Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto Línguas e Literaturas Modernas INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION STUDIES Power Point 9 31 October 2007

Cont. Ass.: Midterm test on 14 Nov. Material to be reviewed for the test From Introducing Translation Studies: Chapter 1 to 4 (special emphasis on what was covered in class). Excerpts from Roman Jakobson (1959/2000); James Holmes (1988/2000); Eugene Nida (1964 and 1969); Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995) (photocopies); From Becoming a Translator: Chapters 1, 2 and 3.

TASK 1 Read the following dialogue and imagine a situation in which it could take place. Then translate it by adapting your approach to the communication situation you chose.

‘Well!’ the young man said. ‘Well!’ she said. ‘Well, here we are,’ he said. ‘Here we are,’ she said, ‘aren’t we?’ ‘I should say we were,’ he said, ‘eeyop! Here we are.’ ‘Well!’ she said. ‘Well!’ he said, ‘well.’ Dorothy Parker, quoted in Dodds 1985: 187

TASK 2 Imagine a communication situation for the following text and then translate it into your first language. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers? If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

TASK 3: Do you agree? Nida proposed to translate the phrase ‘Lamb of God’ with the phrase ‘Seal of God’ for an Eskimo audience. Shakespeare’s sonnet ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ cannot be semantically translated into a language where summers are unpleasant. Bassnett 1991: 23

Newmark’s Semantic and Communicative Translation Bissiger Hund Communicative T Chien méchant Beware of the dog Cuidado com o cão Attenti al cane Semantic T Bad/Savage Dog Dog that bites

Semantic translation remains within the original cultural (...). One basic difference between the two methods is that where there is a conflict, the communicative must emphasize the ‘force’ rather than the content of the message. Thus for ‘Bissiger Hund’ or ‘Chien méchant’, the communicative translation ‘Beware of the Dog!’ is mandatory; the semantic translations (‘dog that bites’, ‘savage dog’) would be more informative but less effective. Newmark 1981

??????????????? Do you agree with Newmark that the communicative approach in the above example is mandatory? Why/Why not?

Criticisms levelled at Newmark Overabundance of terminology to define translation approaches (confusing) Overabundance of terminology to define translation approaches (confusing) Too prescriptive Too prescriptive Too impressionistic in his commentaries on Ts (pre-linguistic era of TS) Too impressionistic in his commentaries on Ts (pre-linguistic era of TS) Overemphasis on word/sentence level Overemphasis on word/sentence levelHOWEVER His books have been widely used in translator education.

Übersetzungswissenschaft Nida’s science of translation was especially influential in Germany. Late 1960s -1970s-1980s BRD (West Germany) Wolfram Wills (Uni. des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken) DDR (East Germany) Otto Kade, Albrecht Neubert, Gert Jäger

Leipzig School:T of literature 1.Interlinear / gloss T by native speakers of SL. 2.TL writer re-writes / produces a text completely acceptable in the TC. (from English: Albrecht Neubert)

Eastern Germany: Leipzig School First centre of Übersetzungswissenschaft, where the concept of EQUIVALENCE flourished. Snell-Hornby 1995: 20

Kade, 1968: technical/special language translation 4 types of equivalence (unit or word level):  Totale Äquivalenz (1=1) (standardized termininology)  Fakultative Äquivalenz (1=N) (e.g.DE:Spannung; EN: voltage, tension, suspense, stress, pressure)  Approximative Äquivalenz (1 to part-of-one correspondence) (e.g. DE:Himmel; EN:heaven/sky)  Null-Äquivalenz (1=0) (culture-bound terms)

Koller: Einführung in die Übersetzungswissenschaft, 1979 Koller: Heidelberg (Germany) Bergen (Norway) He distinguishes between CORRESPONDENCE andEQUIVALENCE

CORRESPONDENCE Field: contrastive linguistics (comparing and contrasting 2 language SYSTEMS; langue: foreign language competence) Field: contrastive linguistics (comparing and contrasting 2 language SYSTEMS; langue: foreign language competence) (e.g., false friends, lexical, syntactic and morphological interference)

EQUIVALENCE (E) It refers to equivalent items in specific ST-TT pairs and contexts (parole: compentence in translation) (Munday, 46-47) 5 types of E:  Denotative (denotativ)  Connotative(konnotativ)  Text-normative(textnormative)  Pragmatic(pragmatisch)  Formal(formal)

DENOTATIVE EQUIVALENCE also called ‘content invariance’ It refers to the extralinguistic content of a text (denotative meaning).

CONNOTATIVE EQUIVALENCE also called ‘stylistic equivalence’ It refers to lexical choices (register/level of formality, social usage, geographical usage, emotion, etc.) (connotative meaning).

TEXT-NORMATIVE EQUIVALENCE It is related to the conventions governing a specific type of text, so different texts are governed by different norms. (Cf. Katarina Reiss, Textypologie; main difference and advance: her approach is at text level, not at word and sentence level. Munday, Chapter 5) (Kade had talked about general Textgattungen in 1968)

PRAGMATIC EQUIVALENCE also called ‘communicative equivalence’ It focusses on the receiver of the message/text.

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE also called ‘expressive equivalence’ It is related to the aesthetics of the text, focussing on individual stylistic features of the ST such as puns, metaphors, etc.

TRANSLATIONALLY RELEVANT TEXT ANALYSIS Koller proposes the following checklist for translators when doing their text analysis:  Language function  Content characteristics  Language-stylistic characteristics  Formal-aesthetic characteristics  Pragmatic characteristics

EQUIVALENCE: TERTIUM COMPARATIONIS The concept of equivalence is central in linguistically oriented schools of translation theory (seen as a branch of Applied Linguistics). The concept of equivalence is central in linguistically oriented schools of translation theory (seen as a branch of Applied Linguistics). The debate shifts from the diad ‘literal vs free’ T to an interlingual element termed equivalence but never fully explained which becomes the tertium comparationis. The debate shifts from the diad ‘literal vs free’ T to an interlingual element termed equivalence but never fully explained which becomes the tertium comparationis. This can be seen in Nida (1964/1969), Catford (1965), Kade (1968), Koller (1979), Wills (1980) This can be seen in Nida (1964/1969), Catford (1965), Kade (1968), Koller (1979), Wills (1980)

Äquivalenzdiscussion According to Mary Snell-Hornby, in West Germany this debate “reached its climax during the 1970s, although (...) little was added that was new or original. Koller’s five equivalence types, for example, as presented in 1979, represent little more than a reshuffling of other equivalence types.” Snell-Hornby 1995: 20-21

Around 1980s 1981 – In Approaches to Translation Newmark wrote: “Other subjects, such as the unit of translation, translation equivalence (...) I regard as dead ducks — either too theoretical or too arbitrary.” Snell-Hornby 1995:21

1980s It became clear that ‘equivalence’ and ‘Äquivalenz’ were not the same concept. Equivalence: too vague, similarity?? Äquivalenz: static, rigorously scientific constant. Snell-Hornby 1995:21 Snell-Hornby 1995:21

1980s: Mary Snell-Hornby, Hönig and Kussmaul, Holz-Mänttäri The concept of equivalence is unsuitable for translation studies. The term equivalence, apart from being immprecise and ill-defined (…) presents an illusion of symmetry between languages which hardly exists beyond the level of vague approximations and which distorts the basic problems of translation. Snell-Hornby: 22

BUT: Equivalence is still alive and kicking!