In various parts of the course (starting from unit 8, when we
dealt with the subdivision of the different kinds of translation
according to JAkobsón), we said that a translation from one system of
signs (for example, the verbal system) into another system of signs
(for example, a non-verbal system) and vice versa definitely falls
into the field of translation studies. In this case, the fact that at
one end of the translation process there is not a verbal text does
not make it any less important; on the contrary, due to some
implications, it becomes of crucial importance to describe the
translation process in general.
Instead of considering an intersemiotic translation
as a borderline case that JAkobsón, for some reason, dragged into
that classic essay on the linguistic aspects of translation (probably
the most quoted traductological essay ever), it would be better, for
this reason, to consider it an activity that enables us to redesign
the translation process from new (therefore, very interesting) points
of view.
In order to do that, we need to extend the concept of
"text". Segre says:
In common usage, text, deriving from the Latin TEXTUS, 'fabric',
develops a metaphor in which the words forming a work are seen, in
view of the links that join them, as a weaving. This metaphor,
anticipating the observations about the cohesion of a text, hints,
in particular, at the content of the text, what is written within a
work1.
If we interpret this in its broadest sense, without taking into
account the fact that Segre is referring to "words" and "written",
we can transfer the concept of text to any work, even musical,
pictorial, filmic works and so on. In these other cases, too, the
work is a consistent and coherent fabric, "a system of structures
that are co-implicated at various levels, so that each element takes
on a value in relation to the others"2.
Steiner also agrees with those who involve
intersemiotic translation in the broader science of translation:
A "theory" of translation, a "theory" of semantic
transfer, must mean one of two things. It is either an intentionally sharpened,
hermeneutically oriented way of the totality of semantic communication
(including Jakobson's intersemiotic translation or "transmutation").
Or it is a subsection of such a model with specific reference to interlingual
exchanges, to the emission and reception of significant messages between
different languages. [...] The "totalizing" designation is the more
instructive because it argues the fact that all procedures of expressive
articulation and interpretative reception are translational, whether intra- or
interlingually3.
Now we will try to prove that it is useful, from a
methodological point of view, to include intersemiotic translation in
the search for a generic description of the translation process.
First, we need to stress that there are some
differences between verbal languages - that are discrete - and iconic
languages (such as painting and figurative arts in general) - that
are continuous 4. What does that mean? That in discrete languages we
can tell one sign from another, whereas in continuous languages the
text is not divisible into discrete signs. If a painting represents
a tree, it is not easy to divide that text into single signs.
Lotman efficiently explained this:
The impossibility of an exact translation of texts from discrete
languages into non-discrete languages and vice versa depends on their
principally different nature: in discrete linguistic systems, text
is secondary in relation to sign, i.e. is divided distinctly into
signs. To isolate the sign as an initial elementary unit does not
present any difficulty. In continuous languages, text is primary:
it is not divided into signs, but it is itself a sign, or it is
isomorphic to a sign5.
We said, more than once, that any kind of communicative act,
including any kind of translation process, is never complete, we
always have a loss: a part of the message that does not reach its
destination. In the next unit, we will see what this implies within
intersemiotic translation.
Bibliographical references
LOTMAN JU. Izbrannye stat´i v trëh tomah. vol. 1. Stat´i po semiotike i tipologii kul´tury.
Tallinn, Aleksandra, 1992. ISBN 5-450-01551-8.
MARCHESE, A. Dizionario di retorica e di stilistica. Milano, Mondadori, 1991. ISBN 88-04-14664-8.
SEGRE C. Avviamento all'analisi del testo letterario. Torino, Einaudi, 1985. ISBN 88-06-58735-8.
STEINER G. After Babel. Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.
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 Segre 1985, p. 28-29.
2 Marchese 1991, p. 323.
3 Steiner 1992, p. 293-294.
4 Torop 2000, p. 134-135.
5 Lotman 1992, p. 38.
|
|
