History of Translation

 

 

            George Steiner in his work “After Babel”, divides the history of translation into four periods.  The first starts from the statements of Cicero and Horace on translation up to the publication of Alexander Tytler’s “Essay on the Principles of Translation” in 1791.  The chief features of this period is that it gave importance to empirical focus.  The statements and theories about translation were directly from practical work of translating.  The second period runs up to the publication of Larbaud’s “Sous I’invocation de Saint Jerome” in 1946.  This period is characterized by the development of vocabulary and methodology of approaching translation.  The third period begins with machine translation in the 1940s.  The theories in this period were characterized by structural linguistics and communication theory.  The fourth period starts sometime from 1960s and is based on the metaphysical inquiries into translation and interpretation.

            This division of translation is highly personal, because the first period covers a span of 1700 years while the last two cover a mere thirty years.

            Susan Bassnett divides the history of translation in the following order, which is more extensive and conducive.

 

The Romans

            Eric Jacobson claims that translation is a Roman invention.  Cicero and Horace discuss more about translation.  They say that the two main functions of the translation are much similar to the functions of a poet:  the universal human duty of acquiring and disseminating wisdom and the special art of making and shaping a poem.  The Romans were popular translators because they were less creative.  They were forced to translate so that they could create their own literature.  They believed that with translation the SL is to be imitated and not to be crushed by the too rigid application of reason.  They advocated sense for sense translation and not word for word.  The Romans translated as a part of enriching their literature than more of translation.  It is therefore believed that they had the habit of borrowing and even coining words.

 

Bible Translation

            With the spread of Christianity, translation came to acquire another role, that of disseminating the word of god.  Christianity, which is a text based religion presented the translator with a mission that encompassed both aesthetic and evangelistic criteria.

            Translation of the New Testament by St. Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasmus in 384 A.D.  following Cicero, St. Jerome declared that he had translated sense for sense rather than word for word.  But the fine line between the stylistic license and heretical interpretation was a stumbling block in the field of translation.

            In the 17^th century, Latin began to decline from the state of universal language.  Problems intensified with the growth of concepts of national cultures and reformations.  Transaltion came to be used as a weapon in religious and political conflicts.

            The first translation of the complete Bible in English was the Wycliffe Bible produced between 1380 and 1384.  This marked the start of great flowering of the English Bible translations linked to the chaging attitudes to the role of the written text in the church.

            John Wycliff was a famous theologian from Oxford.  He put forward the theory of dominion by grace, that is man is responsible to god and his law.  This theory also meant that the Bible was applicable to all human life and each man should be granted access to that crucial text in a language that he could understand.  Though Wycliff had some followers, they were denounced as ‘lollards’.  But the idea was maintained by Purvey.  Purvey revised the first edition before 1408.

            The second Wycliff Bible contains a prologue, which describes the following four stages of translation process:

1.      A collaborative effort of collecting old Bibles and glosses and establishing an authentic latin source text.

2.      A comparison of the versions

3.      Counseling with the old grammarians about hard words and complex meanings

4.      Translating as clearly as possible the sentence, that is the meaning

            Purvey too states clearly that the translator should translate after the sentence and the meaning should be plain.  He said that text must be used by laymen.  But it was said that ‘the pearl was cast before swine.’

            In the 16^th century with the advent of printing the history of Bible, translation acquired new dimensions.  William Tyndale translated New Testament in 1525 and printed.  His intention was also to offer a clear version as possible to the layman.  But he was burnt alive, because he had translated the new testament from Greek and Hebrew.

            In 16^th century, Bible was translated into large number of European languages.  Hebrew Bible appeared in 1488, Erasmus published first Greek New Testament in 1516 and Martin Luther published the German version in 1522.

 

Early Theorists

            With the invention of printing press in the fifteenth century serious attempts were made to formulate theory of translation.  One of the first writers to come out with translation theory is a French humanist, Etienne Dolet.  He published a short outline of translation principles in “How to translate well from one language to another”.  He established five principles for the translator:

1.      The translator must fully understand the sense and meaning the original author.

2.      The translator must have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL.

3.      The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.

4.      The translator should use forms of speech in common use.

5.      The translator should choose and order words appropriately.

            George Chapman while translating Homer stresses and emphasizes Dolet’s views.  Chapman states that a translator must:

·         Avoid word for word renderings

·         Attempt to reach the spirit of the original

·         Avoid over loose translations

 

The Renaissance

            Reformation was a major reason for translation during the renaissance.  During these period the translators concentrated on the affirmation of the present through the use of contemporary idiom and style.  They also frequently replace the indirect speech with that of the direct speech.  In poetry, the translations of Wyatt and Surrey led critics to describe their translations as adaptations but his is misleading.  Their translations were not faithful the roginal words but to the notion of meaning of the poem.

 

 

 

The Seventeenth Century

            In 17^th century the French people were busy translating the classics.  Sir John Denham whose theory of translation was expressed in his preface to his translation of “The Destruction of Troy” covers both the formal aspect and the spirit of the work.  Denham considers the original author and the translator as equals but operating in a clearly different social and temporal contexts.  Abraham Cowley in his preface to his “Pindaique Odes” says boldly that he added and deleted words as he wished.

            John Dryden in his preface to “Ovid’s Epistles” formulates three types of translation:

§  Metaphrase – word for word translation

§  Paraphrase – sense for sense translation

§  Imitation – translator can abandon the original text as he sees it fit

            Of the three Dryden chooses the second as the best.

 

18^th Century

            Dr. Johnson in his work “Life of Pope” has advocated that a translator can add something to the original work of art while translating.  This addition is possible and allowed only when it leads to the elegance of the work.  During 18^th century a translator is called as a painter or imitator.  The translator has a moral duty both to the SLT and the receiver.  Goethe, an eminent scholar of the 18^th century, said that every literature must pass through three phases of translation:

·         Epoch – acquaints us with foreign countries on our own terms

·         Appropriation through substitution and reproduction, where the translator absorbs the sense of a foreign work but reproduces it in his own terms

·         The highest part of translation is one which aims for perfect identity between the SL text and the TL text, and the achieving of this mode must be through the creation of a new manner which fuses the uniqueness of the original with a new form and structure.

            Alexander Fraser Tytler in his work “Principles of Translation” comes out with three principles of translation:

1.      The translation should give complete transcript of the idea of the original work.

2.      The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original.

3.      The translation should have all the ease of the original composition.

            Tytler is against Dryden’s concept of paraphrase, because it leads to loose translation.  Tytler says that a translator is a painter but he should not use the same colours of the original painter.

 

Romantic Age

            Coleridge in his “Biographia Literaria” talks about the concepts of imagination and fancy.  Though these two concepts belong to the understanding of literature it was also applied in the field of translation.  It gave rise to the problem whether translation is a creative or a mechanical process.  Friedrich Schlegal said that translation is a category of thought than something associated with language and literature.

 

Post Romanticism

            Friedrich Schleiermacher insisted in creating a new sub-language for the use in translating literature only.  D.G. Rossetti insisted in the translator’s subservience to the forms and the language of the original.  Oscar Wilde commented on William Morris’ translation of “Odyssey” and “Aeneid” as a “true work of art, a rendering not merely of language into language but of poetry into poetry.”

 

The Victorians

            The Victorians were keen on the fact that a translation need to convey the remoteness of the orginal in time and place.  Translation was considered as an activity that enriches the intellectual and cultivated reader on moral and aesthetic grounds.  Matthew Arnold in his lecture “On Translating Homer” said that a translator is a scholar and he must be evaluated by a lay reader.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow compared a translator with a technician rather than a poet or a commentator.  Edward Fitzgerald is known for his “The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam”.  He considers the SL as a clay and a translator moulds it into the TL.  Translator is considered as a live sparrow than a stuffed eagle.  Eugene Nida advocated the spirit of exlusivism in translation.  Translator is a skillful merchant offering exotic wares to the discerning few.

 

Conclusion

            To sum up the history of translation from the age of colonial expansion to the first world war, it could be done as follows:

1)      Translation as a scholar’s activity, where the pre-eminence of the SL text is assumed de facto over any TL

2)      Translation as a means of encouraging the intelligent reader to return to the SL original

3)      Translation as a means of helping the TL reader become the equal of the original, through deliberately contrived foreignness in the TL text

4)      Translation as a means whereby the individual translator who sees himself enchanted offers his own pragmatic choice the TL reader

5)      Translation as a means through which the translator who seeks to upgrade the status fo the SL text because it is perceived as being on a lower cultural level

Translation Shift

 

 

Translation shift are some changes occurring in the translation process.  Munday, a translation theorist, considers translation as a process that involves product and process.  The product is the translated text and the process is the process of conversion from one language to another.  Shift is unavoidable in translation.  There are three kinds of shift:

Structural shift – change in the structure of a sentence when translated from one language to another.

·         Class shift – change in the word class, while translating

·         Unit shift – changing in the units of words

Popovic identifies the following shifts in translation:

1.      Constitutive shift – described as an inevitable shift that takes place as a result of differences between two languages, two poetics and two styles.

2.      Generic Shift, where the constitutive features of the text as a genre may change

3.      Individual shift, where the translator’s own style and idiolect may introduce a system of individual deviations

4.      Negative shift, where information is incorrectly translated, due to unfamiliarity with the language or structure of the original

5.      Topical shift, where topical facts of the original are altered in the translation.

Translation - Equivalence

 

            Levy, a Czech translator, considers contracting and omitting in translation as an immoral activity.  Translation is problematic and translation should find a solution not only in meaning but also in style and form.  Albrecht Newbert gives the example of Shakespeare’s sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”.  Translating this line is tough for a person if his country experiences a different climatic condition.  Similarly translating the phrase “God, the father” is also equally difficult because most cultures may have a woman as their deity or God.  The problems raised while translating idioms and metaphors are called as equivalence.

            When we take an idiom like “beating the bush”, translation is not possible based on the function of the idiom.  Idioms are unique and they do not have counterparts.  Popovic identifies four types of equivalences.  They are as follows:

1.      Linguistic equivalence, where there is homogeneity on the linguistic level of both SL and TL texts, that is word for word translation.

2.      Paradigmatic equivalence, where there is equivalence of the elements of paradigmatic expressive axis, that is elements of grammar.

3.      Stylistic equivalence, where there is functional equivalence of elements in both original and translation aiming at an expressive identity with an invariant of identical meaning.

4.      Textual equivalence, where there is equivalence of the syntagmatic structuring of a text.

            Eugene Nida focuses on two types of equivalence – formal or gloss translation and dynamic equivalence.  In formal translation the focus is on the message in form and content.  Poetry is translated into poetry, sentence to sentence and concept to concept.  This allows the reader to understand the SL context.  Dynamic translation is based on the principal of ‘equivalent effect’, that is the relation between the receiver and the message should be same on the original receiver and the SL message.

            When a poem is given a set of translators to translate you will have ‘invariant core’.  They are stable, basic and constant semantic elements in the text.  Variants or transformations on the other hand changes that do not modify the core meaning but influence the expressive form.

            Neubert considers translation equivalence as a semiotic category, comprising syntactic, semantic and pragmatic component.  These components are arranged in an order that semantic is given more importance.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES

 

 

            Some critics consider comparative literature as a subject and some do not consider it as a subject.  However, comparative literature depends very much on translation. Translation studies promote comparative literature.

 

            Comparative literature is a reaction against the narrow 19^th century nationalism.  It is originated in France in the year 1816.  Matthew Arnold popularized the term in England in 1848, through his lectures.

 

            Comparative literature is a study of intertextuality, for example, if we have to compare an English novel with that of an Oriya novel, we have to use English or Oriya as out medium.  Certain conditions determine high translation activities.  According to Evan Zohr, translation activity takes place when the literature is in its initial stage or when it is marginal.  For example, in 12^th century Europe the translation activity was significant because of a shift from epic to romance.

 

            In India there is craze for translation in recent times for two reasons:

 

1)      The writers or the critics want their literature to be translated into English or any other language because they want others to notice their literature and language.

2)      When their literature is translated there is so much scope of comparing their literature with other literary texts and its own text in source language.

 

Derrida’s theory of translation is very important.  He does not consider the source text as original because it is an elaboration of an idea, of a meaning and it in itself is a translation.   This idea about the original translation makes us conclude that translation is no more a secondary work.

 

To conclude, we could quote Susan Bassnett, who says “We should look upon translation studies as the principle discipline from now on, with comparative literature as a valued but subsidiary subject area.”

TRANSLATION AS CREATIVE WRITING

 

 

            In olden days, translation was considered as a mere rendering of SLT in TLT.  Many scholars and translators considered translation as creative process and as new writing.  Best translations are that does not read like translation at all.  Translation theories have undergone sea change with the modern critical theories.  Modern critical theories give new meaning to literature.  Based on their argument, we could easily say that translation is creative for it recreates SLT into TLT.

            A translator is a reader, an interpreter and a creator.  Sir Aurobindo says “a translator is not necessarily bound to the original he chooses; he can make his own poem out of it, if he likes…”

            Old classics, in our country, like Upanishads, Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata have been rendered into many languages of India and the world.  Every such rendering is called as a new writing.

            K. Ayyapa Panikar says that the evolution of translation in our country began in the middle ages with the translation of Sanskrit classics like epics and puranas.  They were translated without exactness and accuracy.  These works are translated based on the features of the target language and the taste of the target readers.  The Aryan texts were translated to the Dravidian or south Indian languages, they were localized.  These localized versions are well received by the public and there is nothing alien about them.  These stand an example for the fact that translation is more of creation and not mere imitation.

            The concept of translation as a creative writing can be better understood if we examine the works of self-translators.  Self-translators are people who write the same work in two languages.  For example, Tagore’s Gitanjali in English is vastly different from his original Bengali version.  Manoj Das, a bilingual writer in Oriya and English, writes a short story in Oriya and gives sometime to translate it into English.  He keeps the plot of the story but changes many details while translating it in English.  He creates a new version in English.  Both their writings, language 1 and language 2, should be considered as new writings and creations.

Introduction to Translation Studies

 

Translation Defined

            Translation is like poetry; both are hard to be defined.  They have many definitions.  Translation is both substitution and a transference of meaning from Source Language (SL) to Target Language (TL). 

 

Oxford advanced learners dictionary defines translation as “the act of going into the meaning of a said or written word in a language.”

 

Dr. Johnson defines translation as the process of “change into another language, retaining the sense.”  A.H. Smith acknowledges and repeats Dr. Johnson’s views.  Catford defines translation from the linguistic point of view: “the replacement of textual material in SL by equivalent material in TL.”  Peter Newmark defines translation as “basic loss of meaning…between over translation and under translation.”

 

Theodore Savory defines translation as an ‘art’.  Eric Jacobson considers it as a ‘craft’ and Eugene Nida calls it as a ‘science’.  Horst Frenz goes a step further and defines translation as “neither a creative art not an imitative art, but stands somewhere between the two.”  Art is creative, craft is considered as a lower occupation and science is purely mechanical.  Translation is more than all these.  It is a process of analysis, interpretation and creation, which leads to a replacement of one set of linguistic resources and values for another.  In the process part of the original meaning is lost but an easily identifiable core is kept.”  J.C. Catford defines, “translation is an operation performed in languages: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another.”

 

A.K. Srivastava says, “in a translation process it is the metaphoric métier that provokes the problem of ambiguity even when assuming that the core meaning arrived at by the translation represents the temper and tone of the original faithfully.”

 

Translation theorists divide translation into two types: literary and non-literary.  In literary translation is translation of literature, wherein the rhetoric of SL should be faithfully carried over to the TL.  In literary translation, the translator decodes the motive of the text in the SL and re-encodes it in the translation.

 

A translator should be thorough with both the SL and TL.  He should ‘feel’ the languages.  He should keep in mind the socio-cultural matrix of the languages.  Meenakshi Mukerjee says, “the act of translation if voluntary, that is the material has been chosen by the translation himself and the prime mover is a compelling desire to recreate.  The translator is a writer in the language in which he is translating, that is, his handling of the language is not merely competent but creative.”

Sri Aurobindo states that “a translator is not necessarily bound to the original he chooses; he can make his own poem out of it…”

 

There is another view which looks down upon translation.  Some scholars quote the Italian proverb by Benedetto Croce – “Traddutore-traditore”, which means “A translator is a traitor” and say that translation is an untrustworthy source as it is not always genuine.  Translation has been perceived as a secondary activity, as a mechanical rather than a creative process and it does not require any extraordinary skill or talent.  It is considered more to be a grab than to be an art.

 

We cannot ignore translation for these reasons.  Translation is indeed a pipeline that connects one part of the world with another.

 

The importance of translation lies in the fact that it brings the readers, writers and critics of one nation in contact with others not only in the field of literature but in science, medicine,  philosophy, religion, politics and law.

 

Translation is as old as language and more certainly an ancient craft.  It seems to be an art as it defined by its very existence in poetics.  Translation bridges the gap between stylistics, literatures, history, linguistics, semiotics and aesthetics.

 

Translation can also be considered as a fusion of two different spheres of language which have moved closer together through the medium of the translator.  Translation studies is indeed a discipline in its own way.  It has not been fixed in a single framework to offer what the field could perform in language teaching process.  It is not merely a branch of comparative literature study and a specific area of linguistics but a vastly complex field with many far reaching ramification.