“On The Different Methods Of Translating” Friedeich Schleiermacher Nasrin Mehmandoust

Background Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born 21 November,1768 in Breslau as son of a reformed clergyman. He was a German philosopher, theologian and biblical scholar. He was deeply involved in Romantic Movement, partly as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and mainly as a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment.   

Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics (i. e Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics (i.e. Theory of Interpretation) and theory of Translation hold great importance in study of Translation Studies. He had profound impact on subsequent Christian thought, so he called “the father of modern liberal theology” and he considered as an early liberal leader in christianity. He lived his entire life in Germany, he worked as a preacher from 1802 to 1804 and also as a Professor from 1804 to 1834 in Berlin. He died of an inflammation of lungs on february 12, 1834.

This essay was presented in Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1813 and the followings are its’ most important points: Translation as phenomenon  Interpretation an easy task and Translation a more difficult domain     Task of a Translator Paraphrase and Imitation  Author-to-Reader and Reader-to-Author methods

Translation as phenomenon Translation involves transplantation of information from one language to another. He explains that this phenomenon also involves translation within same dialect or a language that are greatly influenced by time, distance, class, education, and emotion. He adds, If we need to translate even our own utterances after a certain time has passed, we may not make them truly our own.

Interpretation an easy task He focus on translation from foreign tongue to mother tongue, specific to art and science and differentiates between Interpretation and Translation. For him interpretation is oral translation: apt for business transactions. Interpreter follows rules and settings within a given specific framework that is not very challenging as compared with the task of translator. Interpreter is comprehensible to anyone with knowledge of both the matter under discussion and the language.

Translation a more difficult domain work of translator is more important as it involves challenging task of not only maintaining spirit of the text but also the spirit of the author.   It involves those works of arts and science in which the author’s free individual combinatory faculties, on the one hand, and the spirit of the language along with the entire system of views and sentiments in all their shadings represented in it, on the other.

   Task of a translator translator has to deal with authors independent thoughts, his self- expression or a particular impression and his relationship to the language. Translator needs to immerse himself in both the spirit of the language and writers characteristic nature. Mastery of language with diligence, precise knowledge of the entire historical life of people, understanding in totality the individual works of the authors and be sure to bring to his country and contemporaries the same understanding of the masterworks.

Paraphrase and Imitation He recognized two methods that were devised to meet intellectual needs (Paraphrase), on one hand, and an intellectual art(Imitation), on the other hand. Paraphrase is a method more common in translation of scientific text. It tries to overcome irrationality of language but only in a mechanical way. By this way if there was not a word that correspond to original word, it try to retain the value by addition of limiting or expanding definitions.(it can render the content, but completely abandons the impression made by original). Imitation is more common to works of art. It surrenders to irrationality of the language. It is based on the principal that one cannot possibly produce in another tongue a replica of word of rhetorical art whose individual parts would perfectly correspond to the individual parts of the original.

Schleiermacher rejects Imitation by saying, “Such a copy is no longer a work itself”. It does not make a pretence to show the spirit of the language as an effective force in its rights. It rather show us the foreignness this spirit has produced. What is produced for the reader is different from the one that original provided to its original reader. Imitation does not make any efforts to bring writer and reader together, rather it strives to give to the reader an impression similar to one received by readers who shared a language with the writer. 

Author-to-Reader and Reader-to-Author methods Schleiermacher proposes two possibilities to bring writer and his reader closer – without forcing reader to leave bounds of his own native tongue behind him, to acquire as correct and complete an understanding and take as much pleasure in the writer as possible: 1. Reader-to-Author : the translator leaves the writer in peace as much as possible moves the reader towards him. (Foreignization) 2. Author-to-Reader :the translator leaves the reader in peace as much as possible and moves the writer towards him.(Domestication)  

Reader- to- Author (Foreignization) In foreignization, the translator tries to compensate the reader inability to understand the original language. He seeks to impart to the reader the same impression that he himself received – through his knowledge of language as it was written.  During this process, he advises translator not to indulge in line by line translation as it fails to achieve spirit of the language as well as spirit of the writer himself.

Author- to- Reader (Domestication ) This method requires no effort and no exertion from reader, it wants to conjure the foreign author into his immediate presence and to show the work as it would have been if the author himself had written it originally in the readers language. the translator tries to provide translation assuming how writer would have spoken with readers of another language.

Here, the first role of translator is not to allow himself anything which is not also permissible in an original work of the same genre in his native language. Translator should has the same attention to the purity and perfection of language and keep the same grace and naturalness of style as in original work. The level of translator’s language would be the same to the level of author’s language.

Thoughts and expressions of the translator should have the same internal and essential quality with that of author. Another problem is that there are only few words that correspond completely to word in original language.  Schleiermacher rejects this method as this would not only move the author from the translator;  it would also be unreal to think that the author speaks the language of the reader.

Schleiermacher fails to refer to any actual translation that can be considered as solution to his own identified problems: How to deal with writer and reader approach (two different cultures) And How to present spirit of the language and spirit of the writer. 

For the success of the reader-to-author method: firstly the presence of a desire to immerse oneself in foreign works/worlds and secondly the necessity of natural flexibility of the reader's native language can be restrictive on the reader's but liberating on the translator's part. Restrictive for the reader because he/she has to be well-trained and equipped to grasp the idea and liberating for the translator because he is presented with a chance to go beyond the conceptual framework of his own language and be inventive.