Translation Theories Term Paper

2010

Translation Theories Mohammad Zeidan The University of Jordan

DISCUSSING TRANSLATION This paper is a self-critique of a piece of literary translation in light of translation theories and strategies expounded in this course.

2 Discussing Translation

January 4, 2010

Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................... 3

The Title ................................................................................................................. 4

Back to the rules: ................................................................................................... 4

Cultural Adaptation ................................................................................................ 5

Textuality ............................................................................................................... 5

Syntactic management ........................................................................................... 8

Expansion ............................................................................................................... 9

Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 11


January 4, 2010

Introduction

Training lies at the core of any translation course. Any attempt of teaching translation

without a first-hand work is practically useless. Thus, this practical part of our course

on Translation Theories, in which we are encouraged to translate in different fields of

knowledge and to deal with the intricacies of the process of translation formatively

and consciously, is very fruitful and ideal.

Being given an opportunity to translate short tasks and giving my own comments on

the process of translation was really helpful since it enabled me to appreciate,

sensibly, translation as a professional endeavor and a creative art.

This short story is one of a collection of 10 well-known short stories in American

literature in the twentieth century. The story was first published in 1948 and it is

considered a classic American short story and it has been taught in schools for a long

time1. The author is Shilrley Jackson (1916-1965), and she is a very well-known and

important writer and her work, especially "The Lottery" is still receiving much

attention from literary critics2.

This practice, though not advanced, sheds light on the interrelation between the theory

of translation and the practice of translation, and emphasizes the practical aspect of

translation studies.

I feel obliged to extend my great thanks and express my deep gratitude to my

professor, Rajai Al Khanji, for unsparingly helping us throughout the course and for

giving us this unique opportunity.

M.S Zeidan

English Department

The University of Jordan

1 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery

2 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Jackson


January 4, 2010

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Discussing Translation from English into Arabic

The Title

Titles are usually the main stumbling block faced by translators especially in the

literary and journalistic fields. Some translators are very liberal in translating the titles

like the oft-cited example of Ihasn Abbas translation of "The Armed Vision" into

.(مدارس النقد الحديث)

The title of this short story has an immediate correspondence in Arabic, though a

colloquial one, but it doesn't fit as a title for a work in literature.

The Lottery القرعة اليانصيب

So I decided (since translation is a continuous process of decision-making) to choose

the more formal correspondence, i.e. القرعة, and although there are certain differences

between the first and the second one, nevertheless; it would seem natural in the

translation, and one could even use the two words interchangeably, thus making a

semantic item more attached to the context of the short story itself.

Back to the rules:

I have not yet developed the attitude of being critical when I translate. I usually start

the process without consciously thinking about the theories or principles that have, or

have not, been applied. Yet, after a second reading of my source and target text I have

found out that I have made a great deal of managing in my translation, most of it falls

under the umbrella of intrinsic managing.

There is a feature in the original that I have failed to make it clear in my TT, which is

the colloquial speech of the villagers. Nevertheless, the impact was not dramatic,

since the colloquial feature doesn't have great significance in the original. It is

absolutely different from the kind of image the writer needs to impress on the reader

than the one in Pygmalion, for example. Yet, I have tried to give a taste of this fact in

my translation, as is apparent from the following example:

"Thought3 my old man was out back sacking wood and the kids was gone and then I

remembered it was the 27 and came a-running"

"

3 She started with the verb, omitting the subject in her sentence.


January 4, 2010

So I marked the quotation formally indicating that it was said in a colloquial, simple

variety, exemplary of an old woman living in a village, an image that is common and

easily perceived in Arabic culture.

Cultural Adaptation

When I translate, or read about translation I often remember Shakespeare when he

said: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", and I also remember how translators

into Arabic tend to adapt the line o make it fit the Arabic context and environment.

I have encountered a similar example in the first line of this story, but I have refrained

from making any adaptations, and I will mention some reasons for not doing so.

"The morning of June 27th

was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-

summer day"

"

I have preserved the "foreign" setting throughout my translation, including the names,

the titles, the place, and I had no reason for making any cultural adaptation, since I

believe that in certain circumstances a translator should give the reader of his

translation an idea about the kind of life other people live, the climate, culture,

manners, and other features that are vital in intercultural communication and

understanding. This is instrumental, I dare say, in this time of history, where nations

should learn about each other, and translation is a perfect medium for to achieve this

end.

Textuality

In Text Linguistics and Discourse Analysis the notion of Textuality is very important.

There are at least seven standards of Textuality4 and they are:

1) Cohesion

2) Coherence

3) Informativity

4) Situationality

5) Intentionality

6) Acceptability

7) Intertextuality

Keeping these standards in mind while translating will help a lot, especially in

determining the best choice among different translational actions.

Certain phrases and words seemed, at a superficial level, not worthy of being

translated, whether for the sake of stylistic congruity of the TT(i.e. textualiy), or

because there is no immediate equivalence for it. For example:

4 See farghal (2008), translation issues between Arabic and English, p.72


January 4, 2010

- "The grass was richly green"

- "The children assembled first, of course.

- "The women wearing faded house dresses…"

The first example was problematic for me, because I have never before described

grass as "richly green" in Arabic. In Arabic we attribute "greenness" to land, or plains.

Thus, my translation was:

In my opinion, this makes sound more natural for the Arabic reader, who is more

attached to concepts of land, soil and earth. Then my choice for the adjective (غنية),

which means (fertile) was contextually suitable, since it gives a feeling of prosperity,

hope, and good results, which goes just well with the overall theme of the story.

The second example was translated first without the added emphasis, i.e. (of course). I

didn't appreciate its significance at first, and I still doubt I have. I think the phrase "of

course" is put as an attempt to interact with the reader; it's like saying: it goes without

saying that children assembled first, they are children!.

So after a second thought I decided to include it in my translation, hoping it will have

the same dynamic effect in the TT:

It is really important to note that no translator is ever completely content with his

work, and this is why we usually have different editions of the same translated work,

because nothing is perfect in translation, and "no maximal approximation is possible".

Turning now to the third example, where I couldn't be able to convey the image of

"house dress" as I should have. I have resorted to the technique of "implicating", in

which I have said that women were "wearing simple gowns"

I thought that "simple dresses\clothes" (أثوابًا بسيطة), will be sufficient to indicate that

they were putting on their working clothes, there everyday garments in which they

feel comfortable at home. Nevertheless, the final judge is the reader and his reaction

to the phrase, although these marginal choices are not absolute; there is a space for

deciding the most suitable according to the context. This is a sort of management that

I felt necessary to resort to in order to accomplish naturalness in the TT.

At another instance, I could not have found an equivalent for the word "fussing", in

this sentence:

5 This sentence doesn't appear in the submitted translation, I've made this amendment after

contemplating over the sentence more carefully.


January 4, 2010

"There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery

open."

I could have done with any word that may near the intended meaning, but because I

am used to consult a monolingual dictionary while translating, I wasn't able to but a

word in Arabic that fully gives the intended sense behind "fussing".

Fuss: (v): to pay close or undue attention to small details.6

So I decided to translate the sentence as follows:

Omitting in translation, as I have indicated above, is a possible technique, although

usually frowned on by experts in the field because it breaks the convention of

faithfulness to the text.

Nevertheless, I should admit that I resorted to this technique, but not very often, as in

this example:

"… in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the

black box…"

I didn't understand the significance of the adverb "carelessly", and I wasn't able to

give it an equivalent or even a near equivalent in the TT ( I surely need more training

in literary translation!):

This same sentence went through a process of "intrinsic managing", because there

was a shift and reshuffle of the some phrases within it, and here is the sentence at

length with the translation:

"Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with

one hand resting carelessly on the black box, he seemed very proper and important as

he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins."

6 Merriam Webster's 11

th Collegiate Dictionary


January 4, 2010

Syntactic management

Since there are differences in the syntactic structures between English and Arabic the

translator is obliged to make some structural amendments in the process of

translation. This practice is usually called "Syntactic Management" 7

I will provide some examples in which I syntactically managed the TT, and I tried to

choose some good examples that there translation needed careful examination and

assessment.

"The lottery was conducted-as were the square dances, the teenage club, the

Halloween program, by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic

activities"

This sentence, though in the passive voice, tries to emphasize the role of Mr.

Summers, who had "time and energy" to organize all these activities a once. I tried in

while translating this sentence to stress this idea by providing another relative clause

to state the role of Mr. Summers:

I have rid the sentence of the passive structure and provided relative clauses to add

proper emphasis, and the result was relatively satisfactory and the sentence reads

Arabic.

Sometimes a nominal sentence in English would be transferred into a verbal one in

Arabic, because this is the style of Arabic, in which the verb is the most important.

This was necessary in this sentence, which was difficult to be kept as is in the TT:

"There was a murmur of conversation among the villagers"

Here a nominal sentence (a murmur of conversation) was changed into a verbal

sentence ( ). The Arabic sentence employ another

technique as well, which is (Intertextuality).

In the Holy Quran, the phrase ( ), was mentioned in a context of fear and

apprehension, and this is why I opted to use the same phrase here (only with

introducing a prepositional), to achieve a similar effect in the TT context.

Another sentence that struck as important to comment on here was this sentence

describing Mrs. Hutchinson:

7 See Farghal, M Trasnaltion Issues between Arabic and English, pp. 41-51


January 4, 2010

"…, her sweater thrown over her shoulders"

In Arabic it would be cumbersome to translate this sentence without any syntactic

managing, because the "agent" in Arabic is also important in the structure of the

sentence. Activization8 of the sentence seemed to me a proper technique, and this is

the translation:

The word (واضعًة) functions as a verb in Arabic since it syntactically requires an agent

if it is derived from a transitive ,(مفعول به السم الفاعل) and a complement ,(فاعل السم الفاعل)

verb.

Naturally, some decisions are regretted after a second reading. I omitted, or forgot, the

important adverb in another sentence:

"Well, now," Mr. Summers said soberly.

"Soberly", could have been easily, and correctly be translated as: "بصوت مرتفع" . Here a

"dynamic equivalence" could have been used, but I failed to do that.

I will give a last example on omitting as a strategy in translation. In the second

sentence of the story I encountered the adverb "profusely" used with the verb

"blossoming". The sentence reads:

"The flowers were blossoming profusely"

Since I couldn't find an equivalent in Arabic I wasn't able to completely understand

the unusual combination of these two lexical items, I had to intrinsically manage the

sentence in the TT and provide a sentence that sounds natural and achieve the

intended effect. The translation was as follows:

Expansion

There are two types of elaboration in translation, the first is explication where implicit

information are rendered explicate, and expansion where extra information are

provided in the TT to ensure understanding from the reader.

The follow example may give an idea about the strategy of expansion:

"The lottery was conducted- as were the square dances, the teenage club…"

8 Farghal mentions four strategies to render the passive from English into Arabic, see p. 46


January 4, 2010

"

There was no mention in the ST for the word ( ), which means in English

(activities), but I opted to include this word to give more information about the

activities of the lottery, the dances, and the activities in the teenage club.

Another example on a lexical level is the word "stool", Stool id defined as a three-

legged chair without back. There is no equivalence in Arabic except the one provided

in Al-Mawrid dictionary which is: ( ), which I think isn't usually heard or read in

contemporary Arabic. I resorted to the technique of explication and tried to define the

word stool to Arabic:

" "

It was possible as well to mention any type of chairs in Arabic, or just use the word

because it had little significance in that context, but one can't be always sure ,(كرسي)

and one's choices are not necessarily correct.


January 4, 2010

Conclusion

Providing a critique for a translation is the task of those who are genuinely well-

versed in different fields, such as Translation, Literature and Linguistics. Yet, this

opportunity gave us a clear idea about the importance of translation theories in

enhancing the abilities of the translator and finessing his critical senses.

The material I have worked with in this paper is not sufficient to expound on more

strategies and techniques that we have learned in this course. Nevertheless, I feel that

this step was a necessary one towards paying more serious attention to Translation

Theories and the advances made in this field.

No matter how much one have translated, nor how very experienced he or she is in

translating, there is an indispensible need for understanding and studying translation

theories and making use of them in the actual process of translation.

This paper could not have been written without the inspiring environment that I've

been through during this semester with professor Khanji and my colleagues from

whom I have learnt so much.

M.S Zeidan

Translation Theories Term Paper

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