Transcript Translation is interpretation

“traduttore=traditore”
or
“traduzione=tradizione”?
Some history


Greeks: too ethnocentric to translate
Romans: adaptation, imitation; translating
meant reinventing the artistic value of a text
> Cicero, Horace… ST must be bent to the TL
needs to reproduce the “sense”
“I did not translate them as an interpreter but as an
orator, keeping the same ideas and forms, or as one
might say, the 'figures' of thought, but in language
which conforms to our usage. And in so doing, I did
not hold it necessary to render word for word, but I
preserved the general style and force of the
language” (Cicero)
http://www.classicpersuasion.org/pw/cicero/cicero-best-style.htm
Very different idea of authorship and intellectual
property!
If then, as I trust, I have given such a copy of their
speeches, using all their excellencies, that is to say,
their sentiments, and their figures, and the order of
their facts; adhering to their words only so far as
they are not inconsistent with our customs, (and
though they may not be all translated from the
Greek, still I have taken pains that they should be of
the same class,) then there will be a standard to
which the orations of those men must be directed
who wish to speak Attically
Saint Jerome (San Gerolamo; 347-420):
the Bible = God's word = the absolute translation!

the 'correct' meaning

The question of TRUTH:
–
fidelity and spirit
–
literal and free
–
word-for-word and sense-for-sense
–
form and content
Middle Ages: translation gave up an exclusively
artistic mission, because of...

development of new national languages

widespread bilingualism

need to convert other peoples
In Italy
As far as artistic translation is concerned...
Dante: “nulla cosa per legame musaico
armonizzata si può de la sua loquela in altra
trasmutare sanza rompere tutta sua dolcezza e
armonia”
> Translation of poetry deemed impossible!
MARTIN LUTHER's Bible (1522-1534):
innovative, revolutionary, founding monument of
the German language
Ex: “happiness”: ex abundatia cordis os loquitur
= out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks
=dall'abbondanza del cuore parla la bocca
= wes das Herz voll ist, des geht der Mund über
=esce dalla bocca ciò di cui il cuore è pieno
> New value of language spoken by people
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/272/pg272.html
In the first place, you ask why I, in the 3rd chapter of Romans,
translated the words of St. Paul: "Arbitramur hominem
iustificari ex fide absque operibus" as "We hold that the
human will be justified without the works of the law but only
by faith." You also tell me that the Papists are causing a
great fuss because St. Paul's text does not contain the word
sola (alone), and that my changing of the words of God is not
to be tolerated.
• I know that in Rom. 3, the word "solum" is not present in either Greek or
Latin text—the papists did not have to teach me that—it is fact! The letters
s-o-l-a are not there. And these knotheads stare at them like cows at a
new gate, while at the same time they do not recognize that it conveys the
sense of the text—if the translation is to be clear and accurate, it belongs
there. I wanted to speak German since it was German I had spoken in
translation—not Latin or Greek. But it is the nature of our language that in
speaking about two things, one which is affirmed, the other denied, we use
the word "solum" only along with the word "not" (nicht) or "no" (kein). For
example, we say "the farmer brings only (allein) grain and no money"; or
"No, I really have no money, but only (allein) grain"; "I have only eaten and
not yet drunk"; "Did you write it only and not read it over?" There are a vast
number of such everyday cases.
• In all these phrases, this is a German usage, even though it is not the
Latin or Greek usage. It is the nature of the German tongue to add "allein"
in order that "nicht" or "kein" may be clearer and more complete. To be
sure, I can also say "The farmer brings grain and no (kein) money", but the
words...do not sound as full and clear as if I were to say, "the farmer brings
“allein” grain and “kein” money." Here the word "allein" helps the word
"kein" so much that it becomes a clear and complete German expression.
John Dryden (1631-1700):
 3 types
- metaphrase: word by word
- paraphrase: sense
- imitation: adaptation
= an effort to write as the original work would
have been written had Virgil known the
language spoken in his time
> READER-ORIENTED
> AUTHOR-ORIENTED PERSPECTIVES

Alexander Fraser Tytler's Essay on the
principles of translation (1790)
In order of importance:
1) give a complete transfer of ideas (be
competent in the subject, give a faithful
transfusion)
2) identify and reproduce style and manner
3) have all the ease of composition of the ST
(fluency)
Friederich Schleiermacher, 1813, treatise on
translation: Über die Verschiedenen Methoden
des Übersetzens
2 different types of translator:
Dolmetscher
Übersetzer
REAL QUESTION > how to bring the ST writer and the TT
reader together
“Either the translator leaves the writer in peace as much
as possible and moves the reader toward him, or he
leaves the reader in peace as much as possible and
moves the writer toward him” (FS)
In contrast to Dryden: Schleiermacher gives the
impression of reading something else, not the work
as if it were written in one's language
Alienating VS Naturalizing translation
(later becomes
Foreignization VS Domestication)
Examples and quotes from J. Munday, Introducing Translation
Studies, 2008, Ch. 2