Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia D
IPARTIMENTO DI STUDI LINGUISTICI E CULTURALICORSO DI LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN
L INGUE , CULTURE , COMUNICAZIONE
L a traduzione di testi artistici attraverso i corpora:
John Constable
The translation of artistic texts through corpora: John Constable
Prova finale di:
Laura Germano Relatore:
Laura Gavioli
Correlatore Franco Nasi
Anno Accademico 2013/2014
2
RIASSUNTO
Questa tesi si occupa della traduzione effettuata mediante l’utilizzo di corpora, metodologia qui presentata attraverso la trasposizione di testi artistici riguardanti il pittore inglese John Constable.
Il primo capitolo è dedicato alla traduzione, che viene qui introdotta dal punto di vista storico, teorico e culturale, con un’attenzione particolare al ruolo del traduttore e alla definizione dei principi guida della disciplina.
Nel secondo capitolo, queste stesse nozioni base sono un punto di partenza per introdurre la linguistica dei corpora ed i corpora stessi. La disciplina viene descritta partendo dalla sua storia, dalle possibili prospettive future e dal dettaglio della situazione presente, passando poi ad una analisi dettagliata dei corpora in relazione alle teorie della traduzione e alle loro possibili concrete applicazioni; assieme ad una discussione delle diverse tipologie di corpus che esistono e che possono pertanto essere utilizzate dai traduttori.
Il terzo capitolo approfondisce il discorso sui corpora e lo porta verso una direzione più concreta, affrontando il tema della loro progettazione e costruzione, tema trattato dapprima in termini generali e poi declinato in senso più specifico, andando così a descrivere il processo di composizione del corpus da me utilizzato.
Infine, il quarto capitolo presenta il mio lavoro di traduzione. Per ognuno dei tre testi di partenza viene mostrata la trasformazione dall’inglese all’italiano, e vengono discussi i punti maggiormente critici del processo traduttivo da me intrapreso.
È proprio dalle mie riflessioni sulla traduzione con i corpora che emerge come questi siano un valido strumento per il traduttore, in quanto lo assistono in vari aspetti del suo lavoro, ad esempio verificandone le intuizioni, fornendo dati non solo qualitativi ma anche quantitativi riguardo alla lingua di arrivo, ed offrendo dati linguistici in contesto che quindi ci sono utili per analizzare le strutture sintattiche e testuali di arrivo per costruire un testo che sia appropriato ed efficace sotto ogni punto di vista.
3
ABSTRACT
This dissertation is about translation through corpora, a methodology that is here presented through the transposition of artistic texts about the English painter John Constable.
The first chapter deals with translation, here introduced from the historical, theoretic and cultural points of view, with a great attention to the translator’s role and to the definition of the guiding principles of the discipline.
In the second chapter, these same basic notions are the starting point for introducing corpus linguistics and corpora. The discipline is described starting from its history, its future perspectives, and its present situation. Then, a detailed analysis of corpora is presented in relation to translation theories and their possible concrete applications; together with the discussion of different types of existing corpora that can be used by translators.
The third chapter deepens the theme of corpora, bringing it to a more concrete dimension, dealing with the process of their design and building, first considering it in general and then in a more specific sense, moving to the description of the process of creation of my corpus, the one I used in my translations.
Finally, the forth chapter presents my translations. For each one of the original texts I have shown their transformation from English to Italian, and then I have discussed the major critical points of the translation process I undertook.
It is from these reflections on translation through corpora that their validity emerges. In fact, it is easily understandable how corpora support the translator in many aspects of her/his work, for example verifying her/his intuitions, offering qualitative and quantitative data about the language of arrival, and showing linguistic data in context that are very useful when analyzing the syntactic and textual structures of arrival in order to build a text that can be appropriate and effective under every point of view.
4
RÉSUMÉ
Cette mémoire concerne la traduction effectuée à travers l’utilisation des corpus, une méthodologie ici présentée à travers la transposition de textes artistiques à propos du peintre anglais John Constable.
Le premier chapitre est dédié à la traduction, ici introduite du point de vu historique, théorique et culturel, avec une attention toute particulière au traducteur et à la définition des principes de base de la discipline.
Dans le deuxième chapitre ces mêmes notions sont le point de départ pour introduire la linguistique de corpus et les corpus eux-mêmes. La discipline est décrite à partir de son histoire, de son avenir et de son présent, passant ensuite à une analyse détaillée des corpus en relation aux théories de la traduction et à leurs possibles applications concrètes ; tout avec une discussion de différentes typologies de corpus existantes et qui peuvent donc être utilisées par les traducteurs.
Le troisième chapitre approfondit le discours sur les corpus et l’amène vers une direction plus concrète, abordant le thème de leur projet et construction, le traitant d’abord en termes généraux ensuite déclinés en sens spécifique, décrivant ainsi le processus de composition du corpus que j’ai utilisé.
Finalement, le quatrième chapitre présente mon travail de traduction. Pour chacun des trois textes de départ j’ai montré ici leur transformation de l’anglais à l’italien, puis j’ai approfondis les points les plus critiques du processus traductif que j’ai entrepris.
Il est justement à partir de mes réflexions sur la traduction que j’ai pu observer la validité des corpus pour le traducteur, puisque ils l’aident dans plusieurs aspects de son travail : par exemple en vérifiant ses intuitions, en lui donnant une bonne qualité et quantité de données à propos de la langue d’arrivée, et en lui offrant des données linguistiques en contexte qui lui sont très utiles dans l’analyse des structures syntaxiques et textuelles d’arrivée pour construire un texte approprié et efficace à tous les points de vue.
5
TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ... 9
TRANSLATING AND TRANSLATION ANALYSIS: BASIC PRINCIPLES ... 12
1. Premise: fidelity and negotiation in translation ... 12
2. The history of Translation Studies ... 12
3. Translation ... 15
3.1. Introducing equivalence ... 15
3.2. Untranslatability ... 16
3.3. The Skopostheory ... 17
4. The translator ... 18
4.1. The translator’s role: the descriptive and the postmodern approach ... 19
4.2. Interpretation ... 19
4.3. Newmark’s communicative and semantic translation ... 19
5. Translation and culture ... 20
5.1. Translation and migration ... 21
5.2. Translation universals... 21
6. Guiding principles: literal/free translation, equivalence and culture ... 23
6.1. Literal vs. free translation ... 23
6.2. Equivalence ... 25
6.3. The cultural filter ... 26
6.4. Concluding on translation guiding principles ... 28
TRANSLATION, TRANSLATING AND CORPUS LINGUISTICS ... 29
1. Introduction: translation guiding principles through corpora ... 29
2. Corpus linguistics ... 30
2.1. Premise ... 30
6
2.2. The scope of corpus linguistics ... 31
2.3. Historical overview ... 31
2.4. Modern corpus linguistics ... 33
2.4.1 The corpus-based approach ... 34
2.4.2. The corpus-driven approach ... 36
2.5. Future prospects ... 37
2.6. My interest in corpus linguistics and corpora ... 38
3. The materials of corpus linguistics: corpora ... 38
3.1. Types of corpora ... 39
3.1.1. General corpora ... 39
3.1.2. Specialized corpora ... 40
3.1.3. Parallel corpora... 40
3.1.4. Comparable corpora ... 41
3.1.5. DIY corpora ... 42
3.2. Applications of corpora ... 43
4. Concluding thoughts: corpora and translation studies ... 44
CORPUS DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION... 46
1. General issues in corpus design and construction ... 46
2. Corpus analysis tools ... 48
2.1. Technical tools: AntConc ... 49
3. My corpus ... 51
3.1. General perspective on John Constable... 52
3.2. The exhibitions ... 52
3.3. Technical texts ... 53
3.4. Art for children ... 54
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE: MY TRANSLATING WORK ... 55
1. Introducing translations ... 55
2. Translation #1 : presenting an exhibition ... 56
7
2.1. The full source text ... 56
2.2. The translated extract ... 57
2.3. The target text ... 57
2.4. Comments on translation ... 57
2.4.1. ... re-unites the full-scale sketches ... > ... riunisce gli schizzi a grandezza naturale … ... 57
2.4.2. ... their corresponding finished pictures ... > ... i corrispettivi dipinti finiti … ... 58
2.4.4. ... the Suffolk river he had known since boyhood ... > ... al fiume Suffolk che conosceva fin dalla giovinezza …... 59
2.4.5. ... – the life of the Suffolk river he had known since boyhood - ... > ... il tema della vita attorno al fiume Suffolk che Constable conosceva fin dalla giovinezza … ... 60
3. Translation #2: presenting the artist to children ... 61
3.1. The full source text ... 61
3.2. The translated extract ... 64
3.3. The target text ... 65
3.4. Comments on translation ... 66
3.4.1. Explore more > approfondiamo ... 66
3.4.2. Cloud studies > studi di nuvole ... 66
3.4.3. ... scientific understanding ... > ... competenza scientifica ... ... 67
3.4.4. ... fascinated by weather ... > ... affascinato dal clima ... ... 67
3.4.5. ... observed various cloud formations and their movements ... > ... osservava […] la forma delle nuvole ed i loro movimenti …... 68
3.4.6. sketches > schizzi ... 69
3.4.7. ... Take a pad of paper ... > ... Prendi un quaderno ... ... 69
3.4.8. Dense – light – scattered – thin – dark – gloomy – swirling –beautiful – milky – fluffy – smoky – lumpy – foggy > dense – leggere – sparse – sottili – scure – cupe - a vortice – belle – lattiginose – soffici – frastagliate – grumose – nebbiose ... 70
4. Translation #3: presenting a technical analysis ... 70
4.1. The full source text ... 70
8
4.2. The translated extract ... 73
4.3. The target text ... 73
4.4. Comments on translation ... 74
4.4.1. The X-rays reveals … > Grazie ai raggi X è possibile vedere … ... 74
4.4.2. ... paint applied on top allowed to encroach onto the main body ... > Le strisce aggiuntive furono unite ai bordi […] della tela … ... 74
4.4.3. ... the recent technical examination suggests ... > ... una recente analisi suggerisce che … 75 4.4.4. ... strips of canvas were added to Sketch for Hadleigh Castle ... > ... strisce di tela furono aggiunte allo Sketch per il Castello di Hadleigh … ... 75
5. A general perspective on translations ... 76
5.1. Checking equivalence through corpora ... 76
5.2. Choosing between translation options according to texts types ... 76
5.3. Dealing with fixed translations... 77
5.4. Re-organizing texts through corpora ... 78
CONCLUSIONS ... 80
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 84
9
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation was born from my personal interest in corpus translation, a methodology I have been studying during my university career and that I wished to deepen through a specific study. My preliminary knowledge and the little experience I already had in the field made me start my analysis from the assumption that corpora can probably be valid tools for translators; a thesis that I have decided to prove through a concrete process of translation, in order to investigate if and in which way(s) a corpus can help the translator in her/his task.
In this perspective, I have begun my work from two fundamental preparatory steps: finding the texts to be translated and building a corpus on which to base my observations. As far as the ST are concerned, I have chosen three texts of a very different nature but that still have something in common, that is to say their topic, art. More specifically, they all present the same English painter, John Constable. The choice has not been made at random, in fact I have opted for this precise artist because of two main reasons: on the one hand, he is considered as one of the major representatives of the British romantic art and beyond; on the other, he is quite well known in Italy as well, where he is among the most exhibited and studied foreign painters. Then, I have moved to the design and building of my corpus, a collection of 100 Italian texts that I have selected in relation to the STs, that is to say that they are all about art and, more precisely, they all reflect the STs in some way. In fact, the corpus could be divided into 4 thematic sub-corpora mirroring the topics of the original English texts: a presentation of the artist addressed to children, a report of a technical analysis, and an introduction to an exhibition.
At that moment, the starting points for the translation and the analysis were ready, so I have taken a step back in order to deepen their necessary theoretical basis, that is to say presenting the two disciplines that are mainly linked to corpora in my perspective, translation and corpus linguistics.
In this respect, the first chapter deals with translation, here introduced from the historical, theoretic and cultural points of view. A great attention is here devoted to the guiding principles of the discipline, that is to say equivalence and untranslatability, fidelity, negotiation, interpretation, literal and free translation, and the cultural filter. Then, I also discussed the importance of the Skopostheory, the translation’s purpose paradigm that has taken the place of the equivalence older one according to which a ST can be translated in many different ways in order to carry out different functions. Finally, I also introduced the notion of translation universals and discussed the
10 translator’s role who, being both a producer and a receiver, should not just have linguistic competences but also cultural, encyclopaedic, and textual ones.
Then, in the second chapter, the same basic notions are the starting point for introducing corpus linguistics and corpora. The discipline is described beginning from its history, its future perspectives, and its present situation, with an examination of the corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches. These two ways of using a corpus differ in the their premises and results, in fact the former starts from a theory that is then confirmed through corpora; while the latter begins from the direct observation of data that can then lead to general theories. Finally, a detailed analysis of corpora is presented in relation to translation theories and their possible concrete applications, together with the discussion of different types of existing corpora that can be used by translators.
The third chapter represents the link between theory and practice, since it first deals with corpus design and construction in general, then moving to the actual creation of my corpus. Moreover, here I have also described corpus analysis tools, with a specific reference to the one I have used for my research, that is to say AntConc. Then, I have described my corpus in detail, also presenting its subdivision in thematic sub-corpora.
Finally, the forth chapter is dedicated to my translations. For each one of the original texts I have included the full text, then showing the extract I have worked on. Then, after having presented their transposition from English to Italian I have discussed the major critical points of the translation process I undertook, particularly those that were interesting in the perspective of this work, that is to say all the challenging passages that I have solved mainly thanks to my corpus. In this way, I could observe that my corpus had been particularly useful in four cases. Firstly, it has helped me checking equivalence between the SL and the TL and verifying my intuitions, as for example in the case of
‘schizzi’, which was confirmed by the corpus to be equivalent to ‘sketches’. Secondly, it has been fundamental when having to choose between apparently equivalent translation options, like ‘dipinti terminati’ and ‘finiti’, a situation in which the corpus’ evidence has made my decision for the latter.
Then, it has been a valid ally when facing fixed-translations like quotations and proper names; and finally its help has also been important for re-organizing the texts’ structure. I have met this specific case in the ST about the exhibition, where the text had to be re-structured in order to be and sound more Italian. In that situation, it was once again the corpus that has given me the right hint towards the solution, suggesting me that what we call inciso is not as typical in Italian as it is in English, which have made me choose to eliminate it thus building the sentence differently.
Having worked on corpus-aided translation directly, I have understood the validity and usefulness of corpora, in fact it is easily understandable from my data that they support the translator in many aspects of her/his work. For example, as I have already discussed, they help her/him verify her/his
11 intuitions; they are valuable when analyzing the syntactic and textual structures of arrival in order to build a text that can be appropriate and effective under every point of view; and they offer linguistic data that are helpful both in a qualitative and quantitative perspective and which are displayed in context. The relevance of the quantity of data offered by my corpus is easily understandable, once again, from the ‘sketches’ case, where the gap between the first option –
‘schizzi’, 54 hits – and the second one – ‘bozzetti’, 10 hits – has played a great role in making me choose for the equivalent ‘schizzi’. Conversely, as far as quality in context is concerned, a good example might be that of ‘technical examination’. In that case, I opted for the transposition of
‘examination’ as ‘analisi’ not only because it was the most quantitatively represented option, but also because I noticed that it was often followed by an attribute or an adjective that perfectly matched my specialized context, as for instance ‘a. riflettologica’, ‘a. all’infrarosso’, etc.
It is also true that in this work the validity of my corpus proved to be mainly lexical, and that further studies would be interesting in order to draw a complete picture of this issue; however, from this analysis and the case-studies I have mentioned above it is already possible to understand that corpora are great allies for the translator, profitable tools that it is to be hoped that will enter more and more the world of professional translation.
12 CHAPTER 1
TRANSLATING AND TRANSLATION
ANALYSIS: BASIC PRINCIPLES
1. Premise: fidelity and negotiation in translation
As stated by Eco (2003), translation is a form of interpretation whose goal is to transfer the text’s essence so that the target text (TT) can have the same impact on its readers as the source text (ST).
In order to show his perspective, Eco presents the example of the translation of the English expression ‘you are just pulling my leg’. At first, the translator has to interpret the phrase, a process that will inevitably lead her/him to understand that in this case ‘mi stai tirando la gamba’ would not be appropriate. In fact, what s/he is looking for is a figurative meaning, an Italian fixed expression that may carry a similar sense to the one s/he is working on. A possible solution may be ‘mi stai prendendo in giro’, that could even be more fitting if it became ‘mi stai prendendo per il naso’, maintaining in this way the reference to the part of the body that we can find in the English expression. This simple case study shows perfectly two of the basic principles the translator should follow: fidelity and negotiation. On the one hand in fact, the translator should be faithful to all the parties at stake, that is to say the ST, its author, the source culture, the TT, the target culture, the readers of the TT with their expectations and the publishers. On the other hand, s/he has to be good at interpreting and therefore negotiating meanings, a quality that will make her/him understand that
‘mi stai tirando la gamba’ does not fit the context and that instead ‘mi stai prendendo per il naso’
fully captures the core of the ST.
2. The history of Translation Studies
Even though translation is an ancient practice, it is a comparatively young field of study. It is in fact only in the 1960s that it has been institutionalized as an academic discipline. It was the work of some linguists which set down its theoretical bases, like Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet who carried a contrastive comparison of French and English in Quebec; like Eugene Nida who published
“Toward a science of translating”, a manual for the translation of the Bible. John C. Catford theorized translation from a linguistic perspective; the Check scholar Jiří Levý and the Slovak scholars Anton Popovič and František Miko worked on the stylists of literary translation. However, up until the 1980s translation was considered as a field of applied linguistics, in the broader
13 paradigm of contrastive linguistics; in fact, even though it started to gain some autonomy already in the 1970s, scholars have continued to see it as a part of other linguistic disciplines for a long time.
Even nowadays, translation tends to be seen as a primarily linguistic activity even though, fortunately, the awareness of its interdisciplinarity is growing, as it is always more often linked to other fields of knowledge like sociolinguistics and semantics. The name of the discipline was coined in 1972, when James Holmes published his paper “The name and nature of Translation Studies”; but the discipline’s birth is normally dated back to 1978. In that year André Lefevere proposed the name Translation Studies for that branch of knowledge regarding “the problems raised by the production and description of translation” (Bassnett 2002: 11), whose purpose is to examine the processes undertaken in the act of translation and not, as a careless observer may think, to provide a set of norms to follow in order to produce a perfect rendition. In other words, if Translation Studies has long been prescriptive, telling translators what to do and how to translate, nowadays it has turned to the description of what translation is and how it works. Then, being the discipline characterized by many different branches, it is clear that it has many different interests and perspectives on translation. For instance, ‘applied’ Translation Studies will have a certainly different approach to it with respect to ‘descriptive’ Translation Studies. In fact, the former is more concerned with translator training, aid and translations criticism; the latter is more theoretical and tends to look at translations as products, processes or for their functions. In any case, what remains unchanged is that Translation Studies will never indicate translators a unique and correct path to follow to produce a good target text, being its major scope the observation of its object of study in its characteristics and functioning.
However, before getting to this era of the history of the discipline it is necessary to take a step back, returning to the very beginning of the discussion around translation. Its history is far very ancient, starting with the Romans, most of all with Cicero and Horace, whose views on the subject were to have a great influence on successive generations of scholars: in their remarks, for instance, the fundamental distinction between ‘word-for-word’ and ‘sense-for-sense’ translation was already present. It is no coincidence that this issue has been one of the first to enter the debate on translation, actually it is one of the basic dichotomies in translation studies, one that both scholars and professionals always have clear in mind. It is particularly relevant for translators who, in order to produce good target texts, need to be aware of the two major paths they can follow, that is to say literal or free translation; in fact, it is not possible to choose just one of them a priori, it is almost always necessary to combine the two strategies. For instance, if a novel would probably be translated more communicatively than semantically – using Newmark’s terminology (§4) – , in certain passages it could be required to transpose the author’s words literally because of, for
14 example, a particular style they represent. So, at the time when this distinction was first stated, translation was primarily seen as a linguistic exercise on comparative stylistics for the translator, a training that also presupposed the reader’s acquaintance with the source language and the original.
Culture thus remained at hand of the few who were able to read texts in foreign languages, that is to say intellectuals and aristocrats. Translation then acquired a new role with the expansion of Christianity when, in order to spread God’s word, the Bible started to be translated. The first complete English version of it was the Wycliffite Bible (1380/1384), but in the 16th century, translations of the Bible into a large number of European languages overspread: Erasmus published the first Greek New Testament in Basle (1516), and his text was to serve as the basis for Martin Luther’s German version, published in 1522. Sense-for-sense translation was adopted in the majority of cases, a choice that caused no little criticisms, since translators were sometimes accused of heresy for changes they were thought to have produced to the sacred text. Meanwhile, thanks to the invention of printing in 1455, the volume of undertaken translations registered a wide increase and early theories started to appear. The first writer to formulate a theory is considered to be the French humanist Etienne Dolet who, in 1540, established the five principles a translator should always have in mind:
- s/he has to fully understand the ST
- s/he should have a perfect knowledge of both the SL and the TL - s/he should avoid word-for-word renderings
- s/he should adopt commonly used forms of speech
- s/he should choose words and their order in the appropriate way so as to give the correct tone to the text.
Similar principles are still at the basis of the work of translators and they were the starting point for theorizations that followed. Then, during the 17th and 18th centuries a new concept arose, that of the essential spirit of the ST that should always be preserved. This idea was in line with the concept of the translator as a painter or imitator, at the service of the SL author and the TL readers: s/he was not supposed to show her/his creativity and personality by modifying the original text; indeed, translators only had to pass information from one language to another in a completely objective way. From here, the image of her/him as a simple imitator of something that had already been created by someone else, translation was seen as a mere imitation since professionals were not allowed to make even the slightest modification to the ST. With Romanticism this image changed, since with the affirmation of individualism came the notion of the freedom of the creative force.
Starting from this assumption we can understand the two conflicting tendencies in the definition of
15 translation in the early 19th century: one exalts it as a creative activity and sees the translator as a creative genius, the other considers translation as a mechanical enterprise that simply ‘makes known’ texts and authors. These two opposed views were overcome only in the 20th century, when scholars began to describe translators as a shadowy presence who can show their competence and creativity but have to remain faithful to the central core and essence of the original text.
3. Translation
Translation is a complex activity of many different kinds, in fact it is a linguistic process but also cultural, interpretative, ethnographic etc. From this premise, it is already quite easily understandable why the translator is asked to combine so many different competences that go from the pure linguistic ones to other more emphatic ones. In the same way, s/he needs to always bear in mind the principles guiding her/his activity, starting from the notion of equivalence, being aware that its counterpart is the other notion of untranslatability and finally considering that nowadays equivalence has changed its meaning and has been partly replaced by the Skopostheory. In the following three sub-paragraphs I am going to have a closer look at these notions.
3.1. Introducing equivalence
Eco defines the ideal translation between two languages in this way:
“il testo B nella lingua Beta è la traduzione del testo A nella lingua Alfa se, ritraducendo B nella lingua Alfa, il testo A2 che si ottiene ha in qualche modo lo stesso senso del testo A.”
(2003: 58).
From this definition, we can then capture one feature that is often seen in relation to translation, that is to say equivalence. In fact, paraphrasing Eco, texts A and B should show a certain degree of equivalence in order to be considered as linked by a translational relationship; one that can also be checked through reversibility. In Eco’s words: “una traduzione, anche se sbagliata, permette di tornare in qualche modo al testo di partenza” (ibid.). In Hermans’ definition the relevance of equivalence is even more stressed: “translation means the replacement, or substitution, of an utterance in one language by a formally or semantically or pragmatically equivalent utterance in another language” (1999: 47). It is clear that a full equivalence like the one we can find, say, in mathematics, is plainly unattainable; it is then important to specify what kind of equivalence the translator should be looking for, namely a functional or dynamic equivalence as Nida puts it. From this perspective we can say that equivalence is not generally valid but occurs in particular contexts,
16 for specific participants in a defined communicative situation. Under different contextual constraints, the same couple of ST and TT may not be equivalent. Moreover, a differentiation has been proposed between natural and directional equivalence. Natural equivalence indicates that “it makes no difference whether you translate from language A into language B or vice versa” (Pym, 2010: 6), the value of texts will remain the same, on the level of form, reference or function. For example, ‘Friday the thirteenth’ typically represents the unlucky day in English-language cultures but not in most cultures. In translating it into Spanish, the unlucky day has to be transformed into Tuesday: ‘martes trece’ is in fact the natural equivalent of ‘Friday the thirteenth’, in fact when re- translating it into English we obtain the initial phrase again. Instead, directional equivalence does not assume that the relation is natural, since “if you translate from language A into language B, and then back-translate from language B into language A, the result in language A need not be the point from where you started” (ibid.: 25). We can say that it is similar to when we say that a daughter is like her mother but we would not say that a mother is like her daughter since chronologically it is unlikely that she would take after her daughter; in this sense, there is just one possible direction of the statement.
3.2. Untranslatability
The other side to the coin is untranslatability, that is to say all those cases where a perfect match between the ST and the TT is not possible for two main reasons. The former is the linguistic one and it is due to differences in the SL and the TL: it would be impossible, for instance, to transpose the English ‘Saxon genitive’ into Italian without making some arrangements to the structure of the phrase since TL does not have an equivalent syntactic form. Conversely, the latter is due to a different linguistic categorization of the world by two or more languages or to the absence in the culture of the TL of a relevant situational feature for the SL text. The first case is related to what is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis about the indeterminateness of translation and the fact that, sometimes, the reason why we find a word in a language and not in another is because of different classifications of reality represented by the two languages under study. An example of this situation may be that of the Italian ‘nipote’ whose English translations could be ‘nephew’, ‘niece’, and
‘grandchild’. What happens here is that, even though the semantic content is always one, English conventionally gives it three semantic spaces and Italian just one. This does not mean that Italian speakers do not know the difference among these three types of ‘nipoti’, but simply that they rely on context in order to understand of what kind of ‘nipote’ we are talking about. The second case of cultural untranslatability instead, may be exemplified, for example, by the word ‘butter’ which is
17 normally considered to be the perfect translation of the Italian ‘burro’, which instead is not; in fact these two words refer to slightly different products even though both made from milk: ‘butter’ is bright and yellow and salted, normally used for spreading on bread; whilst in Italy ‘burro’ is most typically light coloured and unsalted, used primarily for cooking. Therefore, these words do not refer to the same reality to the speakers of the two languages and it would thus be an awkward mistake to use them as perfect equivalents. We can then say that ‘burro’ and ‘butter’ represent a case of culturally bound words, situations where the translator has to look for equivalence by decoding and then recoding the text’s core message trying to obtain two approximately similar versions. In fact, even in problematic situations, the translator cannot choose the easier path of omission since s/he has a moral responsibility to both the text and its readers and has no power to deeply manipulate what has been previously written by the author. This does not mean in any way that it is possible to produce a unique translated version of a text, but rather that the ST has an invariant core that should always be respected. Sometimes, in order to do that, the translator may need to negotiate between content and form, modifying the latter in order to preserve the former, using for instance the strategies of foreignization and domestication presented by Eco (2003:174) through the French expression ‘mon petit chou’. If the translator tried to transpose it into English and Italian without changing its form, s/he would encounter some difficulties, since a literal translation would result in something like ‘my little cabbage’ and ‘mio cavoletto’ that do not have the same function as the initial phrase had. In fact, if in French ‘mon petit chou’ is a fixed expression of endearment used to address a person for which the speaker feels love or affection, the Italian and English transpositions do not have this same connotation and are in no way fixed expressions. What the translator should do then is to look for equivalents that instead maintain this fixedness and the connotation just described, domesticating in this way the ST in order to obtain a more acceptable TT. In this perspective, possible solutions may thus be ‘sweetheart’ and ‘tesoro’.
If, conversely, the translator decided to remain stuck to the original ‘mon petit chou’ s/he would produce a foreignizing TT. Therefore, what strongly enters into play here is linguistic convention that is specific to each single language but also culture, since the connotation shown by this kind of fixed expressions is culturally bound.
3.3. The Skopostheory
It is important to introduce another fundamental aspect of modern translation theories, that is to say the translation’s purpose paradigm that took the place of the equivalence older one. In fact, if in the past scholars stressed the equivalence between the ST function and the TT function, now they state
18 that the target-side purpose can be different from the source-side function since, being translation a displaced situationality with changes of audience and context, modifications of the text’s goals may also occur. The so called Skopos theory – ‘skopos’ means ‘purpose’ in Greek – was elaborated by Vermeer, who argued that the target-side purpose is the dominant factor in a translation project, a perspective that clearly dethroned the source text. Therefore, according to this approach, one ST can be translated in different ways in order to carry out different functions; and “the translator thus needs information about the specific goals each translation is supposed to achieve, and this requires extra-textual information of some kind, usually from the client” (Pym, 2010: 43) in the form of a translation brief. The basic idea then “is that the translator should work in order to achieve the Skopos, the communicative purpose of the translation, rather than just follow the source text. This
“Skopos rule” appears to mean that the translator’s decisions should be made [...] in accordance with the reasons why someone asked the translator to do the translation. Yet it could also mean that the dominant factor is what the end-user wants the translation for” (ibid.: 44).
4. The translator
Hatim and Mason defined the translator as both a receiver and a producer, “as a special category of communicator, one whose act of communication is conditioned by another, previous act and whose repetition of that previous act is intensive [...] because, unlike other text receivers, who may choose to pay more attention to their listening or reading, translators interact closely with their source text, whether for immediate response [...] or in a more reflective way [...]”(1997: 2). We can then see from this passage that the translator may be seen as an expert communicator, one who can have a deeper view on language and texts and who is therefore able to transpose them from one language and culture to another. In order to do that, linguistic knowledge is not enough, in fact the translator also needs to acquire translational competences – that include the capacity to use all the related tools, e.g. dictionaries, corpora etc. –, to have a sufficiently large encyclopaedic and cultural knowledge, and to obtain contextual information specific to the text s/he has to translate. If any scholar and professional agree on these basic competences every translator should have, they do not always agree on who the translator is and what is her/his specific role towards languages, cultures and texts. In this respect, in the following sections I am going to introduce the two main views on the translator’s role. Then, I am going to move to another fundamental aspect of her/his work, that is to say the interpretation of texts, which can lead the translator to consider it communicatively or semantically in her/his process of transfer.
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4.1. The translator’s role: the descriptive and the postmodern approach
With regards to the translator’s role, Scarpa (2010: 89) presents two opposed paradigms in Translation Studies. The former is the ‘descriptive approach’ represented by Andrew Chesterman that considers translation as a transfer operation of stable and objective meaning in which the translator should remain invisible. The latter, is Rosemary Arrojo’s postmodern approach according to which translation is a form of interpretation of changeable meanings that require instead the visibility of the translator. This distinction between the visible and the invisible translator is a very discussed one and basically refers to whether s/he should be as faithful as possible to the ST or s/he can be partly creative. However, what remains essential in her/his work despite its absence in the
‘descriptive approach’, is interpretation.
4.2. Interpretation
The translator’s work of interpretation – it is interesting how ‘interpreter’ may be used as a synonym – is sometimes quite explicit and visible, sometimes more hidden. An example of the first case in presented by Eco (2003: 91) who highlights how the Shakespearian Hamlet’s “How now! A rat?” becomes “topo” in Italian. Here, what the translator has rightly considered is what would have been the connotations of the word ‘ratto’ in Italian; the animal is in fact often linked to images of epidemics, pestilence and death, all references that are not present in the ST but that would have been natural in the TT if the translator opted for a more literal equivalent. Conversely, in other cases the translator’s interpretation of the text is less visible to readers but still very present indeed, for instance when a text undergoes modernization or archaization. A good example is that of the two Italian versions of “The Hobbit” by J.R.R Tolkien; the first edition (1973) tends towards archaization since it reproduces a more ancient language and style than the last edition (2012) which instead is written in a modern and more enjoyable language. We could also see this differentiation of the two versions in terms of what Newmark (1988) has called ‘communicative’
and ‘semantic’ translation, discussed in the following sub-paragraph.
4.3. Newmark’s communicative and semantic translation
Newmark proposed this differentiation in order to show the two main orientation the translator could adopt when interpreting and translating a text. The former aims at the recreation of the essence of the ST, thus giving a great importance to the TT reader. Texts translated communicatively tend to be written in a quite simple, clear and explicative language, and the translator is relatively free to manipulate the text in order to mould it for the readership. Conversely,
20 if a text is translated semantically it is normally quite linguistically complex and demanding, being the translator’s focus the recreation of the style of the ST, which makes this kind of TT addressed more to the author of the ST than to the readers of the TT. It therefore goes without saying that in this case the translator will be less visible, s/he will maintain a low profile in order to give prominence to the author’s style. Returning to our example, we can observe that the first version of
“The Hobbit” was probably translated according to this second approach, while the latest may be seen as an instance of communicative translation since it is simpler and less archaic. However, it is also important to say that such a neat distinction between the two approaches does not really exist, as they are often mixed in the transposition of a single text. It is possible to note this both in literature – where there is normally a double attention to the plot and the language –, and in legal documents – which have a value for their content but also as concrete acts.
However, even before deciding whether to apply an approach that tends to be more communicative or semantic, the translator has to take some general considerations about the ST. First of all, s/he has to understand the ST and analyze it in order to detect potential difficulties and therefore a likely translation strategy to adopt, also taking into account the text’s goals. Then, s/he also has to have clear in mind the intended audience of the TT, since translation will be different depending on a variety of different factors, e.g. who is the reader, what is her/his age, gender, level of education, whether s/he is an expert of the field or not etc. All these information are normally presented in a brief the translator receives before starting translating, and they will be of a great importance when choosing what quality of language to use and whether to give more prominence to the style or the content of the ST, that is to say semantically or communicatively.
5. Translation and culture
If culture can substantially be defined as “the essentialized way of life of a people, and generally linked to a geopolitical territory” (Cronin, 2006: 46), it is also true that nowadays this notion is increasingly ‘deterritorialized’, meaning that “the ‘natural’ relation of culture to geographical and social territories is gradually fading” (ibid.: 49). Take the example of the English language that once was the specific cultural expression of a people and has now become the global lingua franca, so that its evolution is no longer unambiguously linked to Britain. These global changes have modified the quality and quantity of relationships between different countries and within them, enhancing more and more the relevance of translation in modern societies (§5.1). Moreover, this new interest on the subject has generated a great number of studies and new discoveries, like translation universals (§5.2).
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5.1. Translation and migration
In a world of extensive flows of people and information, it is no longer possible to sustain the idea of bounded, immutable cultures and therefore languages, this is why “the question of translation is at the centre of one of the most important and highly contested social, political and economic phenomena on the planet, migration” (ibid.: 46). The arrival of speakers of foreign languages into a culture means that translation becomes an immediate and prominent issue, since it is no longer just an extrinsic operation but it becomes intrinsic, that is to say within the country’s borders. The role of the interpreter in language-mediated exchanges then becomes a central one and can sometimes be a matter of life and death, for instance in the medical setting. It has in fact been observed that patients who do not have access to interpreting services are less likely to be given appointments for follow-up visits, less likely to comply with prescriptions and also less cooperative in the reconstruction of their medical history. In a more general perspective, translation can also be seen as the basis for seeing “linguistic otherness as an area of genuine possibility, bringing with it new perspectives, energies, traditions and forms of expression into a society” (ibid.: 68) and allowing migrants to understand how a certain community thinks and functions, thus becoming fuller and more active members of it.
5.2. Translation universals
Looking at translation from this cultural perspective, we can easily understand that it is not just a linguistic activity but also social, cultural, ethnographic, etc.; one of the reasons why it is not only performed but also more and more studied and observed. One particular feature that has emerged from these research and has deeply interested both scholars and professionals, are translation universals. The starting point here is the claim that translations tend to show a number of specific features in relation to non-translated texts, thus being recognizably different from natural texts. Pym defines a universal as “a feature that is found in translations and in no other kind of text” (2010: 78), referring to some linguistic features that can actually be measured. In this respect, we would not consider as universal a proposition like “a translation presupposes a previous text” (ibid.), which is too obvious to be taken into consideration in the perspective we are studying here. Conversely, a relevant universal proposition would be something like “translations tend to be longer than their source texts” (ibid.), or “translations tend to prefer more standard forms of the language” etc. What can be easily understood by analysing a translated text is that we can find, in almost every TT, some linguistic characteristics that constitute veritable tendencies more or less inherent to the translation
22 process, since they seem to be independent from the SLs and the TLs as well as from the textual genre; a point that is also made in Baker’s following definition:
“Universals features of translation, that is features which typically occur in translated texts rather than in original utterances and which are not the result of interference from specific language systems.”
(in Chesterman, 2011:176)
These tendencies are the realization in the TT of the following four categories: simplification, explicitation, adaptation and equalizing.
Simplification may be both lexical and grammatical and concerns all those relations that are left implicit in the ST and are explicitated in the TT. It may be seen as a natural tendency since the translator often applies simplification without even thinking about it; at the same time it can also become an aware strategy if the translation brief indicates that the TT has to be within the reach of a wider readership than the ST. It is for instance the case when the addressees of the translation are not really familiar with the ideas and concepts presented in the ST.
Explicitation was defined as a greater ‘redundancy’ of translations due to a rise in the level of cohesive explicitness in the TT. In practice, as explained by Pym, “this means that translations tend to use more syntactic markers than do non-translations” (ibid.: 80). An example of explicitation may be the use of the optional English ‘that’ in sentences like “she said (that) she would call”, which is more frequent in English translations than in non-translations.
Then, adaptation refers to the process of reworking carried out on the ST in order bring it nearer to the linguistic conventions of the TL, in order to produce a non-marked TT. In this respect Pym presents the example of translations between English and Hebrew – from a study accomplished by Zellermayer – which shows that “the translations into Hebrew were consistently more informal and spoken in character than the translations going in the other way” (ibid.); and this is attributed to the more oral nature of Hebrew written texts in general.
Finally, equalizing refers to the reduction of extremes shown by translations, it is a sort of mediation process that brings linguistic and textual features towards a mid-point. For example, it is highly probable that, translating from a language A which is characterised by long sentences to a language B whose sentences tend to be quite short, the sentences of the TT will be of an average length.
However, research into potential translation universals is not only a question of establishing whether they exist or not, and if so, under what conditions; if they do exist they need explaining.
First of all, there must be some kind of cognitive cause, that is to say something in the translators’
23 mind that affects the way they process texts simultaneously in two languages. Then, another explanation could be linked to the way they are trained to be good communicators, to think about culture, readership, and so on, about the norms they are expected to meet. Finally, another suggestion has been to appeal to the translator’s wish to avoid risk, which would involve translating literally or sticking to the most frequent vocabulary and grammar.
Concluding, the study of the universals of translation started in the 1980s with the Tel Aviv school and has then developed significantly thanks to corpus studies but, despite research, this whole issue tends to be still quite nebulous. No one is sure, for instance, if these tendencies are really specific to translation or whether they may also be found, for example, in processes of ‘retelling’ within the one language. In a similar way, scholars are not even in a position to state that any of the above universals hold in all cases, a reason why they are not really considered as funding principles of translation but simply as hypothesis that are more often than not supported by concrete evidence.
6. Guiding principles: literal/free translation, equivalence and culture
When tackling translation from a theoretical point of view, every scholar necessarily has to cite three features that can rightly be considered as the principles orienting the whole process of transfer: the binary opposition between literal and free translation, equivalence, and the cultural filter that comes into play in any textual transformation. Let us now consider each one of them closer.
6.1. Literal vs. free translation
The first distinction between literal (i.e. word-for-word) and free (i.e. sense-for-sense) translation goes back to Cicero, who introduced as follows his own translation from the Greek of the speeches by Aeschines and Demosthenes:
“And I did not translate them as an interpreter, but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one might say, the ‘figures’ of thought, but in language which conforms to our usage. And in doing so, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and force of the language.”
(in Munday, 2012:30)
Here, the ‘interpreter’ is the literal translator, while the ‘orator’ tried to produce a speech that could be more appropriate and enjoyable for its readers. Such creative imitation went against the common
24 trends in Roman times, where word-for-word renderings were the norm. The criticism of this approach to translation came from others as well, such as St. Jerome, who cites the authority of Cicero’s perspective to justify his own Latin version of the Christian Bible, that later became known as the Latin Vulgate. In order to produce what aimed at establishing an official and standardized translation for use in churches, Jerome revised and corrected earlier Latin translations of the Greek New Testament and returned instead to the original Hebrew for the Old Testament. This decision caused him many criticisms by those who maintained the divine inspiration of the commonly accepted translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek Septuagint. By comparing it with the Hebrew original, Jerome was the first to note that the two versions were different, thus correcting what he thought had been misinterpreted. He then described his own strategy in the following terms:
“Now I not only admit but freely announce that in translating form the Greek [...] I render not word- for-word, but sense-for-sense.”
(ibid.:31)
“Jerome rejected the word-for-word approach because, by following so closely the form of the ST, it produced an absurd translation, cloaking the sense of the original” (ibid.). Conversely, the sense- for-sense approach allowed the essence of the original text to be translated, maintaining its core sense. This distinction has been later analysed with different terminology by many other scholars, for instance by Newmark (1988) who, as already mentioned (§4), opted for the distinction between
‘communicative’ and ‘semantic’ translation; or Scarpa (2010), who presents the two options as literal translation and paraphrase. In her view, literal translation (word-for-word) is the method that transfers the sense of the ST in the most direct way as possible and remaining as near as possible to the original text. It requires little efforts and resources and it is most of all applied to those passages that she defines as à faible risque. When literal translation does not work, the translator has to choose among many possible reformulations, that is to say among many different paraphrases of the ST. In this case, the original text is re-written and its semantic potential translated. In general, we can say that sense-for-sense translation has been preferred, mainly because of the stigmatization of the mistakes produced by the word-for-word technique. These have to do with the field of machine translation as also shown by Eco (2003) who, citing some translations obtained using Altavista, explains how literal renderings do not always produce a good text. Take, for instance, the case of
‘the Spirit of God’ which in Spanish becomes ‘el alcohol del dios’, or ‘the works of Shakespeare’
whose Italian translation is ‘gli impianti di Shakespeare’. The point Eco wants to make here, it is not that literal translation is wrong and misleading, but rather that it is not always the best choice. In
25 this case, the reason why Altavista is not able to translate properly, is that it lacks any encyclopaedic knowledge, which instead is absolutely necessary to produce a good translation, indeed in some cases it is the fundamental basis to translation: it is not possible to understand, that in the context of religion, ‘spirit’ is an entity and not a fluid, if you do not know and therefore recognize the above-mentioned context. Therefore, the right thing to do is not to banish word-for- word translation, but just to learn how and when to use it. It is in fact a good ally when the ST is plain, without any cultural connotation that may need some deeper interpretation and reasoning, passages that can therefore be translated literally without great difficulties and without losing time that will be precious when dealing with harder STs. Form this point of view, it is clear that the translator cannot make a once and for all choice, in the translation of a single text s/he will have to alternate both procedures, in accordance with the passage to be translated.
6.2. Equivalence
We are still talking about a literal translation if we transform, for instance, the English ‘butter’ in the Spanish ‘mantequilla’, or in the French ‘beurre’, all transpositions that seem to correspond perfectly. In reality, as we have already seen, the word ‘butter’ refers to something quite different in relation to its other ‘European equivalents’, an example that shows us that perfect equivalence, even when it seems to be realized, is just an illusion. At this point, linguistic equivalence between two languages could just be seen as a relative concept that would also mean that translation is impossible. However, translation does occur, therefore the question of translatability becomes one of relative similarity: “for the message to be ‘equivalent’ in ST and TT, the code-units will necessarily be different since they belong to two different sign systems (languages) which partition reality differently” (Munday, 2012:60); what will necessarily be the same is the text’s goal and function. Therefore, it is crystal clear that equivalence cannot be considered as a static and absolute concept, but rather as a relation of dynamic correspondence that we try to create on the level of Saussure’s parole. The question of equivalence and translatability became constant themes of translation studies in the 1960s, and were tackled by many important scholars like Nida and Koller.
Nida’s most relevant contribution in this debate was the definition of two types of equivalence, namely ‘formal’ and ‘dynamic’. The former focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content, and the basic goal of translation is that the TT should match as closely as possible the different elements in the ST. The latter instead is based on the idea that the message should be
“tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs and cultural expectations and aims at complete naturalness of expression”, an approach that therefore “considers adjustments of grammar, of
26 lexicon and of cultural references” (ibid.:67). For Nida, the success of the translation depends on achieving an effect on the TT reader that is equivalent to the one produced on the ST readers by the original text. The key role played by Nida was to develop the path away from strict literal equivalence, a direction that was then followed by Koller who differentiates five types of equivalence relations:
- Denotative equivalence, which refers to the extralinguistic reality in question.
- Connotative equivalence, related to lexical choices.
- Text-normative equivalence, which has to do with different text types behaving differently.
- Pragmatic equivalence, which refers to the target receiver.
- Formal equivalence, related to certain aesthetic language features.
It is important to note that these different types of equivalence are hierarchically ordered according to the needs of the communicative situation: “the translator first tries denotative equivalence and, if this is inadequate, will need to seek equivalence at a higher level – connotative, text-normative, etc.” (ibid.:75).
Concluding on equivalence, we can say that it is still a quite challenging issue in many ways, for instance, scholars have reached no agreement on whether it is a prescriptive notion – as a goal or ideal condition to be fulfilled –, or a descriptive one – an existing relationship between source and target text. Instead, what it is easily recognizable is the shift from equivalence to purpose that took place in the late 1970s, giving way to what is generally known as Vermeer’s Skopostheory (§3.3).
This new perspective considered purpose as the general principle guiding translation, “thus placing equivalence far lower in the hierarchy of factors to be taken into account” (Leal, 2012:43).
6.3. The cultural filter
One of the main shifts characterizing the change of paradigm mentioned in the previous paragraph, is the one we could define as ‘cultural’. In fact, this new perspective on translation brought new attention on the cultural filter that is always present in any transfer of meaning form one language to another. Any text is now considered as a product of the source culture in which it is produced, and therefore functions in that specific culture; as a consequence, it is always fundamental that the target text functions in the target culture as well. Therefore, translation is primarily contextual and not just a process of transfer, but rather of rewriting. Re-writings are the primary way in which cultures construct representations of reality, texts and authors, and may be also seen as ideological tools as shown by Lefevere in his ‘Anne Frank’ case study presented in Marinetti (2011). In this case, the
27 choices made by the French, English and German translators of ‘The diary of Anne Frank’ were clearly a result of an ideological manipulation, for instance in the German translation where Anne’s accounts of the violent treatment of the Jews were toned down or eliminated. It is easy to understand that the goal of this rewriting was to fit the diary in with the public discourse of the mid- fifties in Germany, when the country was struggling to escape its Nazi past. Lefevere also underlines the importance of this notion of rewriting saying that “the study of literature should be the study of rewritings because these and not the original, classical, canonical texts are the primary mode of consumption and appreciation of literature in modern times” (in Marinetti, 2011:27). Even when no ideology or well-known authors are involved, translation has always to be considered as an activity of linguistic and socio-cultural mediation oriented towards a communicative goal: make members of different linguistic and cultural groups communicate. This implies processes of interpretation that involve language and culture at any level, starting from the tiniest and then continuing up to the more complex, like the instance just presented. Instead, an example of the first case could be that of the transposition of the word ‘coffee’ that, even though straightforward at a first glance, is not as easily translatable as it seems. In fact, when considering its possible equivalents in Italian and French, ‘caffè” and “café”, we can see that in reality there are some important differences that need to be taken into account. If a “caffè” and a “café” indicate quite similar referents, they are instead quite different from a “coffee”: it is true that all three are black beverages, but the former are quite strong, served in small cups and thus usually drunk in a couple of sips at the utmost; the latter instead has a weaker taste, it is long, served in large cups and therefore normally sipped. A translator facing a similar situation has to pay a lot of attention to what seem to be just minor details, since they can define the success, the appropriateness and the accuracy of the TT, this is why it is so important for a professional to have a deep knowledge not just of the foreign languages s/he is working with, but also of the cultures involved. Returning to our example, it would be quite awkward to read, in an Italian translation of an American novel, that the protagonist of our ST spent an hour sipping a “caffè” sitting in a bar while reading a book, since in an Italian context, a coffee is drunk quickly, without even having the time to start a parallel activity. Conversely, if the translator wanted to recreate the same situation described in the ST, s/he would need to specify that the character is, for example, drinking a “caffè americano” , or s/he might even change the beverage completely, for instance in a tea. It is the translator’s task to decide on the importance to be given to certain cultural aspects in the text s/he is working on, and to what extent it is necessary or desirable to translate them into the TT. The problem becomes particularly urgent when the original text is highly culture bound, that is to say when it contains a lot of linguistic features that are so specific to the source culture that would not necessarily be understood
28 by the target culture readers if they were translated literally. In other words, in culture bound texts we normally find several potentially opaque cultural references for the TT reader, a situation that the translator should be able to tackle carefully, thanks to her/his awareness of the inextricable relationship between language and culture. Take, for example, one of the most culture specific element: food. If the translator had to transpose, for instance, the Italian dessert ‘pastiera’ to English, s/he would be faced to no little problem, starting from the certainty that this cake does not exist in any English-speaking context. S/he could act in many different way, for instance
- s/he could decide to leave it unchanged, maybe underlining its foreign origin writing it in italics – e.g. pastiera.
- s/he could opt for adapting it, referring to a situational equivalence that could be recognized by the TC readers – e.g. ricotta cake.
- s/he could produce a calque of the Italian word, producing a neologism in English – e.g.
*pastier.
- s/he could decide to omit the difficulty completely.
- s/he could explain the word at issue, producing what could be defined as a paraphrase – e.g.
puff pastry filled with cream cheese, barley and candied fruit, traditionally eaten at Easter.
In all these cases, a certain degree of translation loss is inevitable. An important aspect in deciding which strategy to apply then becomes the extent to which loss is acceptable and how much missing background information should be provided to the TT reader. In fact, on the one hand the translator should try to limit losses in order to remain faithful to the ST; on the other, s/he should not spend too much time and energy in trying to avoid it. For instance, in the case of ‘pastiera’, the resulting paraphrase would not be so effective.
6.4. Concluding on translation guiding principles
The features I have discussed in the paragraphs above – word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense translation, equivalence and culture – are guiding principles in translation, and guide translators’
work and choices. It is also interesting to note how these general translation principles are now strongly linked to the field of corpus-aided translation; in fact, in some cases corpora have facilitated the observation of these features, while in others the use of a corpus simply help us in dealing with them. In the next chapter, before introducing the area of corpus linguistic studies, I am going to discuss the nature of this relationship between translation basic orientations and the use of corpora as aids to translate.
