THE ROLE OF TRANSLATOR Chapter 9 LT INGLESE II-Roma3 THE ROLE OF TRANSLATOR Chapter 9 Venuti: the ‘invisibility’ of the translation and the ethical consequences. Foreignization and Domestication translation strategies.

The ‘invisibility’ of the translator  Venuti chooses this term to describe the translator’s situation and activity in the British and American culture. He sees Invisibility in : Translators that tend to translate fluently into English to produce a readable TT. Translated texts that are typically read in the target culture. A good translation has to be fluent with a transparent stucture and it has to reflect the personality and the meaning of the ST. According to Venuti the aim is to make the TT looks like the original one.

2 types of Invisibility: Domestication reduces the foreign text(TT) to receive new cultural values from the ST. It makes the text trasparent,fluent and it minimizes the foreigness of the TT. Foreignization brings the reader into another culture,new and foreign. This leads to a non-fluent translation style, marking the presence of the translator and also the foreign identity of the text. Venuti links Foreignization to Minoritizing translation. Minoritizing makes the translator visible too.

Ethical level Domestication (respect of the TL culture values) and Foreignization (making the foreign visible ) Discursive level  Fluency ( transparent reading of the TL) and Resistancy(resistant reading of the TL) Domestication and Foreignization are ethical choices, strategies toward a foreign text and culture choosed by the translator.

Antoine Berman-Negative analytic and deformation of translation: Berman’s negative analytic attacks the homogenization of the translation of literary prose. He describes translation as a trial in two senses: 1)For the target culture in experiencing the strangeness of the foreign text and word. 2)For the foreign text in being uprooted from its original language context. Berman thinks that the ethical aim of the translating act is receiving the ‘foreign as foreign’. He considers that there is generally a system of textual deformation: THIS EXAMINATION OF THE FORMS OF DEFORMATION IS TERMED NEGATIVE ANALYTIC.

Berman identifies twelve ‘deforming tendecies’ : (pg.231) 1 Rationalization 2 Clarification 3 Expansion 4 Ennoblement 5Qualitative impoverishment 6 Quantitative impoverishment 7 The destruction of rhythms 8 The destruction of underlying networks of signification 9The Destruction of linguistic patternings 10 The destruction of vernacular networks of their exoticization 11 The destruction of expressions and idioms 12 The effacement of the superimposition of languages

The position and positionality of the translator: Berman’s Positive analytic is opposite to negative analytic. The aim is to render the foreign in the TT. This is about ‘literal translation’, where the word literal here means attached to the letter. The position and positionality of the translator: Translators often consider that their work is intuitive and that they must be ‘led’ by their language and listen to their ‘ear’(says ). Feltsiner makes the important point that much of the work that goes into producing a translation ‘becomes invisible once the new poem stands intact’. Levine and her method consists in ‘destroying’ the original form but reproducing the same meaning in a new form.

The stance and positionality of the translator have become central in translation studies but there are authors like Maria Tymoczko who sees translator as a neutral mediator in the act of communication . She thinks that the ideology of a translation resides not in the text translated but in the voicing and stance of the translator.

The sociology and historiography of translation Pierre Bourdieu,ethographer and sociologist,has provided his concepts of: Field of social activitythe translation and its participants(reader,author,translator,editor) Habitus or disposition of the individualthe identity influenced by the family and by the education. It is linked to culture. The capital divided in different typeseconomic(money) , social(family,friends),cultural(education) and symbolic(status). Illusio Sociology is a new important point in translation studies and its relationship with translation underlines the translation practice better .

The power network of the translation industry Translators are not always free to choose translation strategies because of the influence of the economy. Venuti lamented that translators work to meet the demands of the readers and in this way the profit is the least important. He describes it as a form of repression by the industry. Venuti thinks that for some authors, the process of writing consists just in writing in English. He sees this like another example of the cultural England’s hegemony.

The reception and reviewing of translators There’s no just one model fot the analysis of the reviews in translation, but Gérard Genette identifies Paratexts elements which depend to the text. He considers 2 kinds of paratexts  Peritexts are always in the text in form of : titles,subtitles,prefaces,dedications and epilogues. Epitexts are not in the text. The paratext is subordinated to the text, while the epitext is free from the text. If we adopt the analytical approach of reception theory, we can analyse reviews Synchronically and Diachronically. Synchronical analysis is the study of a single work in a specific period of time. The Diachronical one is the examination of a work over a longer time span.

THE CASE STUDY: Garcìa Marquez and his ‘Doce cuentos peregrinos’ translated in English by Edith Grossman in ‘Strange Pilgrims’. This book is almost overlooked as a work of translation and this supports Venuti’s claim about the invisibility of translators. The suggestion is that Garcìa Marquez and the latin Americans have had a recent profound influence on Europe and the USA,but that magic realism may have been at the core of the contemporary ‘literary spirit’ rendering Latin-America’s contribution less vital. The translation is indeed mostly read as if it had originally been written in English.

SUMMARY This chapter has focused on the role of the (mainly literary) translator. The fist part deals with Venuti’s invisibility refering to how in Anglo-American cultures,the foreign is made invisible by the preference for a ‘fluent’ TT and he discusses two stretegies:’domesticating and foreignizing’. Berman also discusses the need for translation strategies that allow the ‘foreign’ to be experienced in the target culture. The second part deals with the role of the translator ( the agents or participants in the translation process in a network which plays out power struggles over text). The translator as agent has become central .

Presented by SILVIA CACCAMO and FLAMINIA GARRITANO. 08-04-19