ETI 102Introduction to Translation

A brief history of translation

The Tower of Babel

• The Tower of Babel is described in Genesis chapter 11, verses 1-9. After the Flood, God commanded humanity to "increase in number and fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1).

• Humanity decided to do the exact opposite, “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth’” (Genesis 11:4).

The Tower of Babel• Humanity decided to build a great city and all congregate

there. They decided to build a gigantic tower as a symbol their power, to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4).

• This tower is remembered as the Tower of Babel. In response, God confused the languages of humanity so that we could no longer communicate with each other (Genesis 11:7).

• The result was that people congregated with other people who spoke the same language - and then went and settled in other parts of the world (Genesis 11:8-9).

Outline• Traditional Period (from the beginning of the

Christian era to the end of the 18th century)– Cicero, Horace, St. Jerome, Martin Luther, Dryden,

Dolet, Tytler• German Romanticism– Novalis, Schleiermacher

• Modern Period (the early and middle 20th century)– Quine, Pound, Benjamin, Jakobson, Catford

• Contemporary Period– Holmes, Reiss, Vermeer, Even-Zohar, Toury, Niranjana,

Trivedi, Simon, Levine

Traditional Period• Cicero (1st cent BCE) De optimo genere oratorum

“[...] 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 so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I preserved the general style and the force of the language.”

• The goal of translation is to create dynamic and non-literal versions of the original works.

Traditional Period• Horace (c. 20 BCE) Ars Poetica

• He also argued for the recreation of well-known texts through a style that would

“neither linger in the one hackneyed and easy round; neither trouble to render word by word with the faithfulness of a translator [sic]", nor treat the original writer’s” beliefs with too easy a trust, and would avoid stylistic over-sensationalism “so that the middle never strikes a different note from the beginning, nor the end from the middle.”

• He underlined the goal of producing an aesthetically pleasing and creative text in the TL.

Traditional Period• St. Jerome, the patron saint of translators, in his

“Letter to Pammachius, No. 57” (395 CE)He called on the authority of Cicero and Horace when he “freely announced” that “in translating from the Greek—except of course in the case of Holy Scripture, where even the syntax contains a mystery—I render not word for word, but sense for sense.”

• Jerome criticized the word-for-word approach arguing that it produced an absurd translation, cloaking the sense of the original while sense-for-sense approach allowed the sense/content of the ST to be translated.

Traditional Period• Martin Luther• The audience for Luther’s new translation of the

scriptures was composed not of scholars but plain speakers of vernacular German:

“You must ask the mother at home, the children in the street, and the ordinary man in the market and look at their mouths, how they speak, and translate that way; then they’ll understand and see that you’re speaking to them in German.”

• He also rejected a literal translation strategy since it would be unable to convey the same meaning as the ST and would sometimes be incomprehensible.

Traditional Period• Dryden in his Preface to his translation of Ovid's

Epistles (1680), he describes the process of translation as– “metaphrase…turning an author word by word, and line by

line, from one language into another”– “paraphrase, or translation with latitude…where [the

author's] words are not so strictly followed but his sense”; and

– “imitation, where the translator…assumes the liberty, not only to vary from the words and the sense, but to forsake them both as he sees occasion”

• One of the earliest attempts at systematic translation theory

Traditional Period• Dolet set out five principles in his “The way of translating well

from one language to another”1. The translator must understand perfectly the content and intention of the author he is translating.2. The translator should have a perfect knowledge of the language from which he is translating (i.e., 'source language') and an equally excellent knowledge of the language into which he is translating (i.e., 'target language').3. The translator should avoid the tendency to translate word for word, for to do so is to destroy the meaning of the original and to ruin the beauty of the expression.4. The translator should employ forms of speech in common usage.5. Through his choice and order of words the translator should produce a total overall effect with appropriate 'tone'.

Traditional Period

• As literal vs. free translation debate continued, any divergence from the accepted ‘correct’ meaning of the Bible was deemed heretical.

• In1546 Dolét was burned at stake for adding the phrase “rien du tout” in a passage about what existed after death (immortality issue).

Traditional Period

• Tytler wrote Essay on the Principles of Translation (London, 1790) in which he listed three ‘rules’ or ‘laws’:1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work2. The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original3. The translation should have all the ease of the original composition

German Romanticism

• Founder of Protestant theology and modern hermeneutics, Schleiermacher (1813) wrote Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens (On the different methods of translating)

• He followed a Romantic approach to interpretation based not on absolute truth but on the individual’s inner feeling and understanding

• He distinguished between– Dollmetscher (who translates commercial texts)– Übersetzer(who works on scholarly and artistic texts)• On a higher creative plane• Breathing new life into the language

Q: How to bring the ST writer and the TT reader together?

German Romanticism• Either the translator leaves the writer alone as much as

possible and moves the reader to the writer, or he [sic] leaves the reader alone as much as possible and moves the writer toward the reader.

• Schleiermacher’s preferred strategy is the first. To do this, the translator must adopt an ‘alienating’ method of translations orienting himself by the language and content of the ST. He or she must valorize the foreign and transfer that into TL.

• He had an enormous influence on modern translation– Consideration of different text types (Reiss)– Alienating vs naturalizing (Venuti)– ‘Language of translation’ (Benjamin)– Hermeneutics (Steiner)

Late 19th and early 20th cent.• The period focused on the status of the ST and the

form of TL

• Polemic between Newman and Arnold on translating Homer:– Francis Newman emphasized the foreignnes of the work by

deliberately archaic translation– Matthew Arnold advocated a transparent translation of

Homer

• Elitist attitude: It was thought that translation could never reach the heights of a source text, and it was preferable to read the work in the original language. Such an elitist attitude led to the marginalization of translation.

Late 19th and early 20th cent.• Much of translation theory from Cicero to the 20th

century centered on the word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense debate.

• Controversy surrounding Bible translation and other religious texts was central to translation theory for over a millenium.

• Many of the early theorists were translators who tried to justify their approach to translation in prefaces to their translations– They paid little attention or had no access to what others

before them have said.

Sources

• Aveling, Harry (2004) “A Short History of Western Translation Theory”

• Munday, Jeremy (2001) Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. London: Routledge.