Having examined the consequences of a practical nature in the difference between an
adequacy-oriented approach and an acceptability-oriented approach, we are aware of the fact
that - pointing to the main ideological dichotomy at the basis of any translation - we have
stressed the most self-evident and important distinction. Nevertheless, we are still far from
providing a full description of the criteria through which it is possible to define a general
model of the translation process.
The Danish researcher L. Hjelmslev 1 proposed
the distinction, within a text, between, on one hand, form and substance of the content and,
on the other hand, the form and substance of expression. In this way, the text is divided into
two planes (expression and content), each of which is divided into two parts (form and
substance), producing the following quadripartition:
the content substance is, in a sense, objective, and does not vary from one
language to another, but points to inherent qualities. For example, colors can be described as
a certain range of visible frequencies. What in English is called "green" is, for most
English-speaking people, related to a given combination of impressions linked to the perception
of wavelengths comprised between 5000 and 5700 angstrom. Therefore, if we superficially think
of the translatability of the English concept of "green", we might think that it is easy to
transpose it into another language;
the content form: in English, the word "green" points to the content substance
we just described. Hjelmslev observes that the content form varies from one language to another.
This means that we do not have a perfect match between the semantic fields of similar content
forms in different languages. Hjelmslev provides as example the mismatching of the names of
colors spanning from green to brown in the English and in the Welsh languages 2:
|
green |
gwyrdd |
|
glas |
|
blue |
|
gray |
|
llwyd |
|
brown |
Among other examples of mismatching between content form and content substance in different
languages are the English words "abortion" and "miscarriage", that in some languages are
identified by a single indistinctive word (for example, "aborto" in Italian, "avortement"
in French). On the contrary, the content form of English word "hair" in many other languages
matches two different words, one indicating the head hair, the other denoting the body hair
(for example, in Italian "capello" and "pelo", in French "cheveu" and "poil");
expression substance is the graphic and phonic expression of the content.
If an utterance is a graphic expression substance, it has corresponding phonic expression form.
Hjelmslev uses as an example the toponym "Berlin" (expression substance), which is translated
into different expression forms, depending on the fact if it is pronounced (and then actualized)
in German, English, Danish, or Japanese . If, on the other hand, an utterance is a phonic
expression substance, it has its graphic expression form. To illustrate, Hjelmslev uses the
example of the sound /got/, which corresponds to different expression forms and content
substances according to the different languages. The pronunciation of got is the graphic form
of the expression that, in English, matches the content substance "past form of to get"; but
it also corresponds to the pronunciation of Gott, the graphic form of the German content
substance "God"; and it is the same as the pronunciation of godt, the graphic form of the
expression matching the Danish content substance of "well";
expression form is the way in which the expression substance is actualized,
i.e. the way in which a graphic form is pronounced or a phonic form is written.
Hjelmslev's distinction between expression plan and content plan is carried on in
translation studies by Torop, who postulates that the expression plane (substance and form) of
the prototext is
| recoded - through the means of the other language and the other
culture - into the expression plan of the translated text, while the content plan is
transposed into the content plan of the translated text 4. |
By recoding, we mean a linguistic, formal, style process, while transposition is a
process that, as regards literary texts, implies the understanding of the poetic model, of the
content structure of the text. The two processes are not, however, independent one of the other.
They are interrelated on the methodological plane. When discussing translation problems, however,
it is better to consider them separately in order to better understand their different functions
within the context of the translation process.
Recalling what we have covered in the previous unit, and the distinction between
the analysis and synthesis stages, Torop makes use of a model that results from the intersection
of the distinction between phases (analysis/synthesis) and the distinction between processes
(recoding/transposition). From these two pairs of elements, Torop gets a quadripartition of the
potential actualizations of the translation process.
Before exposing a taxonomy of the various kinds of translation, Torop states his
general definition of "adequate translation": it is a translation in which transposition and
recoding go through the analysis and synthesis stages, preserving the peculiar interrelations
between expression and content plans of a given text in the process. In other words, the dominant
of the original is preserved.
However, there are many ways to preserve the peculiar interrelations between
expression and content plans (to preserve the dominant of the prototext). Depending on the means
the translator chooses, she may produce various translations that can be equally "adequate" .
"Adequate" translations are further subdivided by Torop into "dominant-centered" [dominant-nye],
and "autonomous", i.e. having the purpose of transmitting only one of the plans of the prototext.
For example, an autonomous translation could be the prose translation of a poem
6.
Summing the quadripartition analysis/synthesis and transposition/recoding and the
dichotomy dominant-centered/autonomous, Torop produces the following eight-part model 7.
|
adequate translation |
|
recoding |
transposition |
|
analysis |
synthesis |
analysis |
synthesis |
|
autonomous |
dominant-centered |
autonomous |
dominant-centered |
autonomous |
dominant-centered |
autonomous |
dominant-centered |
|
macro-style |
precision |
micro-style |
quotation |
theme |
description |
expression |
freedom |
In the next unit we will examine in detail this model.
Bibliographical references
HJELMSLEV L. I fondamenti della teoria del linguaggio. A cura di Giulio C. Lepschy. Torino, Einaudi, 1975. Or. ed. Omkring Sprogteoriens Grundlæggelse, København, Festskrift udg. af Københavns Universitet, 1943. English translation: Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, ed. by F. J. Whitfield, University of Wisconsin, 1961.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN 88-8049-195-4. Or. ed. Total´nyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus [Tartu University Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1 Hjelmslev 1975.
2 Hjelmslev 1975, p. 58.
3 Hjelmslev 1975, p. 61.
4 Torop 2000, p. 200.
5 Torop 2000, p. 200
6 Torop 2000, p. 56.
7 Torop 2000, p. 204.
|
ON THE NET
(english)
TOROP P.
|
