As we have observed, there are various possible
models of the translation process and each one tends to emphasize
certain components to the detriment of others.
In the first units of the course, we dealt with the
translation process especially as a mental process, highlighting the
implications involving the translator's psyche and the required
mental processing.
Subsequently, underlining the importance of culture
in translation, we compared the world culture system, of semiosphere,
to a gigantic intertext, inside which all texts are translations that
do not necessarily have to be interlingual. No texts are "virgin"
or "pure" because, within the complex system of mutual influences,
writers - aware or unaware 1,
willing or not - rely on a pre-existing cultural heritage.
From this point of view, we can categorize a text
according to whether or not it adds something to what has been
written. In this latter case, we can single out various other
possibilities:
- text that, without adding new concepts, address different
categories of readers: for example, educational texts explaining
to the general public concepts that were previously expounded in
scientific texts (vulgarization, popularization, adaptation,
education);
- texts that, without adding new concepts, address readers of
different cultures/languages, to whom - otherwise - the
prototexts would be inaccessible (interlingual translations,
articles, items of encyclopedias);
- texts that, without adding new concepts, take the place of
prototexts denying their existence, claiming to be prototexts
(plagiarism, falsification).
However, in addition to these analytical approaches - and others
that we have not mentioned here, such as the linguistic and the
normative ones - it is also possible to consider translation itself
as a model: the translated text represents, either explicitly or
implicitly, a previous text2,
or prototext. Like in the relationship between prototype and model,
the product is not reversible in the relationship between prototext
and prototext.
In other words, if we translate a text into another
language and then we ask someone to translate the translation back into
the original language (inverse translation), we will not obtain, as a
result, the prototext, the original. As we have stressed many times,
this is due to the fact that the result of the translation process
depends on the dominant chosen by the translator and on how the
subdominants are collocated in hierarchic order. Consequently, as we
clearly observed from Torop's oft quoted scheme, not only are there
various adequate translations, but also there are various kinds of
adequate translation of one same text. Moreover, neither within the
field of didactics (where the existence of the translation normative
model theoretically makes more sense) is it possible to determine
which of the two adequate translations is "the best".
Another element that, as Hermans stresses, the
translation and model notions have in common is that, in order to be
considered a translation, it is necessary for a social group to
consider it such3.
In other words, if I translated a sonnet by Shakespeare
into Italian and passed it off as mine, until the day I were exposed,
that sonnet might circulate as an original text, or prototext.
The same goes for the inverse situation: if I published
a book of my own poetry stating that it is an anthology of translations
of contemporary poets from all over the world, the text might circulate
as a metatext and everyone would consider it as an (interlingual)
translation.
Such difference becomes particularly important in those
cultures in which a different status is attached to translated text
with respect to the originals: conversely, there are, or there might
be, cultures in which - once it is established that texts do not
appear from thin air - all texts are equated with metatexts, with
"translations" (were they interlingual translations or not).
Another element that model and translation have in
common is the fact that they are subject to certain rules. Even if we
refuse the concept according to which translation cannot be taught as
a set of rules, within a given culture there are, at any rate, some
social norms, which - maybe unconsciously - induce translators to
produce metatexts that are considered acceptable (in that culture).
Here, the concept of model translation and the concept
of cultural model intersect; the former may yield different concrete
results according to the concrete culture in which it is materialized 4.
If, for instance, an English translator decided to
translate the famous Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" as "The
Morello Cherry Orchard" or "The Sour Cherry Orchard", on the basis of
a more careful analysis of the original Vishnevyj sad, and considering
the canonical English title to be quite aged and not a very suitable
translation of the original, her choice would hardly be accepted by
the English-speaking cultures. In this case we would have two
possibilities: either has the translator enough social and economic
influence so as to prove that her choice is adequate and to have the
literary market accept it, or otherwise she would be forced to fall
back on the accepted title.
This brief overview of the models/translations relation
served as an introduction for the subject of the next unit: translators
in society.
Bibliographical references
BLOOM H. Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from Blake to Stevens. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1976.
Traduzione italiana: L'angoscia dell'influenza. Una teoria della poesia, a cura di Mario Diacono, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1983. ISBN 88-07-10001-0.
HERMANS T. Models of translation. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. London, Routledge, 1998, p. 154-157. ISBN 0-415-09380-5.
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