation linguistique-civilisatrice. La totalité de connaissances linguistiques dans la langue russe qui ne s’actualisait plus, a été compensé par le bagage linguistique et extralinguistique de la langue française. L’ouverture brusque et débordante vers l’information qui venait d’au-delà des frontières avec l’ouest, fermées jusque là, a déplacé l’accent du cosmopolitisme qu’on éprouvait à l’égard de la langue et la culture russes, sur la langue et la culture française (pour moi personnellement). C’est ainsi

258 que j’ai commencé à écrire a) mes recherches; b) mes poèmes; c) mes articles publicistes en français, en les traduisant ensuite en roumain, et en roumain en les traduisant ensuite en français. Le cas de ma thèse de doctorat que j’ai traduite en français est encore plus intéressant. Le texte de la thèse a été écrit en russe, c’était la langue de toutes les recherches en URSS. En 1993 j’ai soutenu ma thèse en roumain, mais à la base d’un texte scientifique écrit en russe. Deux ans après j’ai publié le livre à la base de ma thèse de doctorat, que j’ai traduite en français. Cette autotraduction est la seule réalisation volumineuse dans mon expérience avec l’implication du russe. Bien sûr, que j’ai fait d’autres autotraductions avec le russe et le roumain, le russe et le français, mais c’était des écrits publicistes de petit volume, qui, de même que la traduction de la thèse, ont constitué et constitue des activités générées par la nécessité professionnelle et sociale et non pas par l’inconscient envahisseur de l’acte créateur. Je ne veux point dire par cela que les autotraductions des écrits scientifiques (que ce soit avec le russe ou le français) n’exigent pas d’efforts créatifs, pas du tout. Tout simplement, j’insiste sur le caractère un peu forcé du processus de l’autotraduction, et de l’implication plus insistante des contraintes de l’autotraduction, valables également pour la traduction traductionnelle des textes scientifiques: fidélité informationnelle, équivalence épistémologique et terminologique. Les poèmes que je fais naissent tantôt en roumain, tantôt en français. La langue du poème dépend de l’impulsion inconsciente matérialisée dans des sentiments d’abord et exprimée ensuite dans la langue que l’esprit choisi. J’ai bien dit: l’esprit choisit. Selon moi, une personne polyglotte est dans la plupart des cas une personne érudite. Schleiermacher écrivait très éloquemment à propos des polyglottes: «ces maîtres admirables qui se meuvent avec une égale aisance dans plusieurs langues, pour lesquels une langue apprise parvient à devenir plus maternelle que la langue maternelle.» (Schleiermacher, 1999: 63). La connaissance de plusieurs langues implique indubitablement l’activation (le déclic) de plusieurs centres neuronaux qui réfère à des réalités extralinguistiques multiples: aimer en français, penser à des choses philosophiques en roumain, chanter en espagnol, jurer en russe ou en anglais. Je viens de citer, mes propres inflexions psycholinguistiques, bien sûr. En autotraduisant un poème je n’effectue pas un transfert nécessité par qui que ce soit. Je réalise l’autotraduction par désir irrésistible de créer, de dire la même chose dans une autre langue afin d’insister sur mes sentiments. Comme si l’expression de ces mêmes sentiments en deux langues différentes ferait vivre et revivre le moment de l’exaltation (bonheur, malheur, tristesse, joie etc.) deux fois plus intensément.

259 Revenons à notre définition de l’autotraduction: une internalisation de la transcendance intersémiolinguistique, dont la phénoménologie implique plus d’avatars de la création, de la surcréation, débouchant vers une prolifération idéique, causée par l’essence dialectique de l’acte communicatif en soi. En tant qu’adepte de l’approche sémiotique envers la traduction en générale, l’autotraduction me semble encore d’avantage relever de la sémiotique. Le poème est un macrosigne complexe, référant à la réalité objective ou idéique, souvent aussi très codé et difficile a traduire pour un traducteur, autre que l’auteur. C’est ça l’atout de l’autotraducteur: pour lui le poème à traduire n’est pas un macrosigne codé, il est complètement transparent, clair et bien structuré, l’autotraducteur connaissant à fond tous les compléments implicites de l’entité à traduire. Le poème englobe une multitude de minicodes de la communication intersémiotique: celui des symboles, ces icônes, des indices (couleurs, fétiches, chiffres, etc.). Grâce à cette structure complexe la communication poétique, transcendant vers une autre langue, a besoin souvent d’appui extralinguistique dans la traduction: images, explications en bas de pages. Pour l’autotraducteur la transfert s’avère être moins problématique – il effectue également le travail du sémioticien, en interprétant correctement le texte poétique original. Quelles sont, alors, les difficultés de l’autotraduction poétique? D’abord, il y en a certaines, valables pour la traduction poétique: la rime, la mélodie, la longueur du vers, le volume quantitatif du poème. Mais il y en a qui tiennent au risque suivant : la prolifération idéique, entraînant la modification du poème original jusqu’au point d’en avoir une autre création dans la traduction. Ce phénomène n’échappe non plus à la traduction poétique, donnant naissance à l’appropriation poétique, une forme moderne du plagiat. Mais dans le cas de l’autotraduction la prolifération idéique est due à l’essence dialectique de l’acte communicatif en soi. Cela s’explique par le fait que l’écriture d’un poème est en fait le résultat de plusieurs réécritures, rédigées à la base de plusieurs pensées – pensées, celles-ci étant le résultat de plusieurs pensées – pensantes (terme de Ch. Peirce). Il en est de même pour l’autotraduction. On dit qu’il y a toujours de la place pour mieux faire, cela est d’autant plus valable pour le mieux dire ou le mieux écrire. Ainsi donc, le problème de la perte et du gain, postulé par certains traductologues comme un pseudo-problème, surgit inévitablement avec une intensité accrue. La dialectique de la semiosis ad infinitum, pour laquelle plaide Peirce, chapeaute judicieusement l’acte de l’autotraduction poétique. L’autotraducteur propose, parfois, plusieurs traductions pour ses poèmes, cette altérité se manifestant dans le temps. La dialectique de la communication découle, tout d’abord, de la dialectique de la pensée, et, par

260 la suite, ou a priori plutôt, par la dialectique des sentiments. L’autotraducteur est en plein droit de sacrifier pour perdre ce qu’il considère nécessaire afin de pouvoir compenser la perte par un équivalent «sentimental», à savoir, sémantique, lui, sachant fort bien, mieux qu’un traducteur autre, ce qu’il oeuvre afin d’obtenir une traduction soeur de l’original. La démarche de l’esprit de l’autotraducteur n’est pas à disséquer le poème en plusieurs tranches horizontales ou verticales: le poème à autotraduire représente pour lui un jaillissement intègre de sentiments vécus, qui s’articulent dans des éléments linguistiques-langagiers, devenant d’emblée équivalents, d’abord dans l’esprit de l’autotraducteur, et, ensuite, dans celui du lecteur, par trafic d’autorité, bien sûr. D’ailleurs, du point de vue de l’autorité, en dépit de cette antinomie auteur-traducteur, qui a évolué à la longue des siècles vers une complémentarité dialectique, dans une émulation virtuelle, l’autotraducteur se situerait sur une marche supérieure à la position du traducteur. A la question pourquoi s’autotraduire – nous pourrions répondre en invoquant trois raisons principales: a) par vanité, en premier chef; b) par tempérament linguistique (le désir de voir son œuvre écrite dans une autre langue que celle de l’original); c) par méfiance vis à vis du travail d’un autre traducteur qui risque, selon l’autotraducteur, de mal interpréter le texte original. D’un certain point de vue, l’autotraduction réduit à zéro la distance dans le temps (parfois se chiffrant à des siècles dans le cas de la traduction) entre l’auteur et le traducteur. Je dirais que l’autotraduction est la manifestation idéale de la transcendance des macrosignes textuels d’une langue à une autre, en dehors de toute critique extérieure du produit final. L’autotraduction bénéficie, selon moi, d’une sorte d’immunité créatrice, elle est hors de toute remarque corrective ou blâmante. Voyons, donc, comment nous envisageons l’acte de l’autotraduction dans la perspective d’un graphe formel, pour transmettre d’une manière concise et adéquate nos réflexions antérieures. Dans ce but nous avons formalisé nos raisonnements sous la forme d’un signe complexe que j’expose dans le dessin ci-dessous:

261 auteur- traducteur

Traduction Création

perte gain LB LA

Création Traduction

auteur-traducteur

Par la suite nous vous proposons une exemplification d’autotraduction de deux poèmes: une poésie pour enfants et un poèmes lyrique. Nous avons publié en 2003 un recueil de poésies pour les enfants, intitulé en roumain Poezii pentru copii, le titre français est Poésies pour les petits, j’ai remplacé exprès le roumain «copii» - «enfants» par «petits» justement pour garder la mélodie et la rime du titre.

Vara L’été

Hai, copii, ne-aşteaptă vara, Chers enfants, l’été arrive, E vacanţă-n toată ţara, Les vacances reviennent hâtives, Să pornim călătoria On commence le voyage Prin păduri, câmpii şi glie. Par les bois, jardins, parages.

Soarele plăcut zâmbeşte, Le soleil nous chauffe, gaiement, Ne bronzează, ne-ncălzeşte, Il nous bronze, en souriant. Lacul limpede şi marea Mer profonde, lac serein Ne salută peste zare. Nous clignotent enfin de l’œil !

În hambare grâul curge, Blé, mais, récolte grande, Şi căpşuna este dulce, Les campagnes qui nous attendent. Scurt e drumul la bunici – Fraise douce, bel espace, Vară, să nu te mai duci! Reste encore, été fugace !

262 Cette poésie a été écrite d’abord en roumain et ensuite traduite en français, immédiatement. C’était le principe de travail sur ce recueil de poèmes pour les enfants. Pour transmettre l’atmosphère de l’été, j’ai mis l’accent sur quelques idées principales: la joie d’être en vacances (idée complètement inspirée de la joie de mes enfants), les immenses possibilités de voyages et la richesse de la récolte estivale. Les trois idées coïncident avec le nombre de strophes. Si nous regardons l’autotraduction, nous constatons que je n’ai rien perdu au niveau des idées. Par contre, j’ai perdu au niveau des éléments lexicaux constitutifs des idées, mais j’ai compensé ces pertes par des gains idéiques qui peuvent être appelés surcroîts des création ou surcréations - rajouts idéiques. Ce sont des compensations voulues et choisies délibérément par l’autotraducteur en vertu de la transmission contraignante de la forme. Selon nous, les rajouts idéiques ne doivent pas être confondues avec les équivalents transèmes ainsi qu’avec les équivalents modulés ou transposés (dans l’acception vinay- darblenetinne). Nous définissons les équivalents transèmes comme des entités idéiques qui explicitent dans le texte traduit les molécules sémiques implicites dans le texte original. Ainsi, dans le poème autotraduit il y a trois rajouts: clignotent enfin de l’œil; Les campagnes qui nous attendent; bel espace. Il y a également trois équivalents-transèmes: E vacanţă-n toată ţara - Les vacances reviennent hâtives; Lacul limpede şi marea - Mer profonde, lac serein; În hambare grâul curge - Blé, mais, récolte grande. Nous attestons dans l’autotraduction deux équivalents modulés: Hai, copii, ne-aşteaptă vara - Chers enfants, l’été arrive; Vară, să nu te mai duci! - Reste encore, été fugace! D’habitude, je tache de suivre fidèlement l’apanage idéique du poème, tout en réservant une liberté qui oscille à l’intérieur d’une strophe, dans le choix des moyens linguistiques-sémiotiques de la réexpression du texte roumain en texte français. En voilà encore un poème, celui-ci est une création lyrique cette fois. C’est un poème que j’ai fait en 1995 en roumain d’abord ensuite en français. Le titre a souffert une modification essentielle: c’est un premier rajout idéique dans l’autotraduction.

263 Când spun „Eu te iubesc” Les grands mots

Când spun „Eu te iubesc”, Quand je te dis «je t’aime» Nu-i simplă-nlănţuire C’est plus qu’un simple mot De vorbe triviale Qui banalement s’enchaîne Mereu în revenire. En éternel écho.

Când spun „Eu te iubesc”, Quand je te dis « je t’aime » Nu-s vorbe de serviciu C’est plus qu’un mot - outil Ce pică la-ntâmplare Qui tombe de mes lèvres Şi seamănă-a capriciu. Comme un caprice subit.

Când spun „Eu te iubesc”, Quand je te dis « je t’aime » Topeşte focul gheaţa, Glaciers deviennent buées, Şi aştrii strălucesc, Explosent les astres blêmes, Şi infinită-i viaţa. En vert vivace des prés.

Când spun „Eu te iubesc” Quand je te dis «je t’aime» Cad ploi de flori alese Des fleurs de paradis, Din raiul cel domnesc Des anges de poèmes Cu îngeri şi mirese Descendent en douce pluie.

Doi sori apar atunci Se lèvent deux soleils Pe-azurul glob ceresc, Sur la divine plaine… Şi lungi sunt clipe dulci Quelle délicieuse merveille Când spun „Eu te iubesc”... Quand je te dis «je t’aime»

Dans l’autotraduction que j’ai réalisée, à part le titre, il y a encore deux rajouts idéiques: En vert vivace des prés; Sur la divine plaine, micro- idées qui manquent complètement dans l’original. J’ai perdu l’idée de l’original de la vie infinie - Şi infinită-i viaţa. J’ai remplacé cette idée par le symbole du vert des prés, le vert qui symbolise également la vie. C’est une solution sinueuse, mais la démarche de mon esprit fait justement ce choix instantané. L’autotraduction comporte aussi quatre équivalents transèmes: Mereu în revenire - En éternel écho; Ce pică la-ntâmplare – Qui tombe de mes lèvres; Topeşte focul gheaţa,/ Şi aştrii strălucesc - Glaciers deviennent buées,/ Explosent les astres blêmes; Şi lungi sunt clipe dulci - Quelle délicieuse merveille. J’ai aussi recouru à des équivalences modulées et transposées: triviale – banalement; vorbe de serviciu – mot – outil; ainsi que la troisième strophe toute entière. Cette quantification des équivalences dans le texte poétique autotraduit n’est qu’une atomisation structurelle expresse qui vient appuyer la complexité des changements opérés lors de l’acte traductif. Mais en effet, le dépistage de ces équivalences est possible uniquement après la réalisation de l’autotraduction. On ne cherche pas spécialement des rajouts, des

264 équivalences, des modulations ou d’autres types de transformations. Quand je m’autotraduis je suis l’impulsion première. Je n’ai pas l’habitude de revenir sur mes pas. Ce qui est fait – est fait. Je n’ose pas gâcher la priméité du tissu idéique dans l’autotraduction. Bien sûr, c’est mon option qui n’exclue aucunement d’autres possibilités, et notamment, des réécritures, de repensées des retraductions. Ce qui se reflètent aussi dans les traductions des textes poétiques d’autrui. Nous connaissons les multiples traductions en français des poèmes d’Eminescu, en roumain des poèmes de Baudelaire, elles ne cessent pas de foisonner dans le temps et dans l’espace. Ces variantes de traduction naissent grâce aux perceptions exégétiques différentes qui ne s’arrêtent pas de jaillir dans les tètes lumineuses et illuminées des poètes – traducteurs français et roumains. En guise de conclusion nous voudrions insister sur la nature profondément sémiotique de l’autotraduction, activité largement contiguë aux spécificités sociolinguistiques de la personnalité de l’écrivain, à sa mondovision et à son élan créateur. L’autotraduction d’un texte poétique est une démarche unique de l’esprit créateur, une sensibilisation à double sens jaillissant d’un bilinguisme réel qui permet l’exercice de la création/ traduction dans les deux sens: langue A - langue B et vice versa: langue B - langue A. L’impulsion première dans l’autotraduction poétique compte beaucoup dans la transmission adéquate des sentiments vécus. Les réécritures des autotraductions risquent de provoquer des proliférations qui peuvent éloigner l’apanage idéique autotraduit de celui original.

Bibliographie : o Balliu, C. (2001) Les traducteurs: ces médecins légistes du texte. In: Meta, 46/1, p. 92-102. o Bishop, T. Beckett bilingue, http://www.cciccerisy.asso.fr/beckett05.html#Tom_BISHOP. Consulté le 05.05.2006. o Didier, J. (1995) Dictionnaire de la philosophie. Paris, Larousse. o Guillaume, G. (1969) Langage et science du langage. Paris-Québec. Nizet-Presse de l’Unversité de Laval, 2e édition. o Gunnesson, A.-M. (2005) Ecrire à deux voix. Eric de Kuyper, auto- traducteur. Erscheinungsjahr, Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien. o Guţu, A. (2000) Dulce lacrimă de dor. Chişinău. o Guţu, A. (2003) Poezii pentru copii/Poésies pour les petits. Chişinău. o Miller, G. (1999) The Author as Translator. ATA Spanish Language Division: Selected Spanish-Related Presentations, St. Louis, Missouri, ATA 40th Annual

265 Conference, p. 11-17. o Mounin, G. (2004) Dictionnaire de la linguistique. Paris, Quadrige/Puf. o Pierce, C. (1978) Ecrits sur le signe. Paris, G.Deledalle. o Popovic, A. (1976) Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation, Edmonton, Department of Comparative Literature, The University of Alberta. o Santoyo, J. C. (2005) Autotraducciones: Una perspectiva histórica. In: Meta, No3. o Sardin-Damestoy, P. (2002) Samuel Beckett auto-traducteur ou l'art de " l'empêchement ". Lecture bilingue et génétique des textes courts auto-traduits (1946-1980), coll. " Traductologie ", Artois Presses Université. o Schleiermacher, F. (1999) Des différentes méthodes du traduire. Paris, Editions du Seuil. Traduit par Antoine Berman. o Steiner, G. (1998) Après Babel. Paris, Albin Michel.

LA TRADUCTION LITTÉRAIRE

Nicolae Taftă Université « Dunărea de Jos » de Galaţi

Traducerea literară presupune o confluenţă şi stabilirea unei paralele nu doar între două coduri de comunicare, ci între două paradigme care nu concordă, prin urmare care nu acoperă acelaşi tip de experienţă umană. De aceea, transpunerea unei opere dintr-o limbă în alta se bazează pe o analiză textuală ce permite ulterior crearea unei structuri de limbaj (artistic în cazul traducerii literare), pe care autorul însuşi ar fi creat-o, poate, dacă ar fi scris în limba traducătorului. Nu există o metodă sau un manual de traducere în cazul operelor literare, fiecare traducător fiind pus în situaţia de a-şi inventa propriile tehnici şi propriul său demers, în funcţie de opera pe care a ales să o re-creeze în limba în care traduce, apoi în funcţie de sensibilitatea sa şi de talentul artistic de care dispune. În Franţa s-a creat în ultimele decenii un cadru instituţional menit să favorizeze şi să stimuleze activitatea de traducere, pentru a oferi publicului francez posibilitatea de a lua contact cu literatura lumii intregi.

Tout commentaire portant sur les aspects majeurs de cette activité doit partir de l’idée que la traduction constitue, dans l’histoire des relations humaines, le moyen par excellence de communiquer et de réaliser des échanges spirituels, d’élargir l’horizon culturel des membres d’une communauté, de connaître et de se faire connaître. Quant à la traduction littéraire, elle a été toujours le domaine favori des esprits éclairés, grands intellectuels cosmopolites qui cherchaient à mettre en valeur les influences

266 occasionnées par les contacts avec d’autres civilisations. Par le biais de ce genre de communication entre deux cultures, des transformations d’ordre linguistique et de nature artistique peuvent se produire dans la langue seconde et dans la culture d’accueil. Les deux systèmes en contact n’ayant pas suivi la même évolution, le décalage tend toujours à se réduire grâce aux transferts opérés par les traducteurs et les emprunts de toutes sortes, depuis le vocabulaire et les modes d’expression jusqu’aux modèles littéraires. Le critique Jacques Derrida parle là-dessus de «la transformation d’une langue par une autre». [1] On peut rappeler à titre d’exemple les célèbres cas de l’influence du grec littéraire sur le latin, celle du grec et du latin sur l’italien et sur le français de la Renaissance, puis l’influence française sur la langue et la culture roumaines au cours du XIXe siècle. Traduire c’est mettre en parallèle non seulement deux codes de communication mais aussi et surtout deux grands paradigmes qui ne concordent pas, donc qui ne couvrent pas le même terrain d’expériences de vie matérielle et spirituelle, qui ne partagent pas la substance de la réalité dans les mêmes classes et catégories, observe Alexandru Niculescu. [2] La traduction littéraire suppose nécessairement un acte d’analyse textuelle, note le critique qui cite dans ce sens une idée d’Ezra Pound affirmant que la traduction de la poésie, par exemple, se réalise par l’engendrement d’une structure de langage que l’auteur lui-même aurait créée s’il avait écrit dans la langue du traducteur. Certaines cultures ayant atteint un niveau d’évolution très élevé se sont constituées en structures aptes à offrir aux autres des valeurs spirituelles et des modèles artistiques plutôt qu’à en assimiler à leur tour, par le biais des traductions littéraires. C’est le cas, en partie, de la structure socio-culturelle de la France, même si elle a toujours été ouverte vers les quatre horizons et que ses intellectuels fussent avides de connaître et de mettre en valeur les conquêtes spirituelles de toute l’humanité. Cependant, au niveau institutionnel, les Français ont été moins préoccupés dans le passé, vu le prestige et l’universalité de leur langue et de leur civilisation, par l’absorption des valeurs littéraires des autres nations. Or, depuis quelques décennies, le Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication a fait de la politique de promotion de la traduction littéraire un des axes importants du soutien au livre en général. Le Centre national des Lettres a entrepris, dans les années quatre-vingts du siècle dernier, une importante action dans le domaine des traductions, renforcée au fur et à mesure par la suite, ce qui témoigne d’une évidente préoccupation de faire connaître au public français les grandes œuvres de la littérature universelle. Il faut signaler qu’il existe actuellement en France une Direction du Livre et de la Lecture qui accueille des écrivains étrangers et cherche à faciliter le

267 dialogue entre les créateurs français et ceux qui font connaître leurs œuvres à l’étranger, les traducteurs, leurs confrères. D’autre part, la même Direction du Livre a lancé il y a quelque vingt ans (vers la fin de 1986) une politique de sensibilisation aux littératures du monde, entreprise baptisée les «Belles étrangères» et qui se propose d’élargir l’éventail des préoccupations dans ce domaine. A part les littératures américaine, anglaise, allemande et italienne, déjà «fréquentées» par les traducteurs français, il y a des valeurs inestimables à révéler au public français dans le monde arabe, en Asie, en Amérique Latine, puis en Europe centrale et dans les pays de l’Est. Parmi les poètes français contemporains qui se sont consacrés à la traduction littéraire il faut citer les noms de quelques grands écrivains, tels René Char, Eugène Guillevic, Jean Grosjean, Yves Bonnefoy, Philippe Jaccottet, Roger Munier, Michel Deguy, Bernard Noël, Jacques Roubaud, Claude Esteban et bien d’autres. Cet intérêt spectaculaire pour les valeurs artistiques du monde est soutenu et attisé par l’association culturelle ATLAS, créée en 1983 sur l’initiative et sous l’égide de l’Association des Traducteurs littéraires de France et dont l’objectif essentiel est de promouvoir la traduction littéraire comme activité créatrice en réunissant en séances annuelles les professionnels du domaine et les autres personnalités s’intéressant tout particulièrement à cette activité. L’association a son siège administratif à Paris, tandis que son siège social se trouve à Arles, où se tiennent annuellement, depuis 1984, au mois de novembre, les Assises de la Traduction littéraire, dont les Actes sont publiés régulièrement en co- édition avec les Actes Sud et la revue TransLittérature. La première réunion organisée dans ce cadre, en 1984, a eu comme objectif déclaré de sensibiliser le public aux enjeux culturels de la traduction littéraire. Aussi a-t-on décidé à cette occasion de créer un centre de la traduction, et le Collège International des Traducteurs littéraires, qui siège à Arles, a été créé trois ans plus tard (en 1987), sur le modèle du collège allemand de Straelen. (Notons que des collèges similaires existent aussi en Espagne, en Italie, en Suisse, en Grèce). L’activité des ces centres est censée contribuer à renforcer les liens culturels et linguistiques entre tous les pays de la planète. Depuis l’année 1985 l’Association attribue régulièrement un Grand Prix national de la Traduction, et on peut apprécier que cette consécration d’une activité considérée autrefois par certains comme secondaire (les traducteurs sont des «écrivains de l’ombre», disait-on) situe maintenant le traducteur sur une nouvelle position, fort honorable, puisqu’il jouit désormais d’une considération proche de celle que l’on accorde à l’auteur. De toute façon, on souligne davantage l’importance de son travail créateur

268 et sa contribution à faire circuler les valeurs culturelles. En paraphrasant et en retournant en quelque sorte le célèbre dicton qui soutient que le traducteur trahit inévitablement le texte original («Traduttore, traditore»), on affirme actuellement que «Ne pas traduire, c’est trahir». Les débats déroulés au cadre des diverses réunions des spécialistes dans le domaine tournent inlassablement, depuis des siècles, autour de la question si la traduction doit être littérale et fidèle ou bien littéraire et libre, et la conclusion qui se dégage presque invariablement est que ce travail si délicat, nécessairement créateur, tient toujours du miracle pour sa capacité à allier la fidélité à l’œuvre avec la création, voire avec l’invention, puisque le texte traduit est «une écriture seconde» et que la traduction d’un style (celui de l’œuvre originale) suppose toujours un «style de la traduction». L’art du traducteur relève, aux dires de ceux qui se sont lancés dans cette terrible aventure, d’une vertu d’ordre intérieur, d’une énergie spirituelle censée permettre d’atteindre jusqu’au «noyau de l’incandescence» autour duquel est né le poème original. Claude Esteban, l’un des virtuoses dans la traduction de la poésie espagnole en français, intitule Poèmes parallèles un volume paru en 1980 aux Editions Galilée où il réunit des poésies de Jorge Guillén, Octavio Paz, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Fernando Pessoa, César Vallejo, Alejandra Pizarnik, Pere Gimferrer, ainsi que Gongora et Quevedo. Dans la préface du recueil le célèbre poète traducteur se livre à des commentaires particulièrement intéressants sur la nature subtile et si difficile de ce «combat avec l’ange» du créateur original, surtout lorsqu’il s’agit de la poésie. Il serait même impossible, nous laisse entendre l’analyste, de traduire des vers, car un poème est un monde à lui seul et il n’y a pas d’équivalence à trouver pour le reconstituer tel quel dans une autre langue. «Ai-je traduit Quevedo? se demande-t-il. N’ai-je fait, à mon insu, que le trahir? J’ai voulu que tous ceux-là qui ne peuvent l’approcher en espagnol entrevoient, même un seul instant, ce feu qui malgré ma ferveur s’est offusqué dans des mots de cendre.» [3] Au cours de son intervention dans l’activité du forum d’Arles, en 1986, sous le titre Le Travail du traducteur: territoires, frontières et passages, Claude Esteban commence par se garder de l’intention de formuler quelque théorie de la traduction ou bien d’établir des critères précis concernant sa nature, soulignant que son expérience en la matière l’inclinerait plutôt à rejeter toute explicitation conceptuelle et à s’en tenir, bon gré mal gré, à «une sorte d’empirisme évasif». Cependant le poète n’hésite pas à offrir et à commenter des réflexions personnelles témoignant souvent de ses incertitudes et moins de ses convictions là-dessus. Il est saisissant de voir que, malgré la qualité incontestable des versions

269 françaises qu’il «tire» de la création des écrivains espagnols, le traducteur insiste sur le caractère impénétrable de ce qu’il appelle le «mystère d’une re-création». En évoquant les théories des philosophes du langage, il considère ces derniers comme des «zélateurs de la belle totalité notionnelle» qui s’emploient à «dissiper même cette zone étrangement opaque où prend forme le labeur infini de l’interprète». Or, le poète oppose à l’idée des adeptes de Wittgenstein, qui apprécient que la traduction d’une langue en une autre est une tâche mathématique, une attitude plus sage et prudente, manifestée déjà par Jakobson qui juge que la poésie est «intraduisible par définition», puisqu’elle relève d’une «transposition créatrice» dont il faudrait aussi fixer le profil. (4) Heureusement, ou peut- être malheureusement, souligne Claude Esteban, les théoriciens ne mettent pas en pratique leur savoir si péremptoire, tandis que les poètes, «prisonniers de leur expérience pragmatique», n’envisagent nullement de s’enfermer dans une idéologie de la traduction, qui étoufferait leur esprit créateur et entraverait leur sensibilité d’artistes véritables. Une définition selon laquelle la traduction consiste à produire dans la langue d’arrivée «l’équivalent naturel le plus proche du message de la langue de départ, d’abord quant à la signification, puis quant au style» (telle qu’elle est formulée par un linguiste américain de Harvard University dans l’étude On Translation) ne saurait jamais avoir l’adhésion totale d’un poète. Une telle conception convient surtout pour la communication utilitaire, tandis que la poésie, et l’acte littéraire en général, témoignent du fait que les mots ne s’identifient guère sans restriction à des concepts. Au contraire, dans la création littéraire le mot, qui est comme «surgi du mutisme universel des choses», représente tout à la fois une manière de manifestation, une sorte d’ «épiphanie verbale» et une «profération de tel ou tel aspect du sensible», tandis que le son, «cristallisation vocale incomparable à toute autre, n’en figure pas le simple vêtement auditif, une sorte de parure précaire, mais il en constitue, organiquement, l’élément moteur, indissociable de cela même qu’il exprime.» En effet, poursuit cet analyste de la traduction de la poésie, il persiste chez tout artiste véritable une trace du vouloir démiurgique originel qui assigne au Verbe une autre vertu que celle d’invoquer, par un jeu symbolique de signes, l’existence de notre monde. [5] Le Poète a été toujours vu comme un mage ou un visionnaire, «prophète sacré» et seul à avoir le front éclairé, aux dires de Hugo, ou bien comme un voyant qui entreprend par son acte créateur «un long, immense et déraisonné dérèglement des sens», selon Rimbaud. Lorsqu’il prend la parole, note à son tour Claude Esteban, il se présente comme l’héritier du génie fondateur qui inventait à la fois le nom et la chose, l’Etre et le Dire,

270 comme l’affirmaient les pré-socratiques. Maîtrisant un savoir qui transcende le réel commun et plus ou moins banal, il est pénétré de l’idée que c’est lui qui crée, par son alchimie du Verbe, les parcelles de réalité qui composent le monde de son œuvre, et ce Verbe créateur qui fait vibrer l’air de l’univers inventé par l’artiste est «inaliénable», invariable et non répétable. Comment le reproduire en une autre langue que celle du démiurge qui a donné vie à tout un monde par son acte créateur? L’aventure poétique est unique du fait même que les mots «ainsi convoqués et mis ensemble ne l’ont jamais été auparavant de la sorte», d’où il s’ensuit que la poésie est «l’invention d’un lieu au sein d’une langue. Il ne s’agit donc point d’un exercice verbal dont tout système notionnel rendrait compte, mais de l’apparition d’une morphologie et d’une syntaxe du monde qui ne se reproduiront jamais de manière identique et que le traducteur, s’il a conscience de la gravité de sa tâche, a pour mission de redécouvrir et de restituer (nous soulignons)». [6] L’idée de base qui se dégage de cet exposé d’un spécialiste, artiste praticien et analyste à la fois, puis en bonne partie des débats qui suivent, c’est que la traduction est elle aussi un faire, le fameux poïein aristotélicien sans lequel on ne peut guère envisager l’engendrement d’une œuvre d’art authentique, par conséquent le traducteur doit s’engager personnellement et s’illustrer dans un travail créateur, même si ce dernier s’effectue à partir d’une œuvre née de l’inspiration et de l’expression artistique d’autrui. Le Moi personnel du traducteur, son goût artistique et sa sensibilité jouent le rôle capital lorsqu’il s’agit, tout d’abord, de choisir l’œuvre à traduire (et ce choix relève toujours d’une nécessaire compatibilité et d’une grande affinité spirituelle entre auteur et traducteur), puis d’appréhender ses sens, ses charmes et ses secrets, enfin de les re-faire, c’est-à-dire de les re-créer dans la langue d’arrivée. Quant à une méthode à adopter et à appliquer pour réaliser la translation d’une langue à une autre, elle ne devrait jamais exister, puisque chaque traducteur doit s’inventer, pour lui seul, la démarche appropriée, en fonction de l’œuvre à traduire. Qu’il s’agisse d’une approche littérale qui engage la «technique» du mot à mot (il vaudrait mieux dire du mot pour mot), ou bien d’un travail libre et littéraire, dont il résulte une sorte de double de l’œuvre originale, le choix et le goût, la sensibilité et le talent créateur du traducteur sont toujours pleinement engagés et s’illustrent de manière évidente dans le «produit» fini résultant de son entreprise. En commentant les versions roumaines que le poète George Coşbuc a données de L’Enéide de Virgile ou de La Divine comédie de Dante, le critique Tudor Vianu observe que le traducteur ne s’est pas contenté de rendre très fidèlement les constructions de l’original, puisqu’il s’est ingénié à

271 s’approcher de son vocabulaire et même de son timbre, aussi a-t-il «dilaté» l’élément lexical de provenance latine de sa langue maternelle en introduisant parfois des néologismes pour assurer à sa variante des sonorités plus proches de celles de l’original. [7] Un autre exemple de traduction que l’on peut considérer comme «fidèle», mais qui est géniale par la contribution d’un interprète, créateur par excellence, au niveau du lexique et de l’expression plastique d’où jaillit un humour irrésistible, est celui des variantes roumaines que Romulus Vulpescu a «inventées» à partir des œuvres de Villon, de Rabelais et de Jarry, parmi tant d’autres. C’est un Rabelais roumain, dirait-on, que le poète traducteur nous offre à la lecture par sa version de Gargantua, sans pour cela fausser tant soit peu l’esprit de l’original et son charme exquis. Quant à l’exploit d’un poète comme Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, qui entreprend de mettre en roumain les textes hermétiques de Mallarmé, il consiste à conserver les formes poétiques rigoureuses de l’original, depuis la structure métrique et sonore jusqu’à la structure syntaxique, et le poète espère introduire de la sorte de nouveaux modèles poétiques dans le registre du lyrisme roumain. Au pôle opposé se situent, dans notre littérature, les adaptations de Tudor Arghezi d’après les fables de La Fontaine. Le critique George Hanganu observe que le poète roumain réalise, en traduisant les œuvres du fabuliste français, ce que ce dernier a créé en utilisant les apologues d’Esope, de Phèdre ou de Pilpay: une fable nouvelle, vivante, rajeunie, «habillée de poésie». [8] Or, il convient de souligner que, tout en empruntant au poète français le motif de telle ou telle fable qu’il choisit de re-créer en roumain, ainsi que le schéma général de l’histoire dans son déroulement d’un bout à l’autre, c’est une version originale que le traducteur-interprète nous offre. Sa création double, en amplifiant ingénieusement, le texte de départ, et c’est sa poésie, toute personnelle, «inaliénable» (selon le mot de Claude Esteban) et non répétable, qui habille d’un vêtement très haut en couleurs les allégories animalières tellement connues dans la culture du monde.

Notes: [1] Apud Alexandru Niculescu, Între filologie şi poetică, Editura Eminescu, Bucureşti, 1980, p. 53 [2] Idem [3] Cité par François Xavier Jaujard, membre du Conseil d’Administration d’ATLAS, in Actes des Troisièmes Assises de la Traduction Littéraire, Arles, 1986, Actes Sud, p. 29 [4] Claude Esteban, «Le Travail du traducteur: territoires, frontières et passages», in Actes des Troisièmes Assises de la Traduction littéraire (Arles 1986), Actes Sud, 1987, p. 31 [5] Idem, pp. 32-33

272 [6] Idem, p. 34 [7] Cf. Tudor Vianu, Studii de literatură universală şi comparată, Ed Academiei RPR, 1963, pp. 598-599 [8] George Hanganu, Interferenţe şi peisaje literare franceze, Ed Univers, Bucureşti, 1973, p. 171

Bibliographie: o *** Actes des Troisièmes Assises de la Traduction Littéraire, Arles, 1986, Actes Sud o Esteban, C. (1987) «Le Travail du traducteur: territoires, frontières et passages», in Actes des Troisièmes Assises de la Traduction littéraire (Arles 1986), Actes Sud o Hanganu, G. (1973) Interferenţe şi peisaje literare franceze, Bucureşti: Ed Univers o Niculescu, Al. (1980) Între filologie şi poetică, Bucureşti: Editura Eminescu o Vianu,T. (1963) Studii de literatură universală şi comparată, Ed Academiei RPR

DEUX APPROCHES TRADUCTIVES: LA TRADUCTION ET L’INTERPRÉTATION

Angelica Vâlcu Université «Dunãrea de Jos» de Galaţi

Studiul nostru se situeazã în perspectiva teoriei interpretative a traducerii. Traducerea şi interpretarea sunt douã demersuri traductive care, ambele, trec printr-o activitate de reperareşi stabilire a sensului unui mesaj. Traducerea interpretativã este o activitate prin care traducãtorul şi/sau interpretul îşi însuşesc sensul unui discurs/text transformându-l în propria lor voinţã de a spune ceva, dupã care, reactualizeazã acest sens într-un nou discurs/text într-o limbã diferitã.

Généralités. La réflexion théorique dans le domaine de la traduction s’est renforcée pour trois raisons: 1) les travaux en sémantique et en sémiotique (R. Barthes et A. G. Greimas); 2) l’apparition et le développement de l’intelligence artificielle; 3) l’insuccès de l’ambition de créer une langue universelle (espéranto, par exemple). Selon Umberto Eco [1] la question fondamentale que se pose le traducteur est de savoir si en traduisant «il faut amener le lecteur à

273 comprendre l’univers culturel de l’auteur, ou bien s’il faut transformer le texte original en l’adaptant à l’univers culturel du lecteur». La traduction et l’interprétation sont deux approches traductives qui ne sont pas trop différentes. Ce qui diffèrent ce sont les modalités de re- expression tout comme les modalités d’expression dans les discours oraux et dans les textes écrits: l’interprétation se passe dans un temps mesuré et doit se soucier du contenu des formes linguistiques éphémères, tandis que la traduction qui tient compte de la persistance des formes «s’efforce d’en trouver le profil dans sa langue» après avoir pris une option sur le sens. Les deux, le traducteur et l’interprète, ont la capacité et la compétence d’établir une transmission du discours d’une langue vers une autre. Leur travail s’exerce sur le sens du message. C’est la théorie interprétative de la traduction ou ce qu’on appelle la théorie du sens ou la théorie moderne de la traduction. Cette théorie a été élaborée à l’ESIT (l’Ecole Supérieure d’Interprètes et de Traducteurs) qui fait partie de l’Université Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle. La personnalité la plus connue de l’ESIT est Danica Seleskovitch. Selon la théorie interprétative de la traduction de Danica Seleskovitch, la traduction est un processus par lequel on transforme «un texte ou un discours en un autre texte ou discours qui possède, sous une forme différente, le même sens rationnel et émotionnel»[2]. Traduire ce n’est pas transformer un message d’une langue en une autre langue mais transmettre le sens d’un message d’un texte. Le sens est défini comme étant le vouloir dire du locuteur et pour le lecteur/auditeur c’est le compris. La traduction interprétative est une opération par laquelle un traducteur et/ou un interprète appréhendent le sens (le vouloir dire de l’orateur) d’un discours/texte (la compréhension), reformulent, intérieurement ce sens (la phase de déverbalisation), se l’approprient en le transformant en leur propre vouloir-dire et le réactualisent en un nouveau discours dans une autre langue (la phase d’expression). C’est précisément l’analyse des mécanismes de compréhension et d’expression qui s’avère être la plus profitable pour l’explication du phénomène de la traduction. Nous allons suivre les étapes de l’opération traduisante telles qu’elles sont développées avec beaucoup de minutie par Danica Seleskovitch. La compréhension. Pour Seleskovitch l’activité de traduction doit s’appuyer sur le rapport langue/parole: le niveau langue est représenté par les mots hors contexte et le niveau parole est constitué par des phrases fabriquées ou «vues en dehors des paramètres discursifs, dont le

274 transcodage produit des correspondances (qui ont leur utilités dans l’enseignement des langues». [3] La langue donne une signification aux mots mais la parole les embellit de «notions inimaginables au seul plan lexicologique. Or, ce sont ces notions qui, constituant le sens, doivent être comprises par celui qui lit l’œuvre du traducteur comme elles le sont par celui qui prend conscience de l’original» [4]. En conséquence, on ne traduit pas la langue mais le discours ou le texte. Le point de départ de la théorie de Danica Seleskovitch a été la traduction orale, à savoir l’interprétation des conférences, que ce soit traduction en consécutive ou en simultanée. Pour argumenter ses idées, elle a examiné, tout d’abord, le type de prise de notes de ces interprètes / traducteurs en faisant la distinction entre: a) la prise de notes des mots; b) la prise de notes des idées. Les notes sont personnelles et elles aident à réveiller chez le traducteur un souvenir (encore présent) de ce qu’il a compris du texte. Dans la première catégorie (a), sont inclus les mots isolés dans le discours et qui n’ont d’autre sens que leur signification linguistique (exemples: les énumérations, les appellations, les chiffres...). Un mot peut avoir une ou de plusieurs significations dans le système de la langue, hors contexte; ce sont les significations trouvées, en principe, dans un dictionnaire. La deuxième catégorie, la prise de notes des idées, représente un point de repère pour le traducteur/interprète, lequel repère lui rappelle l’idée de l’énoncé émis par l’auteur (énoncé qu’il a à traduire). Dans ce cas il s’agit du sens que le mot possède dans un énoncé discursif: «Le sens est ce à quoi un signe renvoie lorsqu’il s’insère dans un énoncé concret, dans une séquence linguistique issue d’un acte individuel de parole» [5]. On peut en tirer la conclusion que pour saisir le sens d’un texte le traducteur devrait passer par deux étapes de compréhension: - la compréhension de la langue; - la compréhension du discours; La compréhension du sens d’un texte est déterminée par d’autres indices inclus dans les différents types de contextes dans lesquels apparaissent ces textes: situationnel, verbal, cognitif ou général socio- historique .Les spécialistes s’accordent à reconnaître que les connaissances extralinguistiques agissent à l’intérieur du processus de compréhension. Mais, en quoi consiste la compréhension? Nos étudiants savent-il qu’est ce qu’on comprend par «comprendre»? Si l’on met l’accent sur l’aspect cognitif de l’interprétation on peut dire avec D. Seleskovitch

275 (1984) que «Interpréter, c’est comprendre ». Définissant le sens dans le cadre de la communication, Hurtado Albir [6] considère que «pour que l’acte de parole soit réussi (…) il faut que le sens compris du récepteur soit égal au vouloir dire de l’émetteur» d’où découle la définition de la fidélité en traduction: «adéquation du sens compris du traducteur avec le vouloir dire de l’auteur et adéquation du sens compris du destinataire de la traduction avec celui du texte original», (Hurtado Albir, 1990:141) La compréhension est un acte très important et l’ignorer constitue une grave erreur de la part des traducteurs. L’étape de la compréhension suppose deux types de connaissances: la connaissance du sujet et la connaissance de la langue. Bien connaître une langue ne suffit pas pour traduire correctement un texte dans cette langue et donc se considérer un bon et fin traducteur. Ce qui est le plus important, c’est la perception «du contour conceptuel d’un énoncé en l’enrichissant du contexte référentiel dans lequel il baigne» [7]. Les deux sous - catégories de prises de notes, dont nous avons parle ci-dessus, nous renvoient à la célèbre dichotomie de Saussure langue/parole qui dans la théorie de la traduction devient la dichotomie signification/sens. Cette dichotomie entraîne la différence entre les deux opérations de la traduction: le transcodage et la traduction proprement dite. Le transcodage est une opération par laquelle un mot d’une langue, qui n’a qu’une seule signification, passe dans une autre langue. Cette démarche n’implique pas d’autres données extralinguistiques. La traduction proprement dite suppose la compréhension d’un vouloir dire de l’auteur, l’extraction d’un message et la re-expression de celui-ci dans une autre langue L’interprétation des indications fournies par le texte est renforcée par l’emploi interactif d’une série de connaissances antérieures: connaissances des concepts, de la langue, de comportements sociaux, de structures textuelles. C’est pourquoi, pour parvenir à la compréhension, nos étudiants devront être habitués à utiliser d’autres connaissances que celles purement linguistiques. Ils pourront, par exemple, fonder leurs suppositions concernant le sens sur plusieurs sources d’indices: schémas, paragraphes explicatives, illustrations, titres, paragraphes lus antérieurement, liens entre les mots qui sont semblables entre la langue cible et la langue source, etc. Le savoir-faire de comprendre sera soutenu par une réflexion approfondie à ce qu’on dit sur le sujet, à l’importance de ces connaissances en fonction du texte à lire et à traduire et par l’apport de ce qu’on sait sur l’organisation des divers types de discours et surtout exploiter cette connaissance. Pour utiliser ces stratégies de compréhension l’enseignant devrait,

276 tout d’abord, amener les apprenants à discuter de ces stratégies. Les étudiants seront invités à indiquer de quel type d’indice se sont-ils servi pour déchiffrer le sens d’un texte (même si le type d’indice est différent de celui qu’un camarade avait utilisé dans la même démarche). La déverbalisation. L’étape qui suit à la compréhension du sens est la déverbalisation. C’est une phase essentielle qui, à vrai dire, accompagne le processus de compréhension du texte. Selon la théorie interprétative le traducteur / interprète, au lieu de passer d’un énoncé en langue base vers l’énoncé en langue cible, il passe par la phase de déverbalisation totale dans laquelle ce qui reste, c’est le message pur, sans nulle représentation linguistique. En partant de ce message déverbalisé, le traducteur / interprète exprime un énoncé dans la langue d’arrivée. La déverbalisation est conçue comme une opération mentale non- verbale. Cette phase est présente dans l’interprétation consécutive ou simultanée et elle est presque absente dans le cas de la traduction du texte écrit. Hurtado Albir [8] soutient que «toute lecture est une compréhension de textes» et dans ce sens le lecteur doit développer un processus interprétatif dont le produit est son sens compris. La déverbalisation est une sorte de reformulation intérieure du sens saisi par l’interprète. La ré-expression. La phase de réexpression, la dernière du processus de traduction/interprétation, comporte la restitution du sens du texte à traduire dans une autre langue. Le sens sera rendu accessible sur deux plans: le sens notionnel et le sens émotionnel. Le traducteur a, à tour de rôle, la tâche du lecteur pour comprendre et la tâche de l’écrivain pour faire comprendre le vouloir dire initial. Le traducteur sait bien qu’il ne traduit pas une langue en une autre, mais qu’il comprend une parole et qu’il la transmet en l’exprimant de manière qu’elle soit comprise. Il s’agit d’une négation de la traduction linguistique, d’une négation de la traduction à partir des structures des langues. Pour le travail sur le sens il faut disposer d’une double compétence dans le maniement du langage: une compétence de compréhension pour évaluer le vouloir dire de l’auteur du texte original et une compétence de réexpression pour refaire le texte dans la langue d’arrivée. Pour re-exprimer un message il faut comprendre plus qu’une petite phrase que l’on a à traduire; pour exprimer d’une manière cohérente la pensée originale de l’auteur, le traducteur / interprète doit faire la sienne cette pensée et la passer par le filtre de sa personnalité.

277 Conclusions. Selon les théoriciens de la traductologie, l’activité de traduction signifie «la transmission, par l’intermédiaire des unités lexicales et/ou terminologiques, d’un message et d’une intention (un effet) d’une langue (langue A) dans une autre (langue B) tout en respectant les procédés morpho-syntaxiques et morpho-sémantiques des deux langues en contact» [9]. Cette définition donnée par Ghassan Zerez nous oblige à avoir en vue plusieurs éléments, tels que l’importance de l’intention, de l’effet que cherche à créer l’auteur en plus de l’information qu’il donne dans son texte et puis, l’importance des unités lexicales et terminologiques dans une opération de traduction. Sur le plan pédagogique, le problème des deux approches traductives doit être traité avec beaucoup d’attention car, lorsque l’apprenti / traducteur part de la langue, il a tendance à être trop influencé par la langue de départ et à réaliser des calques sémantiques et syntaxiques de la langue de départ ce qui nuit à la compréhension de l’information transmise par le texte traduit. Les étudiants en traduction devront être conscients qu’ils transmettent non pas des mots mais un sens. En d’autres mots, ils saisissent le sens dévêtu de toute trace linguistique de la langue de départ afin qu’il n’en reste aucune influence linguistique. C’est le point d’où le traducteur/interprète part pour ré-exprimer l’énoncé dans la langue d’arrivée. En résumant, traduction et interprétation ne sont pas contradictoires: l’interprétation est à la base de l’activité de communication, activité qui inclut l’ensemble des stratégies et des procédés employés pour construire et échanger du sens. Traduire est l’acte par lequel on transfert une interprétation, l’interprétation de l’auteur en une autre celle du traducteur, avec toutes les pertes concernant le sens que cette opération implique. C’est pourquoi pas toutes les traductions d’un texte sont les mêmes, elles changent en fonction de la compétence et du savoir-faire du traducteur.

Notes: [1] voir Actes du X-e Colloque de l’ATLAS, Actes Sud, 1996, www.fr/dess/cours_aix/oseki/page04 [2] Seleskovitch, Danica, «Traductologie», in Traduire, no. 150, p. 8. [3] ibidem, p. 9 [4] Lederer, Marianne, «Transcoder ou réexprimer», in Interpréter pour traduire, op. cit., p. 18, http://demeter.univ_lyon2.fr :8080/sdx/theses [5] Mousa, Ayman, (2003), Les dimensions sémiotiques de la traduction: théorie et pratique, http://demeter.univ-lyon2.fr8080/sdx/theses [6] Hurtado Albir Amparo, (1990) La notion de fidélité en traduction, Paris, Didier, p. 51

278 [7] Delisle, Jean, (1980), L’analyse du discours comme méthode de traduction: initiation à la traduction française de textes pragmatiques anglais, théorie et pratique, Canada, Ed. de l’Université d’Ottawa, p. 70 [8] ] Hurtado Albir Amparo, (1990), La notion de fidélité en traduction, Didier, p. 141 [9] Zerez, Ghassan, Pour une théorie de la traduction; application au discours journalistique français – arabe), www. marges.linguistiques.theses-en-ligne

Bibliographie: o *** (1996) Actes du X-e Colloque de l’ATLAS, Actes Sud, www.fr/dess/cours_aix/oseki/page04 o Delisle, J. (1980) L’analyse du discours comme méthode de traduction: initiation à la traduction française de textes pragmatiques anglais, théorie et pratique, Canada: Ed. de l’Université d’Ottawa o Hurtado Albir, A. (1990) La notion de fidélité en traduction, Paris: Didier o Lederer, M. «Transcoder ou réexprimer», in Interpréter pour traduire, http://demeter.univ_lyon2.fr :8080/sdx/theses o Mousa, A. (2003) Les dimensions sémiotiques de la traduction: théorie et pratique, http://demeter.univ-lyon2.fr8080/sdx/theses o Seleskovitch, D. «Traductologie», in Traduire, no. 150 o Zerez, G. Pour une théorie de la traduction; application au discours journalistique français – arabe, www. marges.linguistiques.theses-en- ligne

279

ROMANIAN CULTURAL AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

TRADUCERILE ŞI ROLUL LOR ÎN FORMAREA LIMBILOR LITERARE MODERNE

Doina Marta Bejan Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos” din Galaţi

Articolul îşi propune să treacă în revistă contribuţia traducerilor din sec. al XVII-lea la crearea limbii române literare în special, şi a spiritualităţii româneşti, în general. Sunt amintite traducerile şi traducătorii care, mai mult sau mai puţin explicit, au contribuit la crearea sentimentului naţional, pe de o parte, şi la integrarea culturii române, în general, în viaţa spirituală a Europei. Astfel se evidenţiază contribuţia traducătorilor de literatură religioasă la crearea unei limbi care să-i unească pe românii din cele trei provincii româneşti, deschiderea lor catre sec. al XIX-lea, spre ideile înscrierii limbii române literare şi separat, dezvoltarea în spiritul laic a interesului pentru ştiinţa modernă a sec. al XIX-lea, care a dus la o intensă activitate de traducere a textelor ştiinţifice. Toate aceste elemente, îmbinate, duc la crearea spiritului modern în cultura română, traducerile având locul lor bine definit.

Traducerea, proces de mare complexitate, permite comparaţia între două sau mai multe sisteme lingvistice, dovedindu-se a fi o activitate fundamentală a spiritului uman. (Wandruszka,1972: 3) Eugenio Coşeriu (1977: 222) consideră că.obiectivul traducerii din punct de vedere lingvistic, este acela de a reproduce aceeaşi desemnare şi acelaşi sens cu semnificaţiile unei alte limbi. Se produce astfel un fenomen de interferenţă lingvistică care stimulează creativitatea lexicală a traducatorului, fie în direcţia reconstituirii sensului textual al unui lexem tradus cu materialul morfematic sau semantic al limbii în care se traduce (calcul lexical), fie prin transferul integral al semnului tradus (împrumutul lexical). Tot Eugenio Coşeriu (apud Munteanu, 1995: 7) studiind fenomenul interferenţei lingvistice, în condiţiile bilingvismului, remarcă disponibilitatea unei limbi pentru transfer de structuri dintr-o altă limbă, numind-o „permeabilitate lingvistică” (“Durchlässigkeit der Sprachen”). Această permeabilitate afectează în spcial „punctele slabe” (“schwache

280 Punkten”), adică acele structuri care manifestă „goluri” (“Lücken”) în posibilităţile expresive globale, transferul lingvistic fiind favorizat de „incompletitudinea paradigmelor existente ca atare”. Coşeriu arată că există o „permeabilitate condiţionată istoric” (“eine historisch bedingte Durchlässigkeit”) care afectează o limbă într-un anume moment al istoriei sale. Cercetarea istorică a limbilor literare moderne europene a evidenţiat, la majoritatea dintre ele, o epocă de început, a traducerilor şi a adaptărilor de texte redactate în limbi de cultură anterioare – limbile „clasice”. Primesc denumirea de „clasice”, limbile scrise „cultivate ca atare într-un mediu cultural aloglot, din raţiuni diverse (liturgice, religioase, educaţionale, etc.), în mod exclusiv sau în paralel cu o limbă naţională (populară)” (Munteanu, 1995: 5). Funcţia acestor limbi clasice au îndeplinit-o în culturile din Occident limba latină, iar în cele din Estul şi Sud-Estul Europei greaca, slavona şi, parţial, latina. Prin traduceri s-a transmis din greacă în latină şi slavonă şi, de aici, în limbile literare moderne un fond noţional comun care a condus la realizarea unei adevărate „comunităţi conceptuale europene” pe deasupra tuturor graniţelor lingvistice, ceea ce asigură astăzi „o relativă facilitate a traducerii dintr-o limbă europeană într-alta, în pofida diferenţelor tipologice, de origine şi de structură gramaticală” (Munteanu,1995:10). În patrimoniul spiritual al fiecărei naţiuni din spaţiul european, data traducerii Bibliei (cea mai mare şi mai importantă traducere a Evului Mediu) este un eveniment care marchează întotdeauna abordarea unei trepte culturale superioare. Istoria tălmăcirii textelor biblice în limbile vernaculare moderne se suprapune peste istoria mişcărilor „protestante” care au cuprins Europa începând cu secolul al XV-lea. Cea dintâi traducere a Sfintei Scripturi într-o limbă populară, germana, apare la 1466 la Strasbourg şi se datorează teologului Rudigerus, fost rector al universităţii din Lipsca; i-au urmat treisprezece ediţii, în parte revizuite, până la apariţia Bibliei de la Augsbourg (1518), iar la 1534 apare celebra traducere integrală a textului biblic realizată de Martin Luther, operă care a avut cea mai mare importanţă în formarea şi creşterea limbii germane moderne. În spaţiul englez, prima traducere autorizată a textelor sacre este celebra The King James Bible (Londra,1611), operă la care au lucrat timp de cinci ani, cincizeci de cărturari, grupaţi în şase echipe; ea a fost precedată în timp de traducerea lui Wycliff (1370), de traducerea Noului Testament a lui Tyndale (1526) şi de The Bible and Holy Scriptures (Geneva, 1560). Despre importanţa traducerii de la 1611, în Printing and the Mind of Man se afirmă : „Această carte s-a cercetat şi s-a citit în toate casele, iar înrâurirea ei asupra caracterului, imaginaţiei şi inteligenţei unei naţiuni

281 întregi, timp de trei sute de ani, a fost mai mare decât al oricărui curent literar sau mişcare religioasă din istoria noastră.” (apud Miron, 1988: 4). Pentru limba franceză cele mai vechi versiuni biblice integrale datează din 1477, versiunea calvină tiparită la Lyon (fragmentar a circulat încă din secolul al XII-lea), urmată de cea a lui Faber Stapulensis (1530-1532), care, deşi pusă la index, a avut o foarte largă răspândire. Textul biblic a fost tradus şi în alte limbi moderne occidental-europene, la date şi împrejurări culturale diferite: în italiană, la Veneţia, în traducerea lui Malermi, în catalană la 1478, cehă – 1488, suedeză şi islandeză – 1540, daneză – 1550, poloneză – 1561, maghiară -1591 (versiunea protestantă) şi 1826 (versiunea catolică), portugheză – 1778, spaniolă – 1790. Toate aceste succesive traduceri şi revizuiri biblice din spaţiul european apusean au avut ca suport celebra versiune latină a textului sacru, Vulgata, traducerea epocală a Fericitului Ieronim. „În spaţiul ortodox opoziţia bisericii tradiţionale faţă de naţionalizarea mesajului scriptural a avut mult mai mare succes decât în Occident, în bună măsură pentru faptul că greaca Septuagintei şi a Noului Testment putea fi considerată identică cu limba naţională a grecilor, aceeaşi funcţie îndeplinind-o pentru popoarele de origine slavă, limba slavonă. Prima versiune integrală a Bibliei în limba slavonă, care a apărut în 1581, la Ostrog în Ucraina, a fost ulterior retipărită de câteva ori, satisfăcând mulţumitor nevoile culturale ale naţiunilor slave, de vreme ce versiuni vernaculare apar relativ târziu: ucraineană în 1798, sârbă şi bulgară în 1868, rusă în 1876. Oficialităţile ecleziastice greceşti au acceptat abia în ultimile decenii tipărirea unei versiuni biblice în neogreacă. [...] Aşa se face că Biblia de la Bucureşti (1688) reprezintă prima ediţie integrală a textelor sacre într-o limbă populară în spaţiul oriental-ortodox. Redactarea şi tipărirea sa s-au petrecut fără nici un fel de convulsiuni, într- o colaborare [...] între factorul politic, cărturari laici şi oameni ai Bisericii, înaltul cler.” (Munteanu, 1995: 17) . Influenţa limbilor „clasice” asupra începuturilor limbilor literare moderne a fost deosebit de importantă, deoarece în actul de traducere din epoca medievală s-a impus metoda literală de traducere, singura îngăduită de necesitatea salvării integrale a sacralităţii textului tradus. „Aceasta preţuire a literalismului în traducere, asociată părerii adânc înrădăcinate în conştiinţa traducătorilor medievali că limbile vernaculare nu pot fi înnobilate decât prin imitarea limbilor scrise autorizate de practica liturgică a condus la aparţia unei forme artificiale a limbajului, pe care exegeţii o descoperă la începutul oricărei limbi de cultură moderne.” (Munteanu, 1995:11) S-a observat că influenţa limbii latine era aşa de mare în secolele al XIII-lea şi al XIV-lea încât «l’évolution du français ait complètement

282 perdu au XV-e siècle son caractère populaire et spontané.» (Brunot, 1967: 2) Sunt citate în aceste secole nume de cărturari francezi care conştientizează nevoia de a „înnobila”(magnifier) franceza prin imitarea strictă a latinei. S-a studiat (Lerch şi Ernst, apud Munteanu, 1995: 8) penetrarea în vocabularul francez a semantismului creştin (evoluţii semantice, achiziţii neologistice) prin intermediul traducerilor biblice; amintim şi amplul studiu al lui Kunze (1935) dedicat traducerilor biblice ale lui Lefèvre d’Etaple şi P. R. Oliveton, cu privire specială asupra vocabularului. S-a constatat de asemenea că Wykliff, autorul primei versiuni biblice integrale în engleză, urmărea sistematic “to preserve the form of Latin wherever possible.” (Partridge, 1973: 24 apud Munteanu, 1995: 11) Modelul limbii latine deţinea prestigiul absolut şi în spaţiul medieval german. Niclas von Wyle, care a publicat între 1461-1478 optsprezece tratate monastice traduse din latină, afirma că „orice germană împrumutată dintr-o latinească bună [….] trebuie şi ea privită ca o germană bună, graţioasă şi vrednică de laudă, care nu lasă loc pentru vreo îndreptare” (apud Munteanu, 1995: 11). Şi pentru alte limbi romanice s-au făcut studii în acest sens; cercetătorul Paul Zurcher (1970: 31-312) a realizat un bogat glosar al termenilor italieneşti îmbogăţiţi semantic prin contactul cu textul biblic. Pentru limba română literară, care cunoaşte în secolele de început, al XVI-lea şi al XVII-lea, o perioadă de mari traduceri religioase, ce au culminat cu traducerea integrală a Bibliei de la 1688, s-a realizat un studiu textual comparativ al diverselor versiuni româneşti biblice anterioare anului1688, de către Eugen Munteanu (1995). Cercetătorul pune în evidenţă existenţa unui „adevărat idiom de traducere care, în comparaţie cu limba vorbită de la baza sa, este caracterizat printr- un aspect artificial, rezultat din imitarea strictă a structurilor lingvistice ale originalului grecesc sau slavon” (Munteanu, 1995: 11). Transferul lingvistic prin intermediul căruia româna, ca limbă de cultură în stadiul poţential, şi-a asigurat cadrul primar necesar pentru achiziţiile ulterioare cunoaşte următoarele trei etape principale :  Contactul lingvistic primar şi direct, realizat în actul traducerii, la nivelul textului. Are loc acum, ca urmare a interferenţei între două coduri lingvistice, un transfer de substanţă semantică, lexicalizată în limba română după modelul limbii de contact cultural. Textul rezultat prin traducere este o copie, o reconstituire cu material lexical românesc a structurii textului original. Absenţa unor norme literare româneşti ferme la nivel semantic şi sintactic, asociată obişnuinţei de a exersa activitatea intelectuală în limba de cultură luată ca model, face adesea insesizabil pentru traducător, caracterul artificial al limbii traducerii.  Etapa idiomatizării elementelor lingvistice achiziţionate prin

283 transfer lingvistic, prin utilizarea de catre alţi cărturari a formelor şi sensurilor obţinute prin transfer primar; se produce un proces de selecţie şi de eliminare, în urma căruia o parte din formele adoptate capătă, prin uzaj extins, caracterul unor norme, integrându-se în procesul de standardizare şi de normare.  Etapa asimilării complete. Structurile semantice şi sintactice de împrumut îşi pierd «amprenta străină», adaptându-se la sistemele semantic, derivativ, morfologic şi sintactic românesc. Între structurile lingvistice care îşi datorează acestui proces apariţia lor în limba română, cercetătorul amintit menţionează: împrumuturi de sens şi calcuri lexicale, construcţii frazeologice, locuţiuni, expresii şi sintagme, modificări în semantismul categorial al unor verbe, lărgirea funcţionalităţii unor conjuncţii şi modificări în regimul cazual sau în spectrul semantic al unor prepoziţii. Ilustrăm cu un exemplu preluat din materialul bibliografic (Munteanu, 1995: 251-280) procesul de lexicalizare în româna literară a unui concept de origine biblică, pâinea cea de toate zilele; sintagma apare în Noul Testament, atunci când Iisus propune discipolilor săi textul rugăciunii „Tatăl nostru”, şi traduce gr. αρτο επιονσιο. În limba română, prima realizare semantică a conceptului επιονσιο. s-a concretizat în sintagma pita noastră săţioasă şi a apărut în toate versiunile româneşti din secolul al XVI-lea ale rugăcinii sub influenţa textelor slavone după care s-au făcut primele traduceri. În textele româneşti din primele decenii ale secolului al XVII-lea începe să apară formularea pâinea noastră cea de toate zilele, de inspiraţie occidentală şi care poate fi considerată ca un semn al unei mutaţii de mentalitate culturală şi confesională; este momentul Noului Testament de la Balgrad (1648), când învăţaţii grupaţi în jurul mitropolitului Simeon Stefan, animaţi de dorinţa unei abordări exegetice de tip filologic a textelor sacre au analizat surse greceşti şi latine şi au optat pentru formularea inspirată de latinescul noster panis cotidianus din Vulgata. Astfel se creează o nouă tradiţie interpretativă care va capăta în timp stabilitatea unei adevărate norme lexicale, sintagma de toate zilele putând fi regăsită în textele lui Antim Ivireanul şi în Biblia de la Bucureşti şi de aici în unele versiuni ulterioare ale textelor biblice. Creată în contextul introducerii limbii naţionale în biserică, sintagma pâinea (noastră) cea de toate zilele a câştigat stabilitatea unui component definitiv al mentalităţii colective româneşti, dincolo de orice opţiune culturală, teologică sau confesională. Prin generalizare, această sintagmă adjectivală a ajuns să aparţină fondului frazeologic primar al limbii române, desemnând „hrana necesară pentru trai”; p. ext. „mijloace necesare vieţii”, sensuri cu care este frecvent atestată în texte literare şi în vorbirea cotidiană.

284 Exemplul de mai sus evidenţiază modalităţile concrete de racordare a limbii române literare, prin intermediul traducerilor religioase, la ceea ce s- a numit „comunitatea conceptuală europeană”; ulterior, în secolele al XVIII-lea, al XIX-lea şi al XX-lea, acestei filiere i se va adăuga sursa textelor moderne în funcţie de laicizarea şi diversificarea culturii. Dacă latina a modelat în chip hotărâtor începuturile limbilor de cultură occidentale moderne, greaca, iniţial prin intermediul slavonei ecleziastice, iar mai apoi direct, a transmis limbii române literare incipiente, modelul său lingvistic, traducerile având un rol bine determinat.

Bibliografie:  Coşeriu, E. (1977) Lo erroneo y lo acertado en la teoria de la trduccion, in vol El hombre y su lenguaje. Estudios de teoria y metodologia linguistica, Editorial Gredos, Madrid,1977, pp. 215-239  Miron, P. (1988) O nouă ediţie a Bibliei lui Şerban, in vol. Biblia 1688, Pars I, Genesis, Iaşi  Munteanu, E. (1995) Studii de lexicologie biblică, Editura Universităţii « Al.I.Cuza » Iaşi  Wandruszka, M. (1972) Perspectives interlinguistiques, Cursurile de vară şi colocviile ştiinţifice, Sinaia

ROMANUL OBSEDANTULUI DECENIU: DE LA ALEGORIA CORECTĂ POLITIC LA PARABOLĂ

Alina Crihană Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos” din Galaţi

L’éparpillement des apparences de libéralisme dans la Roumanie des années ’70 augmente un traumatisme refoulé par les écrivains et l’effet de cette schizoïdie sera l’apparition d’une littérature « ésopique », soupape défoulatrice autant pour le public confronté progressivement à la terreur que pour l’artiste consolé à l’intérieur du royaume de la fiction. La parabole devient la formule romanesque maîtresse : en s’appuyant sur la fiction de l’« obsédante décennie », en particulier, l’histoire diégétique dénonce, par l’intermédiaire des allégories, des symboles et des mythes, la falsification de l’Histoire nationale. Le roman devient le terrain symbolique du retour du refoulé, l’espace fictionnel où l’idéologie régnante est dépourvue de ses apparences rationnelles et révèle son visage monstrueux. Tout en privilégiant, sur le plan thématique, le rapport entre l’individu et l’Histoire, cette formule romanesque assume la démythification des

285 métanarrations politiques officielles. Figures, scénarios et décors qui se placent, d’une manière patente, dans le sillage des mythes primordiaux y sont entraînés dans un processus de « défiguration, qui vise à dévoiler ce qui se tenait caché dans le discours de l’origine », à savoir le discours du pouvoir totalitaire.

Un personaj din romanul Obligado de Constantin Ţoiu crede „că în proză azi nu mai contează intriga sau conflictul, contează ‘magia’ scrisului (…); n-o ai, degeaba umpli tu sute de pagini cu fel de fel de probleme politico-sociale care pe lângă faptul că au început să cam plictisească lumea, mai erau ‘şi incomplete’.” Sorin Viţeleanu, de profesie…critic literar, îl citează pe Nabokov, model declarat, opunând, cu ocazia unui cenaclu organizat în salonul unui „nume în literatura română”, poetica narativă a maestrului - maculaturii prolecultiste. Dincolo de aspectul autoreflexiv al discursului „şiretului” Minos, să remarcăm că reacţia împotriva realismului socialist (în cadrul cenaclului, „celebrul” Durău citea o astfel de nuvelă) trimite aluziv la „oboseala” romanului politic. La distanţă de douăzeci de ani, un alt mare critic se întreba, cu o oarecare amărăciune, cine mai citeşte astăzi „parabolele politice” ale anilor ’70, în epoca atâtor „post-...isme” şi a Internetului? Să îndrăznim să o spunem: cu excepţia specialiştilor, mulţi dintre ei înclinând să limiteze fenomenul literar circumscris deceniilor 7 şi 8, mai cu seamă, la o ipostaziere în formulă mai mult sau mai puţin „esopică” a aberaţiilor epocii totalitare, nimeni. La fel de sigur pare să fie faptul, însă, că un cititor căruia respectivul context istoric îi este cvasinecunoscut şi care, determinat de cine ştie ce împrejurări, s-ar apuca să răsfoiască F, Vânătoarea regală, Galeria cu viţă sălbatică, Bunavestire sau Don Juan, Refugii sau Biblioteca din Alexandria, Păsările sau Lumea în două zile, ar trece foarte rapid peste „problemele politico-sociale” şi, poate, ar descoperi în aceste romane, dincolo de „magia scrisului”, profunzimea semnificaţiilor general-umane. Unui astfel de cititor căruia profunda alienare din anii dictaturii îi rămâne străină, întrucât nu a trăit-o, cărţile respective i-ar oferi un alt tip de „consolare”: e aproape sigur că acesta ar fi incapabil să detecteze „şopârlele”, pentru că nici că i-ar trece prin cap să le caute. Citind, de pildă, în romanul de la începutul anilor ’80 al lui Petre Sălcudeanu, Biblioteca din Alexandria, istoria cu scroafa Aneta care, incapabilă să se mai ridice din cauza greutăţii, adăpostea sub cutele de grăsime o întreagă colonie de şobolani (şi care, hrănită cu mâncarea tuberculoşilor, moare după o criză de hemoptizie), tânărul respectiv ar avea dificultăţi să identifice dincolo de aluzia transparentă la „tovarăşa Ana”, chipul distorsionat al altei „Doamne de fier”. E mai sigur, însă, că acest cititor ar descoperi în istoriile cu

286 „animale bolnave” prezente în mai toate romanele generaţiei ’60, ceea ce fascinează, încă, după secole, în fabulele indiene (sau cele ale lui Esop sau La Fontaine), în Romanul Vulpii sau Călătoriile lui Gulliver, sau, mai aproape de noi, în Ferma animalelor sau Metamorfoza. Un cititor din zilele noastre nu-l va identifica în „Marele Take Bunghez” din Galeria cu viţă sălbatică, autor de „drame istorice” cu aspect de farse groteşti, pe cutare politruc din „epoca de tristă amintire”, aşa cum, cu siguranţă, nu va putea s- o facă, în absenţa comentariilor de subsol, nici în cazul vistiernicului Flimnap, campion la sărituri pe frânghie în Lilliput, mascând aluzia politică la Robert Walpole, înalt demnitar în Anglia secolului al XVIII-lea. Revenind la „amicul” Viţeleanu–Minos, „Judecător al Asiei” în „lumea” încărcată de ezoterism a romanului lui Ţoiu, să amintim că acesta are o teorie asupra raportului dintre ficţiune şi realitate (o supratemă a romanului şaizecist). El crede că „unii care se uită la lume, care privesc la lume, fiindcă ăsta-i rostul lor, al criticilor, să privească şi să aleagă din ce văd ei ceva, şi să pună pe pânză, în versuri, mă rog, fiecare pe craca lui, cum stă şi observă realitatea (…). Cam patru cincimi din acest cadru,” spune criticul literar, „nu ne privesc direct”, întrucât acestea constituie teritoriul „zeilor”, acoperit de „nori” (s.n.). „Ei bine (…), abia a cincea cincime, aia de jos, conta, şi aia era câmpia întinsă până la orizont (…). Noi, a zis rar ca la şcoală (s.n.), pe această câmpie vedem un c…(…). Un excrement, sigiliul nostru terestru: ce-am mâncat şi-am mistuit şi-am scos pe maţe înălţând un purcoi orgolios, sfidător, un pestilenţial Turn Babel (…).” „Lecţia” personajului „spurcat la gură” al lui Constantin Ţoiu, o sclipitoare fabulă în interiorul căreia poetica ficţiunii întâlneşte teoria receptării şi, în egală măsură, „critica criticii”, are meritul de a arăta că interpretarea dată unei opere de artă, să zicem a romanului, este determinată de o serie de factori care îi sunt extrinseci; dincolo de mecanismele textuale care „programează” lectura construind ipostaza ideală a unui Cititor Model, „capabil să coopereze la actualizarea textuală la fel cum gândea (…) autorul [1], maşinăria „leneşă” “trăieşte din plusvaloarea de sens introdusă (…) de destinatar”[2]. Semnificaţiile atribuite operei depind, aşadar, de poziţionarea celui care o „citeşte” în spaţiul dintre intenţionalitatea, afişată sau nu, a autorului şi propriul sistem de competenţe. Capacitatea de a distinge, dincolo de „nori”, teritoriul sacru al „zeilor” propus de imaginarul simbolic (mitic) pus în circulaţie în romanele generaţiei ’60, este, nu în ultimul rând, o chestiune de „conivenţă culturală”. Fie că ne raportăm la cititorul marcat de contextul psihoistoric (din epoca în care aceste romane au fost publicate), fie că ne raportăm la acela din zilele noastre – avem în vedere atât cititorul „obişnuit” cât şi

287 Cititorul Model – delimitarea formelor ficţiunii narative, de la „parabola”politică, la parabola condiţiei umane sau la aceea „a literaturii”, se dovedeşte a fi o problemă de interpretare. Limitându-ne la „cadrul” tabloului imaginat de personajul din Obligado (deci la ceea ce autorul propune spre interpretare), vom avea mai întâi prilejul să constatăm, în romanele generaţiei ’60, o construcţie pe paliere a semnificaţiilor: la baza piramidei (pe suprafaţa plană a „câmpiei”) vom descoperi sintemele „obsedantului deceniu”, „sigiliul terestru” (s.n.) care „fixează” aceste opera în contextul istoric, politico-social; urcând spre vârf vom întâlni parabola [3] autentică, întemeiată pe structuri ale imaginarului mitic supuse unei „reinvestigări” (de la miturile primordiale la marile mituri literare: Don Quijote, Don Juan, Robinson , Faust etc.). Rămâne de văzut, apoi, în ce măsură „purcoiul pestilenţial” este îndreptăţit să aspire la statutul de „Turn Babel”; ar fi să dublăm mişcarea verticală de la alegorie la simbol, cu o secţionare orizontală, de natură să evidenţieze cât de „răsuflată” este „povestea asta”, „istoria” (cum o numeşte Iuliu Ortopan, profesor de istorie şi „maestru spiritual” în Însoţitorul). Cu alte cuvinte, să mai scormonim puţin şi prin gunoi.

Alegorie şi simbol. Mit. Unul dintre naratorii din Vânătoarea regală (1976) de D.R. Popescu, un tânăr „căutător de adevăr”, îi povesteşte anchetatorului Tică Dunărinţu (tot un Hamlet/ Don Quijote) o istorie care l-a marcat în copilărie: locuitorii din Câmpuleţ, cuprinşi de „febra turbării”, ajung să transforme o nuntă într- un spectacol grotesc, în cadrul căruia, actori şi spectatori deopotrivă, latră şi muşcă, pe fondul muzical asigurat de ţiganii lăutari. Perspectiva asupra episodului nunţii transformate, imediat, în „alai de înmormântare” (oamenii speriaţi că au turbat se îndreaptă spre dispensar jelind) este una dublă: cea a copilului Nicanor care începuse să conştientizeze mecanismul Puterii, şi cea a tânărului medicinist (un „spintecător al burţii Istoriei”, ca doctorul Şuşu al lui Ţoiu), care comentează evenimentele de pe poziţia maturităţii conferite de timp. Observaţia acestuia din urmă – înscriindu-se în palierul „sapienţial”, structură redundantă în romanele şaizeciste, în legătură cu „drumul fără viitor” al sătenilor („Dar nu toate localităţile se numesc Câmpuleţ. Asta se vede pe orice hartă” – s.n.) marchează distanţa dintre două grile de lectură exhibate de text. Este distanţa, în egală măsură, dintre două forme ale ficţiunii: o alegorie politică mascând realităţile satului românesc postbelic şi o parabolă simbolică despre condiţia umană. (Ne vom distanţa în acest punct de opinia formulată de Nicolae Manolescu în Arca lui Noe [4] care pune pe acelaşi plan alegoria şi simbolul, într-o analiză, altfel, pertinentă şi seducătoare).

288 Cine citeşte romanele generaţiei ’60 ale căror „fabule” se fixează pe contextul istoric al României postbelice, atunci când nu îşi plasează „acţiunea” în teritorii „neidentificabile” (ca Racul lui Alexandru Ivasiuc, Viaţa pe un peron de Octavian Paler sau Lunga călătorie a prizonierului de S.Titel), va constata că, în aproape toate cazurile, este inserată aici o istorie din anii „obsedantului deceniu”. Indiferent de spaţiul care-i este acordat, indiferent de poziţia pe care se plasează în planul raportului dintre naraţiune şi istorie, ficţiunea respectivă se constituie într-un element redundant în ansamblul romanelor amintite. O bună parte a criticii „tinere” s-a grăbit, aşa cum s-a remarcat, să înghesuie aceste cărţi în „cămăruţa cu vechituri “a istoriei literare (ca să nu spunem de-a dreptul la „groapa de gunoi”), considerând că, nemaiavând pe cine să consoleze în contextul postdecembrist, rolul lor s-a încheiat. Cu observaţia, reînnoită, că respectivele demersuri critice se limitează la aspectele de conţinut (schematism al fabulei, personaje stereotipe, teme redundante), neglijând structurile formale (atunci când nu se referă, vag, la „esopism”) să încercăm să descriem scenariul director al ficţiunii despre „obsedantul deceniu”. Un personaj a cărui criză existenţială reflectă criza lumii în care trăieşte, fie că este vorba de aceea rurală (ca în romanele lui Fănuş Neagu, D.R.Popescu, S.Titel ş.a.), fie - de aceea citadină (A. Buzura, N. Breban, C.Ţoiu, Al.Ivasiuc etc.), fie de una situată la confluenţa primelor două, încearcă să-şi regăsească echilibrul prin intermediul reconstituirii trecutului (rememorare, confesiune dublată de (auto)analiză, indiferent de gradul implicării în istoria respectivă: istorie personală sau istorie a altora, ca în romanul–anchetă, sau ambele). Trecutul (prin „natura” sa de timp închis între nişte limite) îi apare personajului, la începutul questei sale, ca un domeniu al certitudinii în care ar putea afla soluţia ieşirii din labirintul prezentului. Operaţia de reconstituire se poate întemeia fie pe simpla anamneză sau pe consemnarea confesiunilor unor martori, fie pe ordonarea unor documente scrise, „istoriografice” sau personale, aşa cum am arătat.„Căutătorul de adevăr” (anchetator sau anchetat, sau şi una şi cealaltă) valorizează trecutul prin raportarea permanentă la prezent („lumea răsturnată”); întotdeauna un trecut circumscris „obsedantului deceniu” va fi „demonizat” („cu voie de la miliţie”, ar spune criticii tineri), în timp ce, în cele mai multe cazuri, acela „fixat” la începutul secolului sau în epoca interbelică, va fi idealizat: „feţele” lumii / Istoriei oscilează între utopie şi distopie, niciodată reperabile în stare pură. Acest traseu al cărui ţel este exorcizarea Răului (Istoria interiorizată) ca temelie a „răzbirii la lumină”, este punctat de confruntarea cu „figurile” sale emblematice: să le numim Diavolul dimpreună cu cohorta lui de „demoni mărunţi”. Erou şi forţe ale Răului sunt, în egală măsură, integrabili în categoria

289 „ficţionarilor”, trăiesc, cu alte cuvinte, în afara realităţii, hrănindu-se cu iluzii: primul, izolat în insula interioară, va eşua întotdeauna în planul „realului (ca Hamlet sau Don Quijote), cei din urmă îmbătaţi de iluzia Puterii, vor sfârşi prin a fi striviţi. Erou, căutare a idealului, luptă cu Răul …să nu uităm să adăugăm eşecurile în iubire (ale eroilor romanelor lui Buzura, Ivasiuc, Ţoiu…); bine, dar acesta este tiparul etern al al romanescului, de la marile epopei ale Antichităţii, întemeiate pe scenarii mitice, la alegoriile medievale, romanele picareşti, istorice, realiste etc, cu oscilaţiile specifice marilor mişcări cultural-religioase şi cu valorizările ambivalente ale imaginarului (pozitivisme şi rezistenţe faţă de ele) cu tot. În acest punct ni se pot aduce cel puţin două obiecţii: pe de o parte, că „schema” propusă implică, deja, o interpretare şi, pe de altă parte, că ea e îmbrăcată, în romanele şaizeciste, de conţinuturi social-politice specifice României comuniste. Interpretarea care însoţeşte schema de mai sus are menirea de a arăta că analiza pură a structurilor tematice păcătuieşte prin generalizare; temele sunt aceleaşi, indiferent de epocă: raportul individ- istorie, subordonat marii teme a condiţiei umane traversează literatura de la Antichitate până în prezent. Ceea ce conferă specificitate structurilor tematice eterne este punerea lor în relaţie cu anumite forme; este constatarea cea mai banală cu putinţă. În ceea ce priveşte cea de-a doua obiecţie, un răspuns adecvat presupune o reconsiderare a strategiilor prin intermediul cărora, în romanele generaţiei ’60, Ficţiunea „citeşte” Istoria. Criticii care agreează vocabula „esopism” îşi întemeiază demersul pe o confuzie terminologică: aceea dintre alegorie şi simbol. Spre deosebire de alegorie care, în calitate de „traducere concretă a unei idei greu de sesizat sau de exprimat simplu”, apelează la un sistem de semne ce „conţin întotdeauna un element concret sau exemplar al semnificatului”, în cazul „imaginaţi(ei) simbolic(e) propriu-zis(e). (…) semnificatul nu mai este de loc prezentabil” iar „semnul nu poate să se refere decât la un sens şi nu la un lucru sensibil” [5]. G. Durand distinge, de pildă, în interiorul Evangheliilor între „parabole”, adevărate ansambluri simbolice ale Împărăţiei, şi simplele ‘exemple’ morale: Bunul Samaritean, Lazăr şi Bogătaşul cel Rău etc., care sunt doar nişte apologuri alegorice. „Simbolul este, conform aceleiaşi opinii, ca şi alegoria, trimitere a sensibilului de la figurat la semnificat, dar el este, prin natura însăşi a semnificatului inaccesibil, şi epifanie, adică apariţie, prin şi în semnificant, a indicibilului”[6]. Dat fiind faptul că sfera semnificantului simbolic este inaccesibilă simţurilor (aparţinând domeniului transcendenţei, aceste „obiecte” imposibil de perceput vor constitui întotdeauna subiectele predilecte ale metafizicii, artei, religiei, magiei), simbolul, „inadecvat prin esenţă, adică para-bolă”, este „transfigurarea unei reprezentări concrete

290 printr-un sens pentru totdeauna abstract. Simbolul este deci o reprezentare care face să apară un sens secret, el este epifania unui mister”[7]. Dacă în cazul alegoriei, atât semnificantul cât şi semnificantul tradus de el sunt strict delimitaţi, (alegoria, asemenea emblemei are un singur sens), în cazul simbolului, cei doi termeni „infinit deschişi”, având în comun redundanţa, îi conferă acestuia o pluralitate de sensuri. Adoptând drept criteriu principiul redundanţei (care „nu este tautologică, ci perfecţionantă prin aproximări accumulate”[8], G.Durand propune o clasificare a semnificanţilor simbolici în măsură să „corecteze” şi să „completeze” inadecvarea la semnificat: simbolurile rituale (caracterizate prin redundanţa gesturilor ), simbolurile mitice (miturile şi ansamburile de parabole, cum e acela evanghelic al „Împărăţiei lui Dumnezeu” prezintă o redundanţă manifestată la nivelul „anumitor raportări logice şi lingvistice, între idei şi imagini exprimate verbal”) şi, în fine, simbolurile iconografice („‘copia’ redundantă a unui loc, a unui chip, a unui model, desigur, dar şi reprezentarea de către spectator a ceea ce pictorul a reprezentat deja tehnic…”) [9]. Romanul generaţiei ’60 a construit imaginea unei lumi marcate de o profundă criză apelând la reliefarea, prin intermediul unui sistem de redundanţe, a unor destine prototipice; rămâne de văzut în ce măsură această imagine este alegorică sau simbolică şi deci, în ce măsură lumea respectivă se raportează la un spaţiu şi timp strict delimitate (un semnificant unic) sau la o „sumă” de permanenţe umane. Să urmărim aceste redundanţe în câteva romane publicate în deceniul al optulea, diferite ca formulă narativă dar care au în comun, la nivelul fabulei, o istorie plasată în anii ’50: Păsările (1970) de Al. Ivasiuc, Orgolii (1977) de A. Buzura, Biblioteca din Alexandria (1980) de P. Sălcudeanu, Ploile de dincolo de vreme de D.R. Popescu şi Galeria cu viţă sălbatică (1976) de C. Ţoiu. Dacă ne limităm la fabulă, vom identifica în toate aceste romane stereotipiile prezentate în schema de mai sus: un căutător de adevăr (Liviu Dunca – inginer constructor şi geolog, Ion Cristian – chirurg eminent aflat în căutarea unui citostatic care să învingă cancerul, Petre Curta – scriitor în devenire lucrând la o carte – memorial despre foştii ilegalişti eliminaţi de la putere, Tică Dunărinţu – procuror care investighează o posibilă crimă cu substrat politic şi Chiril Merişor – redactor la un ziar cu profil „cultural”), implicat într-o anchetă cu miză politică, având în spate o sumă de eşecuri (întotdeauna un eşec în iubire) şi ambiţionând să afle un antidot împotriva „morţii psihice”. Un traseu existenţial şi un profil moral aproape identice îi unesc pe aceşti Don Quijote (aluzia la modelul respectiv este redundantă în toate aceste romane) pe care exilul interior autoimpus şi un comportament rezumabil în formula „a-ţi urma drumul până la capăt”, în

291 ciuda conştientizării distanţei infinite între propriul ideal şi realitatea degradată, îi fac să apară în ochii lumii ca nebuni şi ridicoli. Să remarcăm că toţi au o mică ciudăţenie: Liviu Dunca vede sau îşi închipuie că vede o apariţie feminină (obsedanta Doamnă în verde), Ion Cristian se autoclaustrează în propriul laborator unde stă de vorbă cu câinii folosiţi la experimente (pe care i-a obişnuit să fumeze), Petre Curta hrăneşte lupi într- o poieniţă din împrejurimile sanatoriului de tuberculoşi, Tică Dunărinţu apelează la informaţiile unor „nebuni” – Circarul Francisc şi baba Sevastiţa, călătoare în Iad şi în Rai, iar Chiril Merişor vede o „fantomă” (cel puţin aceasta este perspectiva apropiaţilor, până la un punct, despre statmajorist). Să mai constatăm că, în toate cazurile, în aceste destine exemplare (din care nu lipseşte experienţa închisorii asociată cu momentul revelaţiei) este implicată o carte: pe Liviu Dunca îl obsedează biblioteca transferată în pod din vechea casă a familiei (între zecile de cărţi de drept se află un atlas ale cărui imagini înfăţişând uriaşe păsări de mare îl urmăresc de-a lungul existenţei); Ion Cristian pătimeşte din cauza unei proiectate cărţi despre fascism (materialul adunat se va constitui în probă incriminatorie determinând aruncarea lui în închisoare); Petre Curta găseşte soluţia învingerii absurdului în scrierea unei cărţi ( pentru care va fi anchetat) în care să redea adevăratul chip al Istoriei; în Ploile de dincolo de vreme „cartea” e legată de destinul unui dublu al lui Tică, Adrian (fostul puşcăriaş, proiectând o crimă!), obsedat de un basm din copilărie; în fine, Chiril Merişor este anchetat şi moare în închisoare, spânzurat, din cauza unui Jurnal, „periscopul” prin care „se străduia să refacă realitatea, imposibil de a fi altfel percepută…” Despre simbolismul tutelar al Cărţii vom mai avea prilejul să vorbim. Deocamdată ne mulţumim să constatăm că aceasta este, în toate cazurile, asociată cu un anume spaţiu securizant – acela al utopiei interioare în care individul rămâne „indestructibil”. Să mai spunem că toate aceste personaje au o imagine ideală despre „adevăratul” comunism (Chiril va declara într-o şedinţă că, mai presus de orice altceva, „comunismul este omul”) şi că, în replică, toţi vor fi excluşi din partid? E foarte evident că respectivul segment, plasat în contextul „obsedantului deceniu”, face parte din „micile compromisuri” făcute cu cenzura. Redundanţele reperate până aici în sfera tipologiei, a fabulei romaneşti în general (le-am putea adăuga şi altele), se circumscriu strict sferei tematice; limitându-ne la aceasta din urmă ne-ar fi imposibil să facem distincţia între nişte cărţi profund diferite în planul „magiei” scriiturii şi nu numai. La un prim nivel de lectură, protagoniştii romanelor sus-menţionate par să ilustreze un prototip încadrat într-o istorie care se apropie, prin repetiţiile frizând convenţia, de modelul apologului. Aşa cum am avut prilejul să constatăm (în capitolul anterior), în romanul şaizecist nici un

292 personaj, indiferent de statutul pe care-l are în interiorul fabulei, nu constituie un caz emblematic pentru o ordine morală în stare pură. Fiecare protagonist situându-se sub semnul dublului, el este prins într-o reţea de dubluri şi dedublaţi care include deopotrivă „victimele” şi „călăii”. Pentru Liviu Dunca (Păsările), incapabil să se regăsească într-o lume în care oamenii i se par „bolnavi de amnezie lacunară”, aceea din care face parte propria familie, („mecanisme repetând gesturi stereotipe”), reconstituirea unui trecut marcat de eşecuri (trădat de logodnica pentru care „conceptul de frică” este o „regulă de viaţă superioară”, apoi de fostul său maestru, Cheresteşiu, devenit colonel de Securitate, sclavul necesităţii istorice, al lui „crede şi nu cerceta”, trece prin experienţa revelatorie a închisorii) pare să fie soluţia ieşirii din criză. Rememorările succesive transpuse în confesiuni cu valoare terapeutică au drept efect situarea acestui trecut sub semnul unei perpetue automistificări („M-am falsificat, poate dintr-un ciudat orgoliu mazochist.”), generată de confuzia dintre lumea reală (în tinereţea petrecută pe şantier, înainte de anchetare şi condamnare, oamenii îi apăruseră ca o „masă cenuşie”, fără nici un fel de individualizare”) şi ficţiunea personală întemeiată pe mitologia „adevărului istoric”. Conştientizarea distanţei dintre cuvintele „mari” („devenisem(...) prizonierii lor”) şi realitatea stând sub semnul măştilor, al aparenţei nu este singurul punct în care traseul existenţial al călăului („Marelui Mahăr” Dumitru Vinea, rivalul lui Dunca, spectacolul morţii îi dezvăluie adevărul unei lumi de coşmar în spatele propriei ficţiuni construite din „adevărul” lozincilor) se suprapune peste cel al victimei. În cartea lui Al. Ivasiuc călăi (D.Vinea, tovarăşa Victoriţa, „marele” Sebişan, Cheresteşiu – securistul) şi victime (Dunca şi Margareta Vinea) împărtăşesc acelaşi destin marcat de un moment al „dreptului pus la încercare”, apoi de o neobosită luptă pentru salvarea unei ficţiuni legitimatoare căreia revelaţia nimicului mascat de cuvinte (momentul demistificării) îi pune capăt definitiv (Margareta, Ştefania demonstrează că nu toate închisorile se numesc Elsinore şi că un destin ca al Ofeliei „se vede pe orice hartă”), sau temporar. În plus, fiecare istorie având drept protagonist un personaj doar aparent integrabil uneia dintre cele două „categorii” aflate în raport de compensare reciprocă, le luminează pe celelalte într-un perpetuu joc al oglinzilor paralele. Indiferent de spaţiul „concret” în care este plasată aventura cunoaşterii, între momentul „căderii” marcând prăbuşirea iluziilor şi acela al „ridicării către lumină” marcând tentativa recuceririi libertăţii interioare (oraşul provincial, şantierul tinereţii lui Dunca, închisoarea, culoarele Securităţii „casa cu cai pe pereţi” a Margaretei, uzina patronată de „tatăl” Vinea şi „mama” Victoriţa, pădurea în care se desfăşoară „vânătoarea regală” a mai-marilor politici, etc.), lumea din Păsările poartă pecetea teatrului, un decor în

293 veşnică metamorfoză, o scenă pe care actori aparent diferiţi joacă în una şi aceeaşi „dramă” a rolurilor impuse de scenariul Istoriei. Romanul lui Ivasiuc este construit în baza principiului redundanţei (atingând atât „mythosul” cât şi gramatica narativă), identificabil, în egală măsură, în cărţile citate ale lui A. Buzura, P. Sălcudeanu, D. R. Popescu şi C. Ţoiu. În Orgolii toată lumea este bolnavă de „cancer”: de la Creatorul/Tiran Ion Cristian (neobositul căutător al antidotului pentru care-şi sacrifică întreaga existenţă este şi cel care încearcă să „dicteze” propriul model în primul rând fiului şi, în cele din urmă, tuturor celor cu care intrase vreodată în contact), trecând prin categoria „demonilor mărunţi” (de la marele trădător Redman şi „prietenii” din conducerea universităţii ai lui Cristian, până la micul delator, semnatarul „jurnalului”) şi până la câinii învăţaţi să fumeze. (Să n-o uităm nici, mai ales, pe „Sybila” – Cristina Fărcaşiu, iniţiatoarea în eros a lui Ion Cristian într-o tinereţe a idealurilor în plin avânt, bătrâna crescătoare de lupi, bolnavă de cancer, în „prezentul” naraţiunii). Unii sunt doar ameninţaţi de el: mai tânărul asistent al chirurgului, Anania, la fel de tânăra Vera, iubita acestuia şi, mai ales, Andrei, fiul. În romanul lui Augustin Buzura cancerul se numeşte „moarte psihică” şi el atinge deopotrivă victimele şi călăii. Şi personajele romanului lui Sălcudeanu, Biblioteca din Alexandria, sunt bonave: de tuberculoză. Toţi pacienţii sanatoriului de pe „muntele vrăjit” imaginat de acest prozator „mânjit” sunt foşti ilegalişti detronaţi de regimul în fruntea căruia se află tovarăşa Ana şi apropiaţii ei. Între victimele utopiei personale, vinovate în trecut de moartea a sute de oameni, o lume pestriţă în interiorul căreia „boala” aduce la acelaşi numitor pe „maestrul” Isaac Landesmann şi tiranul Lică Cozmin, pe „nebunul” căutător al „florii vieţii”, Visalon, şi pe nebunul Costache, cel care-şi hrăneşte teiul cu propriul sânge infectat, pe „îngrijiţi” şi pe „îngrijitori” (exemplele pot continua până la epuizarea reţelei de dubluri şi dedublaţi care constituie, în roman, întreaga galerie a personajelor), se află un „scriitoraş în devenire”. Misiunea lui Petre Curta, una impusă de împrejurări dar şi, mai ales, una asumată în deplina conştiinţă a sacrificiului personal, este aceea de a converti „purcoiul pestilenţial” alcătuit din vieţile retrăite pe calea anamnezei (dublată de confesiune) ale „foştilor” într-o Istorie „adevărată” (renăscuta „bibliotecă din Alexandria”), în egală măsură exorcizare şi renaştere. Petre Curta, „ţap şi duhovnic” asemeni lui Isac Sumbasacu din Galeria cu viţă sălbatică, oficiază un „botez” colectiv (aşa cum o atestă între altele, imaginea simbolică a arborelui – arcă din finalul cărţii protagonistului şi a lui Sălcudeanu), incluzând propria fiinţă; la capătul traseului, după suprimarea lupilor/porci devastatori ai oricărui paradis sfidând Istoria, Curta/Visalon surâde noii „imago mundi”: tânăra

294 pădure de brazi hrănind cu oxigen plămânii ciuruiţi ai tuberculoşilor este deopotrivă, epifania pădurii de simboluri pe care o propune Biblioteca din Alexandria. Prin intermediul acesteia din urmă, romanul lui Petre Sălcudeanu se raportează, dincolo de Istoria mai mult sau mai puţin „falsificată”, la o Metaistorie: asemeni Muntelui magic, modelul declarat din prima pagină, el este o parabolă. Ploile de dincolo de vreme se deschide cu o scenă (showing) ai cărei protagonişti sunt un tânăr proaspăt ieşit din închisoare şi gardianul care-l însoţise până la poartă; după un schimb de replici oarecum tăioase, cei doi pleacă împreună, ca nişte vechi cunoştinţe, la o bere. Dacă identitatea naratorului rămâne ambiguă, aşa cum se întâmplă în cazul majorităţii povestirilor (sunt optzeci de micronaraţiuni) care alcătuiesc romanul, perspectiva este una bine precizată: ea este atribuită unui personaj diform care, de la „înălţimea” patului-tron din chirpici pe care este aşezat, îi vedea pe cei doi „ca într-o oglindă”...(s.n.). Romanul lui D.R. Popescu începe cu o secvenţă de tip „mise en abyme”, a cărei funcţie poate fi, în acest punct, eventual intuită, nicidecum identificabilă cu precizie, dar care se „luminează” treptat graţie „cioburilor de oglindă” presărate în întreg corpul textului. Perspectiva „monstrului” Eftimie, figură dublă în interiorul căreia Diavolul şi Maestrul spiritual se află în raport de echilibru compensatoriu (se cuvine să facem precizarea că piticul cu rudimente de membre îi „vedea” pe cei doi graţie aptitudunilor sale telepatice, de la kilometri distanţă), reflectă „ordinea” lumii răsturnate, redundantă în romanele lui D.R.Popescu şi ale colegilor săi de generaţie. Scena plasată în incipit este una emblematică: în Ploile de dincolo de vreme, graniţele dintre victime şi călăi sunt imposibil de delimitat (graţie mai ales jocurilor temporale şi de perspectivă), tot aşa cum e dificil de precizat dacă ridicătura de pământ pe care stă Eftimie este un pat sau un tron. În fiecare dintre personaje se dă o luptă între întuneric şi lumină: între închiderea într-o existenţă stând sub semnul rotirii autodevorante în cerc, a cărei emblemă este veşnic renăscutul Moise-ouroboros, şi voinţa de a o transcende, chiar dacă aceasta din urmă se manifestă în sensul construirii de ficţiuni consolatoare (Circarul „nebun” Francisc se vrea „Împărat al norilor” domnind peste un paradis de carton şi tablă vopsite în culori ţipătoare; „diabolicul” Moise încearcă să dribleze moartea psihică în braţele femeii căreia, se pare, i-ar fi trimis bărbatul la moarte; tânărul Adrian, asemeni dublului său din basm - Mistriceanu cel pe jumătate înghiţit se şarpe – crede că exorcizarea răului interior e posibilă prin uciderea celui care l-a declanşat şi aşa mai departe.) Personajele lui D.R. Popescu sunt simboluri într-o carte care vorbeşte despre „geneze” (una dintre acestea

295 este propria geneză) apelând la miturile primordiale – fie ele iudeo-creştine, persane, egiptene, greceşti sau mexicane – interpretabile şi (re)interpretate din două perspective diferite: a Creatorilor lor (unii dintre ei având chipul Diavolului, ca Dolângă, ucigătorul de lupi, sau Moise) şi a celor cărora ele le sunt destinate. Doar aparent opuse, cele două categorii sunt veşnic substituibile: în Ploile de dincolo de vreme fiecare narator devine personaj, renăscând sub un alt chip în ficţiunile create de ceilalţi. Pentru a pune ordine în Babelul Istoriei, deci pentru a atinge statutul de Creator la care aspiră, căutătorul de adevăr Tică Dunărinţu ar trebui să aibă curajul distrugerii; noul Hamlet de la Câmpuleţ (sau cun s-o fi numind) este însă incapabil de acest act ce presupune, mai întâi, înfruntarea propriilor „demoni” raţionalişti. Este sensul lecţiei de istoria religiilor pe care i-o ţine Magicianul Francisc, interpret, ca şi baba Sevastiţa, al semnelor lumii de aici şi de dincolo (una dintre figurile „hermetice” ale cărţii): „...cosmogoniile sacre, nu numai ale caldeenilor, ale tuturor popoarelor aproape, atribuiau zeilor secundari (şi nu numai acestui mare Dumnezeu unic) organizarea şi crearea deci a lumii. Redactorul (cel care a scris geneza era şi el un fel de redactor) n-a îndrăznit să elimine un cuvânt consacrat prin uz (Elohim – geniile planetelor la perşi şi caldeeni, decanii egiptenilor etc.) – el a trecut printre cele două puteri fiind ambiguu. Romanul lui D.R.Popescu este o parabolă despre degradarea „Istoriilor sacre” create de orice putere totalitară şi despre posibilitatea renaşterii prin spintecarea burţii Istoriei, sau prin înlăturarea marii pietre care împiedică ieşirea din peştera mormânt. Să ne permitem să-l parafrazăm pe autorul Vânătorii regale: nu toate localităţile se numesc Lăzăreni. Asta se vede pe orice hartă. Şi Constantin Ţoiu scrie cărţi cu uriaşi şi pitici şi, mai ales, cu pitici cocoţaţi pe umerii uriaşilor: aceştia din urmă se numesc Shakespeare, Cervantes, Swift, Goethe sau, sigur, Mateiu Caragiale, Camil Petrescu etc. Dar aceasta este o altă viziune a „Vizuinii cu hoţi” şi despre ea va fi vorba în altă parte. Piticii din Galeria cu viţă sălbatică sunt, de fapt, de două feluri: unii, ca Harry Brummer, bătrânul anticar care crede că pe o scară a densităţii (închipuită de el) cărţile sunt cele mai grele „după plumb”, sunt ucigători de ploşniţe; ceilalţi sunt ucigători de păuni. Ei se numesc Grigore Spuderca („un drac de cancelarie”), Ariel Scarlat (arătând „ca un moşneag mic şi rău din basme), Sergiu Zecheru (tânăr romancier, fost rândaş) sau Aristică Ceilalţi (autor de voluminoase „romane rurale”). Acestora din urmă le place să joace în spectacole cu iz de farse groteşti precum acela regizat de “marele dramaturg” Take Bunghez la “Maison de l’oubli” (cum numeşte Puiu Cavadia delabratul Palat Mogoşoaia – „loc de seamă al muncilor literare”, - făcând analogia cu „sanatoriile unor distinşi bolnavi de

296 maladii subtile”). Spre deosebire de acela al lui Dante, infernul plasat în Bucureştii anilor ’50 - ’60 al lui Ţoiu este un spaţiu în care „nu se lasă la intrare nici o speranţă; din contră, sediul speranţei de-aici începea, şi-al gloriei răbdătoare” (cel puţin aşa credea Cavadia). În fine, piticii respectivi joacă într-„o dramă istorică, având şi aluzii moderne, cât fusese posibil”: Încoronarea lui Take Bunghez, al cărei protagonist e însuşi autorul şi care se încheie, după înlăturarea supuşilor neîndemânatici şi autoîncoronarea „tiranului” cu fraza acestuia din urmă: „Luaţi, mâncaţi şi mai ales beţi, aceasta este drama mea!” (s.n.) Spectacolul regizat de Fiul Dogmei („mătuşa Istoriei” cum ar spune Socratele Bufon din Însoţitorul) constituie, în fabula romanului lui Ţoiu, ceea ce era „piesa interioară” sau „teatrul în teatru” la Shakespeare: o „mise en abyme”, poate cea mai semnificativă dintre multiplele parabole autoreflexive care revelează, într-un nesfârşit joc de oglinzi, sensurile acestei cărţi reflectând o lume în care „păcatul originar” a devenit „politică de stat”. Lumea din Galeria cu viţă sălbatică este o lume pe dos în care piticii cocoţaţi pe tocuri foarte înalte sălăşluiesc în palate, fie ele „ale uitării”, în timp ce zeii (sau Gulliver-ii), mă rog, unii dintre ei, se adăpostesc fie în „crematoriu” (anticăria – Centru al regenerării), fie într-o anume „Vizuină cu hoţi” patronată, fireşte, de două călăuze în infern: Sybila Praxiteea şi Hermesul Bufon Harry Brummer. Aceştia din urmă, mai cu seamă cel de-al doilea, sunt maeştrii spirituali al lui Don Quijote, - întrucât, ca în orice parabolă, a condiţiei umane sau a literaturii, acolo unde apar forţele Răului, se naşte şi un cavaler rătăcitor dispus să le înfrunte, - în Galeria cu viţă sălbatică el se numeşte Chiril Merişor, este un (fost) comunist exclus din partid, încă încrezător în idealul pur al noii religii (ce să-i faci, cenzura) până când, aruncat în închisoare, se sinucide: ultimul său cuvânt, scris pe un pachet mototolit de Naţionale este kafkianul „indestructibil”. Delimitarea strictă a piticilor de uriaşi nu este însă, în romanul lui Ţoiu, posibilă întotdeauna; dacă ar fi aşa, el ar semăna foarte mult cu cărţile lui Aristică Ceilalţi, aprig susţinător (alături de Zecheru) al „realismului teribil” opus „lumii lui Don Quijote” a realismului magic sudamerican. Împărţirea lumii în „bufoni” şi „nebufoni” este aici, ca şi în atâtea alte romane ale generaţiei ’60, o problemă ce ţine de perspectivă; ceea ce e sigur e că toţi sunt mai mult sau mai puţin nebuni (nu şi bufoni): într-o lume condusă de pitici ce se cred uriaşi (asemeni suveranului din Lilliput) nu se poate supravieţui decât luptînd cu armele acestora. Cel care doreşte să fenteze Istoria regizată de unii ca Take Bunghez, trebuie, măcar de formă, să-şi „uite” de sine şi să-şi asume rolul de măscărici (ca maiorul Ionel Roadevin), fie pe acela de „thug”: în această ipostază, fermecătorul Fortinbras/ Cavadia (şi maestrul său, unchiul episcop) îl întâlneşte pe

297 Marele Mahăr sus-numit. Pentru noul apostol al lumii pe dos, un absolvent de Litere „obsedat de dialectica contrariilor”, hrănit cu lecturi materialiste şi …patristice, „libertatea este necesitatea înţeleasă”, iar „a cunoaşte înseamnă a fi rău”: lui Pavel Cavadia fiecare coborâre în infern, culminând cu aceea - grotescă – de la „Maison de l’oubli” (cînd în timp ce nepotul de episcop oficiază liturghia, Zecheru urinează pe pereţii cavoului) îi întăreşte „credinţa”. Nu este cazul celor care, asemeni lui Chiril (figură dublă, în egală măsură, în interiorul căreia căutătorul de ideal, iubitorul de „himere” ale cărui dubluri sunt Izot – copilul prooroc, Profesorul de Rezistenţa materialelor, „infirmul” Isac, procurorul Avram Pandelescu, Statmajoristul şi, evident, Harry, îl întâlneşte pe materialistul fascinat de „thug-ul Cavadia sau de „Avestiţa, fata Satanei”), se află în incapacitatea de a concilia planul ideilor cu acela al acţiunii, eşuând în aceasta din urmă. Aceştia sunt, însă, autenticii păstrători de memorie (să nu-l uităm pe popa Calist, arheolog amator şi lider spiritual al unei comunităţi trăind în afara timpului şi hrănindu-se cu o „himeră” – propria suferinţă retrăită şi re-creată prin intermediul povestirii convertite la mit). Pedeapsa lumii pentru orgolioasa lor izolare este marginalizarea: ei sunt „nebunii”, „infirmii”, „fantomele” sau „măscăricii”. Fără îndoială, romanul lui C.Ţoiu poate fi citit şi ca o alegorie politică (este una din lecturile posibile ale episodului ai cărui protagonişti sunt o anume „Doamnă de fier” şi poliţistul–filosof Ionel Roadevin, cel care îl va relata, după ani, episcopului şi apoi „hoţilor” Galeriei). A-l fixa însă în formula romanului politic despre „obsedantul deceniu” este mai mult decât o aberaţie; Galeria cu viţă sălbatică este, mai presus de orice, o parabolă: una despre condiţia umană, despre crime morale şi pedepse morale şi, poate, despre eşecul oricărui misticism, şi una a literaturii ridicate la rangul de Existenţă pe calea unui nesfârşit dialog cu modelele. În interiorul acesteia, Literatura citeşte Istoria şi o re-scrie propunând şi grilele de lectură prin intermediul vocilor unor hermeneuţi (este de pildă, cazul lui Harry interpretând-o în cheie filosofică sau psihanalitică, în faţa „ucenicului benevol” Chiril). Dacă în romanele sus-amintite contextul istoric rămâne unul din planurile la care se raportează semnificanţii simbolici (o Istorie care poartă, însă, pecetea Mitului), în Racul lui Al. Ivasiuc şi Viaţa pe un peron de O.Paler, istoria este definitiv convertită la parabolă. Este inutil să mai spunem că grila politică rămâne, şi în aceste cazuri, una dintre lecturile posibile mai cu seamă pentru cartea lui Ivasiuc (în care opţiunea pentru decorul „sudamerican” – o mică republică dictatorială, nu este din păcate, dublată de o formulă narativă „adecvată”). Imaginarul simbolic operează însă aici la un nivel superior de abstractizare; la fel ca în romanele analizate

298 ale lui C.Ţoiu şi D.R.Popescu şi, într-o mai mică măsură, poate, în cele ale lui Buzura, Sălcudeanu şi Ivasiuc, personajele din Viaţa pe un peron şi Racul sunt arhetipuri (dacă în acesta din urmă ele încă mai poartă un nume, în romanul lui O.Paler protagoniştii sunt Profesorul de istorie şi, sigur, o anume Eleonora care însă întrupează un mit, aşa cum cartea însăşi lasă să se înţeleagă), plasate însă în coordonate spaţio-temporale imposibil (Viaţa pe un peron) sau dificil de identificat istoric (Racul). În Viaţa pe un peron se construieşte, în egală măsură, o distopie totalitară, însă într-o formulă narativă diferită (naraţiune homodiegetică), având în comun cu Racul aceeaşi structură „sapienţială”, amintind de astă dată de Ecclesiast: povestire exemplară de tip rememorare, cel mai adesea (exemplul personal va fi aproape întotdeauna „legitimat” prin aluzia la un model al literaturii), urmată de „sentinţă” (în formula eseului filosofic). În baza acestui „scenariu” redundant sunt juxtapuse istoriile unor „pasiuni” (sensul biblic – traseul cristic – este exhibat) şi ale unor eşecuri, reînviate din perspectiva – dublă – a naratorului– personaj (aceea a autoexilatului în gara-grotă, a cărui voce mediază şi istoria Eleonorei, dublând istoria povestită cu comentariul revelator, şi a „actorului” care a trăit evenimentele trecutului); între cele două puncte de vedere distanţa pare să fie aceea dintre „literatură” (automistificare) şi existenţa „reală” stând sub semnul absurdului, cel puţin aşa lasă să se creadă meditaţia amară a Cristului- Bufon care este Profesorul de istorie. În realitate, „răstignit undeva între viaţă şi moarte”, între revolta lui Sisif şi resemnarea cristică, între voinţa de a acţiona a primului Don Quijote şi ezitarea lui Hamlet, Profesorul e incapabil să trăiască în afara literaturii, în ciuda conştientizării faptului că ea permite doar exorcizarea, nu şi înlăturarea răului. Pentru acest „Don Quijote în robă de magistrat” care pledează în „procesul lui Robespierre” („chipul” însuşi al Marelui Mecanism) de pe ambele poziţii, a acuzării şi a apărării, lumea este o carte („Mi-am zis atunci că lumea e plină de semne.”), iar distanţa dintre fiară şi creator e aceea dintre cufundarea în ignoranţă şi uitare şi interpretarea echivalentă cu o re-creare. În universul simbolic impregnat de memorie mitică din Viaţa pe un peron, traseul labirintic al Profesorului, Hermeneut al Istoriei şi al condiţiei umane, reface marile destine ale literaturii în configuraţii arhetipale ce traversează imaginarul cultural de la Evanghelii la proza absurdului. Profesorul se înşeală sau ne înşeală atunci când declară că lungul său memorial a fost doar o pledoarie, nu o spovedanie. Confesiunea din Viaţa pe un peron este şi una şi cealaltă: o spovedanie, dublată de o pledoarie; istoria (sau istoriile) în formulă simbolică se autocontemplă într-un şir de oglinzi „literare” care- i conferă legitimitate. Istoria „nebunului” autoexilat în „grota” ticsită de cărţi refuzând

299 vizitele prietenilor incapabili să-l înţeleagă, convinşi că „adevărul nu poate dormi în haine de saltimbanc”, recheamă din memoria literaturii marile figuri de „nebuni”: de la Cristos („să-l faci pe altul nebun când logica lui te irită...”), la personajele lui Erasmus şi Shakespeare şi, mai ales, la Cavalerul Tristei Figuri. Lecţia de istorie a profesorului – una referitoare la condiţiile care fac posibile şi întreţin totalitarismele (parabola îmblânzitorilor de cobre şi aceea a dresorilor de câini), rezumabilă în formula „Robespierre a fost împins să devină Robespierre” este, în egală măsură, una de filosofie şi una de literatură; aceasta din urmă începe cu Biblia: „Orice grotă are uneori partea ei de vină. Orice singurătate are căteva picături de sânge pe mâini. Pillat din Pont n-a fost decât un criminal igienic. Iar ghilotina a căzut nu numai în numele teroarei, ci şi al tăcerii chiar dacă această tăcere nu era decât o formă de a trăi.” Mai mult decât atât, în Viaţa pe un peron, parabola se autocomentează, cu alte cuvinte, îşi exhibă construcţia simbolică: „Pretutindeni există o pădure în care se pierde o linie ferată.(...) Şi o mlaştină unde ne trag amintirile. Eu am imaginat gări, peroane şi am trăit aşteptările”. (s.n.) Pe scena noului teatru al lumii imaginat de Octavian Paler, într-un decor arhetipal ambivalent (gara-grotă, înconjurată de o pădure, o mlaştină şi un deşert sunt, în egală măsură, spaţii ale morţii şi ale regenerării), se joacă o dramă cu un singur personaj; actorul, întruchipând „figura” dublă a condiţiei umane (Dumnezeu şi Fiara, sfântul şi şobolanul, mangusta şi cobra…) este deopotrivă scenograful şi regizorul spectacolului în care reînvie, prin vocea celui care strigă în pustie, marile parabole ale literaturii. La Judecata de Apoi a Profesorului, Istoria, chemată în banca acuzaţilor, trişează: ea nu se lasă reprezentată de marii tirani, ci îşi selectează purtătorii de cuvânt din rândurile marilor păstrători de memorie. De fapt, în romanele generaţiei ’60, Istoria, ori de câte ori îşi face apariţia, e întotdeauna „însoţită” de aceste „figuri” care o legitimează, în aceeaşi măsură în care o transcend: mituri, arhetipuri, simboluri. „Istoria oamenilor, arată G. Durand, nu este un destin obiectiv prefabricat de o fatalitate mecanică, deci materială, ea nu apare decât ca fructificarea, produsul care se iveşte din înflorirea operelor oamenilor; ea este fiica mitului (s.n.), adică a potenţialităţilor imaginative” [10]. În romanele şaizeciste se demonstrează, începând cu palierul structurilor narative (unde voci diferite îşi dispută „adevărul” Istoriei, fiecare perspectivă imprimându- i un coeficient mai mare sau mai mic de „mitologizare”, aşa cum o atestă comentariile metanarative) şi terminând cu acela al structurilor diegetice (la nivelul cărora orice istorie îşi „dezveleşte” scheletul mitic, multiplicând reţelele de imagini simbolice redundante în construcţii de tip „mise en

300 abyme“), că într-adevăr, istoria „este fiica mitului”. Şi nu este vorba aici doar de o construcţie „à thèse” a cărei miză ar fi denunţarea mitografiei oficiale; de fapt, distorsiunile operate asupra semnificaţiilor unor scenarii sau cărţi „sacre”, în romane precum cele ale lui D. R. Popescu din ciclul F (Geneza, Exodul, Apocalipsa sunt cel mai frecvent invocate în vederea construirii distopiilor întemeiate pe devalorizarea unor mituri primordiale) sau cele ale lui C.Ţoiu („Cina cea de taină” a lui Take Bunghez din Galeria cu viţă sălbatică sau „raiul” socialist din Însoţitorul) ş.a., se înscriu într-un demers ce visează demistificarea oricărei ideologii care conduce la anihilarea individului. Fără îndoială, că multe dintre aceste romane sunt parabole totalitare, însă prin recontextualizarea mitică a evenimentelor istoriei postbelice integrate unor scenarii a căror redundanţă („figuri”, „decoruri”, „trasee”) le conferă valenţe simbolice, ele se subordonează unei parabole a condiţiei umane. Pentru profesorul din Viaţa pe un peron, lumea umană degradată este oglinda „involuţiei“ lui Dumnezeu, de la neputinciosul revoltat împotriva morţii la tiranul „care şi-a ucis propriul fiu”. Însoţitorul este şi un roman politic despre lumea ieşită din matcă a României anilor ’70 -’80, dar, mai mult decât atât, este o carte despre „marile enigme ale lumii”, despre mecanismul iluziei care reglează toate religiile „de la asiro-caldeeni până la iudei, creştini şi la politicile totalitare ale secolului”, despre traseele antropologice ale Utopiilor, de la „regatul fericit” al Preotului–rege Ioan la piramidele din capete omeneşti ale tiranilor care au exploatat eterna nevoie de mit a umanităţii. Academicianul din Clopeni nu este singurul autor de disertaţii de istoria ideilor şi a mentalităţilor graţie cărora micile istorii ale indivizilor din cutare sat sau oraş românesc postbelic sunt ridicate la rangul de parabole. În fiecare dintre aceste romane există cel puţin un Creator care citeşte Istoria şi o re-scrie propunându-i şi hermenentica şi care o transformă, implicit, într-o „carte reveletă”. Călăuzele în labirinturile de oglinzi ale ficţiunii, „bătrânii înţelepţi” ca Hary Brummer, August Pălărierul, Don Iliuţă, Megaclide Pavelescu, ş.a.. ştiu că în faţa degradării ireversibile a materiei (să o numim Istorie), „singura formă care este eternitatea e povestirea (s.n.)”: „povestea unor fapte ce-au trecut ca prin vis” (F). Şi mai ştiu, ei, deţinătorii cheilor, că nu există porţi închise în lumile ficţiunii, ci doar „oameni de la ţară” obsedaţi de „complexul de închidere a porţii”. Ba chiar o declară în mod repetat. Ei, „pedagogii invizibilului” şi Cavalerii oricăror ficţiuni, Bufonii care aşează în faţa lumii (diegezei) şiruri nesfârşite de oglinzi, cerându-ţi, precum Cyrano-ul de la „Maison de l’oubli”, să repeţi, împreună cu ei, că „Noaptea e o amăgire a mea de care vreau să mă lepăd !”, sunt, însă, în cele mai multe cazuri, consideraţi nebuni.

301

Note: 1. Umberto Eco, Lector in fabula.Cooperare interpretativă în textele narative, Editura Univers, Bucureşti, 1991, p.87; 2. Ibid., p.83; 3. Cf. Gilbert Durand, Aventurile imaginii.Imaginaţia simbolică.Imaginarul, Editura Nemira, Bucureşti, 1999, care atribuie prefixului grecesc para „sensul său cel mai puternic: care nu atinge”, p.17; 4. Cf. N. Manolescu, Arca lui Noe.Eseu despre romanul românesc, colecţia 100+1, Editura Gramar, Bucureşti, 1999, pp. 632-654; 5. Gilbert Durand, op.cit., p.15; 6. Ibid., p.16; 7. Ibid., p.17; 8. Ibid., pp.17-18; 9. Ibid., p.19; 10. Gilbert Durand, Figuri mitice şi chipuri ale operei - De la mitocritică la mitanaliză-, Editura Nemira, Bucureşti, 1998, p.148.

Bibliografie: o Booth, W. (1976) Retorica romanului, Bucureşti: Univers o Braga, Corin (1999) 10 studii de arhetipologie, Cluj-Napoca: Dacia o Dällenbach, L. (1977) Le récit spéculaire. Essai sur la mise en abyme, Paris: Seuil o Durand, G. (1977) Structurile antropologice ale imaginarului, Bucureşti: Univers o Durand, G. (1998) Figuri mitice şi chipuri ale operei – De la mitocritică la mitanaliză-, Bucureşti: Nemira o Durand, G. (1999) Aventurile imaginii. Imaginaţia simbolică. Imaginarul, Bucureşti: Nemira o Eco, U. (1991) Lector in fabula.Cooperare interpretativă în textele narative, Bucureşti: Univers o Genette, G. (1987) Nouveau discours du récit, Paris: Seuil o Istrate, I. (1995) Romanul obsedantului deceniu (1945-1964), Cluj- Napoca: Diamondia o Lintvelt, J. (1994) Încercare de tipologie narativă. Punctul de vedere. Teorie şi analiză, Bucureşti: Univers o Lovinescu, M. (1994) Est-etice, Unde scurte, IV, Bucureşti: Humanitas o Manolescu, N. (1999) Arca lui Noe.Eseu despre romanul românesc, Bucureşti: Gramar o Petrescu, L. (1979) Romanul condiţiei umane, Bucureşti: Minerva,

302 o Simion, E. (2004) În ariergarda avangardei (convorbiri cu Andrei Grigor), Bucureşti: Univers enciclopedic o Spiridon, M. (1989) Melancolia descendenţei. Figuri şi forme ale memoriei generice în literatură, Bucureşti: Cartea Românească o Ţeposu, R. G. (1983) Viaţa şi opiniile personajelor, Bucureşti: Cartea Românească o Ulici, L. (1995) Literatura română contemporană ( I – Promoţia 70), Bucureşti: Eminescu o Ungureanu, C. (1985) Proza românească de azi, Bucureşti: Cartea Românească o Vlad, I. (1983) Lectura romanului, Cluj-Napoca: Dacia

ÎNTRE EROS ŞI THANATOS: O RE-LECTURĂ A IPOSTAZELOR ARHETIPALE ALE FEMINITĂŢII BACOVIENE

Nicoleta Ifrim Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos” din Galaţi

L’érotique de Bacovia s’inscrit dans une ‘dialectique de la descente’ centrée sur l’image de la féminité thanatique qui met en oeuvre le processus complexe de l’anéantissement de l’amour dans le cadre des quatre âges du soi : l’âge éthéré, l’âge aquatique, l’âge calorique et l’âge chtonien. De ce point de vue, la féminité se trouve à la recherche de son identité lyrique, en transgressant, d’une manière régressive, les significations de l’univers concrète et arrivant à la fin, à un niveau minéral de «l’amour de plomb ». La femme crée, dans la poésie de Bacovia, sa propre individualité poétique, elle est l’autrui qui peut mettre en oeuvre une référence, le système de projection au niveau du sentiment d’amour les angoisses et l’involution existentielle.

Memoria arhetipului, ca sursă primară a actului creator poetic, direcţionează implicit construirea discursului literar pe coordonatele conştiinţei mitice, căci, aşa cum afirma Novalis, „mitologia conţine istoria lumii arhetipurilor: ea închide trecutul, prezentul şi viitorul” [1], iar Kierkegaard notează în acelaşi sens: „Mitologia constă în a menţine ideea de eternitate în categoria timpului şi spaţiului.” [2] Actul poetic şi arhetipalitatea relaţionează intim astfel încât manifestarea lirică converteşte din nou arhetipul în materie primă, îl poetizează, structurându-se ca o meta-realitate care intră în dialog cu spaţiul arhetipal ancestral. În acest sens, Gaston

303 Bachelard valorifică conştiinţa mitic-arhetipală în literatură, construind o poetică modernă a elementelor, transferând aceste viziuni în inconştientul colectiv şi creaţie, urmărind principiile lui Jung. Văzute arhetipal, la Bachelard elementele „sunt mai degrabă o serie de imagini... rezumând experienţa ancestrală a omului în faţa unei situaţii tipice, adică circumstanţe care nu-i sunt proprii unui singur individ, ci care se pot impune oricărui om.” [3] El va realiza o „fenomenologie a imaginaţiei” prin elemente, „imagini princeps care exprimă universul şi omul”, „arhetipurile înrădăcinate în inconştientul uman”. Configurând astfel „sfera psihică şi fizică a realelor”, „spaţiul afectiv din interiorul lucrurilor,” Bachelard vede în materia sa cvadripartită „oglinda noastră energetică.” În acest fel, psihanaliza imaginarului iniţiată de criticul francez devine o poetică materialistă a conotaţiilor grupate în jurul celor patru semne, arhetipuri ale imaginaţiei creatoare. În ultimele sale cărţi, Bachelard, urmat de exegeza antropologică a lui Gilbert Durand, analizează conştiinţa poetică în momentul genezei imaginii, şi apoi opera, constelaţia unor asemenea nuclee, astfel încât critica sa se transformă într-o sinteză de metafore, de potenţialităţi funcţionale care modelează inconştient procesul creativ. Comentând rolul acestor metafore axiomatice, Bachelard notează că „simbolurile nu trebuie să fie judecate din punct de vedere al formei (...) ci al forţei lor ce valorifică imaginea literară şi transcende forma, fiind mişcare fără materie.” [4] Pornind de la schema critică bachelardiană, demersul nostru îşi propune să descopere în universul bacovian o reverie a materiei, a elementarului în particular, analizând funcţionalitatea sa în cadrul viziunii asupra femininului. Feminitatea bacoviană utilizează în structura lirică procedeul‚ însuşirii în sensul ‘transformării creative’, operaţie ce determină deconstrucţia întregului spaţiu bacovian: eul feminin utilizează instrumentarul arhetipal al viziunii poetice pentru a provoca disoluţia perspectivei existenţiale, acţionând deci complementar la expansiunea thanatică. Feminitatea nu mai este un sprijin sau un univers compensatoriu ce ar putea atenua nihilomelancolia poetică, ci devine factor intrinsec al disoluţiei universale. Dacă în cazul viziunii generale bacoviene, apelul poetic la elementarul negativ este manifest, construind implacabil un spaţiu dominat de imanenţe thanatice, în cazul ipostazelor feminine, organic integrate discursului liric general, se observă nu o preluare mimetică a cadrelor poetice proxime ci mai ales o asumare a acestora, o identificare ontologică a femininului cu elementaritatea mortiferă care însă nu se mai manifestă explicit, ci implicit, transformând consecutiv femininul în ‚nihilfeminitate’. Erotica bacoviană se înscrie astfel într-o ‘dialectică a căderii’ centrată pe imaginea feminităţii thanatice care instrumentează procesul complex al

304 neantizării erosului în cadrul celor patru vârste ale eului său: vârsta ‘aerială’, vârsta hidrică, vârsta calorică şi vârsta chtoniană. Într-o astfel de perspectivă, feminitatea se angajează într-un proces de căutare a propriei identităţi lirice, transgresând semnificaţiile universului concret în mod regresiv, atingând în final nivelul mineralizant al ‘amorului de plumb’. Femeia bacoviană îşi creează acum propria individualitate poetică, este acel Celălalt definibil prin capacitatea sa de a constitui referenţialitatea, sistemul de proiectare în eros a neliniştilor şi involuţiei existenţiale. ‘Căderea’ simbolică a cuplului se înscrie izomorf ‘psihismului descensional’, aerul bacovian pierzându-şi însemnele catharctic- ascensionale: vechile valenţe ale complexului lui Atlas sau ale înălţării uranice sunt puse în criză de cădere, prăbuşire dialectică, iar inconştientul erotic este marcat de un abis imaginar. Apocatastaza erotică, sub forma simbolică a plânsului (căderea sonoră) domină poetica interiorităţii nocturne a cuplului: „Auzi cum muzica răsună clar În parcul falnic, antic şi solemn Din instrumente jalnice de lemn La geamuri cântă toamna funerar.” (Vals de toamnă) „Ascultă tu bine iubito, Nu plânge şi nu-ţi fie teamă, Ascultă cum greu din adâncuri, Pământul la dânsul ne cheamă.” (Melancolie) Sunetul-plâns, melodia thanatică a lumii şi a cuplului bacovian, devine limbaj al dezagregării erotice: „Un larg salon vedeam prin draperii, / Iar la clavir o brună despletită / Cânta purtând o mantie cernită, / Şi trist cânta, gemând, printre făclii. / Lugubrul marş al lui Chopin / Îl repeta cu nebunie.../ Şi-n geam suna funebra melodie, / Iar vântul fluiera ca ţipătul de tren.” (Marş funebru). Dacă analizăm sonoritatea produsă de eul feminin prin prisma psihismului descensional, se poate constata că simbolismul melodiei-plâns rezidă în teama unei regresiuni către aspiraţiile primitive ale psihismului, creionând şi modalitatea de a deconstrui prin eufemizare constantă însăşi substanţa erosului. În interstiţiile imaginilor poetice bacoviene, muzicalitatea se defineşte ca o completare şi o potenţare a spectrului thanatic încât, muzica, în calitate de meta-imagine, organizează, în infernul erotic bacovian, un spaţiu al sonorităţii feminine, care provoacă şi întreţine angoasa erotică. În acest context, „temele muzicale, modulaţiile sonore, instrumentele constituie organul propriu răului din lume, armonia

305 nefiind decât o formă perfidă, de o cruzime rafinată, a infernului existenţei” [5]: „Iubita cântă-un marş funebru” (Nevroză), „Deschide clavirul şi cântă- mi / Un cântec de mort.” (Trudit), „Lugubrul marş al lui Chopin / Îl repeta cu nebunie” (Marş funebru). Cel de-al doilea nivel al configurării feminităţii bacoviene este reprezentat de vârsta hidrică, prin care femininul bacovian se autodefineşte în raport cu universul poetic, dar şi valorifică acest element pentru a determina o modificare substanţială, în registru thanatic, a sentimentului erotic. Prima observaţie care se impune este că Bacovia creează un spaţiu poetic dominat de apele mortifere încât, „congenital, Bacovia este un nordic, fascinat de fecioare pale şi de copleşitoare ninsori, de celeste melodii şi de idile hieratice, denunţând târgul intrat în putrefacţie autumnală şi înecat în demenţiale ape drept numai faţa imperfectă, grotescă a marelui tărâm septentrional.” [6] Dominanţa apocaliptică a acvaticului configurează imaginar conştiinţa „discontinuităţii cuplului”, reflectată în eterne „oglinzi de ape” (Nervi de toamnă), spaţii spectrale ale neantizării erosului, dar şi proiecţii izomorfe ale apei disolutive. Proiecţia ofelizată a feminităţii, asociată „apei tenebrelor”, construieşte bacovian un sens apropiat cu cel pe care Bachelard îi identifică în analiza prozei Pământ de sânge a lui Edgar Poe: elementul acvatic primeşte „coloratura de pedeapsă universală, coloratura lacrimilor... Apa din orice loc şi din orice mlaştină apare ca apă mamă a tristeţii umane, ca materie a melancoliei. Nu e vorba de o impresie vagă şi generală; este vorba de o participare concretă. Poetul nu mai visează imagini, el ţinteşte substanţa. Grelele lacrimi aduc în lume un sens uman, o viaţă umană, o materie umană.” [7] Moartea acvatică a cuplului atrage după sine o reverie thanatică a apei, căci „fiinţa umană are destinul apei care curge. Apa este în adevăr un element tranzitoriu. Ea este metamorfoza ontologică esenţială între foc şi pământ. Fiinţa sortită apei este o fiinţă în vertij. Ea moare în fiecare minut, fără încetare ceva din substanţa sa se prăbuşeşte. Moartea cotidiană nu este moartea exuberantă a focului care străpunge cerul cu săgeţile sale; moartea cotidiană este moartea apei, ea sfârşeşte mereu prin moartea sa orizontală.” [8] Eul bacovian ascultă singur zgomotul ploii (în urma morţii cuplului), ia act de golirea transcendenţei erotice, ascultă pustiirea universală: „Plouă, plouă, plouă / Vreme de beţie / Şi s-asculţi pustiul / Ce melancolie. / Plouă, plouă, plouă / Singur, singur, singur, / Vreme de beţie / I-auzi cum mai plouă, / Ce melancolie / Singur, singur, singur.” (Rar) Simbolul mortifer tutelar guvernează realitatea erotică bacoviană determinând cristalizarea funcţiilor mortifere ale femininului bacovian în două complexe bachelardiene ale reveriei hidrice, complexul lui Caron şi complexul Ofeliei. Ambele exprimă nuanţe individualizate ale aceluiaşi nucleu ideatic şi imagistic: extincţia prin

306 pierderea în infinitatea spaţiului acvatic sau sfârşitul prin imersiunea în adâncul hidric. În ambele ipostaze, pentru femininul bacovian, apa reprezintă un agent al inevitabilei stingeri biologice dar şi erotice, înglobează în materialitatea ei cosmosul morţii potenţiale. Complexul lui Caron – numit astfel prin analogie cu omonimul luntraş mitologic, care trecea sufletele celor morţi peste apele Aheronului – îşi păstrează în erotica bacoviană semnificaţia mitică iniţială, de călătorie pe ape către o destinaţie nenumită însă, croazieră funebră, al cărei sfârşit echivalează cu dispariţia într-un teritoriu necunoscut, rămas inaccesibil conştiinţei, dar situat în zarea misterioasă, aflată dincolo de linia îndepărtată a orizontului acvatic. Această călătorie thanatică este instrumentată de femininul bacovian care, deşi îi preia conotaţiile mitice, le redimensionează în sensul accentuării mortifere determinând nu numai orizontalitatea hidrică evazivă, dar şi descensiunea în neant. Femeia bacoviană devine astfel un Caron efeminizat care orientează erosul spre extincţie. Analizând structura complexului lui Caron, Bachelard îşi pune următoarea întrebare: nu cumva „moartea nu a fost ea însăşi întâiul navigator?” Din perspectiva acestei interogaţii, sicriul nu ar fi „ultima barcă. Ar fi cea dintâi. Moartea nu ar fi ultima călătorie. Ar fi cel dintâi voiaj.” [9] Pornind de la această supoziţie, Bachelard generaliza, formulând un sugestiv precept: „Eroul mării este un erou al morţii. Primul marinar este întâiul om viu care a fost la fel de temerar ca unul mort.” [10] De aceea se poate afirma că fascinaţia hidrică asupra femininului bacovian (actualizată generic în dimensiunea diluvială a spaţiului femeii în poezia erotică) este, de fapt, o stăruitoare chemare spre extincţia erotică, o persuasivă invitaţie către sfârşitul iubirii, o permanentă provocare extincţială din care erosul bacovian iese etern înfrânt. Dar una din mărcile profunde ale complexului lui Caron o constituie, în poezia lui Bacovia, moartea cuplului ca plutire în derivă pe apa-materie transformată în suport material al thanaticului: „Şi-aştept în zăpadă... dar ce mai aştept ?” (Plumb de iarnă) Complexul Ofeliei dezvoltă o reverie a morţii prin scufundare, căci „apa, patrie a nimfelor vii, este totodată patria nimfelor moarte, adevărata materie a morţii feminine. (... ) Apa este elementul morţii tinere şi frumoase, a morţii înflorite şi, atât în dramele vieţii cât şi în acelea literare, ea este elementul morţii fără orgoliu, fără răzbunare. (... ) Apa este simbolul adânc, organic al femeii care nu ştie decât să-şi plângă durerea şi ai cărei ochi se umplu atât de uşor de lacrimi.” [11] Bacovienele „fecioare despletite” transpun, în majoritatea poemelor erotice, modelele ofelice şi motivul izomorf al pletelor curgânde. Este, după Bachelard, „ocazia uneia dintre cele mai clare sinecdoci poetice. Va fi un păr plutitor, un păr despletit de valuri. Pentru a înţelege bine rolul detaliului creator în visare, să reţinem

307 pentru moment doar această viziune a părului plutitor. Vom vedea că imaginea însufleţeşte numai ea singură un întreg simbol al psihologiei apelor, că ea explică singură tot complexul Ofeliei.” [12] A treia suprastructură elementară ce potenţează simbolistica femininului thanatic este reprezentată de vârsta calorică a feminităţii bacoviene, dar semnificaţiile pirice ale imagisticii poetice ating întreaga creaţie bacoviană şi Grigurcu nota în acest sens că „creaţia lui Bacovia emană o măreţie aspră şi sfâşietoare de crater stins.” [13] Dacă privim imaginarul focului din perspectiva psihologizantă, am putea considera că infernul caloric al creaţiei bacoviene este, cum afirma Laurenţiu Ulici, refularea propriei psihologii a eului poetic: „Infernul în care coboară Bacovia e, de fapt, obiectivizarea propriei psihologii. Curiozitatea e că poetul se lasă impresionat de acesta făcându-se a nu şti că lumea de a cărei durere se contaminează nu există decât ca proiecţie a unui suflet bolnav.” [14] Este valorificat focul în latura sa distructivă, neantică, deoarece în reliefarea erosului mortifer bacovian, simbolismul negativ al focului semnifică suferinţa lentă, devoratoare, acceptarea morţii erosului prin carbonizare. Este portretizat aici aspectul funebru al complexului lui Empedocle, pe care îl defineşte Gaston Bachelard: „În acest complex se uneşte iubirea şi respectul focului, instinctul vieţii şi al morţii.” [15] Femininul bacovian pare a se supune supremului imperativ empedoclian: „Să distrugem focul vieţii noastre printr-un suprafoc, suprauman, fără flăcări sau cenuşă, care va aduce neantul chiar în inima fiinţei. Când focul se devorează pe sine, când puterea se întoarce împotriva ei înseşi, se pare că fiinţa se întregeşte în clipa pierderii sale şi că intensitatea distrugerii este dovada supremă, proba cea mai clară a existenţei. Această contradicţie, aflată la însăşi rădăcina intuiţiei fiinţei, favorizează transformările valorilor la nesfârşit.” [16] Poema Negru valorifică psihismul caloric, dar nucleul acestei reverii este erosul tinzând spre neantizare: „Carbonizat, amorul fumega”. În cadrul ultimului nivel de semnificaţie al reveriei elementarităţii, femininul bacovian conotează obsesiv extincţia erosului, încadrându-l generic în vârsta chtoniană a fiinţării eului său: acum dialectica recurentă a căderii erosului în non-existenţă ia forma actualizatoare a unor simboluri claustromorfe care vizează în mod simultan atât exteriorul cât şi interiorul spaţialităţii. Elementul chtonic generează însă şi simbolismul intimităţii, al reîntoarcerii la sânul său matern, operând şi o transmutare a sexelor – principiul masculin al voinţei devine feminin, un adăpost al repaosului. Dacă descinderea, cum precizează Bachelard, presupune un spaţiu protector, sugerând fiinţa maternă în sensul concluziilor lui Mircea Eliade, femininul bacovian tinde a substitui senzaţia de protecţie cu cea de nesiguranţă în poeme erotice în care elementul chtonian potenţează ambivalent siguranţa maternă cu teroarea extincţiei. Pătrundem astfel în regimul „nocturn” al imaginii, termenul lui Durand semnificând acceptarea

308 legilor caducităţii: „Antidotul timpului nu va mai fi căutat la nivelul suprauman al transcendenţei şi al purităţii esenţelor, ci în liniştitoarea şi calma intimitate a substanţelor.” [17] Această visare regresivă a teluricului ca element se asociază în erotica bacoviană cu extincţia, căci mormântul dominat de viziunea macabră a disoluţiei erotice devine pentru Bacovia o extatică anihilare. Iminenta moarte a erosului şi a iubitei, obsesie thanatofilă dominantă la Bacovia, transformă imaginarul poetic într-un catharsis al mineralului astfel încât erosul este auto-chtoniat în simboluri ale spaţiilor închise. Mihail Petroveanu observa caracterul mortifer al camerei, afirmând că „odaia, în loc să ofere acel minimum de securitate, acea căldură tristă, este nu atât un adăpost, un retranşament impenetrabil cât un teren deschis adversităţilor exterioare şi o arenă a coşmarurilor lăuntrice, de vreme ce contribuie la sentimentul de înstrăinare a eului, de destrămare a lui până la inconsistenţa umbrei.” [18] Spaţiul claustrant locuit de proiecţiile feminine dezvoltă angoasa morţii şi anularea existenţială a cuplului, configurând o „fenomenologie thanatică a spaţiului” şi, implicit, ipostaze ale feminităţii devoratoare: „La toamnă când frunza va îngălbeni, / Când pentru ftizici nu se ştie ce noi surprize vor veni – / Alcoolizaţi, bătuţi de ploi, cum n-am mai fost cândva, / Târziu, în geamul tău, încet, cu o monedă voi suna. / Şi-n toamna asta udă, mai putredă ca cele ce s-au dus, / Când vântul va boci din nou la cei de jos, la cei de sus, / ... / Va bate ploaia... şi târziu la geamul tău, / Voi plânge-ncet.” (Nervi de toamnă) În această viziune, arhetipul casei nu se coasociază maternalului (am acorda în acest caz o prea mare importanţă biografismului), ci potenţează negativ insecuritatea cuplului erotic, determinând conştiinţa tragică a disoluţiei erosului. Spaţialitatea interioară devine referent pentru poemele de dragoste bacoviene care transcriu o „fenomenologie a cavităţilor”, iar eul liric se află în ipostaza „înghiţitorului înghiţit” (în termenii lui Bachelard), prizonier al propriei arhitecturi spaţiale a reveriei cuplului. Punctul final al căderii erotice pare a fi „neantul-plumb”, care se insinuează concentric în interiorul cuplului bacovian, mai ales fiind prefigurat de diferitele ipostazieri ale feminităţii thanatice, de altfel circumscrise dialecticii căderii în moarte. Simbol referenţial, plumbul sugerează un „metal-idee”, atotcuprinzător, corolar al vârstelor eului feminin (materiei intrate în vârtejul degradării ce coasociază imaginile pământului mineralizat, apei stihinice, aerului mortifer şi calorismului apocaliptic), simbolizând în erotica bacoviană un cumul de forme involutive, care trimit la substratul mortifer al existenţei erotice. Din acest punct de vedere, schema involuţiei reveriei erotice pare a urma, la Bacovia, următorul traseu:

309 vârsta vârsta aerială hidrică

femininul thanatic

vârsta cercul tutelar vârsta calorică chtoniană

plumbul opresiv Note: [1] Apud Gusdorf, G., (1996), Mit şi metafizică, Timişoara: Amarcord, p.263 [2] Ibidem, p. 264 [3] Bachelard, G., (1999), Pământul şi reveriile odihnei, Bucureşti: Univers, p. 63 [4] Ibidem, p. 6 [5] Petroveanu, M., (1969), George Bacovia, Bucureşti: Editura pentru literatură, p. 245 [6] Grigurcu, Gh., (1974), Bacovia, un antisentimental, Bucureşti: Albatros, p. 198 [7] Bachelard, G., (1999), Apa şi visele, Bucureşti: Univers, p. 89-90 [8] Ibidem, p. 91 [9] Ibidem, p. 103 [10] Ibidem, p.109 [11] Ibidem., p.202 [12] Ibidem., p.209 [13] Grigurcu, Gh., op. cit., p. 204 [14] Ulici, L., (1971), Recurs, Bucureşti: Ed. Cartea Românească, p. 73 [15] Bachelard, G., op. cit., p. 82 [16] Ibidem, p. 107 [17] Durand, G., (2000), Structurile antropologice ale imaginarului, Bucureşti, Ed. Univers Enciclopedic, p. 207 [18] Petroveanu, M., op. cit., p. 137

310

Bibliografie: o Bachelard, G. (1999) Apa şi visele, Bucureşti: Univers o Bachelard, G. (1999) Pământul şi reveriile odihnei, Bucureşti: Univers o Durand, G. (2000) Structurile antropologice ale imaginarului, Bucureşti: Univers Enciclopedic o Grigurcu, Gh. (1974) Bacovia, un antisentimental, Bucureşti: Albatros o Gusdorf, G. (1996) Mit şi metafizică, Timişoara: Amarcord o Petroveanu, M. (1969) George Bacovia, Bucureşti: Editura pentru literatură o Ulici, L. (1971) Recurs, Bucureşti: Ed. Cartea Românească

TEXTUL LABIRINT SAU DIALOGUL PRIVILEGIAT CU JOCURILE INTERTEXTUALE

Doiniţa Milea Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos” din Galaţi

La compétence de lecture est un amalgame de connaissances abstraites, de stéréotypes culturels, que le lecteur acquiert par sa pratique des œuvres littéraires et malgré sa valeur subjective, elle ne fonde pas moins la capacité de suivre une histoire à travers un pacte de lecture plus ou moins explicite fixant l’attente du lecteur. Les compétences des lecteurs, fondées sur l’intertextualité peuvent ệtre exploitées par un auteur, dans la mesure où il est susceptible de les prévoir et de jouer dans ou au-delà des limites du pacte de lecture. Le détournement stratégique des attentes implicites qui ont dirigé les hypothèses entre dans le projet d’un texte labyrinthique, qui brouille les frontières textuelles, laissant ouvert l’évaluation du succès ou de l’échec du travail de lecture. La construction du texte de Borges oriente le lecteur en impasse par des inférences textuelles ou intertextuelles,parfois fictives, joue avec les contraintes narratives, assure la subversion des règles, tout en provoquant l’effet de surprise dans la lecture.

Analizând modelele canonice ale literaturii, la sfârşit de secol XX, Harold Bloom, celebru critic literar nord-american, autor al Canonului occidental, vede literatura hispano-americană a secolului XX, sub semnul a trei întemeietori: povestitorul argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, poetul chilian Pablo Neruda şi romancierul cubanez Alejo Carpentier, părinţi literari şi scriitori reprezentativi. Romancieri „atât de diferiţi”, precum Julio Cortázar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, sunt născuţi

311 „la impulsul lor”. Dintre toţi autorii latino-americani ai acestui secol, Bloom consideră că Borges cunoaşte cea mai mare universalitate prin câteva elemente care-l individualizează în egală măsură: o conştiinţă vizionară şi ironică a literaturii, idealizarea relaţiei scriitor – cititor, care i-a permis o sugestivitate infinită şi detaşarea de orice complicaţii culturale, o imagine centru a spaţiului său literar, „labirintul”, către care converg toate obsesiile sale poetice, tot atât o emblemă a haosului, închizând case, oraşe, idei şi biblioteci, cât şi o imagine a „cosmosului labirint”, imagine favorită a lui Borges, legată de mitul energiilor morţii; „în labirintul universului său ne confruntăm cu propriile noastre imagini, nu doar ale naturii ci şi ale Sinelui”, suprapunând alegoric, într-un „labirint ucigaş al literaturii”, imagini ale înfruntării cu propriul dublu, într-o „oglindă” imaginară. Proza lui Borges, fragmentar constituită, nu mai este saga a unui continent, nici măcar al unei regiuni identificabile, în sensul că toate construcţiile ficţionale exprimă sentimentul pierderii în infinitul spaţial şi temporal, oboseala în faţa propriei identităţi, iluzia eternităţii clipei, vanitatea memoriei universale, elemente care „contaminează”, după formularea lui Bloom, iradiază simbolic, prin situarea în spaţiul magiei artei, în care totul este posibil, asemenea „cărţii de nisip”, carte infinită, care ca şi nisipul nu are nici început şi nici sfârşit. „Fantasticul cerebral”, sintagma care caracterizează polivalenţa universului construit de Borges, un univers al mai multor lumi simultane sau suprapuse, permite trecerea din realitatea iniţială în universul gândit: povestea din Ruinele circulare, permite ca metafora cutiilor chinezeşti, construcţia unei lumi gândite de un fachir, care nu există însă decât în închipuirea altui fachir: „Scopul care-l călăuzea nu era imposibil, chiar dacă era supranatural. Voia să viseze un om; voia să-l viseze cu integritatea sa minuţioasă şi să-l impună realităţii. Acest proiect magic epuizase întregul spaţiu al sufletului său.” Rătăcirea spiritului într-o lume alcătuită din toate cărţile posibile şi imaginabile, este o altă variantă (Biblioteca Babel): „Universul (pe care alţii îl numesc bibliotecă) se compune dintr-un număr nedefinit de coridoare hexagonale (...) Eu afirm că Biblioteca o să dureze mai departe: iluminată, solitară, infinită, inutilă, incoruptibilă, secretă.” Aceste lumi ale jocului imaginaţiei şi ale ficţiunii, dau naştere unor situaţii paradoxale, în care un narator, care cumpără o carte de o greutate neobişnuită, devine prizonier al acestei cărţi, nu mai iese din casă, citeşte o carte infinită, de care nici o formă de distrugere nu-l poate scăpa (Cartea de nisip). Textul magic şi poetic al lui Borges, se construieşte în jurul a trei constante, de-a lungul întregii sale creaţii: autorul şi proiecţia sa de hârtie – naratorul, puterea magică a cărţii şi infinita imagine a timpului, elemente pe

312 care titlurile volumelor le pune în vedetă, în egală măsură ca teme ale ficţiunii, cât şi ale căutării critice: Ficţiuni, Artificii, Căutări. Volumul din 1941 – Grădina potecilor ce se bifurcă, conţine câteva din aceste elemente particulare ale lumii lui Borges, pe care autorul şi le prezintă în Prolog: sunt „piese fantastice”, în „Ruinele circulare totul e ireal”, „în Pierre Menard, autorul lui Don Quijote ireal este destinul pe care protagonistul şi-l impune. Lista de scrieri pe care i le atribui nu e îndeajuns de distractivă, dar nici arbitrară; este o diagramă a istoriei sale mentale ... Alcătuirea de cărţi vaste este o nesăbuinţă obositoare ... Cea mai bună metodă este să simulezi că aceste cărţi există deja şi să faci un rezumat sau un comentariu. Astfel a procedat Carlyle în Doctor Resartus (...) ... am preferat scrierea de însemnări pe cărţi imaginare. Acestea sunt Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius şi Cercetarea operei lui Herbert Quain”. Autorul îşi ghidează lectorul oferindu-i cuvintele cheie care îi pot facilita accesul în spaţiul ficţiunilor sale: „ireal, fantastic”, „istorie mentală”, „cărţi imaginare”. Cele şapte piese care compun volumul sunt legate printr-o strategie de verosimilitate, în care un autor cunoscut (Adolfo Bioy Casares, cu care Borges a şi scris câteva piese ficţionale poliţiste) caută un cuvânt Uqbar în mai multe dicţionare şi enciclopedii, se vizitează Biblioteca Naţională, unde în atlase, cataloage, memorii ale călătoriilor şi istoricilor se caută suferinţe, dar nimeni nu fusese vreodată în Uqbar. Uqbar, cu nebuloasele puncte de referinţă ale frontierelor, cu trimiterea la literatura din Uqbar, cu caracterul fantastic, ale cărei legende şi epopei nu se refereau niciodată la un fapt real ci la două regiuni imaginate, Ulejnas şi Tlön ... Uqbar se afla sub semnul neliniştitor al „oglinzii”, care multiplică irealitatea, un mit al civilizaţiei şi al culturii, un spaţiu inventat, o enciclopedie fictivă, care-l atestă, ca şi Tlön, care invadează spaţiul real: „Trecuseră doi ani de când descoperisem într-un volum al unei anumite enciclopedii pirat o sumară descriere a unei ţări false ... Cine sunt cei care au inventat Tlön-ul? Pluralul este inevitabil, pentru că ipoteza unui singur inventator – a unui infinit Leibniz lucrând în ceaţă şi modestie – a fost refuzată în mod unanim. Se presupune că această brave new world este opera unei societăţi secrete de astronomi, ingineri, metafizicieni, poeţi, moralişti, pictori ... conduşi de un obscur om de geniu (...) La început s-a crezut că Tlön ar fi un haos clar, o iresponsabilă licenţă de imaginaţie (...)”. Universul propus de Borges stă sub semnul imaginarului, şi al ficţiunii: „S-a stabilit că toate operele constituie opera unui singur autor atemporal şi anonim (...) O carte care nu închide în ea propria-i contracarte este considerată incompletă”. Lumea lui Borges este Tlön – „Tlön va fi fiind un labirint, dar este un labirint urzit de oameni, un labirint făcut pentru

313 ca oamenii să-l poată descifra. Lumea va fi Tlön.” Biblioteca Babel, alt drum, eseistic constituit, propune tema recurentă a lui Borges, biblioteca ca lume, planetă fictivă, în care trăiesc nu doar toate cărţile scrise ci şi acelea care ar putea fi scrise, în toate limbile care există sau au existat, într-un catalog infinit, în egală măsură fictiv şi fals, în care omul este „un bibliotecar imperfect”, poate găsi o carte „care să constituie abrevierea şi compendiul perfect al tuturor celorlalte: un anume bibliotecar a parcurs-o şi este aidoma unui zeu”. Povestirile lui Borges sunt „iluzii”, simboluri ce transcriu propria condiţie de ficţionar într-o lume ce-şi ascunde sub straturi de reprezentări şi mituri realitatea intimă. Singura opţiune a creatorului este acceptarea existenţei în şi prin irealităţi: „Să facem ceea ce nici un idealist n-a făcut; să căutăm irealităţi care să confirme caracterul halucinant al lumii”. Condiţia autorului care-şi pierde individualitatea, rescriind la infinit aceeaşi literatură pe care o readaptează sensibilităţii contemporane este o altă obsesie borgesiană, formulată în Pierre Menard, autorul lui Don Quijote, unde, ca şi în Biblioteca Babel, Borges formulează credinţa în Cartea Unică, pe care o rescrie un Pierre Menard, despre care Gérard Genette spunea că este „tlönian prin excelenţă”, adică utopic şi fictiv: simpla reproducere presupune recitirea, citatul este o rescriere, orice cititor devine astfel, prin contaminare, autor, iar respectarea literei e însoţită prin rescriere de o torsionare a spiritului textului. Ca pretutindeni la Borges, şi aici problema identităţii este şi problema Operei; dacă a citi scriitura zeului înseamnă a fi Zeul, atunci un principiu adecvat de lectură devine şi un principiu productiv: „Toţi oamenii, în momentul vertiginos al orgasmului, sunt acelaşi om. Toţi oamenii care repetă un vers din Shakespeare sunt William Shakespeare” (Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius). Infidelitatea lectorului, al cărui text se îndepărtează de textul scriitorului, poate varia între ipostaza lui Pierre Menard, a cărui lectură din Don Quijote, conservând integritatea textului crează un semnificat distinct („textul lui Cervantes şi cel al lui Menard sunt verbal identice, dar ce de-al doilea este infinit mai bogat”), care conţine chiar esenţa acetui tip de lectură / scriitură, şi ipostaza lectorului care trebuie să continue textul iniţiat de scriitor, operând modificări (eroul lui Borges, Herbert Quain remarcă: „nu mai există cititori, în sensul ingenuu al cuvântului”): „Quain obişnuia să argumenteze că cititorii sunt o specie deja dispărută (...) Afirma de asemeni că dintre feluritele desfătări pe care le poate procura literatura, cea mai înaltă este invenţia. De vreme ce nu toţi sunt capabili de o asemenea fericire, mulţi vor trebui să se limiteze la simulacre. Pentru aceşti imperfecţi scriitori care sunt în puzderie, Quain a redactat cele opt povestiri din volumul Statements. Fiecare din ele prefigurează ori făgăduieşte un bun

314 argument, cu voinţă zădărnicit de autor. Una din ele – nu cea mai izbutită – insinuează două argumente. Lectorul, furat de vanitate, este convins că le-a imaginat el însuşi” (Cercetarea operei lui Herbert Quain). Borges creează şi o practică aparte a metaficţiunii: pseudo – rezumatele sau rezumatul fictiv, ca în Tlön sau în Grădina potecilor care se bifurcă. Este însă în multe secvenţe, o rescriere, care, spre deosebire de metaficţiune nu comentează tensiunea dintre noua lectură şi vechea lectură, nici participarea cititorului la producţia textului: în metaficţiuni ca Istoria asediului Lisabonei, de José Saramango sau Terra Nostra de Carlos Fuentes, sunt încorporate enunţuri explicite, reale sau fictive, care reconstruiesc o lume, nu o reflectă; profesiunea de corector a personajului Raimundo, care introducând un „Nu” în textul pe care-l copiază, rescrie fictiv istoria reală, este o metaforă a condiţiei omului care prin rescrieri şi corectări caută la nesfârşit adevărul (Istoria asediului Lisabonei). Ipostaza autorului, este definită ca alegorie a sterilităţii, un autor asimilabil unui minotaur al labirintului culturii: „A fi, într-un fel oarecare, Cervantes şi a ajunge la Quijote, i-a părut mai puţin anevoios – în consecinţă , mai puţin interesant – decât a continua să fie Pierre Menard şi a ajunge la Quijote, prin intermediul experienţelor lui Pierre Menard” (Pierre Menard, autor al lui Don Quijote). Gérard Genette, într-un studiu publicat în Cahiers de l’Herne, 1964, La Littérature selon Borges, apreciază elementul de legătură între scriitor şi lector, la Proust şi Borges: „Acesta e statutul vertiginos al naratorului proustian („lectorul”), invitat, nu ca Nathanael să zvârle această carte, ci dimpotrivă, s-o rescrie, cu desăvârşire infidel şi miraculos exact, aşa cum Pierre Ménard inventează, cuvânt cu cuvânt, Don Quijote (...) Adevăratul autor al povestirii nu este doar acela care o ascultă.” Din acest punct de vedere, opţiunea personajului lui Borges, Pierre Menard de a rescrie romanul lui Cervantes şi nu altă operă contemporană lui, ţine de logica perfecţiunii textului „definitiv”, acela în care autorul vehiculează „cuvinte definitive, cuvinte care postulează înţelepciuni miraculoase ori divine, sau deciziuni de o tărie supraomenească – unic, niciodată, totdeauna, totul, perfecţiune, desăvârşit ...” (Borge – Discusión, 1964 – La supersticiosa ética del lector). Ceea ce ficţiunile lui Borges construiesc parabolic pentru a defini imensul imperiu al spaţiului literar, este deconstruit în confesiunile şi dialogurile borgesiene, care funcţionează ca o oglindă atât pentru lumea interioară a autorului cât şi a operei, ca şi cum strategia de „punere în abis” ar fi fost gândită pentru lumea lui Borges. „Un scriitor îşi aşteaptă propria operă (dacă îmi permiteţi să fiu paradoxal). Cred că un scriitor este mereu schimbat de produsul său. Poate că la început ceea ce scrie nu este relevant

315 pentru el. Dacă însă continuă să scrie, va descoperi că aceste lucruri sunt o continuă provocare. Eu am scris mai mult decât ar fi trebuit. Regret, dar trebuie să spun că am scris cam cincizeci sau şaizeci de cărţi şi totuşi descopăr că toate aceste cărţi există în prima carte pe care am publicat-o, în acea carte obscură, scrisă cu mult timp în urmă, Fervor de Buenos Aires, publicată în 1923. Deşi este o carte de poezii, descopăr că majoritatea povestirilor mele sunt acolo, numai că sunt tăinuite, pot fi găsite într-un fel tainic şi numai eu pot să le scot la iveală. Şi totuşi continui să recitesc această carte şi să rescriu ceea ce-am scris acolo. Asta este tot ce pot să fac. Mă reîntorc mereu la această carte în care mă regăsesc şi-n care-mi aflu cărţile viitoare.” (Borges despre Borges / Convorbiri cu Borges la 80 de ani) „Recitire” este cuvântul care pentru scriitorul Borges defineşte raporturile cu lumea literară. Aici încep marile modele ale literaturii, cu care scriitorul trăieşte afinităţi profunde: „Dacă trebuie să numesc o singură carte ca fiind cea mai bună din toată literatura, cred că aş alege Divina Commedia a lui Dante. Şi totuşi nu sunt catolic. Nu pot să cred în teologie. Nu pot să cred în ideea pedepsei sau a recompensei. Însă poemul în sine e perfect (...) în cazul lui Dante fiecare vers este perfect (...) Fiecare cuvânt este perfect, fiecare cuvânt este la locul lui. Ţi se pare că nimeni n-ar putea îmbunătăţi un vers al lui Dante. Don Quijote este poate una dintre cele mai frumoase cărţi scrise vreodată. Nu datorită intrigii (...) însă omul Alonso Quijano, care s-a visat Don Quijote, este poate unul dintre cei mai buni prieteni ai noştri. Este cel puţin unul dintre cei mai buni prieteni ai mei. Să creezi un prieten pentru atâtea generaţii este o faptă greu de egalat. Şi Cervantes a făcut-o.” Povestirile sale apropiate de formula eseului, aspectul parabolic – narativ al poemelor, meditaţia asupra singurătăţii şi adevărurilor absolute ale lumii, în cei treizeci de ani de orbire, conturează un univers literar mai aparte, separat de spaţiul amplu de frescă a romanului sud-american, Borges îşi reconsideră permanent sursele, îşi autocomentează ficţiunile, subliniind permanent fie lumea literaturii, din care-i pleacă sursele, fie necesara lectură „deschisă”, multiplicitatea de sensuri ale lumii, pe care textul său le închide într-o povestire supraetajată, căreia îi construieşte metatextul: „Îl citeam pe Henry James. Am fost impresionat, aşa cum aţi fost probabil cu toţii de povestirea lui The Turn of The Screw (O coardă prea întinsă), care admite mai multe interpretări. V-aţi putea gândi la apariţiile de acolo ca la nişte duşmani travestiţi în stafii şi v-aţi putea gândi la copii ca fiind nişte nebuni sau nişte victime sau poate complici. Henry James a scris câteva povestiri într-una singură. Atunci m-am gândit să fac şi eu acelaşi lucru. Am să încerc şi eu acelaşi şiretlic, să scriu trei povestiri într-una singură. Aşa am scris El Sur (Sudul), în care o să găsiţi trei

316 povestiri. În primul rând aveţi o parodie: Un om este ucis de ceea ce iubeşte. Acesta este reversul a ceea ce a spus Oscar Wilde: Căci toţi ucidem ce iubim – Aceasta ar fi o versiune. Puteţi da alta dacă aţi considera povestirea realistă şi în acest caz aţi avea o interpretare realistă care nu le- ar exclude pe celelalte: aţi putea considera a doua jumătate a povestirii ca fiind ceea ce visează personajul când moare sub cuţitul medicului în spital. Căci, într-adevăr, omul era avid de o moarte epică. Îşi imagina că moare cu un cuţit în mână. De fapt, murea sub cuţitul chirurgului. Aşa că totul era doar un vis al lui. Am sentimentul că aceasta este interpretarea corectă. Cred, într-adevăr, că povestirea aceasta este bună din punct de vedere tehnic, pentru că relatează trei povestiri în acelaşi timp. Şi ele nu se stingheresc una pe alta. Este aspectul cel mai interesant. În primul rând ai putea descoperi o parabolă. Un om este avid de sud, însă, când se întoarce în sud, sudul îl omoară. Aici ai parabola. Apoi ai povestirea realistă a unui om care înnebuneşte şi ajunge să se bată cu un ucigaş beat. Apoi, în al treilea rând – simbolul cel mai profund – cred că totul este un vis. Povestirea nu ar relata, de fapt, moartea unui om, ci moartea pe care el o visează în timp ce moare.” Această triplă interpretare, în trei chei de lectură, în funcţie de tipul de text construit pentru suportul ficţiunii, rezumă concepţia borgesiană a textului făcut din texte, a textului universal, concentrat în text, ca vestitul labirint – metaforă (Grădina potecilor care se bifurcă - Ficţiuni): „mi-am închipuit un labirint de labirinturi, un sinuos labirint crescător (...)”, sau acele puncte ale spaţiului, care primesc simultan toate imaginile universului, vestitul Aleph: „Îmi lămuri că Aleph înseamnă unul din punctele spaţiului care conţine toate punctele (...) un loc unde se află, fără a se confunda, toate locurile din lume, văzute din toate unghiurile (...) Fiecare lucru (...) era o infinitate de lucruri din pricină că eu îl vedeam cu limpezime din toate punctele universului (...) am izbucnit în plâns, pentru că ochii mei văzuseră acel tainic şi ipotetic tot, al cărui nume oamenii îl uzurpă, dar pe care nici un om nu l-a privit vreodată, neînchipuitul univers.” (El Aleph) Există elemente de legătură, secvenţe textuale reluate, din „ficţiune” în ficţiune, care evocă permanent un text de bază din care curge la nesfârşit textul infinit al lumii (incluzând şi scriitura în mişcare a autorului dar şi textul universal al civilizaţiei umane), cum ar fi trimiterea la istoria celor 1001 de nopţi, secvenţele biografice sau lecturile formative: „Mi-am amintit şi de noaptea aceea care se află în miezul celor O mie şi una de nopţi, şi în care regina Shahrazad (printr-o magică neatenţie a copistului) începe să povestească textual istoria celor o mie şi una de nopţi, cu riscul de a ajunge din nou la noaptea în care o povesteşte, şi tot astfel la nesfârşit.”

317 Cu această perspectivă, Borges alege circularitatea tematică ca imagine a circularităţii temporale, a timpului universal, a circularităţii obsesive a destinului şi a istoriilor lumii pe care literatura le reia la nesfârşit: „În odăiţa unui han, pe la o mie opt sute şaptezeci şi ceva, un bărbat visează o luptă. Un gaucho îşi împlântă cuţitul într-un om cu faţa întunecată, îl azvârle apoi ca pe o traistă de oase, îl priveşte zvârcolindu-se şi dându-şi sufletul, se apleacă să-şi şteargă cuţitul, îşi dezleagă armăsarul şi încalecă încet, ca să nu se creadă că fuge. Ce s-a petrecut o dată se repetă mereu, la nesfârşit; arătoasele oştiri s-au spulberat şi n-a rămas decât o umilă înfruntare cu cuţite; visul unuia e parte din memoria tuturora” (El Hácedor, 1960 – Creatorul). Funcţionalitatea citatului literar, filozofic ţine de jocul între text şi comentariul lui metatextual: Borges fie comentează citate, fragmente pentru a-şi argumenta construcţia fictivă, fie se comentează pe sine, eseistic prin citat; uneori trimiterea la o sursă este fictivă, testând plăcerea cititorului de aventuri şi jocuri spirituale, dar şi ţesătura erudită a ficţiunilor sale eseistice, după modelul mai vechi al hărţii desenate în cuvinte pentru uzul ascultătorilor neştiutori de călugărul lui Boccacio din Decameron sau a citatelor şi autorilor fictivi, pe care-i recomandă Cervantes, ca reţetă a unei cărţi erudite, în Cuvântul înainte la Don Quijote de la Mancha. Ceea ce rezultă este o stranie şi nebănuită aventură pe tărâmul intertextualităţii reale sau fictive: „Sunt în şirul nopţilor (O mie şi una de nopţi), minuni pe care mi-ar plăcea să le văd regândite în germană. Nu este miraculos faptul că în noaptea 602 regele Shahriar aude din gura reginei propria lui poveste? Urmărind cadrul general, o poveste cuprinde de obicei alte poveşti (...); scene înăuntrul altei scene, ca în tragedia Hamlet, ridicări la putere ale visului (...) Anticamerele se confundă cu oglinzile, masca se află sub chipul pe care-l ascunde, nimeni nu mai ştie care este omul adevărat şi care sunt idolii lui. Şi nimic din toate acestea nu are importanţă; această dezordine este obişnuită şi acceptată, aşa cum sunt născocirile stării de vis” (Traducătorii celor O mie şi una de nopţi – În istoria eternităţii - 1936). Intertextul fictiv generează un joc pentru uzul lectorului (ca şi în cazul romanului lui José Saramago – Istoria asediului Lisabonei) între elementele de istorie reală, care au personaje recognoscibile şi istoria ipotetică sau fictivă care se insinuează în cea reală: chiar organizarea textuală sugerează graniţa inserţiei: „nimic nu ne împiedică să ne imaginăm că (...); Să ne închipuim că la Toledo se descoperă manuscrisul unui text arab şi că paleografii îl declară ca fiind scris de însăşi mâna acelui Cide Hamete Benengeli din care Cervantes s-ar fi inspirat pentru Don Quijote. În text citim că eroul, care, precum bine se ştie (...) descoperă, după una din multele-i lupte, că a ucis un om. În acest punct fragmentul încetează:

318 problema este să ghicim sau să presupunem, cum reacţionează Don Quijote.” (Creatorul – Un trandafir galben; O problemă) Acest mod de a ieşi din spaţiul textului finit, printr-o mânuire ludică a intertextualităţii, se face rescriind textul citat într-o direcţie diferită: „Dacă această istorie ar fi fost scrisă de Kafka, Wakefield n-ar fi izbutit pentru nimic în lume să se mai întoarcă (...) Modificarea trecutului nu înseamnă doar modificarea unui singur fapt; înseamnă anularea consecinţelor acestuia, care tind să fie infinite. Altfel spus, înseamnă să creezi două istorii universale.” Nivelul textual la care se construieşte universul lui Borges se situează astfel în imaginaţie pură (chiar trimiterea la un roman inexistent, scris de un autor inexistent, închis într-o carte de autoritate – Enciclopedia Bompiani din Cronicas de Bustos Domecq, 1967, sau lista de enciclopedii reale şi fictive în care autorul caută date despre Uqbar, constituie repere ale labirintului – bibliotecă, pe care Borges le numeşte Ficţiuni). Autorul Borges poartă măştile personajelor sale fictive, ele însele autori posibili, cu care ca în autoficţiuni se intersectează: Pierre Menard, Herbert Quain, Jarmolinski, Hladik, cărora le atribuie opere ale sale, preferinţe literare şi filozofice; într-o povestire ca El Zahir, relatarea care se petrece în planul ficţiunii este atribuită lui Borges: „Cel mai de seamă vrăjitor ar fi acela care s-ar vrăji pe sine însuşi într-atât încât să-şi ia propriile plăsmuiri drept apariţii de sine stătătoare. N-ar fi acesta cazul nostru?” (Alte investigări – Avatares de la tortuga) Scriitorul ca producător de fantasme, asimilându-se magicianului prin aceea că nu se lasă dominat şi anihilat de fantasmele propriului inconştient, prin proiectarea în universul imaginar din lumea ficţională devenită realitate textuală, aceşti „demoni” de care vorbeşte şi Marquez, constituie temele lui Borges, care-l plasează undeva între mit şi realitate, dacă plasăm faptele imaginarului uman în mit. Borges, prin „ficţiunile” sale, un fel de eseuri filozofice mascate sub un limbaj aluziv, metaforic – simbolic, pune sub semnul egalităţii lumea fictivă şi cea reală, acceptând ca principiu posibilitatea ca „Don Quijote să fie lector al lui Don Quijote şi Hamlet spectator al lui Hamlet”, atât din perspectiva textului infinit al lumii în care spaţiile sunt transgresate cât şi din perspectiva lumii ca proiecţie mentală, ca imagine a subiectivităţii, cu care filozofia idealistă şi doctrinile gnostice alimentează spiritul uman neliniştit. Pentru Borges, lumea reală şi cea imaginată, este reconciliată la un nivel textual în structura unor sintagme metaforice ca „Biblioteca Babel”, „Oglinda infinită”, „Labirintul”, „Aleph”, „Tlön”, „Uqbar”, „Ruinele circulare”, „Cartea fiinţelor imaginare”, „El Zahir”. Obsesia „visului” ca existenţă care trimite la o întreagă lume filozofică, eseistică, şi

319 imaginativă (ne amintim imaginea magicianului din Ruinele circulare, care creează un om prin vis şi prin puterea gândului, sau a personajului care-şi visează propria moarte pe patul de moarte, La otra muerte, trimite la suprapunerea Universului infinit din spaţiul „imaginaţiei”, al visului şi al cărţii, pe corpul „labirintului” mental, alcătuit el însuşi din rădăcinile cosmogoniilor orientale, din tradiţia cabalistică şi gnostică, trăind în labirintul memoriei umanităţii, un fel de inconştient colectiv, la care universul borgesian aderă. Această strategie naşte şi face să dispară lumi imaginate, ca în fantasticul proiect tlönian al unei societăţi secrete, în care spiritul uman se substituie ideii de Dumnezeu (proiectul acestei lumi fictive şi virtuale, realizat într-o limbă fictivă, tlöniana, este Orbis Tertius, un fel de spaţiu terifiant pluridimensional). Ceea ce Borges, cetăţean al lumii, propune lumii argentiniene şi sud- americane de origine, este un alt tip de literatură, o ficţiune triumfătoare, care subordonează realul.

Bibliografie: o Bellini, G. (1985) Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana, Madrid: Editorial Castalia o Benedetti, M. (1977) „Recursul supremului patriarh”, Secolul XX, 10. o Blanchot, M. (1982) Infinitul literar: El Aleph în Secolul XX, 5-6 o Borges despre Borges. Convorbiri cu Borges la 80 de ani, (1990), volum îngrijit de Willis Barnstone, Cluj: Dacia, (Borges at eighty conversations, 1982). o Iser. W. (1985) L’Acte de lecture-théorie de l’effet esthétique, Bruxelles, Pierre Mardaga o Llosa, M. V. (1972) „Hegemonia imaginarului”, Secolul XX, 9 o Nouhaud, D. (1996) La littérature hispano – americaine, Le roman, la nouvelle, le conte, Paris: Dunod o Oltean, Ş. (1996) Ficţiunea, lumile posibile şi discursul indirect liber, Cluj-Napoca: Studium o Rujea, V. (2004) Lumea ca proiecţie mentală, Proza fantastică hispano – americană, Cluj: Limes.

320

SPRE O NEGOCIERE A RELAŢIEI DINTRE SEMNIFICAT ŞI SEMNIFICANT. PREZENTARE SAU REPREZENTARE?

Steluţa Stan Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos” din Galaţi

Dacă înţelesul este, mai degrabă, multiplu, ambiguu şi construit social, atunci atât autorul, cât şi criticul sau cititorul sunt la dispoziţia structurilor lingvistice. Majoritatea romanelor post-moderniste nu mai cred în oglindirea directă a realităţii în text, deşi unele dintre acestea par să aibă o mare bucurie în a se juca cu această noţiune, realitatea devenind o construcţie pur lingvistică; dacă avem de-a face cu vreo reflectare, aceasta este cea a structurilor lingvistice; nu lumea poate fi reprezentată, ci discursul ei.

Sunt bine cunoscute atât teoriile lingvistului elveţian, Ferdinand de Saussure, prezentate într-o serie de cursuri la Universitatea din Geneva în perioada 1906-1911 şi reunite mai apoi în lucrarea postumă, Cours de linguistique générale (1915), cât şi impactul extraordinar pe care ele l-au avut asupra scrierilor literare şi critice ulterioare. Saussure pune accentul pe construirea înţelesului, pe faptul că structurile lingvistice determină perceperea realităţii, astfel încât sensul nu poate exista independent de limbă (Norris 1982:4; Saussure 1915:65)[1]. Din această perspectivă, imaginea oglinzii lui Stendhal, preluată şi de George Eliot la începutul romanului Adam Bede (dar şi mai târziu de Virginia Woolf, pentru care picătura de cerneală este, în primul rând, o oglindă a picăturii de cerneală a domnişoarei Flanders din Jacob’s Room [2]), cea care se mişcă de-a lungul unui drum, este nepotrivită, în opinia structuraliştilor, pentru că ea presupune că ideile preced cuvintele. Structuraliştii susţin că “our knowledge of things is insensibly structured by the systems of code and convention which alone enable us to classify and organize the chaotic flow of experience” (Norris 1982: 4). Pentru ei, literatura nu mai poate fi considerată emanaţia naturală a unei minţi inspirate. Acesta pare să fie cel mai semnificativ câştig: demistificarea literaturii ca discurs special, privilegiat, pentru că structurile, codurile şi convenţiile pot fi găsite atât în literatură cât şi în Literatură. Structuralismul pune în discuţie ideea comun acceptată că “[w]hat is most ‘real’ is what is experienced, and [...] the home of this

321 rich, subtle, complex experience is literature itself. Like Freud, it exposes the shocking truth that our most intimate experience is the effect of a structure” (Eagleton 1983:109). Dacă înţelesul este, mai degrabă, multiplu şi construit social, atunci autorul, dar şi criticul sau cititorul sunt la dispoziţia structurilor lingvistice. În timp ce critica umanistă a Realismului vedea în autor producătorul de sens şi moralitate (Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, F. R. Leavis, Thomas Carlyle), criticii post-saussurieni caută înţelesul în relaţia co-creativă dintre text şi cititor [3]. Încă din vremea literaturii orale, omul şi-a pus întrebări despre locul şi rolul lui în univers; începând însă cu perioada de după cel de-al doilea război mondial, identitatea (individului, naţiunii sau a unei anumite minorităţi) a devenit un cuvânt-cheie. De ce nu, atunci, şi identitatea textului (literar)? Ca şi Saussure, majoritatea romanelor postmoderniste susţin că înţelesul începe să fie perceput ca irevocabil ambiguu şi plural. Nimeni nu se mai preface, macar, că ar crede în oglindirea directă a realităţii în text, deşi unele dintre acestea par să aibă o mare bucurie în a se juca cu această noţiune. Realitatea a devenit o construcţie pur lingvistică şi, dacă avem de- a face cu vreo reflectare, aceasta este cea a structurilor lingvistice: “[a]ll literary texts are woven out of other literary texts, not in the conventional sense that they bear the traces of ‘influence’ but in the more radical sense that every word, phrase or segment is a reworking of other writings which precede or surround the individual work. There is no such thing as literary ‘originality’, no such thing as the ‘first’ literary work: all literature is intertextual” (Eagleton 1983: 138). Este o consecinţă pentru literatură a teoriei saussuriene a diferenţei, în care limba este un sistem de termeni interdependenţi, în care valoarea fiecăruia rezultă din prezenţa simultană a celorlalţi. Cea mai mare parte a criticii literare a secolului XX – de la critica practică a lui I. A. Richards la Noua Critică americană, de la structuralism la post(-)structuralism şi deconstrucţie, de la modernism la postmodernism – este, din punct de vedere teoretic, formalistă; ea întoarce spatele (în principiu, cel puţin) legăturii dintre viaţa de dincolo de text (în a cărei existenţă Derrida - aşa cum s-a spus de multe ori şi cum el însuşi a negat, tot de nenumărate ori, că ar fi spus, nu credea - şi cea a textului. Aceasta i se pare profesorului Valentine Cunningham (1994) „un fenomen curios”, care a atras atenţia multor comentatori, mai ales a celor de tendinţă marxistă. Vina, dacă se poate vorbi despre aşa ceva, Cunningham o ataşează influenţei teoriei mai-sus menţionate, în ciuda aspectelor inconsistente pe care le identifică în aceasta (poate cea mai importantă, dar

322 şi cea mai influentă, fiind privilegierea semnificantului în detrimentul semnificatului), asupra criticilor şi teoreticienilor post-belici. Efectul spectaculos a fost că referinţa, lumea, cei care folosesc limba în acte de vorbire reale, caracterul istoric al acesteia (limba văzută diacronic), au fost sancţionate, dispreţuite şi degradate, evidenţiindu-se, în schimb, caracterul ambiguu şi arbitrar al semnului lingvistic, dar şi al relaţiei dintre entitatea lingvistică şi cea a lumii extratextuale. Concluzia este aproape tăioasă: “Language refers to the world we know. [...] Try as one might, two sides of a coin cannot be separated and yet remain legal currency” (20-1). În sprijinul argumentaţiei este adusă şi afirmaţia lui Émile Benveniste, conform căreia « Entre le signifiant et le signifié, le lien n’est pas arbitraire, il est nécessaire ». Semnul, nu numai că acoperă şi comandă realitatea, el este chiar acea realitate. Nu este mai puţin adevărat, însă, că, simptom al condiţiei postmoderne, realul este considerat un construct social şi literar deopotrivă, constituit prin intermediul limbajului şi al imaginii. Contactul cu realitatea este mediat, referenţialitatea ‘obiectivă’ şi cea ‘psihologică’ nefiind altceva decât intertextualităţi camuflate. În capitolul ‘Narativ şi descriptiv în proza postmodernistă’, Carmen Muşat consideră că determinantă pentru funcţia descriptivă nu este relaţia de desemnare, cât cea de semnificare, în măsura în care obiectele exterioare devin ficţiuni interioare, şi tot în măsura în care descriptorul porneşte de la senzaţii pentru a crea imagini, “într-un efort permanent de recuperare a lumii şi a propriei sale fiinţe”, şi introduce în ecuaţie percepţia cititorului, infinit variabilă; astfel, “referentul unei opere literare variază de la o epocă la alta şi de la un cititor la altul” (2002: 97-8), omniscienţa auctorială fiind înlocuită cu competenţa narativă a lectorului, în spaţiul naraţiunii intersectându-se universul fictiv, lumea lectorului şi intertextul. Sau, cum spune Barthes, limba este cea care vorbeşte, nu autorul, el pledând pentru o schimbare de accent de la autor la cititor (1977: 143) [4]. Toate aceste teorii lingvistice (structuraliste, cu influenţă asupra modernismului, dar mai cu seamă, post-structuraliste şi deconstructiviste, cu impact asupra literaturii postmoderniste) sunt tot atâtea atacuri la adresa Realismului şi ideologiei liberal umaniste, împotriva teoriei conform căreia fiecare text are înscris în el un singur adevăr care este reflecţia unei minţi morale şi care poate fi extras cu ajutorul unei judecăţi sănătoase, al unui simţ practic. Critici precum Catherine Belsey, Terry Eagleton sau Edward Said văd Realismul ca pe o unealtă de control ideologic, tocmai pentru că pretinde că este normal şi neutru. Teoria care susţine că ‘realitatea’ şi ‘adevărul’ sunt doar construcţii lingvistice, fără vreo valoare absolută, subminează, de fapt, un întreg

323 sistem de control social şi pedagogic a cărui putere depinde de existenţa transcendentală a celor două concepte. Textele postmoderne, asemeanea celor moderne înaintea lor, sunt, în acelaşi timp, moştenitoarele şi autoarele acestei subminări radicale. H. Porter Abbot tratează distincţia dintre prezentare şi reprezentare în capitolul ‘Defining Narrative’ din The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (2002), făcând trimitere la problematica definirii termenului ‘reprezentare’, folosit în definirea naraţiunii ca reprezentare a unui eveniment sau a unei serii de evenimente. Legat de distincţia de mai sus, Jonathan Culler pune o altă întrebare, la fel de pertinentă, în ‘Identity, Identification, and the Subject’ (2000: 113-4): vorbim despre reprezentare sau producere? discursul reprezintă identităţi deja existente sau le produce chiar el? În sprijinul ideii discursului care produce/creează, Culler aduce două nume: Michel Foucault şi criticul american Nancy Armstrong. Foucault şi Derrida sunt deseori grupaţi împreună ca ‘post- structuralişti’, dar, în timp ce Derrida oferă un model de interpretare a textelor identificând o logică internă a acestora, opiniile lui Foucault nu se bazează pe texte – de fapt, el citează uimitor de puţine documente sau discursuri – ci oferă un cadru general gândirii despre texte şi discursuri în general. În The History of Sexuality, de ex., Foucault ia în discuţie ceea ce el numeşte ‘ipoteza represivă’: ideea general acceptată că sexul este ceva reprimat, în special de secolul al XIX-lea, şi pe care modernii s-au luptat să-l elibereze. Foucault susţine că, departe de a fi ceva natural care a fost reprimat, ‘sexul’ este o idee complexă produsă de o sumă de practici sociale, investigaţii, discuţii şi scrieri – pe scurt, ‘discursuri’ sau ‘practici discursive’ – în secolul al XIX-lea. Doctori, preoţi, romancieri, psihologi, moralişti, politicieni, toţi cei pe care îi legăm, într-un fel sau altul, de idea de reprimare a sexualităţii sunt, în opinia istoricului francez, răspunzători de ‘naşterea’ a ceea ce numim ‘sex’. Foucault scrie: “The notion of ‘sex’ made it possible to group together, in an artificial unity, anatomical elements, biological functions, conducts, sensations, pleasures; and it enabled one to make use of this fictitious unity as a causal principle, an omnipresent meaning, a secret to be discovered everywhere” (Foucault în Culler, 2000: p. 5). Autorul nu neagă existenţa actului fizic, a organelor sexuale sau a sexului biologic. Ceea ce susţine el este că s-a creat o unitate artificială, în care au fost amestecate elemente potenţial diferite, şi chiar această unitate a ajuns să fie considerată fundamentală identităţii individului. Apoi, printr- o răsturnare crucială, acest lucru numit ‘sex’ a fost văzut drept cauza unei

324 varietăţi de fenomene care fuseseră grupate pentru a crea idea. Acest proces a dat sexualităţii o nouă importanţă şi un nou rol, transformând-o în secretul naturii individului. Analiza lui Foucault indică sexul ca, mai degrabă, efect decât cauză, produsul discursurilor care încearcă să analizeze, descrie şi regleze activităţile fiinţelor umane. Dacă ar fi să adăugăm un al doilea exemplu de dominaţie a semnificantului asupra semnificatului, am recurge, poate, la cea mai uşoară alegere – “Simulacra and Simulations” al lui Baudrillard şi mesajul pierderii realului în favoarea imaginii sau jocului semnelor. Reprezentarea, în opinia autorului, porneşte de la principiul că semnul şi realul sunt echivalente (chiar dacă utopică, această echivalenţă este o axiomă fundamentală). Simularea, dimpotrivă, porneşte de la caracterul utopic al principiului echivalenţei, de la negarea completă a semnului ca valoare, de la semn ca sentinţă la moarte a oricărei referinţe. În timp ce reprezentarea încearcă să absoarbă simularea tratând-o drept reprezentare falsă, aceasta consideră tot edificiul reprezentării ca fiind el însuşi un simulacru. Argumentaţia lui Baudrillard continuă, punctând ceea ce el consideră a fi “the transition from signs which dissimulate something to signs which dissimulate that there is nothing” (Brooker 1992: 153). Exemplul pe care îl aduce în sprijinul teoriei simulării ca strategie a realului, neo-realului şi hiper-realului este binecunoscut deja: Disneyland, modelul perfect al tuturor nivelurilor simulării. O analiză ideologică a acestui regat al jocului dintre iluzii şi fantasme, a acestei lumi imaginare, l-ar putea defini ca rezumat al modului de viaţă american, panegiric al valorilor americane, transpunere idealizată a unei realităţi contradictorii. În opinia autorului, totul ascunde altceva: o simulare de ordinul al treilea [5], mascarea absenţei oricărei realităţi; Disneyland este acolo pentru a ascunde faptul că aceasta este ‘adevărata’ ţară, America cea ‘reală’. Disneyland este prezentat ca fiind imaginar cu scopul de a ne face să credem că restul este real, când, de fapt, Los Angeles-ul şi toată America nu mai sunt reale, ci de ordinul hiper-realului şi al simulării. Nu se mai pune problema unei false reprezentări a realităţii (aşa cum face ideologia), ci a ascunderii faptului că realul nu mai este real şi astfel a salvării principiului însuşi al realităţii. În textele postmoderniste, accentul se pune pe multiplicitatea înţelesului datorată pluralităţii inerente limbii, efect al pluralităţii realităţii, iar negocierea se face între text şi cititor, (re)producătorul de sens. Gheorghe Crăciun (1982) descrie şi el, trecerea violentă de la galaxia Guttenberg la cea a lui Marconi şi conştiinţa proceselor simultane,

325 transformarea rapidă a lumii înconjurătoare sub presiunea mass mediei şi efectul acesteia atât asupra scriitorului, cât şi a cititorului. În mod inevitabil, această ficţionalizare a lumii prin mass media face ca atitudinea ‘realistă’ a scriitorilor postmoderni să presupună recunoaşterea şi asumarea caracterului construit al realităţii, proza postmodernistă devenind, oricât de paradoxal ar putea suna, mimetică, dar într-un sens complet diferit de cel al prozei realiste a secolului al XIX-lea: “When reality has become unreal, literature qualifies as our guide to reality by de-realizing itself. [...] In a paradoxical and fugitive way, mimetic theory remains alive. Literature holds the mirror to unreality [...] its conventions of reflexivity and anti-realism are themselves mimetic of the kind of unreal reality that modern reality has become. But “unreality” in the sense is not a fiction but the element in which we live”. (Graff 1979: 53)

Note: [1] Profesorul V. Cunningham îşi rezervă dreptul de a scoate în evidenţă faptul că marginalizarea sau chiar respingerea legăturii dintre limbă şi scriere, pe de o parte, şi realitate, pe de alta, se datorează filologului elveţian şi inconsistenţelor teoriei lui, dar şi nenumăratelor lecturi şi interpretări, multe eronate, ale vestitului Cours de linguistique générale. ‘Infelix Culpa’ în In the Reading Gaol (1974), pp. 16-22. [2] Dacă tocul lui Eliot generează o lume, un timp, un spaţiu conceput realist, oglinda unei lumi pe care prietenii şi cunoştinţele lui Marian Evans o puteau decoda uşor şi recunoaşte ca fiind propria lor lume, cel al Virginiei Woolf dă naştere altor tocuri şi cerneluri, unui text care ştie că este text, dar şi text despre lumea din afara lui. [3] “When words meet worlds, when writing occurs, when readers leave the world to enter a text, ‘the stakes’ – to borrow Paul de Man’s words to J. Hillis Miller - ‘are enormous’. The quest for meaning is like the desire for life, presence, survival, against the threatening encroachments of death, absence, annihilation.” Cunningham (1994), p. 13. [4] Parafrazând definiţia pe care el o dădea realismului în S/Z (1970), am putea spune că acesta nu constă atât în a copia realul, cât în a-i sublinia caracterul livresc şi construit. [5] Baudrillard distinge patru faze succesive ale imaginii: 1–reflexia realităţii, 2–mascarea şi deformarea realităţii, 3–mascarea absenţei realităţii, 4–nici o relaţie cu nici un fel de realitate, imaginea fiind propriul ei simulacru.

326

Bibliografie: o Barthes, R. (1977) ‘The Death of the Author’, în Image – Music – Text, Stephen Heath (trad.), New York: Hill and Wang o Brooker, P. (ed.) (1992) Modernism/ Postmodernism, London & New York: Longman o Crăciun, Gh. (1982) ‘Autenticitatea ca metodă de lucru’, în Astra 4 o Culler, J. (2000) Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction, Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press o Cunningham, V. (1994) In the Reading Gaol. Postmodernity, Texts and History, Oxford UK&Cambridge USA: Blackwell o Eagleton, T. (1983) Literary Theory, England: Basil Blackwell o Graff, G. (1979) Literature Against Itself, Chicago & London: Chicago University Press o Muşat, C. (2002) Strategiile subversiunii. Descriere şi naraţiune în proza postmodernă românească, Piteşti: Paralela 45 o Norris, C. (1982) Deconstruction: Theory and Practice, London: Methuen o Porter Abbott, H. (2002) The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ANGLICISME ÎN PRESA ECONOMICĂ ROMÂNEASCĂ ACTUALĂ

Anca Trişcă Universitatea „Dunărea de Jos” din Galaţi

À partir d’un corpus tiré de la presse écrite post-communiste, notre contribution se propose d’examiner d’une perspective sémantique et fonctionnelle la terminologie économique d’origine anglo-américaine (des emprunts proprement dits).

327 Les motivations sociolinguistiques et psycholinguistiques de l’emprunt sont examinées en relation avec les principes et les stratégies de la communication économique. La «créativité» du roumain actuel est mise en relief par l’extension des sens et par le développement des valeurs figurées (pour la plupart péjoratives). On a souligné le rôle de l’anglais – véhicule de la mondialisation – dans la diffusion des valeurs idéologiques et culturelles américaines, par l’intermède des connotations positives associées aux emprunts et calques analysés.

Mutaţiile profunde intervenite în viaţa societăţii româneşti după decembrie 1989 au impus un nou tip de comunicare politică, „deschisă” tuturor înnoirilor lexicale (împrumuturi, calcuri, creaţii interne, evoluţii 1 semantice etc.) . Observaţiile care urmează se referă la împrumuturi de origine engleză şi la calcuri după modele englezeşti întâlnite în presa economica, cu atenţie specială pentru anii 2005-2006 :

Anglicism Saptămâna Capital Business Financiară Week Advertising + + + Back-office - + - Bonusuri + + + Brand + + + Brand manager - + - Business + + + Call-center - + + Consumer finance - + - Consortiu + + + Corporate affairs - + + Country manager - + + Consumer market - + - Dealer + + + Disaster holidays - + - Due diligence - + - e-learning + + + General manager - + + Holding + + + Hi-tech + + International - + - Business &Intercommunication manager In-store - + +

328 Joburi + + + Know-how - + + Leader + + + Leasing + + + Mall-uri + + + Manager partener - + + Management + + + Managing director - - + Manager business - + + agency Master franciza - + - Neuromarketing - + - Newsletter + + + Pack shot - + + Regulatory affairs - + + Rebranduite - + - Retail + + + Roaming + + + Service + + + Service fee - + + Senior manager + + + Senior copywriter - + + Shopping marketing - + - Short-selling - + + Showroom + + + Spot + + + Streaming - + + Trend + + + Voodoo - + - Website + + +

 Advertising “..nu dă semne că s-ar fi plictisit de advertising”(Capital, nr.13, 30 martie 2006)  Back-office „..oameni specializaţi pentru activităţi de back-office la credite, în cazul serviciilor financiar-bancare”(Capital, nr.13, 30 martie 2006)  Bonusuri „Noi vom da în continuare bonusuri agenţiilor care fac performanţă în vânzările de bilete”(Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Boom „..cum ar fi cazul boom-ului de vânzări pe care îl înregistrează retailerii pe perioada sărbătorilor.”(Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Brand

329 „Harta românească a brandingului a cunoscut în ultimul timp un freamăt pentru că nume mari ale industriei mondiale şi-au întors privirea către ea.”(Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006) „Piaţa de branding este sub cinci milioane de euro”.(Capital, nr.13, 30 martie 2006)  Senior copywriter „Până la fondarea agenţiei, Cazan a fost senior copywriter la agenţia Lowe Lintas România”(Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Corporate affairs „...explică Dan Pazara, director corporate affairs Rom Telecom” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Corporate „...în special pe segmentul corporate, care este reticent la schimbarea numerelor de telefon” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Country manger „...spune Adriana Boersma-Rodriguez, County Mannager Ericsson România şi Moldova” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Chief investment officer „Horia Manda, Senior vice president & chief investment officer al RAEF” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Due dilligence „Dat fiind numărul mare al pretendenţilor, am început un proces de selecţie, în urma căruia au rămas patru nume pe lista finală pentru due dilligence în detaliu.” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Hi-tech „..cum ar fi maşina cu dotări hi-tech” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Holding „Forum Star a holdingului Auto Ţiriac, a fost desfiinţată de managementul grupului”(Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  In-store „Pentru Internity, acordul mai implică modificarea identităţii vizuale şi comunicarea in-store.”(Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Lider „..ambiţia de a deveni lider de piaţă” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Neuromarkening „...neuromarkeingul este o combinaţie între neurologie şi marketing” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprlie 2006)  Pre-pay

330 „La momentul lansării ofertei pre-pay de 2000 de minute în reţeta pentru trei euro pe oră” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Service fee „In SUA, agenţiile de turism încasează de la client între 20 şi 25 de dolari pentru rezervarea unui bilet de avion (service fee)” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Shopping center „...ţara noastră fiind încă departe de ţările vecine în ceea ce priveşte spaţiile de birouri de clasa A, shopping-center-uri şi spaţiile industriale moderne” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Short-selling „...despre tranzacţii în marjă, short-selling, derivative, iar, mai nou, despre conturi agregate” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Training „...francizorul oferă viitorilor parteneri un training specializat de aproximativ cinci săptămâni vizând produsele, dar şi elementele de marketing” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Trend „Trendul îl dă Tarom şi toate celalalte componente aeriene vor aplica foarte repede politica operatorilor naţionali” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Website „În funcţie de fiecare website în parte, se pot găsi idei şi apoi metode de implementare, care să crească traficul şi calitatea acestuia.” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)

Joburi al căror nume provine din limba engleză şi care nu sunt prevăzute cu acest titlu în nomenclatorul Mininsterului Muncii şi Protecţiei Sociale:

 Chief investment officer „Horia Manda, Senior vice president & chief investment officer al RAEF” (Capital, nr. 16, 20 aprilie 2006)  Senior copywriter „Până la fondarea agenţiei, Cazan a fost senior copywriter la agenţia Lowe Lintas România”(Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Country manger „...spune Adriana Boersma-Rodriguez, County Mannager Ericsson România şi Moldova” (Capital, nr. 13, 30 martie 2006)  Head of Socio-Economic Section, UNDP. FLORIN BĂNĂŢEANU

331  Managing Partner Ascendis. Business ADRIAN STANCIU  Managing Partner GAV Scholz & Friends. Publicitate LUCIAN GEORGESC  Presedinte Leadership Development Solutions. Executive Search RADU FURNICĂ  Director de Vânzări şi Marketing, Crowne Plaza Bucureşti MIOARA GHEORGHE  Chartered Marketer, Managing Partner, Brandient Marketing ANETA BOGDAN  Partener Human Invest Training Alegerea acestei categorii de termeni economici este motivată nu atât prin numărul lor, cât prin frecvenţa de utilizare şi prin valorile semantice şi stilistice dezvoltate pe teren românesc. Raportaţi la tranzacţiile economice 1 din ultimii ani, ei pot fi consideraţi cuvinte-martor , purtătoare ale unor valori simbolice complexe. În lingvistica românească, terminologia economică de origine engleză nu a fost încă studiată în mod sistematic. Referiri ocazionale se 2 găsesc în studii şi articole consacrate anglicismelor în general sau unor 3 aspecte particulare ale influenţei engleze . Expunerea de faţă este motivată de creşterea semnificativă a ponderii influenţei engleze în terminologia economica românească, în contextul 4 general al „invaziei” de anglicisme şi americanisme . Avem în vedere atât împrumuturile (inclusiv nume proprii), cât mai ales calcurile (frazeologice şi semantice) absente din dicţionarele româneşti, dar frecvent utilizate în presă retail, tendinţă, etc.). Se cuvin, de asemenea, semnalate mutaţii intervenite în sfera semnificaţiilor (denotative şi/sau conotative) şi a uzului (în plan pragmatic-funcţional şi stilistic). În consecinţă, vom considera ca rezultat al influenţei engleze unităţile lexicale împrumutate sau calchiate care au un etimon sau un „model” înregistrat în dicţionare generale (BBC) sau cu profil economic ale limbii engleze. În măsura posibilului, vom încerca să precizăm statutul de „noutate 5 lexicală reală” sau „noutate lexicală aparentă” al împrumuturilor şi calcurilor, deşi asemenea distincţii sunt greu de făcut în absenţa unor dicţionare datate (singurele care oferă informaţii referitoare la prima atestare sunt DCR şi DEA). Un exemplu de „noutate aparentă” ar fi 2 utilizarea termenului lider în domeniul publicităţii cu sensurile „cel mai bun produs” sau „primul într-un domeniu”, neînregistrate în dicţionarele

332 româneşti, dar atestate în BBC: „Connex – liderul pieţei de telecomunicaţii din România” (Adevarul, 10.02.2003, p. 5); „Dacia rămâne liderul pieţei” (Adevarul , 31.01.2003, p. 6); „Antena 1 a dominat programul de Revelion ca lider de audienţă” (Antena. 1, 1.01.2003). În acest caz, caracterul de noutate este mai greu de sesizat, fiind vorba de lărgirea polisemiei unui 6 împrumut vechi (atestat în română de la jumătatea secolului al XIX-lea) prin preluarea recentă (după 1989) a unui sens atestat în engleză şi uşor de 7 asociat celor deja existente în limba noastră . Pentru Tatiana Slama-Cazacu, „invazia brutală de termeni străini”, în principal împrumuturi englezeşti (desemnate metaforic drept „pulbere de 8 false diamante” ), reprezintă una dintre tehnicile de manipulare la care recurge Puterea în scopul obscurizării comunicării reale şi pentru 9 „mascarea” unor realităţi neconvenabile .

Un punct de vedere distinct în problema „englezismelor” din jargoanele profesionale apare la un ziarist de notorietate – Cristian Tudor Popescu, care se dovedeşte extrem de tolerant, invocând criterii pragmatice (precizie şi brevilocvenţă) pentru a justifica utilizarea termenilor străini: „Jargonul este o «scurtătură», o optimizare în vorbirea între doi inşi «din branşă». Ce rost ar mai avea traducerea obositoare în româneşte a unor concepte născute cu nume englezeşti? [...] Ca şi argoul, jargonul nu produce confuzii, nu deformează sensuri, nu distruge limba gazdă, dimpotrivă, poate servi unei comunicări cât se poate de eficiente”. (Un cadavru umplut cu ziare. Scrieri, Iaşi, Polirom, 2001, pp. 158-159). În plan politic şi social, principala explicaţie vizează statutul englezei de lingua franca sau „limbă a globalizării”, demonstrat cu argumente ştiinţifice, politice, statistice şi sociolingvistice în lucrări consacrate special 10 11 acestui subiect sau procesului de globalizare în general . Dintre articolele de presă cu titluri sugestive reţinem câteva, care preiau informaţii din prestigioase publicaţii străine: „Un adevăr tot mai evident: Engleza, limba globalizării” (Adevarul , 8.01.2002, p. 8); „Engleza, banca lingvistică de date a întregii planete” (Adevarul, 22.01.2003, p. 12); „Euroengleza – limba de comunicare a Europei lărgite?” (Adevarul, 6.11.2002, p.12). Este interesant de remarcat că ascensiunea englezei ca „limbă mondială” fusese semnalată încă din anii ’60 de Pierre Bourney, într-o lucrare consacrată limbilor cu circulaţie internaţională, unde capitolul referitor la engleză este intitulat „Une même langue pour le monde 12 entier” . În sfârşit, specificul presei româneşti postdecembriste (caracterizate printr-o mare deschidere spre sursele de informare occidentale şi

333 americane) şi noul statut al jurnalistului – văzut ca „mediator” între eveniment şi public, dar şi ca „lider de opinie” – favorizează pătrunderea masivă a termenilor economici preluaţi din engleză. În cele din urmă, nu trebuie neglijaţi factorii socio- şi psiholingvistici 13 14 responsabili de prezenţa „cultismelor” sau a împrumuturilor „de lux” : snobismul lingvistic sau anglomania unor jurnalişti, veleitarismul intelectual şi afectarea, comoditatea, necunoşterea resurselor limbii materne. Se ajunge astfel la un jargone conomic , satirizat prin denumiri precum engl. gobbledygook şi oficialese au romgleză. Extinderile de sens presupun lărgirea domeniului de referinţă (a extensiunii) şi reducerea intensiunii, prin neglijarea unor seme periferice din definiţia englezească, ceea ce permite, ulterior, înlăturarea unor restricţii contextual-stilistice (de combinare). Rezultă sensuri economice extinse, sensuri depolitizate şi sensuri „stilistice”: – Lider apare în DN şi în MDN cu sensurile consacrate din domeniile 3 politic / economic („conducător”) şi sportiv („echipă sau sportiv aflat în fruntea unui clasament”), nefiind consemnat sensul din sfera publicităţii („Radio Contact – liderul vânzărilor de publicitate radio”). „Pletora semantică” asociată în mass-media actuală termenului lider include o diversificare a domeniilor de utilizare: politic (lider PNL / parlamentar; liderul de la Casa Albă), sindical (liderul Ligii Sindicatelor Miniere), artistic (liderul grupului „Divertis”), religios (lider spiritual suprem al talibanilor). Reţine atenţia extinderea semnificaţiei în zona referenţilor negativi (liderul reţelei de traficanţi; lider mafiot) şi realizarea unor sinonimii contextuale foarte largi şi diversificate: lider / boss / şef de clan, lider local (corupt) – baron local; lider / preşedinte; lider / prim- ministru; lider al ţiganilor / bulibaşă etc. Polisemia termenului lider impune precizarea sensului prin determinanţi. Rezultă sintagme relativ stabile: lider spiritual (A, 1. 04. 2003, p. 14), lider naţional (A, 29. 03. 2003, p. 7), lider de opinie. Ultima, calchiată după engleză, este specializată în domeniul comunicării politice, beneficiind de explicitarea riguroasă în lucrări de profil: „Noţiunea de «jurnalism de haită» presupune condiţionarea grupurilor de oameni de presă prin liderii informaţiilor, cei care deţin informaţiile cele mai bune direct de la sursă şi care dau tonul în interpretarea evenimentelor” (Pop, 2000: 11). În presă, sintagma lider de opinie (având sinonim aproximativ formator de opinie – N., 20. 01. 2003, p. 3) a dobândit o semnificaţie mai largă şi mai puţin exactă, aşa cum observă – din perspectiva limbii franceze – Thoveron (1996: 75): „Expresia «lider de opinie» s-a perimat, este folosită astăzi fără discernământ pentru a desemna ceea ce ar trebui denumit spre exemplu notabilitate sau personalitate pilot”.

334 Semnificaţia sintagmei respective rămâne vagă, imprecisă într-un context din presa românească actuală: „Diferenţele de avere dintre bogaţi şi săraci se accentuează la nivel global, se arată în cel mai recent studiu al Băncii Mondiale, bazat pe o anchetă în rândul a 2600 de lideri de opinie din 48 de ţări” (A, 10. 06. 2003, p. 5). În majoritatea cazurilor, termenul lider apare în combinaţii sintagmatice libere: „liderii NATO”, (A, 7. 11. 2002, p. 4); „liderii militari americani” (A, 3. 05. 2003, p. 9); „lideri arabi moderaţi” (A, 4. 06. 2003, p. 9); „lideri masoni” (A, 4. 06. 2003, p. 3).

Caracterul recent al majorităţii faptelor lingvistice discutate aici nu permite formularea unor concluzii sau previziuni solid fundamentate privind direcţiile ulterioare de evoluţie. Cu toate acestea, considerăm că „monitorizarea” termenilor împrumutaţi din engleză sau calchiaţi după modele anglo-americane prezintă interes pentru lexicologie şi sociolingvistică (ca expresie a dinamicii lexicului), pentru lexicografie (sub aspectul asimilării lor în română) şi last but not least, pentru publicişti şi specialiştii în comunicare politică (în virtutea forţei de persuasiune a acestei terminologii).

Note: 1 Cf. fr. mot-témoin, concept introdus de Georges Matoré pentru a desemna simboluri ale schimbării – de obicei neologisme – care indică apariţia unor idei sau concepte noi (apud Cernicova 1999: 83). 2 Vezi Avram (1997); Constantinescu et al. (2002); Stoichiţoiu-Ichim (2001). 3 Stoichiţoiu-Ichim (2002); (2003 a). 4 Vezi Constantinescu et al. (2002:187): “At the end of the twentieth century, traditional Romanian Francophilia is rivalled by an unprecedented Anglophilia”. 5 Vezi Avram (1998). 6 Apud DEA. 7 Pentru polisemia termenului lider, vezi Stoichiţoiu-Ichim (2003 b). 8 Slama-Cazacu (2000: 123-152). 9 „Prin această «stratagemă» [abuzul de termeni străini, mai ales englezi], fie sunt acoperite realităţi neplăcute, fie (cuvântul fiind necunoscut) se împiedică înţelegerea unei situaţii, fie, în orice caz, se încearcă, printr-o cosmetizare lingvistică, modificarea imaginii compromise a unor fapte, acţiuni, obiecte, de către o Putere politică, tehnocrată, comercială etc.” (ibidem, p. 51-52). 10 Vezi Crystal (2000) care aduce argumente istorico-georgrafice şi socio- culturale pentru a explica ascensiunea englezei ca limbă a globalizării, neuitând să sublinieze rolul jucat de o superputere precum SUA: “A language becomes an international language for one chief reason: the political power of its people – especially their military power” (p. 7); vezi şi Stoichiţoiu-Ichim (2003).

335 11 Ritzer (2003: 160-166) demonstrează convingător şi argumentat relaţia dintre mcdonaldizare (înţeleasă ca omogenizare şi standardizare împinsă la extrem) şi procesul de globalizare, care se manifestă sub forma „imperialismului cultural” al SUA. 12 Bourney (1962: 105 şi urm.). 13 Vezi definirea conceptului la Guţu-Romalo (2000: 231). 14 Vezi Stoichiţoiu-Ichim (2001: 94 şi urm.).

Bibliografie: o Avram, M. (1997) Anglicismele în limba română actuală, Bucureşti, Editura Academiei Române. o Avram, M. (1998) Noutăţi reale şi noutăţi aparente în vocabularul românesc actual în „Limbă şi literatură”, vol. I, p. 31-35. o Baylon, C.; Mignot, X. (2000) Initiation à la sémantique du langage, Paris, Nathan. o Beciu, C. (2002) Comunicare politică, Bucureşti, Editura Comunicare.ro. o Bidu-Vrănceanu, A. (1993) Lectura dicţionarelor, Bucureşti, Editura Metropol. o Burney, P. (1962) Les langues internationales, Paris, PUF. o Cernicova, M. (1999) Stilul publicistic românesc în perioada „tranziţiei”, în „Analele Universităţii «Tibiscus» Timişoara”. Seria Jurnalistică, vol. VII, pp. 59-89. o Constantinescu, I.; Popovici, V.; Ştefănescu, A. (2002) Romanian, în Goerlach, Manfred (ed.), English in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 168-194. o Crystal, D. (2000) English as a Global Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. o Désirat, C.; Hordé, T. (1988) La langue française au XXe siècle, Paris, Bordas. o Dobrescu, P.; Bârgăoanu, A. (2002) Mass media – puterea fără contraputere, Bucureşti, Editura ALL. o Gerstlé, J. (2002) Comunicare politică, Iaşi, Institutul European. o *** Globalization: English and Language Change in Europe (Abstracts), University of Warsaw, Institute of Applied Linguistics (19- 21 September 2002). o Goerlach, M. (2002) Introduction, în English in Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 1-12. o Guiraud, P. (1965) Les mots étrangers, Paris, PUF.

336 o Guţu-Romalo, V. (2000) Corectitudine şi greşeală. Limba română de azi, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas Educational. o Hartley, J. (1999) Discursul ştirilor, Iaşi, Editura Polirom. o Lehmann, A.; Martin-Berthet, F. (1998) Introduction à la lexicologie. Sémantique et morphologie, Paris, Dunod. o Lynier, G. (1995) Dictionnaire de la langue de bois en politique, Paris, Les Belles Lettres. o Orwell, G. (1946) Politics and the English Language, în Goshgarian, G. (ed.) (1980) Exploring Language, 2nd edition, Boston-Toronto, Little, Brown & Comp. o Pop, D. (2000) Mass media şi politica. Teorii, structuri, principii, Iaşi, Institutul European. o Ritzer, G. (2003) Mcdonaldizarea societăţii, Bucureşti, Editura Comunicare.ro. o Rovenţa-Frumuşani, D. (1999) Semiotica şi mass media. Schimbarea socială în România, în Semiotică, societate, cultură, Iaşi, Institutul European, pp. 221-243. o Simion, E. (2001) Tot despre „romgleză”, în „Curentul” 6. 06. 2001. o Slama-Cazacu, T. (2000) Stratageme comunicaţionale şi manipularea, Iaşi, Editura Polirom. o Stoichiţoiu-Ichim, A. (2001) Vocabularul limbii române actuale. Dinamică, influenţe, creativitate, Bucureşti, Editura ALL. o Stoichiţoiu-Ichim, A. (2002) Asimilarea împrumuturilor englezeşti: aspecte actuale ale dinamicii sensurilor, în Pană-Dindelegan, G. (coord.), Aspecte ale dinamicii limbii române actuale, Bucureşti, EUB, pp. 249-262. o Stoichiţoiu-Ichim, A. (2003 a) „Romgleza”: opţiune personală sau efect al globalizării?, în G. Gabor (coord.), Identitate românească şi integrare europeană, Bucureşti, Editura Ars Docendi, pp. 95-103. o Stoichiţoiu-Ichim, A. (2003 b) Observaţii privind semantismul termenului lider în româna actuală, în „Analele Universităţii Bucureşti. Limbă şi literatură română” (sub tipar). o Ştefănescu, A. (2003) Un dicţionar european de anglicisme, în G. Gabor (coord.), Identitate românească şi integrare europeană, Bucureşti, Editura Ars Docendi, pp. 173-179. o Thom, F. (1993) Limba de lemn, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas. o Thoveron, G. (1996) Comunicarea politică azi, Bucureşti, Editura Antet.

337 o Van Cuilenburg, J.J.; Scholten, O., Noomen, G.W. (2000) Ştiinţa comunicării, ediţia a doua, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas.

Surse şi abrevieri: o Ant. 1 – Postul TV „Antena 1” o BBC – BBC English Dictionary, London, BBC English and Harper Collins Publishers Ltd. o DCR – Florica Dimitrescu, Dicţionar de cuvinte recente, ediţia a doua, 2 Bucureşti, Editura Logos, 1997. o DEA – Manfred Goerlach (ed.), A Dictionary of European Anglicisms. A Usage Dictionary of Anglicisms in Sixteen European Languages, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001. o DN – Florin Marcu; Constant Maneca, Dicţionar de neologisme, ediţia 3 a treia, Bucureşti, Editura Academiei, 1978. o DPER – Dicţionar politic englez – român, Bucureşti, Editura Junior, f. a. o MDN – Florin Marcu, Marele dicţionar de neologisme, ediţie revizuită, augmentată şi actualizată, Bucureşti, Editura Saeculum I. O, 2002. o N – „Naţional” o Prima TV – Postul TV „Prima TV” o PRO TV – Postul TV „PRO TV” o R Act – Postul de radio „România Actualităţi” o TVR1 – Postul TV „România 1”

338