READING THE TEXT
You begin the job by reading the original for two purposes: first, to understand what it is about; second, to analyse it from a 'translator's' point of view, which is not the same as a linguist's or a literary critic's. You have to determine its intention and the way it is written for the purpose of selecting a suitable translation method and identifying particular and recurrent problems.
Understanding the text requires both general and close reading. General reading to get the gist; here you may have to read encyclopaedias, textbooks, or specialist papers to understand the subject and the concepts, always bearing in mind that for the translator the function precedes the description - the important thing about the neutrino in context is not that it is a stable elementary particle, preserving the law of conservation of mass and energy, but that now the neutrino has been found to have mass, the Universe is calculated to be twice as large as previously thought. 'Chair', chaise, Stuhl, Sessel, sedia, silla, stul- they all present somewhat different images, lax bundles of shapes that differ in each culture, united primarily by a similar function, an object for a person to sit on plus a few essential formal features, such as a board with a back and four legs. A knife is for cutting with, but the blade and the handle are important too - they distinguish the knife from the scissors.
Close reading is required, in any challenging text, of the words both out of and in context. In principle, everything has to be looked up that does not make good sense in its context; common words like serpent (F), to ensure they are not being used musically or figuratively (sly, deceitful, unscupulous) or technically (EEC currency) or colloquially; neologisms - you will likely find many if you are translating a recent publication (for 'non-equivalent' words, see p. 117); acronyms, to find their TL equivalents, which may be non-existent (you should not invent them, even if you note that the SL author has invented them); figures and measures, converting to TL or Systeme International (SI) units where appropriate; names of people and places, almost all words beginning with capital letters - 'encyclopaedia' words are as important as 'dictionary' words, the distinction being fuzzy. (Words like 'always', 'never', 'all', 'must' have no place in talk about translation - there are 'always' exceptions.) You can compare the translating activity to an iceberg: the tip is the translation - what is visible, what is written on the page - the iceberg, the activity, is all the work you do, often ten times as much again, much of which you do not even use.
THE INTENTION OF THE TEXT
In reading, you search for the intention of the text, you cannot isolate this from understanding it, they go together and the title may be remote from the content as well as the intention. Two texts may describe a battle or a riot or a debate, stating the same facts and figures, but the type of language used and even the grammatical structures (passive voice, impersonal verbs often used to disclaim responsibility) in each case may be evidence of different points of view. The intention of the text represents the SL writer's attitude to the subject matter. A piece about floors may be 'pushing' floor polishes; about newspapers, a condemnation of the press; about nuclear weapons, an advertisement for them - always there is a point of view, somewhere, a modal component to the proposition, perhaps in a word - 'unfortunately', 'nevertheless', 'hopefully'.
What is meant by 'That was clever of him'? Is it ironical, openly or implicitly? (In a text showing that BBC Radio 2 is a pale imitation of commercial radio, the irony may only be implicit and obscure to a non-British reader, and the translator may want to make the point more explicitly.) 'Clemente, notre justice repressive?', writes a journalist meaning 'Our repressive judicial system is far from lenient', or is it a bluff, mainly nonsense, for amusement? It may be 'iceberg' work to find out, since the tone may come through in a literal translation, but the translator has to be
aware of it.
Again, in a detailed, confused piece about check-ups on elderly patients who may have to undergo chemotherapy the author's intention is to show that patients must have a thorough physical check-up before they start a course of drugs: if physical problems are cleared up first, there may be no need for psychiatry. A summary of this nature, which uses only a few key words from the original, appears to be isolated from the language, simply to show what happens in real life, and it is indispensable to the translator. But he still has to 'return' to the text. He still has to translate the text, even if he has to simplify, rearrange, clarify, slim it of its redundancies, pare it down.
THE INTENTION OF THE TRANSLATOR
Usually, the translator's intention is identical with that of the author of the SL text. But he may be translating an advertisement, a notice, or a set of instructions to show his client how such matters are formulated and written in the source language, rather than how to adapt them in order to persuade or instruct a new TL readership. And again, he may be translating a manual of instructions for a less educated readership, so that the explanation in his translation may be much larger than the 'reproduction'.
TEXT STYLES
Following Nida, we distinguish four types of (literary or non-literary) text: (1) Narrative: a dynamic sequence of events, where the emphasis is on the verbs or, for English, 'dummy' or 'empty' verbs plus verb-nouns or phrasal verbs ('He made a sudden appearance', 'He burst in').
(2) Description, which is static, with emphasis on linking verbs, adjectives, adjectival nouns.
(3) Discussion, a treatment of ideas, with emphasis on abstract nouns (concepts), verbs of thought, mental activity ('consider', 'argue', etc.), logical argument and connectives.
(4) Dialogue, with emphasis on colloquialisms and phaticisms.
THE READERSHIP
On the basis of the variety of language used in the original, you attempt to characterise the readership of the original and then of the translation, and to decide how much attention you have to pay to the TL readers. (In the case of a poem or any work written primarily as self-expression the amount is, I suggest, very little.) You may try to assess the level of education, the class, age and sex of the readership if these are 'marked'. The average text for translation tends to be for an educated, middle-class readership in an informal, not colloquial style. The most common variety of 'marked' error in register among student translators tends to be 'colloquial' and 'intimate', e.g. use of phrases such as 'more and more' for 'increasingly' (deplus en plus), 'above all' for 'particularly' (surtout); 'job' for 'work'; 'got well' for 'recovered' and excessively familiar phrasal verbs ('get out of, 'get rid of). The other common error, use of formal or official register (e.g. 'decease' for 'death'), also shows signs of translationese. These tokens of language typify the studenttranslators instead of the readership they are translating for; they may epitomise
their degree of knowledge and interest in the subject and the appropriate culture, i.e. how motivated they are. All this will help you to decide on the degree of formality, generality (or specificity) and emotional tone you must express when you work on the text.
ATTITUDE
In passages making evaluations and recommendations, you have to assess the standards of the writer. If he writes 'good', 'fair', 'average', 'competent', 'adequate', 'satisfactory', 'middling', 'poor', 'excellent'; are his standards (relative to the context) absolute, generally accepted in his culture, or arbitrary? Often there is only a thin line in the critical difference between a positive and a negative opinion, which is not clarified by the 'middle' words I have listed. Similarly, approximately the same referent may often be expressed positively, neutrally or negatively in many languages; thus 'plump/fat'; rondeletlgras; mollig/dick; 'slim/slender/thin'; svelte/mince/maigre; schlank/dunn/mager. (The process develops as writers become more aware of their language.) Regime ('government') is neutral in French but negative in English.
SETTING
You have to decide on the likely setting: Where would the text be published in the TL? What is the TL equivalent of the SL periodical, newspaper, textbook, journal, etc?, or Who is the client you are translating for and what are his requirements? You may have to take account of briefer titles, absence of sub-titles and sub-headings, shorter paragraphs and other features of the TL house-style. You have to make several assumptions about the SL readership. From the setting of the SL text, as well as the text itself, you should assess whether the readership is likely to be motivated (keen to read the text), familiar with the topic and the culture, and 'at home' in the variety of language used. The three typical reader types are perhaps the expert, the educated layman, and the uninformed. You then have to consider whether you are translating for the same or a different type of TL readership, perhaps with less knowledge of the topic or the culture, or a
lower standard of linguistic education. Finally, if you are translating a poem or an important authoritative statement, should you consider the TL reader at all, apart from concessions or cultural 'scraps' to help him out (e.g. translating 'a halfholiday' as un apres-midi libre)?
THE QUALITY OF THE WRITING
You have to consider the quality of the writing and the authority of the text, two critical factors in the choice of translation method. The quality of the writing has to be judged in relation to the author's intention and/or the requirements of the subject-matter. If the text is well written, i.e., the manner is as important as the matter, the right words are in the right places, with a minimum of redundancy, you have to regard every nuance of the author's meaning (particularly if it is subtle and difficult) as having precedence over the reader's response - assuming they are not
required to act or react promptly; on the contrary, assuming hopefully that they will read your translation at least twice.
Deciding what is good writing is sometimes criticised as 'subjective' but it is a decision, like many others, not subjective but with a subjective element (the area of taste) which you have to make, using any experience of literary criticism you may have had but bearing in mind that the criterion here is meaning: to what extent does the web of words of the SL text correspond to a clear representation of facts or images? If a text is well written, the syntax will reflect the writer's personality - complex syntax will reflect subtlety (Proust, Mann) - plain syntax, simplicity. Words will be freshly used with unusual connotations. A badly written text will be cluttered with stereotyped phrases, recently fashionable general words and probably poorly structured. Note that language rules and prescriptions have nothing much to do with good writing. What matters is a fresh reflection of the reality outside language or of the writer's mind.
The authority of the text is derived from good writing; but also independently, unconnectedly, from the status of the SL writer. If the SL writer is recognised as important in his field, and he is making an ex-cathedra or official statement, the text is also authoritative. The point is that 'expressive' texts, i.e. serious imaginative literature and authoritative and personal statements, have to be translated closely, matching the writing, good or bad, of the original. Informative
texts, statements that relate primarily to the truth, to the real facts of the matter, have to be translated in the best style that the translator can reconcile with the style of the original.
CONNOTATIONS AND DENOTATIONS
Bear in mind that whilst all texts have connotations, an aura of ideas and feelings suggested by lexical words (crudely, 'run' may suggest 'haste', 'sofa' may suggest 'comfort'), and all texts have an 'underlife' (viz. as much of the personal qualities and private life of the writer as can be derived from an intuitive/analytical reading of a text), in a non-literary text the denotations of a word normally come before its connotations. But in a literary text, you have to give precedence to its connotations, since, if it is any good, it is an allegory, a comment on society, at the time and now, as well as on its strict setting.
From a translator's point of view this is the only theoretical distinction
THE LAST READING
Finally, you should note the cultural aspect of the SL text; you should underline all neologisms, metaphors, cultural words and institutional terms peculiar to the SL or third language, proper names, technical terms and 'untranslatable' words. Untranslatable words are the ones that have no ready one-to-one equivalent in the TL; they are likely to be qualities or actions - descriptive verbs, or mental words - words relating to the mind, that have no cognates in the TL, e.g. words like 'fuzzy', 'murky', 'dizzy', 'snug', 'snub'; many such English words arise from Dutch or
from dialect. You underline words that you have to consider out of as well as within context, in order to establish their semantic range, their frontiers: unlike Humpty, you cannot normally decide to make any word mean what you want, and there are normally limits to the meaning of any word. The purpose of dictionaries is to indicate the semantic ranges of words as well as, through collocations, the main senses.
I should say here whilst the meaning of a completely context-determined word may appear to be remote from its non-contextual (core) meaning there must be some link between the two meanings. Thus it might appear to be beyond reason that the French word communication could possibly mean 'fistula', but it can be translated as such if the fistula is a way of communication between the aorta and the pulmonary artery. Sometimes the link is a secret code. I am not claiming that you should carry out this analysis on every part of the text; much of it may be intuitive or unnecessary in the case of a particular text. Underline only the items where you see a translation problem, and bear in mind that it is often helpful to study such an item first in context, then in isolation, as though it were a dictionary or an encyclopaedia entry only, and finally in context again.
CONCLUSION
In principle, a translational analysis of the SL text based on its comprehension is the first stage of translation and the basis of the useful discipline of translation criticism. In fact, such an analysis is, I think, an appropriate training for translators, since by underlining the appropriate words they will show they are aware of difficulties they might otherwise have missed. Thus you relate translation theory to
its practice. A professional translator would not usually make such an analysis explicitly, since he would need to take only a sample in order to establish the properties of a text. A translation critic, however, after determining the general properties - first of the text and secondly of the translation (both these tasks would centre in the respective intentions of translator and critic) - would use the underlined words as a basis for a detailed comparison of the two texts. To summarise, you have to study the text not for itself but as something that may have to be reconstituted for a different readership in a different culture.
Visit another article about story mapping full explantion with theory here
0 Response to "The Analysis Of A Text. "
Posting Komentar