Can translators ignore theory?

Being informed about translation theory is knowing what others have said and thought about translation: its purposes, how to judge whether a translation is accurate, successful, or well written. How to translate to achieve specific goals, what responsibilities translators have, and whether they are primarily responsible to the author, the original text, the reader, or the customer who commissioned a specific translation.

To be sure, without knowing or being aware of translation theory one can still translate. But translators who learned translation from teachers who reject theory out of hand and only emphasize learning by simply translating, are still following a translation theory of sorts. A theory, however, they are not aware of, and that they cannot, therefore, examine critically and tap for specific occasions or assignments.

Downplaying the importance of theory, while teaching translation through a series of commandments, as Mark Freehill seemingly does (from what could be seen in his presentation at the recent 52nd ATA Conference), is contradictory: his students will learn a confusing mishmash where on the one hand they are told that there are many different ways to translate a text (true, of course, as far as that goes), but on the other hand are taught absolute “commandments of interpretation” and “deadly sins of translation”.

Take the “deadly sin” of his that was most hotly debated during his presentation:

Never, never, never give in the temptation to improve the original. If the original is vague or clumsy or just plain wrong, then a good translation will faithfully reflect the flaws. After all, that was how the original author wrote it.

Stated in such stark terms, this is nonsense. Freehill referred, in his examples, to legal translations, saying that the reader of the translation has a right to know where the original went wrong. Fine (maybe) if the reader commissioned the translation precisely so as to find its weak points, perhaps to challenge them in court. But what if the customer is, instead, a foreign attorney who had his brief translated to file it in a US Court? Should a conscientious translator merrily translate the text “as is”, errors, warts and all, or should he point out to his customer unclear and wordy passages, suggesting suitable improvements? What about a translator commissioned to translated a hastily (and therefore badly) written press release. Shouldn’t he do his utmost to make the translated press release as smoothly flowing, well written and informative as possible in the target language?

During Freehill’s presentation Chris Durban remarked that by teaching his students never to improve on the original, he was condemning them to the bottom of the market. I agree. By limiting the choices available to his students, Mr. Freehill is depriving them of vital tools necessary to succeed in translation.

---

For an interesting discussion between a translation theorist and a professional translator, see Can Theory Help Translators? A Dialogue Between the Ivory Tower and the Wordface, by Andrew Chesterman and Emma Wagner (St. Jerome, 2002)

Translation and Interpretation: Theory and Practice

On Monday I'll once again teach GS 4300 - Theory & Practice of Translation & Interpretation , a foundation course for the Certificate in Translation Studies of the University College, Denver University (after clicking on the link, scroll down the Global Affairs course page list until you get to the 4300 courses and click on the course title for a brief description of the course).

Several years ago I posted my class outlines in this blog. During the next three months I'll once again post periodically about the course, writing about what I'm teaching, my thoughts about the course and on the topics touched during it, what I learn from my students' questions, and what they learn from the course. I'll appreciate any comment you may have on these posts, as they'll help me improve the course as I'm teaching it and for the next time.

On Monday I'll start my introduction with this paragraph:

A deep knowledge of one’s own native language and of at least one foreign language is a necessary prerequisite, but, alone, it is not enough. To become a translator one should also fully understand the subject matter of the text to be translated, and have knowledge of things such as translation tools, reference materials, translation processes, and, above all, self knowledge: knowing what one knows as well as an awareness of what one does not know.

In your opinion, what are the prerequisites for becoming a translator?

Who really wrote those words?

I'm reading "Writing Tools, 50 essential strategies for every writer", by Roy Peter Clark. Instead of rules to follow, his  book provides tools to exploit (although many of the tools sound quite similar to the rules provided by other books on writing).

Each tool has its own chapter, and each chapter gives  practical examples from many different authors, including some foreign writers. For instance, in his chapter on ordering words for emphasis, Clark quotes the famous opening of Cien años de soledad: "Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamento, el Coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo."

But Clark quotes this in English: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." Yet, in providing an example about words and their placement for emphasis, Clark attributes them to Gabriel García Márquez, alone, not also to Gregory Rabassa.

If these words serve as an example in a book in English about writing, Clarke should have mentioned that who chose them in English (and not others that might have legitimately been used), was Rabassa, the translator, not Márquez, the original author.

This is "the translator's invisibility", according to both meanings Lawrence Venuti gives to the term.

As translators, we lend our pens and words to others, and let them make them their own... unless we blunder: when we choose well, transform powerful source into spellbinding target, the translator's words become the original author's own. But if we fail in our choice of words, then the failure is ours: it's only then that we become visible.

Guns and Overtranslation

The English text used as a source language in an online translation recently concluded contains a word that may easily trip the unwary: "gun".

Heathrow Airport is one of the few places in England you can be sure of seeing a gun.

In the translation into Italian, many translated "gun" as "pistola". Others chose to translate it as "arma da fuoco" or simply as "arma", and a single translator as "fucile" (rifle).

Unfortunately, although "pistola" may be the translation that first comes to mind, here it is wrong. In the feedback section, I objected to this choice of words, but most commenters disagreed, pointing out dictionary entries clearly showing "pistola" as a legitimate translation for gun.

The dictionary, however, is just a tool; it is up to us to use it wisely: "gun" should be translated as "pistola" only when it means a handgun. I would have no objection if "Doc Holliday was the fastest gun in the west" was translated as "...era la pistola più veloce del West". All of us have a clear image of the wild West as a place where rough justice was meted out by Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp in "My Darling Clementine" or by Gary Cooper as Marshall Will Kane in "High Noon" armed with a six-shot Colt 45 Peacemaker.

But the guns carried and used by security police at airports, to guard against terrorist threats are, usually, small machine guns (i.e., "mitra" or "mitragliette", in Italian), and not the pistols or revolvers dangling from the belts of policemen (and women) in most parts of the world - but not as yet, save for airports, by British bobbies. So, unless one knew for sure that British anti-terror police are limited to hand guns only (and they are not, as you can see below), the correct translation should be "armi da fuoco" or the superordinate "armi". The translation of gun with "pistola" here is a case of overtranslation: adding more detail to the translated text than is warranted by the original.

And the objection of those who justified the use of "pistole" for guns because it was one of the terms suggested by the dictionary? One, reality trumps any reference book, and, two, "cannone" also is found in the dictionary under "gun", and while British police are more heavily armed than with puny pistols, they are not (yet) issued cannons and howitzers to blast away at travelers who forgot the strict limits on carry-on liquids.

By the way, a simple image search in Google clearly shows that the British security police weapon of choice appears to be a machine gun or short automatic rifle, see for example:

Appendix

I run a short analysis of the terms chosen by the finalists for the major Romance languages and for German:

        weapon          firearm           pistol       revolver
German      waffe       2   schusswaffe   3
Catalan     arma        3                     pistola  3     
French      arme à feu  5                                 revolver 2
Italian     arma        2   arma da fuoco 1   pistola  2  
Portuguese
(European)  arma        5
Portuguese
(Brasilian) arma        8                                 revólver 1
Rumanian    armă        2   armă de foc   2   pistoale 1
Spanish     arma        5   arma de fuego 2      
Total                  27                13            6           3

Principles of translation

It is now pretty generally agreed, that translating the writings of the ancients is, if not the sole, at least the plainest, the shortest, and the surest means of becoming well acquainted with them and their language. It is also agreed, that a translation ought exactly to express the original; that it should neither be too free nor to servile; that it should neither deviate into long circumlocutions, which weaken the ideas, nor adhere to strictly to the letter, which debases the sentiment.

(M. Batteux, Principles of Translation, Edimburgh, 1760 - Originally written in French)

This is from a small digitized book you can download for free from Google books.

The qualities of a good translator

"Hélas les traductions restent confiées le plus souvent à des êtres subalternes, dont la bonne volonté ne supplée pas l'insuffisance. Un bon traducteur doit bien savoir la langue de l'auteur qu'il traduit, mais mieux encore la sienne propre, et j'entends par là : non point seulement être capable de l'écrire correctement, mais en connaître les subtilités, les souplesses, les ressources cachées, ce qui ne peut guère être le fait que d'un écrivain professionnel. On ne s'improvise pas traducteur." (André Gide)

Very true, but I think that a translator should first of all know the "subtilités, les souplesses, les ressources cachées" of his or her source language just as well as those of his or her native language.

(Hat tip: AS. Traductions)