CHAPTER ONE : REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE.
1. Definition of literary translation.
Texts are often popularly viewed as either literary or non-literary, implying that literature should be
seen as a large 'super-genre' - with 'genre' being regarded as a category of communication act
whose rules are roughly pre-agreed within a 'discourse community' of users, but which the
producers and audience of an actual text may also negotiate on the spot (Andrews 1991:18;
Stockwell 2002a:33- 4).(Super-)genre rules may be seen in terms of typical features. typical features
attributed to literary texts include the following (Stockwell 2002a; Venuti 1996; Pilkington 2000;
Berman 1985/2000:296):they have a written base-form, though they may also be spoken; they
enjoy canonicity (high social prestige); they fulfil an affective/aesthetic rather than transactional or
informational function, aiming to provoke emotions and/or entertain rather than influence or
inform; they have no real-world truth-value - i.e. they are judged as fictional, whether fact-based or
not; they feature words, images, etc., with ambiguous and/or indeterminable meanings; they are
characterized by 'poetic' language use (where language form is important in its own right, as with
wordplay or rhyme) and heteroglossia (i.e. they contain more than one 'voice' - as with, say, the
many characters in the Chinese classic Shui Hu Zhuan / Water Margins Epic); and they may draw on
minoritized styles - styles outside the dominant standard, for example slang or archaism.
Alternatively, literature may be seen as a cluster of conventionally-agreed component genres.
Conventional 'core literary' genres are DRAMA, POETRY and fictional prose; even here, however, a
text may only display some of the features listed above. There also appear to be 'peripherally
literary' genres, where criteria such as written base-form, canonicity or fictionality are relaxed, as in
the case of dubbed films and sacred texts.
Conversely, genres conventionally seen as non-literary may have literary features : ADVERTISING
Copy, for example. Thus, while understanding and (re)writing literary texts forms Part of the literary
translator’s expertise, literary translators’ real-time working STRATEGIES and text transformation
techniques may vary between literary Text and genre but overlap with those used in other genres.
Traditionally, translation theories derived largely from literary and sacred-text Translation. Thus the
interminable debates over EQUIVALENCE, whether Framed as a word-for-word VS. Sense-for-sense
opposition or as a literalcommunicative-elegant triangle (Yan Fu, in Sinn 1995), are relevant to
literary translation but much less so to SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TRANSLATION, say. Tymoczko
(1999a : 30) argues that the focus on literary translation provides the discipline with high-quality
evidence about ‘interfaces’ between cultures and about the linguistic challenges of translating.
Hence it can Inform theories, models of practice and research methodologies relevant to other
genres, and vice versa.
The discipline’s engagement with literary translation may be summarized from three viewpoints :
translation as text, translating processes, and links with social context.
a) Translation as text :
Literary translation studies have traditionally concentrated on source-target text relations.
Theoretical discussions focus on two closely-related issues : equivalence and communicative
purpose.
b) Translation as process :
Literary translating may also be seen as a communication process. Two broad translation-studies
approaches address this aspect : one largely data-driven, and one largely theory-driven.
The first, data-driven, approach treats translation as behaviour.Data here derives mainly from
translators’ written reports about their own Practice, plus some interview and THINK-ALOUD
studies (e.g. Honig 1985 ; Flynn 2004 ;Jones 2006).
The second approach to literary translation as a process is more theory-driven and may be termed
cognitive-pragmatic. The analysis of literary translation processes here may be informed by literary
cognitive stylistics and the Pragmatics of translation (e.g. Kwan-Terry 1992 ; Hickey 1998 ; Gutt
1991/2000 ; Pilkington 2000 ; Stockwell 2002a). These studies Attempt to model communication
between Source writer, translator-as-reader, translator as-rewriter and target reader.
c) Links with social context :
Literary translation is also a form of action in a real-world context.This context may be examined in
terms of gradually-widening networks :translation ‘production teams’ ; the ‘communities of
interest’, ‘fields’ and ‘systems’ with which teams interact ; and the ‘imagined communities’ in which
operate.1
2. Theories of literary translation.
The five main translation theories are: sociological, communicational, hermeneutic, linguistic, and
literary.
There are five main approaches within translation theory: sociolinguistic; communicative;
hermeneutic; linguistic and literary.2
a) The sociolinguistic approach
According to the sociolinguistic approach to translation, the social context defines what is and what
is not translatable and what is or what is not acceptable through selection, filtering and even
censorship. According to this perspective, a translator is necessarily the product of his or her
society: our own sociocultural background is present in everything we translate. This approach was
developed by the School of Tel Aviv and by linguists and professors such as Annie Brisset, Even
Zohar, and Guideon Toury.
b) The communicative approach
This theory is referred to as interpretive. Scholars Danica Seleskovitch and Marianne Lederer
developed what they called the "theory of sense," based chiefly on the experience of conference
interpreting. According to this perspective, meaning must be translated, not language. Language is
nothing more than a vehicle for the message and can even be an obstacle to understanding. This
explains why it is always better to deverbalize (instead of transcoding) when we translate.
c) The hermeneutic approach
The hermeneutic approach is mainly based on George Steiner's research. Steiner believed of any
human communication as a translation. His book After Babel shows that translation is not a science
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ROUTELEDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TRANSLATION STUDIES 2 edition
2
website:http://culturesconnection.com
but rather an "exact art": a true translator should be capable of becoming a writer in order to
capture what the author of the original text "means to say."
d) The linguistic approach
Linguists such as Vinay, Darbelnet, Austin, Vegliante, or Mounin, interested in language text,
structuralism, and pragmatics, also examined the process of translating. From this perspective, any
translation -whether it is a marketing translation, a medical translation, a legal translation or
another type of text- should be considered from the point of view of its fundamental units, that is
the word, the syntagm, and the sentence.
e) The literary approach
The literary approach does not consider that a translation is a linguistic endeavor but instead a
literary one. Language has an "energy" revealed through words that the result of experiencing a
culture. This charge is what gives it strength and ultimately, meaning: this is what the translation-
writer should translate.
3. The literary translation techniques.
Influenced by earlier work by the Russian theorist and translator Andrei Fedorov (1953), as
described by Mossop (2013) and Pym (2016), Vinay and Darbelnet carried out a comparative
stylistic analysis of French and English. They looked at texts in both languages, noting differences
between the languages and identifying different translation 'strategies' and 'procedures'. These
terms are sometimes confused in writing about translation. As we saw in Chapter 1 (pp. 23-4), in
the technical sense a strategy is an overall orientation of the translator (e.g. towards 'free' or 'literal'
translation, towards the TT or ST, towards domestication or foreignization) whereas a procedure is a
specific technique or method used by the translator at a certain point in a text (e.g. the borrowing
of a word from the SL, the addition of an explanation or a footnote in the TT).
Although the model proposed in Stylistique comparée... centres solely on the French-English pair,
its influence has been much wider. It built on work on French-German translation (Malblanc
1944/1963) and inspired two similar books on English-Spanish translation: Vázquez-Ayora's
Introducción a la traductologia [Introduction to traductology'] (1977) and Garcia Yebra's Teoría y
práctica de la traducción [Theory and practice of translation] (1982). A later French response to the
work was chuquet and Paillard's Approche linguistique des problèmes de traduction [Linguistic
approach to problems of translation'] (1987). Vinay and Darbelnet's model came to wider
prominence in 1995 when it was published in revised form in English translation, thirty-seven years
after the original.3
Two strategies and seven procedures
The two general translation strategies identified by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995/2004: 128-37) are (i)
direct translation and (i) oblique translation, which hark back to the 'literal vs. free' division. Indeed,
"literal" is given by the authors as a synonym for direct translation (1995: 31; 2004: 128). The two
strategies comprise seven procedures, of which direct translation covers three:
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Introducing translation studies.Theories and Applications.Jeremy Munday
a) Borrowing:
The SL word is transferred directly to the TL. This category (1995:31-2:2004: 129) covers words
such as the Russian rouble, datcha, the later glasnost and perestroika, that are used in English and
other languages to fill a semantic gap in the TL. Sometimes borrowings may be employed to add
local colour (sushi, kimono, Oshögatsu... in a tourist brochure about Japan, for instance). Of course,
in some technical fields there is much borrowing of terms (e.g. computer, internet, from English to
Malay). In languages with differing scripts, borrowing entails an additional need for transcription, as
in the borrowings of mathematical, scientific and other terms from Arabic into Latin and, later,
other languages (e.g. (al jabrl to algebra).
b) Calque:
This is 'a special kind of borrowing' (1995: 32-3; 2004: 129-30) where the SL expression or structure
is transferred in a literal translation. For example, the French calque science-fiction for the English.
Vinay and Darbelnet note that both borrowings and calques often become fully integrated into the
TL, although sometimes with some semantic change, which can turn them into false friends. An
example is the German Handy for a mobile (cell) phone.
c) Literal translation (1995: 33-5; 2004: 130-2):
This is 'word-for-word" translation, which Vinay and Darbelnet describe as being most common
between languages of the same family and culture. Their example is:
English ST: I left my spectacles on the table downstairs.
French TT:
J ai laissé mes lunettes sur la table en bas.
Literal translation is the authors' prescription for good translation: "literal- ness should only be
sacrificed because of structural and metalinguistic requirements and only after checking that the
meaning is fully preserved (1995: 288). But, say Vinay and Darbelnet (ibid.: 34-5), the translator may
judge literal translation to be 'unacceptable' for what are grammatical, syntactic or pragmatic
reasons.
In those cases where literal translation is not possible, Vinay and Darbelnet say that the strategy of
oblique translation must be used. This covers a further four procedures:
d) Transposition:
This is a change of one part of speech for another (e.g. noun for verb) without changing the sense.
Transposition can be:
obligatory: French dés son lever l'upon her rising'] in a past context would be translated by as soon
as she got up; or optional: in the reverse direction, the English as soon as she got up could be
translated into French literally as dès qu'elle s'est levée or as a verb-to-noun transposition in dès
son lever l'upon her rising'].
Vinay and Darbelnet (1995: 94) see transposition as 'probably the most common structural change
undertaken by translators'. They list at least ten different categories, such as:
verb→ noun; they have pioneered they have been the first, adverb verb: He will soon be back→ He
will hurry to be back.
e) Modulation:
This changes the semantics and point of view of the SL It can be:
obligatory: e.g. the time when translates as le moment où llit. 'the moment where]:
optional, though linked to preferred structures of the two languages: e.g. the reversal of point of
view in it is not difficult to show> il est facile de démontrer (lit. 'it is easy to show'].
Modulation is a procedure that is justified 'when, although a literal, or even transposed, translation
results in a grammatically correct utterance, it is considered unsuitable, unidiomatic or awkward in
the TL' (2004: 133).
Vinay and Darbelnet place much store by modulation as 'the touchstone of a good translator',
whereas transposition 'simply shows a very good command of the target language' (ibid.: 246).
Modulation at the level of message is subdivided (ibid.: 246-55) along the following lines:
abstract<>concrete, or particular<>general: She can do no other > She cannot act differently. Give a
pint of blood > Give a little blood
explicative modulation, or effect<>cause: You're quite a stranger
> We don't see you any more.
whole<>part: He shut the door in my face> He shut the door in my nose
part<>another part: He cleared his throat > He cleared his voice reversal of terms: You can have it >
I'll give it to you
01negation of opposite: It does not seem unusual > It is very normal active<>passive: We are not
allowed to access the internet > they don't allow us to access the internet rethinking of intervals
and limits in space and time: No parking between signs > Limit of parking
change of symbol (including fixed and new metaphors): Fr. La moutarde lui monta au nez ('The
mustard rose up to his nose']> En. He saw red the became very angry'].
Modulation therefore covers a wide range of phenomena. There is also often a process of originally
free modulations becoming fixed expressions. One example given by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995:
254) is Vous l'avez échappé belle [lit. 'You have escaped beautifully']> You've had a narrow escape.
f) Équivalence, or idiomatic translation:
Vinay and Darbelnet use this term (1995: 38-9; 2004: 134) to refer to cases where languages
describe the same situation by different stylistic or structural means. Equivalence is particularly
useful in translating idioms and proverbs: the sense, though not the image, of comme un chien dans
un jeu de quilles lit. 'like a dog in a game of skittles'] can be rendered as like a bull in a china shop.
The use of equivalence in this restricted sense should not be confused with the more common
theoretical use discussed in Chapter 3 of this book.
g) Adaptation (1995: 39-40; 2004: 134-6):
This involves changing the cultural reference when a situation in the source culture does not
exist in the target culture. For example, Vinay and Darbelnet suggest that the cultural
connotation of a reference to the game of cricket in an English text might be best translated into
French by a reference to the Tour de France. The authors claim that a refusal to use such
adaptation in an otherwise 'perfectly correct' TT 'may still be noticeable by an undefinable tone,
something that does not sound quite right' (1995: 53). However, whereas their solution may
work for some restricted metaphorical uses, it would make little sense to change the domain
cricket to that of cycling in phrases such as that isn't cricket ('that isn't fair') or 'a sleepy
Wednesday morning county match at Lords (cricket ground in London]'.
