historical identity of translation.pdf

TRAMES, 2010, 14 ( 64/59 ), 4, 383–393

HISTORICAL IDENTITY OF TRANSLATION:

FROM DESCRIBABILITY TO TRANSLATABILITY OF TIME

Peeter Torop 1 and Bruno Osimo 2

1 University of Tartu and 2 Fondazione Milano

Abstract. The main problem of the historical understanding of translation lies in finding

the appropriate metalanguages. Revisiting time in translation studies means finding

complementarity between historical metalanguage for description of translational activity

and semiotic metalanguage for understanding different sides of translatability. We have

distinguished the achronic theoretical component in the unified discussion of translation

history, the component concentrating on the analysis of the translator and the translation

method. Next comes the synchronic receptive component, i.e., the analysis of the trans-

lator, translation and the target language culture thus concentrating on the status of

translation in the given culture, the functions of translations, and the ways of rendering

meaning to them. The third, evolutionary component is connected with the so-called minor

diachrony, the analysis of the technical and psychological features of the translation

process. The fourth, cultural history component is based on the so-called grand diachrony

and focuses on the development of the translation practice with reference to the varying

cycles in cultural history and the styles of specific periods.

Keywords : diachrony, synchrony, achrony, translation process, intersemiotic, inner

speech, self-communication, identity

DOI: 10.3176/tr.2010.4.06

1. Introduction

The main problem about the historical understanding of translation lies in find-

ing the appropriate metalanguages. Revisiting time in translation studies means

finding complementarity between a historical metalanguage for the description of

translational activity and a semiotic metalanguage to understand the different sides

of translatability.

Translation is the creation of a language of mediation between various cultures.

The historic analysis of translation presupposes the readiness of the researcher to

interpret the languages of the translators belonging to different ages, and also to

384

Peeter Torop and Bruno Osimo

interpret their ability to create new languages of mediation (Osimo 2002, Torop

2009).

A broader view of translation and translating within the framework of the

methodology of translation studies contributes to the inner dialogue within transla-

tion studies. At the same time it also contributes to the dialogue between translation

studies and semiotics and to the dialogue between both disciplines and other

disciplines. Besides the dialogue within the discipline and between disciplines, the

elaboration of the methodology of studying translation and translating also points to

the need for a dialogue between diachrony and synchrony. As theory is put to test by

the study of translation history, so are new concepts in translation studies put to test

by the history of this discipline. Methodological cohesion is being created both in

time and space (Torop 2007).

2. The achronic theoretical component

We have distinguished the achronic theoretical component in the unified

discussion of translation history, the component focused on the analysis of the

translator and the translation method. The typological approach taking trans-

lational strategies into account proves to be useful. One mode of this kind of typo-

logical approach is represented by James Holmes’ works, who distinguished

between linguistic context, literary intertext and sociocultural situation, on the one

hand, and two axes – of exotization-naturalization and historization-modernization

– on the other. In addition, exotization and historization are connected to retentive

processes, and naturalization and modernization to re-creative processes: “Each

translator of poetry, then, consciously or unconsciously works continually in

various dimensions, making choices on each of three planes, the linguistic, the

literary, and the socio-cultural, and on the axis of exoticizing versus naturalizing

and the axis of historicizing versus modernizing” (Holmes 1988:48). The inter-

relation of the three different contexts gives a possibility to describe the general

status of translational activity in a given cultural period: “Among contemporary

translators, for instance, there would seem to be a marked tendency towards

modernization and naturalization of the linguistic context, paired with a similar but

less clear tendency in the same direction in regard to the literary intertext, but an

opposing tendency towards historicizing and exoticizing in the socio-cultural

situation. The nineteenth century was much more inclined towards exoticizing and

historicizing on all planes; the eighteenth, by and large, to modernizing and

naturalizing even on the socio-cultural plane” (Holmes 1988:49). D. Delabastita,

in whose works we can see the further development of this approach, examines the

dynamics of the translation process on three levels – on those of the linguistic, the

cultural and the textual codes. He compares the difference between the linguistic

and cultural codes with the differences between the knowledge of language

organized by dictionaries and the knowledge of the world organized by

encyclopaedias (Delabastita 1993:22).

Historical identity of translation

385

The typology of Delabastita is based on the combination of two parameters:

codes (of three code levels) and operations (of five transformational categories).

The latter ones may be interpreted as the techniques and the types of translation.

The following components are considered as transformational categories: substitu-

tion as the possibility of finding a matching analogue; repetition emerging from

homology and representing direct transfer; deletion as renunciation from some

elements; addition as the explication of qualities; and permutation as compensa-

tion manifesting itself not at the textual but the metatextual level (Delabastita

1993:33–39) (Table 1).

Table 1. Delabastia’s typology of the translation process

S.ling.code →

T.ling.code

S.cult.code →

T.cult.code

S.text.code → T.text.code

Code Operation

Substitution

higher or lower degree of

(approximate) linguistic

equivalence

naturalization

modernization

topicalization

nationalization

systemic, acceptable text

(potentially conservative)

adaptation

Repetition

total : non-translation,

copy partial: calque, literal

translation, word-for-word

translation

exoticization

historization (through

the mere intervention

of time-place distance)

non-systemic, non-acceptable

text (potentially innovative)

Deletion

reductive translation

abridged version under-

translation

expressive reduction

universalization

dehistorization

(through the removal of

foreign cultural signs)

Т . Т . is a less typical specimen

of a (target) text-type

neutralization of stylistic or

generic peculiarities

Addition

paraphrastic translation

more explicit text

overtranslation

expressive amplification

exoticization historiza-

tion (through the

positive addition of

foreign cultural signs)

T.T. is a more typical speci-

men of a (target) text-type

introduction of stylistic or

generic markers

Permutation

(metatextual)

compensation

(metatextual)

compensation

(metatextual) compensation

While a formulation of a translation method can usually be reduced to the

dominant, i.e. element or level that the translator regards as the most important in

the text to be translated, the model of the translation process enables us to arrive at

a more systematic treatment of the translation method. In order to describe a trans-

lation method, the following elements should be taken into consideration:

I. textual or medial presentation of translation: type of publication:

1) elements of publication (foreword, afterword, commentary,

glossary, illustrations, etc.)

2) principles of compilation

II. discursive presentation of translation:

1) aim of translation:

a) function of translation

b) reader of translation

386

Peeter Torop and Bruno Osimo

2) type of translation: explicit dominant of translation

3) translator’s poetics:

a) translator’s explicit poetics

b) translator’s implicit poetics

III. linguistic or semiotic presentation of translation: translation technique

1) translational transformations:

a) cultural (keywords or key images of a culture)

a’) transcription

a’’) translation (neologism, substitution, indirect

translation, contextual translation)

b) linguistic: replacement, substitution, addition, deletion

2) limiting factors:

a) language and culture (grammar and culture, linguistic

worldview, sociolinguistics, etiquette)

b) language and psychology (associations, expressive and

affective devices, explicitness - implicitness)

The identification of the translation method is important for the comparative

analysis of translations and their originals as well as for bringing the translator’s

individuality into the sphere of research and culture. Translation method and

translation type are concepts that connect an individual translation process with a

virtual process and enable individual translation methods to be typologized on the

basis of a single integrated model. This is especially important for the historical

understanding of translational activity.

3. The synchronic receptive component

Next comes the synchronic receptive component, i.e., the analysis of the trans-

lator, translation and the target language culture thus concentrating on the status of

translation in the given culture, the functions of translations, and the ways of

rendering meaning to them.

Introspection is wholly a matter of inference. One is immediately conscious of

his Feelings, no doubt; but not that they are feelings of an ego. The self is only

inferred. There is no time in the Present for any inference at all, least of all for

inference concerning that very instant. Consequently the present object must be

an external object, if there be any objective reference in it. The attitude of the

Present is either conative or perceptive. Supposing it to be perceptive, the per-

ception must be immediately known as external -- not indeed in the sense in

which a hallucination is not external, but in the sense of being present regard-

less of the perceiver’s will or wish. Now this kind of externality is conative

externality. Consequently, the attitude of the present instant (according to the

testimony of Common Sense, which is plainly adopted throughout) can only be a

Conative attitude. The consciousness of the present is then that of a struggle

over what shall be; and thus we emerge from the study with a confirmed belief

that it is the Nascent State of the Actual (Peirce 5:462) .

Historical identity of translation

387

There is a static view of semiosis (and, consequently, of translation), and a

dynamic view of semiosis, that considers the time factor. The former, deriving

from Saussure’s teaching, is based on the signifiant-signifié dichotomy: a theory

that does not account either for individual bias in interpretation or for the flow of

time. According to this view, translation is seen as a static ‘equivalence’. The

scholars who acknowledge the validity of Peirce’s thought see signification as a

trichotomy, i.e. sign-object-interpretant: the individual bias (interpretant) is taken

into consideration, and translation is therefore considered as an evolution of

meaning in time.

Meaning evolves in time through translation not only in interpersonal relation-

ships: an interesting contribution to the evolution of meaning and translation in

intrapersonal communication comes from Yury Lotman in his Universe of Mind .

When someone wants to send oneself a verbal message, for example when she

writes a list of thing to buy, first of all she has to verbally code her thought and

then produce a verbal text, then eventually she has to decode it into a thought and

translate this thought into an action (of buying etc.). This is auto-communication.

Lotman calls it ‘I-I communication’ ( kommunikatsiya ya-ya ), but we would rather

call it ‘I-Self communication’, referring to the notion of Self as ‘your conscious-

ness of your own identity’: when you ‘talk’ to yourself, you talk not to ‘you’

(which is the sender), but to ‘your Self’ (which is the receiver). The identitarian

difference between ‘you’ and ‘your Self’ consists of time coordinates: it’s a

chronotopical difference. “When we speak of sending a message according to the

‘I-I’ system, we mean mostly not the cases in which the text has a mnemonic

function. Here the second receiving ‘I’ from a functional point of view is compar-

able to a third person. The difference consists in the fact that in the ‘I-He’ system

information travels in space, while in the ‘I-I’ system information travels in time”

(Lotman 1990:164). There is a deep level of unconscious thought in which non-

verbal language proceeds at a very high speed (when we think, we think much

faster than when we speak). On this level, the ordinary problems of communica-

tion according to the six functions outlined by Jakobson, are in a very particular

situation, and some of them do not hold any longer (Jakobson 1968:702).

Since addresser and addressee are the same person, the only variable in inner

speech is time. The example of the knot on a handkerchief is valuable also to

explain the working of semiosis in general, the concatenation of thoughts, between

an earlier and a later self (Jakobson 1968:702).

Since in this particular case sender and receiver coincide, there is no question

of contextualization of meaning (the context is shared by definition), there is no

need to explicate the subject, neither in the grammatical nor in the semantic sense,

there is no need to choose a medium, or to assure a contact. All energy can be

concentrated on the translation of signs into other signs (Jakobson 1972:91).

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: