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8/10/2019 Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis
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Porter nstitute for Poetics and Semiotics
Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as MimesisAuthor(s): Meir SternbergSource: Poetics Today, Vol. 2, No. 4, Translation Theory and Intercultural Relations (Summer -Autumn, 1981), pp. 221-239Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772500.
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8/10/2019 Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis
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POLYLINGUALISM AS REALITY
AND TRANSLATION AS MIMESIS*
MEIR
STERNBERG
Poetics nd
Comparative iterature,
el
Aviv
I
Translators
and
theorists
f
translation
naturally
ecall
with
gratitude
he
incident of
the Tower
of
Babel
-
as
the
felix
culpa
responsible
for
the
crisscross
f
interlingual
hasms which
they
are
constantly
rged
to
survey
and
as
far
as
possible
to
bridge.
The
attitude
f
writers o
this
ociolinguistic
turning-point
s,
however,
ess
uniform nd
certainly
more
ambivalent.
rue,
it
has
widened their
ange
of
both
materials
nd
devices
far
beyond anythingconceivable in a statewhere "the whole earth was of one
language
and of
one
speech."
But
from
nother
viewpoint,
his
very
asset
may
be
regarded
as
a
liability
r at
least
a
mixed
blessing.
For
the
disruption
f
the state
of
world-wide
inguistic
omogeneity
as
made the
profusion
nd
confusion f
tongues
not
only
a
verbal
but also
an
existential
act,
nd,
in
addition o
the
basic tasks of
referring
o
extraverbal
eality
nd
reporting
erbal
messages
within
he same
code,
it
has laid on
each
language
the
burden of
reporting
messages
originally
ncoded
in
other
languages.
This
forms
of
course
the
common
source
of
all
translational
roblems.
But what
should
be
noted
is
that the complications risingare intratextual s well as intertextual nd
representational
s
well as
communicative.
These
complications
manifest
themselves
o
some extent
wheneverwe
try
not,
as
in
standard
ranslation,
to
substitute ur own
discourse
for
an
utterance
made
in
another
anguage,
but to
incorporate
his
utterance nto our own
discourse. Such
framing
nd
juxtaposition
of
differently-encoded
peech
are,
however,
particularly
om-
mon
within
the fictive
worlds created
in
literature,
with
their
variegated
referential
ontexts,
frequent
shiftsfrom
milieu to
milieu,
abundance
of
dialogue
scenes,
and
keen
interest
n
the
language
of
reality
nd
the
reality
*
Paper presented
t
Synopsis
1:
"Translation
Theory
and
Intercultural
elations,"
held
at
the
Porter Institute
for
Poetics
and Semiotics
in
collihborati)on
with
the M. Bernstein Chair of
Translation
Theory,
Tel Aviv
University,
7 March-1
April
1978. Previousversion
n
Degrds
16
(1978).
?
Poetics
oday,
Vol. 2:4
(1981),
21-239
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8/10/2019 Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis
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222
MEIR STERNBERG
of
language.
Literary
rt
thus
finds
tself
onfronted
y
a
formidable
mimetic
challenge:
how to
represent
he
reality
of
polylingual
discourse
through
communicative
medium
which
is
normallyunilingual.'The
interlingual
ensionbetween
language
as
represented
bject
(within
the
original
or
reported speech-event)
and
language
as
representational
means
(within
the
reporting
peech-event)
s
primarily
mimetic ather
than
communicative.
n
this,
object-sensitive
eporting
adically
differs rom
the
gratuitous
lternation r
arbitrary
lending
of
linguistic
ehicles
in
multi-
lingual
literature:
t
poses
such communicative
problems
as
intelligibility
only
in
so
far
as some
attempt
s made to
rise to the
mimetic
hallenge.
Since
this
tension between
object
and
medium or
inset
and
frame rises
in
principle regardless
of the
polyglot
qualifications
of the
audience,
it
obviously ould not be resolvedeven ifthe authorwere to communicaten a
lingua
franca,
ike Greek
in
ancient
times,
Latin
in
the Middle
Ages,
or
the
more recent
Esperanto.
For the
raison
d'etre
of these is
not to
bridge
the
gaps
of
representation
ut to
remove the
barriers
o
communication,
ften
with
a
view
to
ultimately
urning
ack the
wheel
of
time
to
a
pre-Babel
state
of
universal
unilingualism.
ut
in
the
absence
of
a
drastic
eveling hange
n
social
reality,
whichComrade
Stalin indeed saw as
a
necessary
ondition
or
universal
anguage,
they
all
face the same
exigencies
s
any
other
anguage
in
rendering
heterolingual
iscourse.
Nor can
this
ntratextual
ension
be resolved
by
the
equally
attractive
ut
perhaps
even moremillennial ision of languageas an abstract pirit ather
than
a
concrete
substance,
put
forward
by
Clemens,
the monk
serving
s
narrator
n
Thomas
Mann's
Der Erwdhlte
The Holy Sinner):
Es ist
ganz
ungewiss,
n
welcher
Sprache
ich
schreibe,
b
lateinisch,
franz6sisch,
eutsch
der
angelskichsisch,
nd es ist auch das
gleiche,
enn
schreibe
ch
etwa auf
thiudisch,
ie die
Helvetien
ewohnenden
lamannen
reden,
o
steht
morgen
ritisch uf dem
Papier,
und
es ist
ein
britunsches
Buch,
das
ich
geschrieben
abe.
Keineswegs ehaupte
ch,
dass
ich die
Sprachen
lle
beherrsche,
ber ie rinnen
ir
neinander
n
meinem
chreiben
nd
werden ins,niimlichprache.Denn so verhilt s sich,dass derGeistder
Erzahlung
in
bis
zur Abstraktheit
ngebundener
eist
st,
dessen
Mittel
ie
Sprache
n
sich
nd
ls
solche,
ie
Sprache
elbst
st,welche
ich lsabsolut etzt
und
nicht
iel
nach
diomen
nd
prachlichen
andesg6ttern
ragt.
as
ware
a
auch
polytheistisch
ndheidnisch.
ott
st
Geist,
nd
fiber
en
Sprachen
stdie
SpracheChap.
1).
ISince
I am concerned here with the
linguistic diversity
or
uniformity
of the
utterances
(usually
made
by
different
speakers)
within
the
world
of a
single
text,
I
deliberately
avoid the
sociolinguistic
terms
"multilingual"
and
"monolingual,"
which are
(and
should
he)
used
to
characterize
the
linguistic
range
of a
single speaker
or
community.
In
contrast,
a
work
may
be
said
to
represent
a
polylingual reality
of discourse even
though
each individual
speaker
or
milieu is
strictly
monolingual,
and to
represent
a
unilingual reality
of discourse even
though
each
speaker
is
potentially
multilingual.
The terms are thus
complementary.
I have also added
the term
"heterolingual"
to denote
a
foreign language
(or
dialect)-
usually
a
language
other
than
that
of
the
reporting
speech-event.
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POLYLINGUALISM AND TRANSLATION
AS MIMESIS
223
[It
is
quite
uncertain
in
what
language
I
write,
whether
Latin, French,
German
or
Anglo-Saxon,
and
indeed it
is
all the
same;
for
say
I
write
Thiudisch,
such as
the Germans
speak
who
live in
Helvetia,
then tomorrow
British stands on the
paper
and it is a Breton book I have written.
By
no
means
do
I
assertthat
possess
all
the
tongues;
but
they
run
all
together
n
my
writing
nd become one
-
in
other
words,
anguage.
For
the
thing
s
so,
that
the
spirit
of narration
s
free
to
the
point
of
abstraction,
whose
medium
s
language
n and
for
tself,
anguage
tself,
which ets tself
s
absolute and does
not
greatly
are
about
idioms
and national
inguistic
ods.
That
indeed
would
be
polytheistic
nd
pagan.
God is
spirit,
nd above
languages
s
anguage
trans.
H.
T.
Lowe-Porter).]
Having
enjoyed
the
irony
of
finding
n
original
and
a
translated
version of
a
tale that aspires to the condition of "language in and for itself," we can go
on to
ask
whether Clemens
is
really
so
innocent
as
he
sounds.
It is no
doubt
appropriate
that
Clemens,
who
emphatically
introduces
himself as
the
incarnation
("Inkarnation")
of
the
spirit
of
story-telling,
hould dream
of
communicating
in a
medium
that
incarnates the
spirit
of
language.
What
is
more,
his vision
of a
language
above
languages
derives not
simply
from
his
artistic
and
religious
ideals
of
communication,
but
equally
from
the
embarrassingly polylingual
nature
of his world. After
all,
this means
of
evading
the
mimetic
pressures
of "national
linguistic
gods"
would
not
be
such
a bad
solution
for
an
Irish
monk
writing
n a German
monastery
about
a
French
duke
brought up
on an
English
island and
finally
exalted to the
papacy
of Rome.
And
since
Clemens
himself
ultimately
bows
to the
necessity
of
imprisoning
the absolute
spirit
of
language
in the variable
clay
of
languages,
his
lesson,
including
the
clash between
his
(unilingual)
theory
and
his
(polylingual)
practice,
actually
serves
to
sharpen
and
illuminate
rather
than
eliminate
the writer's
predicament.
To descend
from
the
heights
of
utopia
to the lowlands
of
reality,
the
problem
of
heterolingual
or
translational mimesis
can in fact be
variously
circumvented
by
three
drastic
procedures:
1.
referential
restriction;
2.
vehicular matching; 3. homogenizing convention.
Referential
restriction onsists
in
confining
the
scope
of the
represented
world
to
the limits of
a
single, linguistically
uniform
community
whose
speech-patterns correspond
to those
of
the
implied
audience,
sometimes
to
the
point
of
excluding
interdialectical
as well as
interlingual
tensions,
as
in
the
novels
of Jane
Austen.
Vehicular
matching,
on
the other
hand,
far from
avoiding
linguistic
diversity
or
conflict,
accepts
them as
a
matter
of
course,
as
a fact of
life and
a
factor
of
communication,
and sometimes
even
deliberately
seeks
them
out
-
suiting
the variations
in
the
representational
medium
to the variations
in
the
represented
object.
Such
consistent
matching is quite common in scholarly works, the proceedings of interna-
tional
conferences or
the
daily operations
of
bilingual
societies;
but it
may
also
be
found
in
different
varieties
of
polyglot
art,
whether
Jean
Renoir's
bilingual
film
La
grande
illusion or
G. B.
Shaw's
polydialectical
Pygmalion.
In
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224
MEIR STERNBERG
all
these
instances,
he framed
heterolingual
r
polylingual
peech-events
re
replicated
and
in
this sense
given
full
communicative
utonomy,
while the
overt role
of
the
reporting peech-event
s limited to the
provision
of
bridging
inks,
nterscenic
ummary
r
possibly
no more thanthe inverted
commas
of
quotation.
The
recourse
to
the
homogenizing
onvention,
inally,
retainsthe freedom
of
referencewhile
dismissing
he resultant
ariations
n
the
language
presumably
poken by
the characters
s an
irrelevant,
f
not
distracting,
epresentational
actor.Alice
does
not find
t
strange
o hear the
White
Rabbit
muttering
o itself
n
English,
and there s indeed
no reason
why
she
should.
After
all,
doesn't Balaam's ass break
into
pure
Biblical
Hebrew
and
doesn't
La Fontaine's
fox
bring
to bear
on the
poor
raven
all
the rhetorical
resources
of
French? Even
more
extreme,
such
linguistic
uniformity aybe not simply conventionalmeasure ofsimplificationuta
vital
basis
for the
work's overall
structuring
nd
functionality:
n
Shakes-
peare's
Antony
and
Cleopatra,
the
development
of the most
complex
figurativepatterns
known
to
literary
art
hinges
on the
anti-historical
Englishing
of the
polylingual
discourse held
in
the
world
of
Romans
and
Egyptians.
This
principle
f
intratextual
tandardization
s,
then,
diametrical-
ly
opposed
not so much
to that of vehicular
matching
s to the
vehicular
promiscuityypical
of
macaronic
writing
from
he
medieval
muwas'ah
to
Joyce's
Finnegans
Wake
-
where shifts
of medium are
mimetically
gratuitous
and
polylingual
means are often
flagrantly
ummoned
to
represent
unilingual
realityof
discourse.2
What s common
o
the threediverse
representationaltrategies
s
that ach
manages
in
its
own
way
to
eliminate
the
complications
f
imitating
oreign
("heterolingual")
speech.
Vehicular
matching
ubstitutes
he literalness
nd
thoroughness
f
reproduction
or the
stylization
nd
selectivity
f
mimesis,
quoting
each
speech
in
its
original
wording
so
as to effect s
perfect
correspondence
s
possible
between
the
signified
olylingualism
f
reality
and
the
signifying
olylingualism
f the
text. Whereas
both referential
restriction
nd
homogenizing
onvention
ustify
heir dherence
to
unilingual
communication y resorting o a simplifyingevice that enables themto
preclude
or neutralize
one of
two
factors
presupposed
by
each
act of
mimesis:the
one,
in
realistic
erms,
y
standardizing
he mitated
bject;
the
other,
n
aesthetic
terms,
by
standardizing
he
imitating
medium.
Therefore,
f
these three
primary
heoretical
possibilities
referential
vehicular
homogenizing
vehicular
restriction
matching
convention
promiscuity
object unilingual
polylingual
polylingual
variable,
ossibly
unilingual
medium
unilingual
polylingual
unilingual
polylingual
2
For
an
account
f
he
atter
henomenon,
which
s
outside
my
resent
oncerns,
ee
Forster,
970.
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POLYLINGUALISM AND
TRANSLATION
AS
MIMESIS
225
indeed
reflected
he
facts
of
literary ractice,
therewould
be
hardly
any
room left
for
translational
mimesis.
n
fact,
however,
he
very xtremity
hat
renders
these
relationships
uch
clear-cut theoretical
categoriesveryfre-
quently
lso
disqualifies
hemfor
erving
s viable artistic
trategies.
ach
of
the
three either
demands
or
sacrifices oo
much. Referential
restriction
imposes
such
severe constraints
n the
selection
of
extraverbal s well
as
purely
verbal
material s
must
prove
unacceptable
to
any
artist
nterested
n
the
development
of
certain
polyvalent
hemes
say,
Henry
James's
nterna-
tional
conflict
f
manners)
nd/or
n
the
interaction f
language
and
culture
(as
in
Swift or
Nabokov)
and/or
in
the
mimetic
effect
f
sociolinguistic
variety (even
by
way
of
dialectal
tensions,
as
in
Fielding
or
Zola,
or
registerial
shifts,
as
in
Henry
Cecil's
novels of
litigation). Large-scale
vehicularmatching, n the other hand, so inconsistentwith the normal
conditions f
communication,
may
n
some
periods
and
genres
be
thought
o
divert
attention
from
more
important
matters
and to
require
too
much
polyglot
expertise
on
the
part
of
the
author and
his
reading-public.
While
the
adherence
to
the
homogenizing
onvention,
which
may
be
thought
o
require
too
little,
isks
paying
an
even
heavierrealistic
rice
than
referential
restriction,
recisely
because its
unilingual
vehicle
is
artificially
nd
indis-
criminately
oupled
with a
polylingual
enor
and
the
statics
of
the
reporting
speech
glaringly
ontrast
with
the
dynamics
of
the
framed
code-switching.
Literature,
ike
politics,
s the art
of
the
possible.
No
wonder, then,
that
literarypractice is marked,above all in
referentially-oriented
enres
like
fiction
nd
drama,
by
the
spirit
f
mimetic
ompromise,
manifesting
tself n
various
mixtures,
ombinations
and
contextual
adjustments
of
the basic
possibilities.
The
mixed
representation
of
polylingual
or
heterolingual
discourse
may
ultimately
be
reduced, however,
to
four
distinct
ypes
or
procedures
of
translational
mimesis,
ying
between
the
polar
extremes
of
vehicular
matching
nd
homogenizing
onvention.
1)
Selective
reproduction
akes
the form
of
intermittent
uotation
of
the
originalheterolingual iscourseas utteredby thespeaker(s),or in literature,
as
supposed
to
have been
uttered
by
the
fictive
peaker(s).
And
from
he
functional
iewpoint,
t
usually
operates
as a
kind
of
mimetic
ynecdoche.
The
Biblical
Book
of
Ezra,
for
instance,
suddenly
incorporates
nto
the
Hebrew
narrative
(4.6
if)
the
correspondence
("written
in
Aramaic")
between
the
enemies
of
Israel
and
Artaxerxes
king
of
Persia:
the
reproduction
f
the
documentary
vidence n
the
original
Aramaic
heightens
the
tale's
impression
of historical
authenticity,
ot
with
regard
to
the
reproduced
parts
alone
but
also to
other
speech-events
including
the
famous
proclamation
by
Cyrus,
with
which
the
book
starts)
hat
have
been
standardizedbywayof unilingual ranslation.And thesame combination f
selective
matching
and
selective
leveling
devised
in
this
ancient
tale
repeatedly
shows
itself n
more
modern
works.
Consider War
and
Peace,
whose
Russian
text is
interspersed
with
segments
of
reported
speech
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8/10/2019 Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis
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POLYLINGUALISM
AND
TRANSLATION
AS MIMESIS
227
"source
--
translation"
often
implies
a
lower
standard
of
bilingual
competence
than
the
sequence
"translation
-
source,"
though
neither
orm
is common in
the
strictly olyglot
rt
of the
past.
Reproduction,
inally,
oes not
necessarily
mean accurate
reproduction.
t
may
turn out
less than
impeccable
by
linguistic
tandards:
either
uncon-
sciously,
s
in
many
cases of
anachronism r
dialectal
hotch-potch
r
other
forms
of
authorial
blundering,
or
deliberately,
as
when
by
a
typical
dual-language
trick,
Mr.
Shandy
mistranslates
Amicus Plato
sed
magis
amica
veritas"
to
equal
"Dinah
was
my
aunt
but
Truth
is
my
sister"
(Tristram
handy,
Vol.
I,
Chap. 21).
And
even
when
perfectly
cceptable
from
he
linguistic
iewpoint,
eproduction
may
still
nvolve
gross
distortion
or
daring
manipulation
rom
he
factual
nd
compositional
iewpoints.
hus,
the intertextual llusions ostensibly signalled by Stendhal's polylingual
epigraphs,
ike
the
Aramaic
sayings
that
color
the Yiddish
discourse
of
Scholem
Aleichem's
famous
dairyman,
re
often
pure
invention.
Not
to
speak
of
less
extreme
varieties
of
deviant
allusion
and
internal
misquotation
cf.
Sternberg,
1976).
Which
is to
say
that
in
dealing
with
translational
mimesis n
general
and
selective
reproduction
n
particular,
we
must
take
into
account the
variables
of
implied
literary,
bi-literary
nd
bi-cultural
s
well as
purely ilingual
ompetence.
2)
A
more
oblique
and
varied
type
of
translational
mimesis is
verbal
transposition the poetic or communicative wistgiven to what socio-
linguists
all
bilingual
nterference.
ransposition
s
mimetically
more
oblique
than
reproduction,
ince
it
suggests
polylingual
r
heterolingual
peech
in
and
through
n
ostensiblyunilingual
medium
rather
han
directly
ncorpo-
rates
such
speech
into
an
openly
mixed
framework.
And
it
is
also
more
varied,
since its
polylingual
r
heterolingual
uggestiveness
erives
from
he
narrator's
the
"translator's")
uperimposing
n
the
translated
uotation
one
or
more of a
variety
of
features
and
patterns
distinctive
f
the
source
language
but
unacceptable
n
the
target
anguage
this
montage
ccording-
ly producingan interlingual lash of the two codes withinthe transposed
utterance.
The
devised
translational
nterference
may
relate to
any
verbal
level or
aspect
at
which
the
two
languages
involved
are
less
than
perfectly
isomorphic.
he
jarring
ffect
f
transposed
peech
may
for
nstance
be
due
to
the
retention
r
imitation
f
what
becomes in
the
target
anguage:
(a)
phonic
or
orthographic
diosyncrasyas
with
wift's
word
Houyhnhnm,"
which,
however
normal
within
he
phonological
tructuref
the
anguage
of
horses,
s
simply
eyond
he
articulatoryower
of
mere
Yahoos
like
us;
or,
tocite
a more
prevalent
henomenon,
he
arrying
verof
he
low"
or
foreignntonationsftheoriginal peaker ntothefabric fthetranslated
discourse);
nd/or
(b)
grammatical
irregularity
nd
ill-formedness
whether
by
way
of
discrepancies
n
concord
or
tense
or
aspect,
unnatural
r
ambiguous
word
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8/10/2019 Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis
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228 MEIR
STERNBERG
order,
or
the
ruthlessly
tandardized
morphology
aimed
at
in
the
nightmarish
orld
f
George
Orwell's
1984);
and/or
(c)
lexical deviance
(as
with
the
literally
rendered
Spanish
idioms in
Hemingway's
orWhom heBell
Tolls);
and/or
(d)
to
move
from
he
unacceptable
o
the nfelicitousnd
from
he
specific
o
the
general,
even
stylistic
eatures
hat
are
contrary
o
the
"spirit
f
the
language"
(as
when the
proverbial
Russian
emotionalism urfaces
n
the
dialogues
of
Rebecca West's
The Birds
Fall
Down,
or
when he
unEnglish
flourishes
hroughout
omerset
Maugham's
"The
Man with
heScar" are
at last
explicitly
scribed
by
the
narrator o
his
Guatemalecan
nformant:
"I
have
translated
what
he
told
me
as
well
as I
could,
but have made
not
attempt
o
tone
down his rather
igh-flownanguage").
But
whatever ts
modes
and
combinatory
echnique,
ranspositionignificant-
ly
differs rom
overall
and
local)
matching
n that t
is not
so much
a
literal
reproduction
f
substance
s a
stylized
mimesis
f
form;
r
from he
reader's
viewpoint,
not so
much
a
heterolingual
atum or
directly
bserved
fact
s an
interpretive ypothesis ccounting
orverbal
tension,
eviance
and
incompati-
bility
within
given unilingual
iscourse
n
terms
f
the
reporter's
elective,
mimetically-orientedmis)rendering
f an
originally eterolingual
tterance.
The
transpositional
ypothesis
s
not
only
more
attractive han the obvious
genetic
lternative
ut
lso
presents
subtler
ommunicative
tructure,
ue
to ts
differentistributionf linguistic eaturesbetweenthe twospeech-events
postulating
less
drastic
degree
of
reporting
nterference ith
the
quoted
material
and
correspondingly
llowing
the
heterolingual
speech greater
autonomy
f
point
f
view.
What
a
genetic
hypothesismight
ismiss s authorial
error
within
n
otherwise
homogenized
framework s as a
rule
much more
satisfactorily
xplained
s
covert
nterlingual
nd
interperspectival
ontage
n
the
part
of
a narrator
reporter,
ranslator)
eliberately
mixing
hecodes
of
the
frame
inhabited
by
himself
nd
his
audience)
and the nset
inhabited
by
the
fictive
peaker
and
his
addressee)
n
the nterests f
representational
ividness
andcomplexity.
However,
ust
as
a
polylingual
medium
may
be
used
(as
in
macaronic
writing)
in
the
bsence
of
a
corresponding
olylingual
bject
or
shift
ithin he
projected
reality,
o
every
act
of
bilingual
nterferences
not
necessarily
n
instance
f
mimetic
ransposition.
or
both
the
reporter
ithin he
represented
ramework
and
certainly
he
reportee
within he
represented
rameworkre as
liable
as
the
rest
of
humanity
o
sociolinguistic
ccidents.
On
the
one
hand,
though
what
have
just
called the
genetic hypothesis
s no doubt
less
integrative
han the
mimetic,
t cannot
be ruled
out
categorically
least of
all,
whenwe have
to do
with uthors
who
like
Conrad
or
Nabokov)
choose
to write n a
language
other
than heir wnor,what s morecommon,n dialects hey o notfullyommand.
Interestingly
nough,
hese re
among
the
writersmost ddicted o
translational
mimesis,
o
that
one sometimeswonders
where
literary trategy
nds and
linguistic
elf-defense
egins.
But from ime
to
time
we
come across verbal
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POLYLINGUALISM
AND
TRANSLATION
AS
MIMESIS
229
peculiarities
hat
must
learly
e
accountedfor n
terms
f authorial
lip
rather
than
deliberate
hift o
themedium
mployed
y
the
original
peaker.
On
the other
hand,
the
original real
or
fictive)peakersmay
themselves
e
responsible
or
mposing
n a
foreign
anguage
he
various eatures
nd
patterns
peculiar
to their
native
tongue,
r even
theother
way
round.
Thus,
n
Conrad's
Lord
Jim,
Stein's
sentence
structure
"To
my
small
native
town
this
my
collection
shall
bequeath,"
"One
thing
lone can
us from
being
ourselves
cure")
is
twisted nto
the
verb-stopped
word
order
favored
by
his
native
German;
the
same
result is
produced
by
a more
complicated
process
of
transmission
n
the
speech
of the
Jugoslavian
otel-keeper
n
Oliver
Bleek's
Protocol
or
Kidnapping:
"If
you
will
wait
until
my
lothes
put
on,
I
will
with
your uggagehelp,"
he
said,
getting
ll theverbs
nicely
tucked
away
at the end ofhis
phrase
and sentence.
Maybe
he
thought
n
Serbian,
translated
t
nto
German,
nd
then nto
English
(Chap.
21).
Nabokov's
Pnin
uperlatively
xemplifies
he
ravages
f
foreign
ccent:
If
his
Russian was
music,
his
English
was
murder.He
had
enormous
difficulty
("dzeefeecooltsee"
in
Pninian
English)
with
depalatization,
never
managing
o
remove
heextra
Russian
moisture rom
'sand
d'sbefore
he
vowelshe
so
quaintly
softened.
His
explosive
hat"
("I
never
go
in
a hat
even in
winter"'
differedrom
the
common
American
pronunciation
f
"hot"
[...]
only
by
ts
briefer
uration,
and thus oundedverymuch ike theGermanverbhat has). Long o's withhim
inevitably
ecame
short
ones:
his
"no"
sounded
positively
talian,
and
this
was
accentuated
by
his
trick
f
triplicating
he
simple
negative
"May
I
give
you
a
lift,
Mr.
Pnin?"
"No-no-no,
have
only
wo
paces
from
ere"
Pnin,
Chap.
3).
Pnin's "two
paces
from
here"
brings
us to the
level of
lexis,
variously
deformed
out
of
shape
by
Conrad's
half-caste
captain,
"
whose
flowing
English
seemed
to
be
derived from a
dictionary compiled
by
a
lunatic"
(Lord
Jim,
Chap.
23);
or
by
the
doctoral
candidate
in
Molibre's
Le
Malade
imaginaire,
with
his
verbally
as
well
as
medically preposterous
panacea
"Clysterium
donare,/Postea
seignare,/Ensuitta purgare": or by Henry James's M. Nioche, whose
"vocabulary,"
the
narrator
of
The
American
informs
us,
"was
defective
and
capricious.
He
had
repaired
it
with
large
patches
of
French,
with
words
anglicized
by
a
process
of
his
own,
and with
native
idioms
literally
ranslated."
So
it
s
not
entirely
n
est
that
Nioche
is
told
by
his
prospective
pupil,
the
American
Christopher
Newman,
that
"listening
to
your English
[...]
is
almost a
lesson
in
French"
(Chap.
4).
Still,
though
James and
Bleek
actually
describe
their
characters'
speech
as the
product
of
translation,
all
these cases
of
mixed
speech
must
nevertheless
be
sharply
distinguished
from
our translational
mimesis
of
heterolingual
discourse.
They may indeed be "translational" in the sense of resultingfrom nterlingual
operations;
they
may
also be
"mimetic"
both
as
tokens
of
existing
verbal
models
and
as
more or
less
verisimilar
representations
of
discourse;
and
they
are
of
course
indicative of
a
polylingual
reality.
But
these
similaritiesin
interlingual
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230
MEIR
STERNBERG
montage
erveto
highlight
hecrucialdifferenceetween
mimetic
ransposition
and
sociolinguistic
nterference. his difference
may
be
brokendown ntothe
followingcomplex
of factors:
(a)
communicative
tructure:
wo
distinct
speech-events,
hatbetween he
original peaker
ndhisaudience
being
et nto
the
framework f
the
reporter
nd his
addressee,
as
opposed
to
a
single
speech-event;
(b)
locus
of
different
odes: distributedbetween the
two
speech-events,
ith
he
reported
ne
possibly
wholly nilingual,
s
opposed
to
co-existent
ithin
he
bilingual
peaker's
mind;
c)
source
f nterlingualonflict:
the
reporter's
elective
and usually
deliberate)
ubstitution
f
the forms'and
features
f his
own code for
those
of the
original
tterance,
s
opposed
to the
bilingual's usually
nvoluntary)
roduction
f a
double-coded
utterance,
hose
genesis
s sometimes
escribed s the
peaker's
faulty
mental translation"
f a
message fromhis native into a foreign anguage; (d) mode of existence f
speaker's
utterance
s
actually
nunciated:
artly
n absentia
s
opposed
to
fully
in
praesentia.
Sociolinguistic
nterference,
herefore,
ust
like
the
code-switching
f
equilingual
r
diglossic
peakers,
s
not an instance
ut n
object
of
translational
mimesis
amenable
to all the modes
of
heterolingual
manipulation,
rom
vehicular
matching
to
homogenizing
convention.
This
practice,
variously
manifested
n all the works
have
ust
cited,
s
overtly
ointed
out
by
James's
narrator:
The
language
poken
by
M. Nioche was
a
singular
ompound,
which
shrink
rom
he
attempt
o
reproduce
n
its
ntegrity,"
ince "the
result,
n the
formnwhichhe inall
humility
resentedt,wouldbe scarcely omprehensible
to
the
reader,
o
that
have
ventured
o trimnd sift
t."
3)
Conceptualreflection
s
even
further
emoved
than
transposition
rom
he
concrete
texture
f the
original
discourse:
what t retains
s not
so much
the
verbal
forms
f
the
foreign
ode
as
the
underlying
ocio-cultural
orms,
emantic
mapping
of
reality,
and distinctive
eferential
ange,
segmentations
nd
hierarchies.
onceptual
reflection
hus ies at the crossroads
f
language
and
reality.
Qua
mimetic
ypothesis,
herefore
and it is
important
o note
that
reflection,iketranspositionndunlikematching,s anhypothesishat xplains
verbal
idiosyncrasy
within
an
ostensibly
unilingual
message
in terms
of
perspectival
diversity
nd communicative
montage
- its
discovery
and
validation
may
require
various
kinds,
degrees
and combinations
f
reading-
competence.
Sometimes
he
conceptual
lashhas
a
precise
inguistic
ocus
r
grammatical
realization.
hus,
when
the
holy
rkofthe
onvenant
s
brought
nto
he
amp
of
Israel,
the
Biblical
narrator
uotes
the
houting
f the
frightened
hilistines:
Woe
unto s
who
hall
eliver s
outof hehand
f hese
mightyods
Elohim]?
these re
the
gods Elohim]
hatmote
he
Egyptians
ith ll the
plagues
n
the
wilderness.
II
Samuel,
.8:the
King
amesersionshere ccurate,lmostiteral)
At
first
lance,
the
heterolingualism
fthe
original
peech
seems
to have
been
homogenized
utof
existence
y
way
ofnarratorial
ntrusion.
he
only
inguistic
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POLYLINGUALISM AND TRANSLATION AS
MIMESIS 231
clue of
translational
mimesis
ere
s the
arring
ote
ounded
by
the
Philistines'
repeated
reference
o theGod
of
srael
through
he
plural
form
= gods)
of that
veryword (Elohim) which a Jew would use as singular = God). But this
deviance in nominal
categorization
eflects
conceptually
nd
perspectively
charged
distinctive
feature,
the
foreignness
f
the utterance
being
thus
foregrounded
hrough
twofold ension
etween
he
Jewish
udience
within
he
narrativeframe
and the
Philistine
peakers
within
he
narrative
nset: the
informational
iscrepancy
between the
enlightened
nd
the
ignorant the
plagues
were
actually
nflicted
n
Egypt,
ot
n
the
wilderness)
nd
thenormative
discrepancy
etween he
monotheisticnd the
polytheistic.
In
other
cases,
the mimetic
iscrepancy
s
reflected
n
terms
f
the semantic
structure
r
limits
f
the
two
anguages
n which
he
reported
nd
the
reporting
speech-eventsre encoded,as whentheLilliputians, holly nacquaintedwith
many
phenomena
which
Western ulture
akes
for
granted,
ave to fall
back on
ingenious
guessing
nd
lengthy
ircumlocution
n
order to refer
o Gulliver's
watch:
A
globe,
alf
ilver,
nd
half
f
ome
ransparent
etal:
or
nthe
ransparent
ide
we
sawcertain
trange
igures
ircularly
rawn,
nd
thought
e
could
ouch
hem,
untilwe found
ur
fingers
topped
ith
hat
ucid ubstance.
e
put
his
ngine
o
our
ars,
whichmade
n
ncessantoise
ike hat
f
water-mill:nd
we
onjecture
it
s either omeunknown
nimal,
r
the
god
that
e
worships:
ut
we are more
inclinedo the
atter
pinion,
ecausehe
assured
s,
if
we
understandim
ight,
forheexpressed imselfery mperfectly)hat eseldom idanythingithout
consulting
t
Part
,
Chap.
).
Elsewhere,
the
conceptual
reflection
s based
on
the lexical
or
referential
deficiency
of
the
target
rather
than
the
source
language,
as when
the
half-Russian
eroine
of
The
BirdsFall Down
mentions
he
many
oving
names
conferred
n
oil
by
the
OrthodoxChurch:
the
holy
il,
the
oil of
gladness,
he
oil of
sanctification,
royal
robe,
a
seal of
safety,
he
delight
f the
heart,
n
eternal
oy,
the
oil
of
salvation"
Chap. 9).
Most
often,
however,
this mode
of
intratextual
ranslation
mplements
indicators that are verballymuch less definite r codified,producingthe
impression
f
heterolingualism
hrough
ulturally
ypical or
typified) opics,
interests, ttitudes,
ealia,
forms
f
address,
fields
f
allusion,
r
paralinguistic
features ike
gesticulation.
4) Explicit
ttribution,
inally,
s a
direct tatement
n
the
reporter's
or
even
the
reportee's)
part
concerning
he
language
or
some
aspect
of
the
anguage)
n
which
he
reported
peech
was
originally
made.
We
have
already
een
more han
one
instance of it
conjoined,
in
the form
of
generalization,
with
other
translational
ypes:
for
xample,
n
the
narrator's
omments
n
Pnin's
phonetic
or Nioche's lexical aberrations.But attributionmay also appear by itself,
unsupported
and
unexemplified
by
even the
faintest hade
of
mimetic
"showing"
and
consisting
n
pure
narratorial
telling"
-
whether
bout the
heterolingual
ature fthe
discourse s a whole
e.g.,
"He
spoke
n
French")
r,
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232
MEIR
STERNBERG
more
specifically,
bout
the
standardization f
some
heterolingual
omponent
(as
when
Shaw
notes
in
Pygmalion
hat "this
desperate attempt
o
represent
[Liza's]
dialectwithout
phonetic lphabet
must
be abandoned s
unintelligible
outside
London").
A
typical
esult
f ts
horoughgoingpplication
s
that,
when
the
quoted
speakers
within he
represented
eality
re themselves
ilingual as
in
Eric
Ambler's
A Kind
of
Anger),
the omission of
an
overt notice makes
it
impossible
o
determine
n
which f
the
possible anguages
certain
ialogue
s
conducted.
Another s
what
may
be
called
standardization
t a
second
remove,
usually
due
to a
double
communicative
raming:
narrator's tandardized
quotation
in
his
language)
of a character's tandardized
uotation
in
his
own
language)
of
another
haracter's
peech in
a third
anguage).
n
extreme
ases,
therefore,
ttribution
merges
nto the
pole
of
homogenizing
onvention
n all
that oncerns heuncontestednilingualismftherepresentational edium nd
is
distinguished
rom his
pole
only
n the
"mimetic"
wareness f
the
poly-
or
heterolingualism
f
the
represented
bject, signalled through
he
occasional
references
o
linguistic
iversity.
II
What is common
o
the
different
ypes
r
categories
f
ntratextual
ranslation
is,
then,
that
the
interference
ith the
reported
heterolingual peech-event
produces
a
verbally
and
communicatively
mixed
quotation,
combining
he
perspectives
f
the
ntrusive
arratorwithin
he frame nd
the
original
peaker
within he inset.But in viewof thedifferencesn the
degree
of
quotational
interference,
t
is
tempting
to
range
the four
categories
we
have
just
distinguished
long
a scale
flanked
y
thetwo
imiting
ases:
vehicular
selective
verbal
conceptual explicit
homogenizing
matching
reproduction
ransposition
reflection attribution
convention
I
I
I
I
Such
gradation
ooks
straightforward
nough,
but it
may
prove
misleadingly
static
nd
simplifiedis-a-vis
he
variablesofcommunication
nd above all
the
intricacies
f
poetic
icence nd mimetic
modeling.
First,
t
goes
without
aying
that
the
scale
classifies
ypes
or
aspects
of
translational
mimesis
ather han
texts
r
textual
egments.
t
is
not
only
that
each
of the ntermediate
evices
s
in itself
ecessarily
mixed
n
that
t
forms
selective
or
stylized
ombination
f
the two
poles,
but
that
t
may variously
coexist
nd
nteractwith
he thers
within
given
extual
ramework.
abokov's
Pnin,
or
nstance,
uns
p
and
down
the
gamut ccording
o tsvariable
ims
nd
needs,
n
complete
disregard
or
he
decorums
f
consistency.
Moreover,
t s
by
no means
necessarily
rue
hat
he
movement
rom
ight
o
left oincideswith n increasingpproximationotheoriginal tterance,r with
an
increasing
ense
or
expectation
f
reconstructability,
r with
n
increasing
complex
of
re-translational
rerequisities.
Apart
fromthe textual
factors f
quantitative
cope
and
presentational
ontinuity,
t
s
worth
oting
hat he
wide
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POLYLINGUALISM
AND TRANSLATION
AS MIMESIS
233
variability
n
the
kind
nd
degree
of
mplied i.e.,
required) eading-competence,
which
we have
already
seen to
operate
within
single
type
of
translational
mimesis,pplieswith t east qual force o therelations etween ifferentypes.
Conceptual
reflection,
hen
implemented
n the scale of science
fiction
r
James's
nternational
ovels,
certainly
mplies
higher
tandard f
bicultural
competence
on the reader's
part
thanthe
transposition
r
reproduction
f
interspersed
lich6 or
allusion.
And
while
minimal
ilingual
ompetence
may
suffice
o
follow
reproduced peech,
tsreconstruction
n the
ight
f
transposed
clues
may
require
fuller,
ecause
more
ctive,
ommand f the
mplied
ource
language.
More
generally,
ince
literary
tudies,
notably
ncluding
he
study
of the
artistic
epresentation
f
reality,
eriously
uffer
rom
he failure
o
distinguish
formal mode and functional ystem, want to emphasizethatthisscale is
gradated
n
purely
ormal
erms.
What
such
a
scale
can
reasonably
e
expected
to do is to
arrange
set
of
mimetic
evices
ccording
o their
istance
rom
he
concrete erbal
texture
f the
heterolingual
iscourse
aking
lace
or supposed
to have taken
place)
within
he
represented
eality
or,
n
terms
f narrative
point
of
view,
according
o their
osition
between
showing"
nd
"telling."
As
such,
t
may
fford
fairly
seful
escriptive
nd
typological
ool,
enabling
s
to
establish he
nventory
f
representational
evices vailable to
a
given
writer
r
period
or
style
or
tradition,
o
compare
different
orpora
n
selectional
nd
combinatory
ange
e.g.,
formulaic
arrative s.
modern
novel,
ournalistic
s.
scholarly
writing,
erbalartvs.the
yncretic
medium f the
cinema),
rto trace
historical
evelopments
n
terms
f
shifts
n
translational
epertoire.
he
point
is, however,
hat
he
absolute
ocation
of
a device
or
for
hat
matter
he
text's
whole
gamut
of
devices)
can in
itself ell
us
very
ittle
bout ts
actual
mimetic
effect
r
force r
function,
hich an
never
be
determined
priori
ut turns
n
each
case
on a
large
omplex
of
variables
nd
constraints
general
nd
specific,
historical
nd
poetic,
sociolinguistic
nd
generic,
textual
and
contextual.
n
different
ontexts,
he
ame translational orm
may
erve
different
unctions
nd
the
ame function
may
be
served
by
different
orms.
Accordingly,when we pass fromthe typology o the functionalityf
translational
mimesis,
we
pass
from
ts
haracterization
s a
set
of
ocal
reporting
devices
placed
in
a
static
nd
autotelic
hierarchy
o
its
ntegration
s
a
textual
component
nd in
terms
f
a
fluid
ystem
f
ntratextual
elations.
n
literary
rt,
this
nterdependence
f
elements
ndicates bove
all
the
recognition
hat
the
realism f
polylingual
iscourse like therealism f
discourse
n
general
nd of
all
nonverbal
objects
within
the
represented
framework
cannot
be
understood
part
from
he
text's verall
referential
trategy,
f
which t
s both
miniature
nd a
part
or
means.
Translational
mimesis
eing
miniature
means
that,
ust
ike
thefictive orld
as a whole, tsrealismmust e udgednotby omeabsolutenorm f reality" ut
in
close
reference o
the
reality-models
uggested
by
the
generico-historical
context nd
built into
the work
itself.One of
the
many mplications
f this
parallel
is
that
to
classify or
even
worse,
condemn)
a work
as
unrealistic
or
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234
MEIR
STERNBERG
failing
o
resort
o
translational orms
hat
re
n
fact
historically
naccessible
r
functionally
rrelevant
if
not
detrimental)
o
it
would
be
as
absurd
as the
common
practice
f
raising
he
tick f
realism"
gainst
workwhose
whole
in
actually
onsists
n
eaving
ut certain
reas
of
reality
hat
re beneath ts
notice,
outside
ts existential en
or
beyond
ts artistic
ounds.
On
the
other
hand,
t
would
be
just
as absurd
to
praise
a work
s realistic
or
mploying
ranslational
devices
that are
in fact
automatic
within
ts
tradition r
forced
on it
by
the
mimetic
nd
expressive nadequacies
of
ts
target
anguage.
Each work
nherits
and
establishes
certain
ange
of
heterolingual
r heterodialectal
epresenta-
tion;
and
it
s the
nterplay
f
possible
and
actual,
conventionalnd innovative
forms hat
etermines
tsrealistic
ffect,
ot he
distribution
f
those orms
long
some external
nd
eternal
cale.
In extremecases, especiallythatofworksadheringto the homogenizing
convention,
here
may
be no
more
than
single
device at work.
But
even
then,
despite
the
seemingly
ommon
epertorial
imitation,
ne
must
not
ose
sight
f
the markeddifferences
n
effect etween
representational
estrictedness
where
polylingualism
s not conceived
of
as
a
constitutive
r
distinctive imension
f
reality,
as
in
many
ancient
and
medieval
narratives),
communicative
restrictedness
as
when the
two
languages
are far removed
in
structure
r
resources),
nd
self-imposed
estriction
poetic
constraints,
eneric
considera-
tions,
rhetorical
acticsor individual
preference,
s in
journalistic
writing
r
children's
iterature).
he same
is
essentially
rue f works
with
n
enlarged
r
more
densely populated
scale. Biblical narrative,for example, though
quantitatively
ess
developed
than
modern literatureboth in
range
of
translational
devices
and
in
the
frequency
of
their
mplementation,
ften
produces
in
this
respect
a
sharper
sense
of
realismwhen its
performance
s
properly
iewed
against
the
background
f
the
homogenized
discourse
n
the
Canaanite
tradition.
nd
when
coupled
with
hefactors
hat
have
already
been
discussed,
ike the
mplied
tandard
f
bilingual ompetence,
he
variability
f
literary
nd communicative
ontexts
forcefully
stablishes
that there is
no
necessary
orrespondence
etween
mimetic
orm nd
mimetic unction.
This conclusion is further einforced y a second parallel between the
microcosm
f translational
mimesis
nd the macrocosm
f
overall
referential
strategy,
amely,
the
significance
f the
internal
tructuring
f
the elements
composing
ach
system.
Thus,
in
order
to
determine he function r force
or
centrality
f
translational
mimesis
t
s as
important
o
tracethe distribution
f
heterolingual
elements
along
the textual
sequence
as
to
analyze
their
representational
orms
or their
overall
statisticaldistribution
mong
the
different
ormal modes.
The latter
procedures
may by
themselves
prove
misleading,
ince there
s
often notable
similarity
etween the
tendency
o
open
the
work
with circumstantial
vocation
of fictive
eality,
with
view
to
producing firstmpressionfrealism, ndthe endencyo ntroducetanearly
stage
a
heavy
and
particularized
oncentration
f translational
evices
(see
Sternberg,
1978:
217ff.).
Moreover,
the
importance
of
tracing
he internal
ordering
nddistribution
f
these
devices shows tselfn the treatment
f ocal
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POLYLINGUALISM
AND
TRANSLATION AS
MIMESIS
235
instances s
well
as the
work's
whole
heterolingual
orpus.
n Book
III,
Chapter
11
of
Tristram
handy,
for
example,
Tristram
uotes
and
translates,
n
a
dual-language ext, ishopErnulphus's welfth-centuryormula f xcommuni-
cation,
ontaining
uchhorrible
nd
preposterous
urses
s:
Maledictus
it
vivendo,
moriendo...
manducando,
ibendo,
suriendo,
itiendo,
jejunando,
dormitando,
ormiendo,
igilando,
mbulando,tando,
edendo,
jacendo,
perando,
uiescendo, ingendo,
acando,
lebotomando.
May
he be
cursed
n
iving,
n
dying...
n
eating
nd
drinking,
n
being
ungry,
n
being hirsty,
n
fasting,
n
leeping,
n
lumbering,
n
walking,
n
tanding,
n
itting,
in
ying,
n
working,
n
resting,
n
pissing,
n
hitting,
nd
n
blood-letting.
The
sceptical
reader
may
convince himself f
the literal
uthenticity
f
this
fantastic-lookingocument through ndependentresearch,while the less
sceptical
will
be
satisfied
ith
terne's
unning
ote that As
the
genuineness
f
the
consultation
f
the
Sorbonne
pon
the
question
of
baptism,
was
doubted
by
some,
and
denied
by
others,
'twas
thought roper
o
print
he
original
f
this
excommunication:
or the
copy
of which
Mr.
Shandy
returns hanksto
the
chapter
clerk
of
the dean
and
chapter
of Rochester."
But
once
convinced,
t
becomes much
easier
n
the
sequel
to trick
hereader
nto
believing
or
at
least
suspending
disbelief)
in
the
genuineness
of
the
equally preposterous
nd
similarly
uoted-and-translated
Tale
of
the
Nose"
bySlawkenbergius,
hich
s
in
fact
ntirelypocryphal.
he moral
pointedby
such
temporalmanipulationsconsists, hen, n the extent o whichmimesis
may
be a matter fdistributive
pattern
ather
han
distributional
tatistics,
f
rhetorical
tructure
ather
han
material
eproduction,
f
contrived ffect
ather
han
uthenticated
act.
Mimesis s
structured
ffect nd
impression
rings
s
to
a third
spect
of
the
parallel.
The
realistic
orce
f
polylingual
epresentation,
ike
thatof
the
text's
simulacrum
f
reality
s
a
whole,
is
relatively
ndependent
f
the
objective
(verbal
and
extraverbal)
acts s
viewed and
established
by
scientific
nquiry.
What
is
artistically
more
crucial
than
inguistic
eality
s
the
model(s)
of
that
reality
as
internally atterned
or
invoked
by
the
individual work
and/oi-
conventionallyashionedby the literary raditionnd/or onceivedofbythe
reader
within
the
given
cultural
framework.
The
most
extreme
case
of
subordination f
external
actuality
o nternal
modeling,
ften
concomitant
f
a
fictiveworld
regulated
y
a
logic
that
harply
eviatesfrom
hatof
everyday
life,
s
the fabrication f
languages
that
have
never
been known
o man:
the
languages
f
Lilliput,
Brobdingnag
r
Houyhnhnmland
n
Gulliver's
ravels
r
George
Orwell's
Newspeak
re
elaborately
ifferentiatedrom
tandard
nglish
("Oldspeak") by
ts
three
egisters
nd its
phonetic,
honological,
rammatical,
lexical
and
semantic
tructure.
owever
fantastic,
hese
fictive
anguages
re
invested
with
uch
xistential
ightness
nd
nternal
oherence s
cannot
but
give
theirvarious modes of "translation"an eerie mimeticpower withinthe
framework of
the
"polylingual"
reality-model.
Much
more
often,
the
internalized
rientation f
literary
mimesis
ssumes
the
less
extreme
orm f
manipulating
he actual
ratherthan
postulating
he
nonexistent.A
typical
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236
MEIR
STERNBERG
example
s
Ian
Fleming's
epresentationof
egro
dialect
n
the
James
Bond
saga.
To
dismiss
is
rendering
s
grossly
naccurate
s to
miss he
whole
point,
nd
not
simply
because
we have
to
do
here
with a
genre
of
popular
literature.
o
Fleming,
uch
foreign
peech
is not a
dialectological
roblem
but
a
rhetorical
tool
-
a
possible
source
of local
color and
picturesque
ffect.
As
in all
other
cases where
he
scandalized
his
critics
y dragging
n
bits nd
pieces
of realiawith
a show of
expertise,
leming nvisages
reader
who
cannot
pick
holes
in
this
facade
of
vraisemblance,
nd
even
f
he
could,
would
know
better
han o make
a
fuss bout them
s
long
as
he
got
his
money's
worth
n
other
ways.
As
textual
omponent,
owever,
ranslational
mimesis
tands o
the
text
nd
particularly
he text's
overall
referential
trategy
ot
only
as
microcosm
o
macrocosmbut also as
part
to
whole
or
as
means
to
end.
And this further
diversifiesand complicates its functionalvariability.The interplayof
translational nd
extraverbal mimesis
may yield
a
variety
of means-end
combinations,
ll
of them
ndeed bidirectional
n
principle
but
with
widely
different
oals
and dominants. ere
I
can
only
mention
wo
ypical
imiting
ases
and
some
intermediate
ossibilities. olylingual
epresentation
s sometimes
more
or
less
strictly
ubordinated
o
the dramatic
nd rhetorical
eeds
of
the
overall
fictive
ction:
it
may
then
serve,
for
nstance,
o
lay
the
ground
for
a
comedy
f
errors,
o characterize
r
ust
abel
a
person
or
a
milieu,
o
sharpen
r
on
the
contrary
ttenuate
the
reader's sense
of existential
otherness
or
foreignness
r
multifariousness,
tc.
And
the need
to
implement
certain
functionna certain ontext
requently
xplains
ventherecourse oa particular
form
ut
of the
available
repertoire.
he
opposite
xtreme,
he
ubordination
f
extraverbal
eality
o the
development
f
polylingual
lay,
s not o common
n
a
large
scale
-
certainly
ot
in
drama
and
the
novel,
for
fairly
bvious
generic
reasons.
Still,
peaking
of
his
Lord
of
the
Rings,
J.
R. R. Tolkienrevealed
that
"he
long
ago
invented
ome
languages
out
of
pure
philological
nthusiasm;
s
they
eemed
to
work,
he
thought
t would
be
interesting
o invent
eople
who
spoke
them.
The
result
was the whole
thrilling
orld
of
dwarves,
lves
and
hobbits"
quoted
by
Forster,
1970:
88).
And there
s
no doubtthatthe
same
principle as a wealth f ocal andsporadicmanifestations:milieu s nvoked,
situation
s
staged,
speech
s
developed
beyond
he
requirements
f the
ction
or
fully
uoted
rather
han
summarized,
character
s
introduced
r
invested
with ertain
erbal
nd
psychological
eatures,
rimarily
n order o motivate
he
play
of
nterlingual
ensions.
In
between
these
poles,
we
have
a
spectrum
f more
actively
idirectional
relationships,
where
each
dimension
of mimesis
perates
simultaneously
r
successively)
s
means
and
end,
in the service
ofthe text'soverall
referential
strategy.
or
example,
Homer's
practice
f
homogenizing
he
anguage
of
his
dramatis
ersonae
correlates
with
is
practice
f
homogenizing
heir ulture:
he
GreeksandtheTrojanshavethe amegods, rms, ustoms,odesofhonor.And
these
wodimensions
fhis
poetic
modeling
f
reality
omplement
nd
reinforce
each
other
with considerable
thematic
gain
-
yielding
world-picture
f
universal
validity, rojecting
he common
aspirations
f humans
against
the
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8/10/2019 Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis
18/20
POLYLINGUALISM
AND TRANSLATION AS MIMESIS
237
background
f mortal
ate nd immortal
un,
nd
marking
ppositions
n
terms
of the essentials
f character
ather hanthe
accidentals f race.The worlds f
Swift'sGulliver's
ravels nd Orwell's1984, n the ther and, recharacterized
not
by
sociolinguistic omogeneity
ut
by
diversity,
nd it
s on thisbasis
that
language
and culture
variously
interact
in
the interests
of
the
overall,
normatively-chargedicture
f
ife.Here
the nvention
f
pecial anguages
nd
the
different
odes
of
translational
imesis erve
o
bring
ut the
polyvalence
f
culture,
while
at the same
time the
structuring
nd
unfolding
f
the
equally
invented)
xtraverbal
eality
re
influenced
y
the
de