THINKING FRENCHTRANSLATION

Second Edition

TITLES OF RELATED INTEREST

Thinking Arabic Translation: A Course in Translation Method: Arabic to EnglishJames Dickins, Sndor Hervey and Ian Higgins

Thinking German Translation: A Course in Translation Method:German to EnglishSndor Hervey, Ian Higgins and Michael Loughridge

Thinking Italian Translation: A Course in Translation Method: Italian to EnglishSndor Hervey, Ian Higgins, Stella Cragie and Patrizia Gambarotta

Thinking Spanish Translation: A Course in Translation Method:Spanish to EnglishSndor Hervey, Ian Higgins and Louise M. Haywood

Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation StudiesMona Baker (ed.)

In Other Words: A Coursebook on TranslationMona Baker

Becoming a Translator: An Accelerated CourseDouglas Robinson

The Scandals of TranslationLawrence Venuti

Translation StudiesSusan Bassnett

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THINKINGFRENCH

TRANSLATION

Second Edition

A Course in Translation Method:French to English

Sndor HerveyIan Higgins

London and New York

Taylor & Francis

Gr

oup

RO

UTLEDG

E

First published in 1992, second edition published 2002

by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1992, 2002 Sndor Hervey, Ian Higgins

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,

mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

information storage or retrieval system, without permission inwriting from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataHervey, Sndor G. J.

Thinking French translation: a course in translation method / Sndor Hervey, Ian Higgins.2nd ed.

p.cm.Originally published: Thinking translation: a course in translation method,

French-English. New York: Routledge, 1992.Includes bibliographical references and index.1. French languageTranslating into English.

I. Higgins, Ian. II. Hervey, Sndor G. J. Thinking translation. III. Title.PC2498.H47 2002

428.0241dc21 2002021335

ISBN 0415255228 (pbk)041525521X (hbk)

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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

ISBN 0-203-16712-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-26191-7 (Adobe eReader Format)

To Catherine, Morris and Rosey

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Contents

Acknowledgements xi

Preface to the second edition xiii

Introduction 1

1 Preliminaries to translation as a process 6

Practical 1 121.1 Intralingual translation 121.2 Gist translation 13

2 Preliminaries to translation as a product 15

Practical 2 252.1 Degrees of freedom; translation loss 252.2 Degrees of freedom; translation loss 272.3 Translation loss 29

3 Cultural issues in translation 31

Practical 3 383.1 Cultural issues 383.2 Cultural issues 403.3 Cultural issues 41

4 Compensation 43

Practical 4 534.1 Degrees of freedom; cultural issues; compensation 534.2 Compensation 544.3 Compensation 55

5 Textual genre and translation issues 57

Practical 5 685.1 Genre and translation 685.2 Genre and translation 705.3 Genre and translation 715.4 Genre and translation 725.5 Genre and translation 73

The formal properties of texts: Introduction 75

6 The formal properties of texts: Phonic/graphic and prosodic issues in translation 77

Practical 6 916.1 Phonic/graphic and prosodic issues 916.2 Phonic/graphic and prosodic issues 936.3 Phonic/graphic and prosodic issues 936.4 Phonic/graphic and prosodic issues 95

7 The formal properties of texts: Grammatical and sentential issues in translation 97

Practical 7 1117.1 Grammatical and sentential issues 1117.2 Grammatical and sentential issues 1117.3 Grammatical and sentential issues 112

8 The formal properties of texts: Discourse and intertextual issues in translation 114

Practical 8 1288.1 Discourse issues 1288.2 Discourse issues 129

9 Literal meaning and translation issues 132

Practical 9 1439.1 Literal meaning and translation 1439.2 Literal meaning and translation 145

10 Connotative meaning and translation issues 147

Practical 10 15410.1 Connotative meaning and translation 15410.2 Connotative meaning and translation 159

11 Language variety: Translation issues in register, sociolect and dialect 161

Practical 11 16811.1 Language variety and translation 16811.2 Language variety and translation 17011.3 Language variety and translation 170

12 Scientic and technical translation 172

Practical 12 18112.1 Scientic and technical translation 18112.2 Scientic and technical translation 181

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viii Contents

13 Legal and nancial translation 183

Practical 13 19313.1 Legal translation 19313.2 Legal translation 19313.3 Legal translation 19313.4 Financial translation 19513.5 Financial translation 195

14 Translating consumer-oriented texts 196

Practical 14 20114.1 Consumer-oriented translation 20114.2 Consumer-oriented translation 20214.3 Consumer-oriented translation 203

15 Revising and editing TTs 205

Practical 15 21415.1 Revising and editing 21415.2 Revising and editing 21515.3 Revising and editing 217

Contrastive topics and practicals: Introduction 220

16 Contrastive topic and practical: Nominalization 222

17 Contrastive topic and practical: Adverbials 235

18 Contrastive topic and practical: Absolute constructions 246

19 Contrastive topic and practical: Prepositions 254

20 Summary and conclusion 260

Postscript: A career in translation? 264

Glossary of terms used 267References 276Index 281

Contents ix

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Acknowledgements

We owe a debt of gratitude to many people, above all to Chris Durbanand Anne Withers. Although very busy professional translators, Chris andAnne gave extremely generously of their time and expertise in helping us nd and deal with seemingly intractable material. It is no exaggera-tion to say that without their patience, skill and good humour this book would have been markedly poorer. We are deeply grateful to them.Many other people have helped us, in more ways than we can enumerate:Wendy Anderson, Lucille Cairns, Stphane Calpena, Ian and MoiraChristie, David Culpin, Anna Maria De Cesare, John Devereux, RosalindFergusson, Janet Fraser, Vince Fusaro, Chris Gledhill, Mathieu Guidre,Ian Henderson, Tammy Hervey, Lynn Johnstone, Richard Kimber, LornaMilne, John Minchinton, Sylvain Pitiot, David Poppleton, Alison Rae,Peter Read, Mary Rigby, Alison Roy, Jim Supple, Julia Sweet ReasonSwales, Josine Thomas, Marie-Jos Tyler, Ceri Williams, LaurenceWilliams, Clare Wilson from commas and contracts to perfume andwine, each of them knows just why we mention them here with a mixtureof gratitude and brow-mopping relief.

The authors and publisher would like to thank the following people andinstitutions for permission to reproduce copyright material. Every efforthas been made to trace copyright holders, but in a few cases this has notbeen possible. Any omissions brought to our attention will be remediedin future editions. Air France, for material from Air France magazine; A.Angevin, for material from La jeunesse dEurope danse en Avignon;Azzaro, for material from Eau belle; Editions Bernard Grasset, for ma-terial from M. Cardinal, Les Mots pour le dire; Braun GmbH, for materialfrom The Cookbook for the Braun Multipractic Plus; Calder PublicationsLtd., for material from E. Ionesco, Rhinoceros, this translation (byDerek Prouse) rst published in 1960 by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd.,London; Cambridge University Press: extracts from the Authorized Versionof the Bible (The King James Bible), the rights in which are vested inthe Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crowns Patentee,Cambridge University Press; Jacques Coerten, for material from La PetiteProvence du Paradou; Editions Denol, for material from R. Goscinnyand J.-J. Semp, Le petit Nicolas, Editions Denol, 1960; EADS, formaterial from Rapport annuel Aerospatiale, 1993; European Commission,for material from Euroabstracts; LExpress, for material, LExpress,

from articles by Alain Schifres and Roger Le Taillanter (propos recueillispar James Sarazin); Editions de Fallois, for material from M. Pagnol, Jeande Florette; Editions Gallimard, for material from S. de Beauvoir, LaForce de lge, A. Camus, LEtranger, J. Dutourd, Au Bon Beurre, E.Ionesco, Rhinocros and J. Tardieu, La Comdie de la comdie; M.Guidre, for material from M. Guidre, Publicit et traduction, EditionsLHarmattan, 2000; Mercure de France, for material from A. Gide,LImmoraliste; Le Monde, for M. Caste, Ma Mie; Pelicula Films, forsubtitles from How to be Celtic; Editions Plon, for material from C. deGaulle, Mmoires de guerre; Random House, Inc., for material from A.Gide, The Immoralist (trans. D. Bussy); Les Salines de Gurande, formaterial from Fleur de Sel rcolte 1997; Editions du Seuil, for materialfrom P. Emmanuel, LArbre et le vent and P. Grainville, Les Flamboyants.

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xii Acknowledgements

Preface to the second edition

This book is a completely revised and rewritten edition of ThinkingTranslation, a course in FrenchEnglish translation method published in1992. The change of title, to Thinking French Translation, takes accountof subsequent adaptations of the course for German and Spanish and, morerecently, Italian and Arabic. But this new edition is no less relevant totranslation studies in general than the original edition was if anything,it is more relevant and, I hope, more consistently convincing. The methodis the same, but better explained.

Before presenting the changes, I want to record that the rst instigationfor a course along these lines came from Sndor Hervey. It is a matterof the greatest personal sorrow and professional regret that Sndor, whodied suddenly in 1997 at the age of 55, has had virtually no hand in thechanges I have made to our original concept. However, as far as one canbe sure of anything in such matters, I am pretty condent that the changesare consistent with our thinking as it evolved over the thirteen yearsfollowing our rst pilot course in Saint Andrews. This is why, althoughthe Preface is written in the rst person, I have kept we throughout therest of the book. If anything in the book does redound to anyones credit,let it be to the authors credit jointly. Anything outrageous in this editionthat is not present in the original is entirely my fault, not Sndors.

The most notable conceptual renements bear on the notions of compen-sation and genre, but all chapters benet from sharper focus, clearerdenitions and fuller and more relevant illustration. For example, inChapter 2, our reservations about the term equivalence are explained andillustrated more comprehensively, as is the important concept of transla-tion loss. Such changes make for a longer chapter, but they have beenmade in response to consistent feedback from students and colleagues overthe years.

Compensation has been given a chapter to itself. Our original sectionon compensation was an unhappy hybrid and already partly obsolescent,publication having been delayed for two years by a complicated series oftakeovers in the publishing world. The result was an over-elaborate cat-egorization of types of compensation which proved unnecessary in theclassroom, and, in two of the categories, a conceptual fuzziness which

was confusing for students and tutors. The new chapter is less ambitioustaxonomically, more rigorously argued and more convincingly illustrated.

The other major change concerns genre. The rst edition had two chap-ters on genre, positioned halfway through the book. Reecting the currentresearch interest of one of the authors, the two chapters paid dispropor-tionate attention to differences between oral and written texts. Thesedifferences are vital, of course, but do not need so much space in a 250-page introduction to translation method. At the same time, there was notspace enough for it to be made clear to students where to focus theirtextual analyses and their decision-making. A slimline, single-chapterformat has worked much better in the Italian version of the course, andI have used this as the basis for the genre chapter in this book.

As for positioning the genre chapter, I have put it immediately betweenthe one on compensation and those on the levels of textual variables. Thismakes for as coherent and progressive a course as before but it was adifcult decision all the same. There are, after all, good reasons for keepingdiscussion of genre until Chapter 11. First, the genre-membership of atext cannot be nally decided until its other salient features have beenisolated. These are features on the levels of textual variables (includingliteral and connotative meaning) and features of language variety. Second,students are often more condent in responding to genre requirementsafter working on these other features. The reason for siting the genrechapter earlier is that the dening element in genre is the relation betweentextual purpose and textual effect. This above all is what experiencedtranslators respond to; and it is the relation between it and the purpose ofthe TT that determines the translation strategy. Putting genre in Chapter5 is in effect a forceful early statement of these fundamentals. That said,it would be no surprise, and need do no damage, if tutors felt happierkeeping genre till later.

The six levels of textual variables are now presented in reverse order,from the phonic/graphic to the intertextual (Chapters 68). Given that thegenre chapter now comes before these three, this order may seem perverse.In any case, linguistic orthodoxy requires a top-down approach, frommacro to micro. However, in teaching all versions of the course, we havefound that students are more comfortable, and produce better work, witha bottom-up approach. I must stress that this is purely a matter of peda-gogic effectiveness, not of how translators set about their work. On thecontrary, it is precisely to reect professional practice that the genre chapteris placed so early, before discussion of textual variables.

In the rst edition, there were also two chapters on language variety.After teaching different versions of the course, I feel that this was spin-ning things out too far, at the expense of other factors that needed moreattention. As with compensation and genre, I have built a single chapteron the Thinking Italian Translation model, which has proved superior inclass to the Thinking Translation one. And, as in the Italian course, these

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xiv Preface to the second edition

rearrangements have made space for an introductory chapter on legal andnancial translation.

The revision and editing chapter has been completely rewritten, withmore helpful analysis of examples to show the range of considerationsand constraints that revisers and editors must always keep in mind.

As regards the illustrative and practical material, much has been retainedfrom the rst edition, but there is more that is new. A lot of what manycolleagues regarded as marginal or over-specialized has been replaced withmore real-world material, notably from the elds of journalism, publicity,business, engineering and law. The real world has margins of its own, ofcourse, and tutors who nd that effective texts from the rst edition havedisappeared have every right to go on using those texts in classes.

Finally, a feature dropped from practicals in this edition is the speedtranslation. This is not meant to imply that translators do not work undererce time pressure after all. It is more that the speed translations belongin a different sort of course. Perhaps they would be useful as a kind ofbridge between an ESIT-type course and this one. As this course stands,though, the existing practicals are already more than enough for likelytime available. In any case, it is open to tutors to impose any time limitthey choose on any exercise they choose.

I think that after vigorous discussion Sndor Hervey would haveagreed to these changes, which make the course clearer and more user-friendly, and so vindicate the original vision. If students and tutors enjoyusing this new edition as much as we and our students enjoyed devel-oping the original, his shade will be chuckling.

Ian HigginsSeptember 2001

Preface to the second edition xv

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Introduction

Can translation be taught? The question is asked surprisingly often sometimes even by good translators, who you would think would knowbetter. Certainly, as teachers of translation know, some people are natu-rally better at it than others. In this respect, aptitude for translation is no different from aptitude for any other activity: teaching and practicehelp anyone, including the most gifted, to perform at a higher level. EvenMozart had music lessons.

But most of us are not geniuses. Here again, anyone who has taughtthe subject knows that a structured course will help most students tobecome signicantly better at translation often good enough to earn theirliving at it. This book offers just such a course. Its progressive exposi-tion of different sorts of translation problem is accompanied with plentyof practice in developing a rationale for solving them. It is a course notin translation theory, but in translation method, encouraging thoughtfulconsideration of possible solutions to practical problems. Theoretical issuesdo inevitably arise, but the aim of the course is to develop prociency inthe method, not to investigate its theoretical implications. When technicalor theoretical terms are rst explained, they are set in bold type; they arealso listed in the Glossary of terms used (pp. 26775).

If this is not a course in translation theory or linguistics, it is not alanguage-teaching course, either. The focus is on how to translate. It isassumed that the student already has a good command of French, and isfamiliar with the proper use of reference materials, including dictionariesand databases. The course is therefore aimed at nal-year undergraduates,and at postgraduates or others seeking an academic or professional qual-ication in translation. That said, the analytical attention given to a widevariety of texts means that students do learn a lot of French and prob-ably a fair bit of English, too.

This last point is important. While our main aim is to improve quality in translation, it must be remembered that this quality requires the translator to have an adequate command of English as well as of

French. Assuming that this is the case, translator training normally focuseson translation into the mother tongue, because higher quality is achievedin that direction than in translating into a foreign language. Hence thepredominance of unidirectional translation, from French into English, inthis course. By its very nature, however, the course is also useful forFrench students seeking to improve their skills in translation into English:this is still an important part of English studies in France, and ThinkingFrench Translation offers a distinctive and effective methodology andplenty of practical work in this area.

Since the course is an introduction to the interlingual operations involvedin translating, we do not discuss machine translation, or how to use trans-lation software on the Internet, etc. Only after learning to recognize whatis at stake in a given translation task can one condently accept or rejectthe sometimes disconcerting solutions proposed by translation software.Indeed, some of the service providers themselves implicitly acknowledgethis, offering e.g. real live human translators for more in-depth trans-lation projects (http://news.microsoft.co.uk/ofce1101018405). ThinkingFrench Translation provides a basic training for those very people humantranslators, capable of handling any in-depth project.

The course has a progressive structure. It begins with the fundamentalissues, options and alternatives of which a translator must be aware: trans-lation as process, translation as product, cultural issues in translation, andthe nature and crucial importance of compensation in translation. Next, itlooks at the question of genre, or text-type. It then moves, via a surveyof translation issues raised on six layers of textual variables (from thephonic to the intertextual), to a series of semantic and stylistic topics literal meaning, connotative meaning, register, sociolect and dialect.Further chapters are given to technical translation, legal and nancial trans-lation, consumer-oriented translation, and translation revision and editing.

Chapter by chapter, then, the student is progressively trained to ask, andto answer, a series of questions that apply to any text given for transla-tion. Pre-eminent among these are: What is the purpose of my translation,and what are the salient features of this text? No translation is produced ina vacuum, and we stress throughout the course that the needs of the targetaudience and the requirements of the person commissioning the translationare primary factors in translation decisions. For this same reason, when stu-dents are asked in a practical to do a translation, we always include a trans-lation brief in the assignment. As for the salient features of the text, theseare what add up to its specicity as typical or atypical of a particular genreor genres. Once its genre-membership and purpose have been pinned down,the translator can decide on a strategy for meeting the translation brief. The students attention is kept focused on this issue by the wide variety ofgenres found in the practicals in addition to technical, legal and businesstexts, students are asked to work on various sorts of journalistic and liter-ary text, song, lm subtitling, publicity brochures, customer leaets, etc.

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2 Thinking French translation

The sorts of question that need to be asked in determining the salientfeatures of any text are listed in the schema of textual matrices on p. 5.The schema amounts to a checklist of potentially relevant kinds of textualfeature. These are presented in the order in which they arise in the course,in Chapters 3 and 511. (Compensation, the subject of Chapter 4, is nota textual feature, and therefore does not gure in the schema.) The studentwould be well advised to refer to the schema before tackling a practical:it is a progressive reminder of what questions to ask of the text set foranalysis or translation.

While the course systematically builds up a methodical approach, weare not trying to mechanize translation by offering some inexible ruleor recipe. Very much the opposite: translation is a creative activity, andthe translators personal responsibility is paramount. We therefore empha-size the need to recognize options and alternatives, the need for rationaldiscussion, and the need for decision-making. Each chapter is intendedfor class discussion at the start of the corresponding seminar, and a lotof the practicals are best done by students working in small groups. Thisis to help students keep in mind that, whatever approach the translatoradopts, it should be self-aware and methodical.

The course is divided into a series of units intended to t into an academic timetable. Each of the rst eleven units comprises a chapteroutlining a coherent set of notions and problems, and a practical or prac-ticals in which students are set concrete translation tasks relevant to thechapter. These units are designed to be studied in numerical order, andare the essential foundation for the rest of the course. Chapters 1214give practice in various genres which commonly provide the bread andbutter of professional translators. Ideally, all of these should be workedthrough, but local conditions may oblige the tutor to leave one out. Chapter 15 focuses on revision and editing. Chapters 1619 are differentfrom the others. They can be studied at whatever points in the courseseem most opportune. These chapters are devoted to four areas ofcontrastive linguistics in which FrenchEnglish translation problemscommonly occur.

Each unit needs about two hours of seminar time. It is vital that everystudent should have the necessary reference books in class: a c.2000-pagemonolingual French dictionary, such as the Petit Robert, a similar-sizedFrenchEnglish/EnglishFrench dictionary, an English dictionary and anEnglish thesaurus. Some of the practical work will be done at home sometimes individually, sometimes in groups and handed in for assess-ment by the tutor. How often this is done will be decided by tutors andstudents between them. Full suggestions for teaching and assessment canbe found in Sndor Hervey and Ian Higgins, Thinking French Translation:Tutors Handbook (Routledge, 2002).

Note that Practical 5 involves work on oral texts. These are suppliedto tutors with the Tutors Handbook. Many of the practicals involve work

Introduction 3

on texts that are not contained in the present volume, but are intended fordistribution in class. These texts are found in the Tutors Handbook.

Students doing the course often inquire about the possibility of trans-lation as a career. The Postscript (pp. 2646) outlines the nature, attractionsand drawbacks of translation work, and contains information about profes-sional bodies which can give detailed help and advice.

The abbreviations used in the book are explained in Chapter 1. As forsymbols, there are only two that need any comment, the slash and thebrace in examples where alternative translations are given. Basically, weuse slashes, with no space before or after, to indicate the different possi-bilities, as in:

Promenade can be translated as walk/ride/drive/sail etc.

Where necessary, we use braces to make the division between units inthe alternatives absolutely clear, e.g.:

In this context, approfondir means to go {deeper/further} into.

Here, the braces show that the alternatives are to go deeper into and togo further into, not to go deeper and to go further into.

Note that a slash with a space before and after it does not indicate alter-natives, but simply a division between e.g. lines of verse, as in Therewas a young fellow from Warwick / Who had reason for feeling euphoric.

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4 Thinking French translation

SCHEMA OF TEXTUAL MATRICES

QUESTION TO ASKABOUT THE TEXT MATRIX OF FEATURES

GENRE MATRIX (Chapter 5)

Genre types: empiricalphilosophicalreligiouspersuasiveliteraryhybrid

Oral vs written

CULTURAL MATRIX (Chapter 3)

ExoticismCalqueCultural borrowingCommunicative translationCultural transplantation

FORMAL MATRIX (Chapters 68)

Phonic/graphic levelProsodic levelGrammatical level: lexis

syntaxSentential levelDiscourse levelIntertextual level

SEMANTIC MATRIX (Chapters 910)

Literal meaningAllusive meaningAttitudinal meaningAssociative meaningCollocative meaningReflected meaningAffective meaning

VARIETAL MATRIX (Chapter 11)

Tonal registerSocial registerSociolectDialect

scientific paper, balance sheet, etc.essay on good and evil, etc.biblical text, etc.constitution, advertisement, etc.short story, etc.sermon, parody, job contract, etc.dialogue, song, subtitles, etc.

wholesale foreignnessidiom translated literally, etc.name of historical movement, etc.public notices, proverbs, etc.Paris recast as Glasgow, etc.

alliteration, layout, etc.vocal pitch, rhythm, etc.archaism, overtones, etc.simple vs complex syntax, etc.sequential focus, intonation, etc.cohesion markers, etc.pastiche, allusion to Racine, etc.

synonymy, etc.echo of proverb, etc.hostile attitude to referent, etc.gender stereotyping of referent, etc.collocative clash, etc.homonymic echo, etc.offensive attitude to addressee, etc.

ingratiating tone, etc.intolerant right-wing bourgeois, etc.Paris banlieue working class, etc.Chtimi accent, etc.

What genre(s) doesthis text belong to:

Are there significantfeatures presentinga choice between:

Are there significantfeatures on the:

Are there significantinstances of:

Are there significantinstances of:

EXAMPLES OF TYPICALFEATURES

Introduction 5

1Preliminaries to translation

as a process

This chapter examines translation as a process what it is the translatoractually does. But rst, we must note a few basic terms that will be usedthroughout the course:

Text Any given stretch of speech or writing assumed to make a coherentwhole. A minimal text may consist of a single word preceded andfollowed by a silence or a blank, e.g. Zut!, or the road sign Stop.A maximal text, such as Prousts A la recherche du temps perdu, mayrun into volumes.

Source text (ST) The text to be translated.Target text (TT) The text which is a translation of the ST.Source language (SL) The language in which the ST is spoken or written.Target language (TL) The language into which the ST is to be trans-

lated.Strategy The translators overall game-plan, consisting of a set of

strategic decisions taken after an initial reading of the ST, but beforestarting detailed translation of it.

Strategic decisions The rst set of reasoned decisions taken by the trans-lator. These are taken before starting the translation in detail, in responseto the following questions: What is the translation brief, i.e. what arethe purpose and intended audience of my translation? What is the purposeof this ST? What genre does it belong to, and what audience is it aimedat? What is its message content? What are its salient linguistic features?What are its principal effects? What are the implications of all thesefactors? If a choice has to be made among them, which ones should begiven priority in ensuring that the TT is t for its purpose?

Decisions of detail Reasoned decisions concerning the specic problemsof syntax, vocabulary, etc. encountered in translating particular expres-sions or stretches of text in their particular context. Decisions of detail

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are made in the light of the strategy. However, problems of detail maywell arise during translating which raise unforeseen strategic issues andoblige the translator to rene the original strategy somewhat.

With these terms in mind, the translation process can be broken down intotwo types of activity: understanding an ST and formulating a TT. These donot occur successively, but simultaneously; indeed, it is often only whencoming up against a problem in formulating the TT that translators realizethey have not fully understood something in the ST. When this happens,the ST may need to be reinterpreted in the light of the translators newunderstanding of it. This reinterpretation sometimes entails revising theoriginal strategy, the revision in turn necessitating changes to some of the decisions of detail already taken. Nevertheless, it is useful to discuss ST interpretation and TT formulation as different, separate processes.

The processes of translation are no different from familiar things thateveryone does every day. Comprehension and interpretation are processesthat we all perform whenever we listen to or read a piece of linguisticallyimparted information. Understanding even the simplest message poten-tially involves all our accumulated experience the knowledge, beliefs,suppositions, inferences and expectations that are the stuff of personal,social and cultural life. Understanding everyday messages is therefore notall that different from what a translator does when rst confronting an ST and it is certainly no less complicated.

In everyday communication, evidence that a message has been under-stood may come from appropriate response, for example, if your motherasks you for a spoon, and you give her a spoon and not a fork. Or it maycome from appropriate linguistic response such things as returning agreeting correctly, answering a question satisfactorily, or lling in a form.None of these are translation-like processes, but they do show that thecomprehension and interpretation stage of translation involves an ordi-nary, everyday activity that simply requires an average command of thelanguage used.

However, one everyday activity that does resemble translation properis what Roman Jakobson actually calls inter-semiotic translation (1971:2606), that is, translation between two semiotic systems (systems forcommunication). The green light means go is an act of inter-semiotictranslation, as is The big hands pointing to twelve and the little handspointing to four, so its four oclock. In each case, there is translationfrom a non-linguistic communication system to a linguistic one. To thisextent, everyone is a translator of a sort.

Still more common are various sorts of linguistic response to linguisticstimuli which are also very like translation proper, even though they actu-ally take place within a single language. These sorts of process are whatJakobson (ibid.) calls intralingual translation. A brief look at the twoextremes of intralingual translation will show what its major implications

Preliminaries to translation as a process 7

are. Take the following scenario. Jill is driving Jack through the narrowstreets of a small town. A policeman steps out and stops them. As heleans in to speak to Jill, she can see over his shoulder that, further on, atrailer has tipped over and blocked the street. At one extreme of intralin-gual translation lies the kind of response typied in this exchange:

POLICEMAN Theres been an accident ahead, Madam Im afraid youllhave to turn left down St Marys Lane here, the roadsblocked.

JILL Oh, OK. Thanks.JACK What did he say?JILL Weve got to turn left.

The policemans essential message is Turn left. But he does not wantto sound brusque. So he mollies the driver with a partial explanation,Theres been an accident, and then cushions his instruction with Imafraid youll have to. Down St Marys Lane gives a hint of local colourand fellow-citizenship; but he does add here, just in case the driver isa stranger. Finally, he completes his explanation.

When Jack asks what he said, however, Jill separates the gist of thepolicemans message from the circumstantial details and tonal subtleties,and reports it in her own words. This type of intralingual translation weshall call gist translation. The example also shows two other featureswhich intralingual translation shares with translation proper. First, Jillsis not the only gist translation possible. For instance, she might have saidWeve got to go down here. Among other things, this implies that atleast one of them does not know the town: the street name has no signif-icance. A third possibility is Weve got to go down St Marys Lane: ifJack and Jill do know the town, the policemans gist is accurately conveyed.

The other feature shared by intralingual translation and translation properis that the situation in which a message is expressed and received affectshow it is expressed and received. By situation here we mean a combi-nation of three elements: the circumstances in which speaker and addresseend themselves (such as being stopped in a car and having to take a diversion), the accumulated experience they carry with them all the time(knowing or not knowing the town; familiarity or unfamiliarity withconventions for giving and receiving instructions; liking or disliking thepolice, etc.), and the linguistic context. Context is often used metaphor-ically in the sense of situation (and sometimes even in the sense ofmeaning). In this book we shall use it specically to denote the rest of a text in which a given expression or stretch of text occurs. For example,the context of Jacks question is the exchange between Jill and thepoliceman and her reply to Jack; the context of the policemans words iseverything that follows them; the context of Jills reply to Jack is every-thing that precedes Weve got to turn left. As will become clear, the

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whole context is an important consideration in translation; but the moreimmediate the context, the more crucial a factor it becomes in makingdecisions of detail.

There are always so many variables in the message situation that it isimpossible to predict what the gist translation will be or how the addresseewill take it. For example, Jill might simply have said Turn left, a highlyeconomical way of reporting the gist no bad thing when she has toconcentrate on driving. However, depending on how she says it and howJack receives it, it could give the impression that the policeman wasbrusque.

Another reason why Turn left could sound brusque is that, grammati-cally, it looks like direct speech (an imperative), whereas all the other gisttranslations we have given are clearly indirect speech (or reported speech).Now all translation may be said to be indirect speech, inasmuch as it doesnot repeat the ST, but reformulates it in the translators words. Yet mostTTs, like Turn left, mask this fact by omitting the typical markers of indi-rect speech, e.g. The author says that . . ., or change in point of view (asin changing Im afraid youll have to turn left into hes afraid well haveto turn left). As a result, it is easy for reformulation consciously or uncon-sciously to become distortion, either because the translator misrepresentsthe ST or because the reader misreads the TT, or both.

In other words, gist translation, like any translation, is a process ofinterpretation. This is seen still more clearly if we take an example at theother extreme of intralingual translation. Jill might just as easily haveinterpreted the policemans words by expanding them. For example, shecould build on an initial gist translation as follows:

Weve got to go down St Marys Lane some fools tipped a trailerover and blocked the High Street.

This puts two sorts of gloss on the policemans message: she adds detailsthat he did not give (the tipping over, the name of the street ahead) andher own judgement of the driver. We shall use the term exegetic trans-lation to denote a translation that explains and elaborates on the ST inthis way. The inevitable part played by the translators accumulated expe-rience becomes obvious in exegetic translation, for any exegesis bydenition involves explicitly bringing considerations from outside the textinto ones reading of it here, the overturned trailer, Jills knowledge ofthe town, and her attitude towards other road-users.

An exegetic translation can be shorter than the ST, as in this example,but exegesis is usually longer, and can easily shade into general obser-vations triggered by the ST but not really explaining it. Knowing the townas she does, Jill might easily have gone on like this:

The streets just too narrow for a thing that size.

Preliminaries to translation as a process 9

This explanation is admissible as exegesis, but it probably goes beyondthe limit of exegetic translation.

Finally, gist translation and exegetic translation often occur in closeassociation with one another. Sometimes, they seem to be inseparable,especially in the rewording of metaphor (see the Macbeth examples on p.11). But this is not conned to intralingual translation or to literary texts.Here is an example from the statement of accounts of a big rm. In France,the accounts must be accompanied by a rapport gnral des commissairesaux comptes (statutory auditors report), and by a rapport spcial descommissaires aux comptes sur les conventions rglementes. This ST andTT refer to the latter (the ST report is addressed to the shareholders):

Clearly, the ST reader is expected to know what this law requires. TheTT may have been produced, as such texts often are, in accordance withstandard translations issued by the International Accounting StandardsCommittee (IASC). However it was arrived at, the strategy has clearlybeen to assume that the TL reader will not understand an unglossed refer-ence to the law of 24 July 1966. The TT is basically exegetic, but it isalso a gist translation, in that it does not even mention the law by name.

As these examples show, it is not only sometimes hard to keep gisttranslation and exegetic translation apart, it can be hard to see where trans-lation shades into comment pure and simple. It certainly seems verydifcult to achieve an ideal rephrasing, a halfway point between gist andexegesis that would use terms radically different from those of the ST,but add nothing to, and omit nothing from, its message content. And yet,with its constant movement between gist and exegesis, intralingual trans-lation happens all the time in speech. It is also common in written texts.

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STEn application de larticle 103 dela loi du 24 juillet 1966, nousvous informons que le Prsidentde votre conseil dadministrationne nous a donn avis daucuneconvention vise larticle 101 decette loi.

(Aerospatiale 1994a: 86)

TTIn accordance with corporatelegislation, we are required tosubmit a report to the AnnualGeneral Meeting of Shareholderswith respect to certain agreementsentered into by the Company withmanagers or directors of theCompany, or with companies inwhich such persons exercisesimilar functions. Agreements ofthis nature require prior approvalof the Board of Directors.

No such agreements or transac-tions arising therefrom have beenbrought to our attention.

(Aerospatiale 1994b: 86)

Students regularly encounter it in annotated editions. A good example isG.K. Hunters edition of Macbeth, in which the text of the play is followedby about 50 pages of notes. Here are the opening lines of the Captainsreport on how the battle stood when he left it, followed by Hunters notesand rephrasings and, in square brackets, our comments on them:

Doubtful it stood,As two spent swimmers that do cling togetherAnd choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald Worthy to be a rebel, for to thatThe multiplying villainies of natureDo swarm upon him from the Western IslesOf kerns and galloglasses is supplied [. . .].

choke their art make impossible the art of swimming. [An exegeticrephrasing, in so far as it makes explicit what is only implicit in themetaphor: neither army holds the advantage. At the same time, it onlyconveys the gist, losing the crucial implications of the image of choking.]

to that as if to that end. [Exegetic rephrasing, explaining Shakespeareselliptical formulation.]

multiplying villainies of nature / Do swarm upon him hosts of rebelsjoin him like noxious insects swarming. [Exegetic rephrasing which givesthe gist of Shakespeares image, but also distorts it, turning the metaphorinto an explanatory simile: in the ST, the rebels are not like insects, theyare villainous manifestations of nature.]

Western Isles Hebrides [Synonymous rephrasing, for readers unfamiliarwith Scottish geography: a good example of how any rewording involvespresuppositions regarding the target audiences accumulated experience.]

kerns and galloglasses light and heavy-armed Celtic levies. [Virtuallysynonymous rephrasing, this time for readers unfamiliar with medievalIrish and Scottish armies. However, levies may not be accurate in respectof galloglasses, who were mercenaries even the simplest rephrasing maybe misleading, intentionally or not.]

(Shakespeare 1967: 54, 140)

In all the examples we have been discussing, the dividing lines betweengist, exegesis, translation and comment are blurred. Things could not beotherwise. If one thing has become clear in this chapter, it is the dif-culty of controlling (and even of seeing) how far an intralingual TT omitsfrom, adds to or faithfully reproduces the ST message content. And, aswe shall see in the next chapter and throughout the course, what applies

Preliminaries to translation as a process 11

to intralingual translation applies a fortiori to translation proper: the STmessage content can never be precisely reproduced in the TT, because ofthe very fact that the two forms of expression are different.

There are other important respects in which the three types of intralin-gual translation are on an equal footing with translation proper. They all require knowledge of the subject matter of the source text, familiaritywith the source language and source culture in general, and interpretiveeffort. But they also require knowledge of the nature and needs of thetarget public, familiarity with the target culture in general and, aboveall, mastery of the target language. Synopsis-writing, reported speech,intralingual rephrasing and exegesis are therefore excellent exercises for our purposes, because they develop the ability to nd and choosebetween alternative means of expressing a given message content. This iswhy the rst exercise in this course is a piece of intralingual translationin English.

PRACTICAL 1

1.1 Intralingual translation

Assignment(i) Identify the salient features of content and expression in the following

ST, and say what its purpose is.(ii) Recast the ST in different words, adapting it for a specic purpose

and a specic public (i.e. a specic readership or audience). Sayprecisely what the purpose and the public are. Treat the ST as ifyou were recasting the whole book of Genesis, of which it is a part.(As a rule, whenever you do a translation as part of this course, youshould proceed as if you were translating the whole text from whichthe ST is taken.)

(iii) Explain the main decisions of detail you took in making the textualchanges. (Insert into your TT a superscript note-number after eachexpression you intend to discuss, and then, starting on a fresh sheetof paper, discuss the points in numerical order. This is the systemyou should use whenever you annotate your own TTs.)

Contextual informationThe text is from the Authorized Version of the Bible, published in 1611.The best way of making sense of it is to read the rest of Genesis 3, ofwhich it is the start. In Chapter 2, God has told Adam that he may eatof every tree in the Garden of Eden except the tree of the knowledge ofgood and evil, on pain of death. Subsequently God has made a womanas a helper for Adam (she is not called Eve until later in Chapter 3). Atthe end of Chapter 2, they are both naked, and not ashamed.

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STNow the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the eld which theLORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said,Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of thetrees of the garden:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Godhath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall

be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it

was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, shetook of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband withher; and he did eat.

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed g leaves together, and made themselvesaprons.

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden inthe cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the pres-ence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where artthou?

And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, becauseI was naked; and I hid myself.

(Genesis 3, v. 110)

1.2 Gist translation

Assignment(i) You have been commissioned to translate the following text for Air

France magazine, in abridged form. The publisher has specied thatthe TT will be printed below the ST, in smaller type. The ST contains349 words. The TT should contain between 250 and 270 words.Discuss the strategic decisions that you have to take before startingdetailed work on this ST, and outline and justify the strategy youadopt.

(ii) Produce a gist translation of the specied length.(iii) Discuss the main decisions of detail you took, concentrating on

explaining your omissions and any exegetic elements that you intro-duced.

(iv) Compare your TT with the published one, which will be given youby your tutor. Concentrate on the omissions, and on whether theyhave entailed introducing any exegetic elements.

Preliminaries to translation as a process 13

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Contextual informationPrinted on the rst page as a kind of editorial, the text is an introductionto the main contents of the magazine.

STBonjour, et bienvenue bord. Jai simplement le sentiment quil me faut entendre dautres voix. Toutescelles quon ne laisse pas venir jusqu nous, celles de ces gens quon atrop longtemps ddaigns, dont on trouvait le nombre trop inme maisqui, pourtant, ont tellement nous apporter. Ce propos de J.M.G. LeClzio illustre souhait les uvres de deux grandes voix de notre poquedont les chos rsonnent dans ce numro.

La premire est, bien sr, celle de lcrivain lui-mme, blouie par leMexique, par les grands textes sacrs amrindiens, la langue, les rites etlclat dune pense interrompue avec larrive des conqurants espag-nols. Ce que je dcouvrais ainsi, crira-t-il dans La fte chante, cestlintelligence de lunivers, son vidence, sa sensibilit. Les Amrindiensne nous sont pas trangers. Ils sont une partie de nous-mmes, de notredestine.

Louis Armstrong, oui, le trompettiste dont on fte cette anne lecentime anniversaire de la naissance, a-t-il dit autre chose tout au longde sa carrire propos du peuple noir ? Il tait petit-ls desclaves.Hollywood a essay den faire le bon noir , naf jovial aux roulementsdyeux de bouffon. Dans les annes 1960, quand le gouverneur delArkansas, Faubus, utilise la garde nationale pour empcher les enfantsnoirs daller lcole, Louis Armstrong est le premier protester. Fichpour ses interventions contre la sgrgation raciale, celui qui est alors unestar mondiale refusera de retourner la Nouvelle-Orlans, sa ville natale,soumise des lois racistes.

Ecouter la voix de ceux quon nentend pas ou si peu, cest aussi ceque proposent, dans ce numro, les habitants de lle grecque deKrpathos qui, loccasion de Pques, revivent les traditions millnairesquils ont su prserver. Cest encore, dans un registre tout fait diffrent,le projet du photographe Thierry des Ouches qui nous donne voir uneFrance rurale, sentimentale, que lon regarde avec un brin de nostalgie.

Nhsitez pas emporter ce magazine, il vous appartient.Merci de voyager en notre compagnie. Bonne lecture et bon vol.

(Air France 2001: 5)

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as a product

Chapter 1 viewed translation as a process. However, the evidence we hadfor the process was products gist translations and exegetic translations.It is as a product that translation is viewed in the present chapter. Here,too, it is useful to examine two diametric opposites: in this case, twoopposed degrees of freedom of translation, showing extreme SL bias onthe one hand, and extreme TL bias on the other.

DEGREES OF FREEDOM OF TRANSLATION

At the extreme of SL bias is interlinear translation, where the TT doesnot necessarily respect TL grammar, but has grammatical units corre-sponding as closely as possible to every grammatical unit of the ST. Hereis an example:

Je persiste croire quelle navait pas tort de le dire.I persist to think that she not had no wrong to it say.

Interlinear translation is of no practical use for this course. It is normallyonly used in descriptive linguistics or language teaching. Even then it hasits limitations witness the difculty of nding a counterpart for pashere. Interlinear translation is actually an extreme form of the much morecommon literal translation, where the literal meaning of words is takenas if straight from the dictionary (that is, out of context), but TL grammaris respected. (The literal or cognitive or denotative meaning ofan expression is the appropriate conventional referential meaning givenfor it in the dictionary, regardless of any connotations or nuances it hasin a particular context.) A possible literal translation of our example is:

I persist in thinking that she was not wrong to say it. For practicalpurposes, we shall take literal translation as the extreme of SL bias.

At the opposite extreme, TL bias, is free translation, where there isonly an overall correspondence between the textual units of the ST andthose of the TT. Between the two extremes, the degrees of freedom areinnitely variable. However, in assessing translation freedom, it can beuseful to situate the TT on a scale between extreme SL bias and extremeTL bias, with notional intermediate points schematized as in the followingdiagram, heavily adapted from Newmark (1981: 39):

The ve points on the scale can be illustrated from the example we havejust used, Je persiste croire quelle navait pas tort de le dire:

LITERAL I persist in thinking that she wasnt wrong to say it.FAITHFUL I still think she wasnt wrong to say it.BALANCED I still dont think she was wrong to say it.IDIOMIZING I still think she hit the nail on the head.FREE No way should she retract.

Before going any further, we should dene what we mean by an idiomizingtranslation. This is one that respects the ST message content, but typi-cally uses TL idioms or familiar phonic and rhythmic patterns to give an easy read, even if (as in our example) this means sacricing nuancesof meaning or tone. By idiom we mean a xed gurative expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal meaning of the wordsthat make it up, as in footballs not my cup of tea, thats a differentkettle of sh, youve hit the nail on the head, etc. Note that idiomizingis not synonymous with idiomatic: throughout this course, we use theterm idiomatic to denote what sounds natural and normal to nativespeakers a linguistic expression that is unexceptional and acceptable ina given context. Thus, in our ve examples of degrees of freedom, thelast three are certainly idiomatic, but only one of them is an idiomizingtranslation.

The ve examples call for comment. First, it should be noted that, sinceliteral translation respects TL grammar, it very often involves grammat-ical transposition the replacement or reinforcement of given parts ofspeech or grammatical categories in the ST by others in the TT. In theliteral translation given here, there are two grammatical transpositions: (1)the innitive croire is rendered by the gerund thinking; (2) the nountort is rendered by the adjective wrong. But this adoption of TL grammar

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SL bias

Literal Faithful Balanced(SL/TL)

Idiomizing Free

TL bias

still has not made for a very plausible TT. Not surprisingly, there aremore grammatical transpositions in the faithful and balanced translations.

In the faithful translation, there are three grammatical transpositions:(1) the verb persister becomes the adverb still; (2) the innitive croirebecomes the nite I think; (3) there is no conjunction corresponding toque. This translation is less implausible than the literal translation, butit would still sound odd in most contexts.

In the balanced translation, two more grammatical transpositions areadded to those in the faithful translation: (1) the negation is transferredfrom avoir tort to croire, and (2) it is rendered with an auxiliary verb(do), where the ST has none. Five grammatical transpositions, then, butthey are unexceptional and acceptable: this balanced translation is moreidiomatic and more convincing than the literal and faithful translations.

Another important point about the degrees of freedom is that the dividinglines between them are uid. Each of the TTs is open to query, and otherscould be suggested. For instance, is I persist in thinking really an accu-rate literal rendering of Je persiste croire? Do I think she wasntwrong and I dont think she was wrong mean the same thing? Similarly,the suggested idiomizing translation corresponds to I think she was right,which perhaps means something else again. Depending on the answers tothese questions, it might even be argued that, in this case, the suggestedbalanced translation is the only accurate literal translation. As for the freetranslation, it only gives a partial overlap with the ST: the overall messageis the same She was right to say what she said, but it loses the explicitexpression of an opinion, and adds the implication that she is under pres-sure to withdraw her statement. If all these issues are discussed in class,it will become clear that the ve categories are uid, and that, dependingon context, any of these TTs or others could be the preferred choice.

However, some contexts offer less choice than others. This brings usto our nal point: in certain circumstances, the freest TT may in facthardly be a free choice at all! This is often the case if the ST containsan SL idiom, proverb, or other expression standard for a given situation,and the TL offers an idiom, proverb, or other expression standard for anequivalent target-culture situation. In such cases, using the TL equivalentis often inescapable. So, in most contexts, the following TTs will gener-ally seem mandatory:

ST TTCest une autre paire de manches. Thats another kettle of sh.

Jai dautres chats fouetter. Ive got other sh to fry.

Faute de grives, on mange des Half a loaf is better than no merles. bread.

Objets trouvs. Lost property.

Je vous en prie. Youre welcome/dont mention it.

Preliminaries to translation as a product 17

We shall call this sort of rendering a communicative translation. Acommunicative translation is produced when, in a given situation, the STuses an SL expression standard for that situation, and the TT uses a TL expression standard for an equivalent target-culture situation. We willdiscuss communicative translation in more detail in Chapter 3. For themoment, we will just point out a seeming paradox: inasmuch as theydiverge greatly from ST literal meanings, these ready-made communica-tive translations are examples of free translation; yet the translator seemsto have little free choice as to whether or not to adopt them.

Note that although No way should she retract is very free and collo-quially plausible, it is not a communicative translation, because it is notthe standard expression in the given situation. (There is no standard expres-sion for this situation.) So its freedom is gratuitous, and might well beconsidered excessive: it might be out of character for the speaker to useno way in this sense, and the TT is in any case avoidably different inmessage content and tone from the ST.

It should also be noted that a free translation does not have to be acolloquial one. It could just as easily be highly formal, as in: I remainof the unshakeable conviction that she should on no account withdraw herobservation.

EQUIVALENCE AND TRANSLATION LOSS

In introducing the notion of communicative translation, we referred toequivalent idioms and proverbs, and equivalent target-culture situations.As a matter of fact, most writers on translation use the terms equivalenceand equivalent, but in so many different ways that equivalence has becomea confusing concept even for teachers of translation, let alone their students.So we need to say what we mean, and what we do not mean, by equiva-lence and equivalent. We shall not go in detail into the philosophicalimplications of the term equivalence: this is not a course on translationtheory. Hermans (1999), Holmes (1988), Koller (1995), Nida (1964), Toury(1980 and 1995) and Snell-Hornby (1988) between them provide a usefulintroduction to the question.

The many different denitions of equivalence in translation fall broadlyinto two categories: they are either descriptive or prescriptive. Descrip-tively, equivalence denotes an observed relationship between ST utter-ances and TT utterances that are seen as directly corresponding to oneanother. According to this view, each of the TTs illustrating degrees of free-dom (p. 16) is equivalent to Je persiste croire quelle navait pas tort dele dire, and the TT of the accountants report on p. 10 is equivalent to theST. Prescriptively, equivalence denotes the relationship between an SLexpression and the standard TL rendering of it, for example as given in adictionary, or as required by a teacher, or as consonant with a given theory

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or methodology of translation. So, prescriptively, the following pairs ofutterances are equivalents:

ST TTIm hungry. Jai faim.

Merci de ne pas fumer. Thank you for not smoking.

Ce nest quune broutille. Its nothing.

O est lentre des artistes ? Wheres the stage door?

Chat chaud craint leau froide. Once bitten, twice shy.

Dont teach your grandmother to On napprend pas un vieux suck eggs. singe faire des grimaces.

An inuential variant of prescriptive equivalence is the dynamic equiv-alence of the eminent Bible translator Eugene Nida. This is based on theprinciple of equivalent effect, the principle that the relationship betweenreceptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existedbetween the original receptors and the message (Nida 1964: 159). Nidasview does have real attractions. As we have just seen, and shall suggestthroughout the course, there are all sorts of good reasons why a translatormight not want to translate a given expression literally. A case in pointis communicative translation, which may be said to be an example ofdynamic equivalence (cf. Nida 1964: 166: That is just the way we wouldsay it). However, there is a danger of dynamic equivalence being seenas giving carte blanche for freedom to write more or less anything aslong as it sounds good in the TL and does reect, however tenuously,something of the ST message content. This danger is very real, as mostteachers of translation will conrm. It is in fact a symptom of theoreticalproblems contained in the very notion of equivalent effect, most notablythe normative implications.

To begin with, who is to know what the relationship between ST messageand source-culture receptors is? For that matter, is it plausible to speakof the relationship, as if there were only one: are there not as many relationships as there are receptors? And who is to know what such rela-tionships can have been in the past? Phdre, the Dclaration des droitsde lhomme, LEtranger: each is, and has been, different things to differentpeople in different places at different times and indeed, different to thesame person at different times. In any case, most texts have plural effectseven in one reading by one person; the less technical the text, the morelikely this is. And these problems apply as much to the TT as to the ST:who is to foresee the multiple relationships between the TT and its recep-tors? Finally, whatever the relationships between the ST and source-culturereceptors, and between the TT and target-culture receptors, can we besatised that bites and scalded cats, or grandmothers and monkeys, produce

Preliminaries to translation as a product 19

equivalent effects on their respective receptors? And the connotations of entre des artistes surely produce a signicantly different effect fromthose of stage door.

The discussion so far suggests that, the more normative the use ofequivalence, the more the term risks being taken to imply sameness.Indeed, it is used in this way in logic, mathematics and sign-theory, wherean equivalent relationship is one that is objective, incontrovertible and crucially reversible. In translation, however, such unanimity and suchreversibility are unthinkable for any but the very simplest of texts andeven then, only in respect of literal meaning. For example, Merci de nepas fumer translates as Thank you for not smoking, but will back-translation (i.e. translating a TT back into the SL) automatically giveMerci de ne pas fumer? This French expression is a polite request notto smoke. But the English expression can just as easily be used to thanka smoker for having refrained. If that is the intention, the appropriateFrench form is Merci de navoir pas fum (or Merci de ne pas avoirfum). Similarly, back-translation of Its nothing could just as easilygive Ce nest rien, Cest pas grave, or even a ne cote rien, as Cenest quune broutille. Even the three possible back-translations of Jaifaim Im hungry, I am hungry, I feel hungry are not exact equiv-alents of one another.

In so far as the principle of equivalent effect implies sameness or isused normatively, it seems to be more of a hindrance than a help, boththeoretically and pedagogically. Consequently, when we spoke of anequivalent target-culture situation, we were not intending an equivalentto have a sense specic to any translation theory, but were using it in itseveryday sense of a counterpart something different, but with pointsof resemblance in the aspects judged to be most relevant. This is how theterm will be used in this book.

Given the problems associated with equivalence, we have found itmore useful, both in translating and in teaching translation, to avoid anabsolutist ambition to maximize sameness between ST and TT, in favourof a relativist ambition to minimize difference: to look, not for what is tobe put into the TT, but for what might be saved from the ST. There is avital difference between the two ambitions. The aim of maximizing same-ness encourages the belief that, somewhere out there, there is the righttranslation, the TT that is equi-valent (has equal value) to the ST, atsome ideal halfway point between SL bias and TL bias. But it is morerealistic, and more productive, to start by admitting that, because SL andTL are fundamentally different, the transfer from ST to TT inevitablyimposes difference or, as we shall argue, loss.

It may be helpful here to draw an analogy with energy loss in engi-neering. The transfer of energy in any machine necessarily involves energyloss. Engineers do not bewail this as a theoretical anomaly, but simplysee it as a practical problem which they confront by striving to design

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more efcient machines, in which energy loss is reduced. We shall givethe term translation loss to non-replication of the ST in the TT that is,the inevitable loss of culturally relevant features. By culturally relevantfeatures, we mean features which are specic to the SL and the sourceculture and which make the ST what it is. The term translation loss isintended to suggest that translators should not agonize over the loss, butshould concentrate on reducing it, i.e. controlling and channelling it.

The analogy with energy loss is not perfect, of course: whereas energyloss is a loss (or rather, a diversion) of energy, translation loss is not aloss of translation, but a loss in the translation process. It is a loss oftextual effects. Further, since these effects cannot be quantied, neithercan the loss. So, when trying to reduce it, the translator never knowshow far still to go. This is why one can sometimes go on innitely trans-lating the same text and never be completely satised.

Nevertheless, despite the limitations of the analogy, we have found itpractical both in translating and in the classroom. Once the concept ofinevitable translation loss is accepted, a TT that is not, in all culturallyrelevant respects, a replica of the ST is not a theoretical anomaly, andtranslators can forget the unrealistic aim of seeking the right TT, andconcentrate instead on the realistic one of channelling translation loss.Indeed, one of the attractions of the notion is that it frees translators actu-ally to exploit translation loss to introduce any loss, however major, thatenables them to implement the strategy fully. Quite apart from any needfor compensation in actually doing the translation, the brief itself mayrequire a gist translation, or an exegetic translation, or an adaptation forchildren or immigrants, or for the stage or radio, etc. We saw a goodexample of deliberately introduced translation loss in the accountantsreport (p. 10): the TT incurs great lexical and grammatical loss, but thisis less serious than the incomprehensibility of a literal TT would havebeen. In sum, as we shall see throughout the course, translation loss isonly to be regretted when it prevents successful implementation of thetranslators strategy, i.e. if it means that the TT is not t for its purpose.

Using the term loss rather than e.g. difference may seem undulynegative. It is indeed meant to be negative, but constructively so. Thedanger in talking of translation difference is that difference might beunderstood in a trivial sense: Of course the ST and TT are different just look at them, ones in French and the others in English. Loss ismore likely to direct attention to the relation between ST and TT as termsin a system of relationships, rather than to the texts in themselves (cf.just look at them) as static, substantial, autonomous entities. Crucially,loss is a reminder that, if you read a translation of LEtranger, you arenot reading LEtranger, you are reading a reading of it.

To show some of the implications of translation loss for the translator,it is enough to take a few very simple examples, at the primitive level ofthe sounds, rhythm and literal meaning of individual words.

Preliminaries to translation as a product 21

There is translation loss even at the seemingly most trivial level. Forinstance, true SLTL homonymy rarely occurs, and rhythm and intona-tion are usually different as well. So, in most contexts, cheval and horsewill be synonyms, and there will be no loss in literal meaning in trans-lating one by the other. But cheval and horse sound completely different:there is total phonic and rhythmic loss. The immediate and obvious ques-tion is whether such losses actually matter. The equally obvious answeris that, in a veterinary manual and in most other contexts, they matter notat all. But if the ST word is part of an alliterative chain in a literary text,or if it rhymes (e.g. I know two things about the horse, and one of themis rather coarse), then the loss may be crucial.

Translation loss in respect of sound is virtually certainly entailed evenin cases where the ST word has already entered the TL. For instance,French cloisonn and English cloisonn sound different from oneanother. Similarly, if French leader is translated as English leader, thereis palpable loss in terms of sound and rhythm. Nor would it help if theFrench loan-words were pronounced in authentic French fashion in anEnglish oral TT. On the contrary, pronouncing cloisonn or pas de basin an authentically French way would actually increase the translation loss:it would increase the phonic and rhythmic foreignness (which are absentfrom the ST), and it would introduce a comic or off-putting pretentious-ness (again absent from the ST).

In respect of meaning, too, there is clear translation loss in using loan-words. Quite apart from the sound of the words, using cloisonn, joiede vivre, etc. in an English TT introduces a semantic foreignness that isnot present in the ST: that is, the TT loses the cultural neutrality of theST expression. Conversely, translating French leader as English leaderloses the cultural foreignness of the ST expression. In the case of a loan-word from a third language, it may well have different connotations inthe two borrowing cultures. For example, English Gauleiter and FrenchGauleiter do not only sound different: in English, Gauleiter will tendto have slightly facetious connotations, whereas in French, it will havealtogether more painful connotations, arising from personal and collectivememories of the Nazi Occupation.

An important implication of the concept of translation loss is that itembraces any non-replication of an ST, whether this involves losingfeatures in the TT or adding them. Take the word borgne. Suppose thisis translated as blind in one eye. There is obvious lexical loss, in thatborgne can also mean one-eyed the TT loses the semantic breadthof borgne. But there is translation loss in other respects as well. Althoughthe TT is acceptable in terms of literal meaning, it has added three wordsand it makes explicit reference to blindness and eyes. Conversely, renderingblind in one eye as borgne not only loses the semantic narrowness andexplicitness of the ST expression, but is also more economical (or lessweighty) in terms of number of words and syllables.

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Such losses are extremely common. Two more examples will sufce toillustrate this. First, rendering chapardeur as light-ngered incurs trans-lation loss because the TT does not have the concision of the ST (eventhough there is a gain in vividness). Translating in the other direction,rendering light-ngered as chapardeur entails an equally obvious trans-lation loss, in that the TT does not have the vividness of the ST (eventhough there is a gain in concision). The second example exhibits stillmore sorts of translation loss translating capital transfer tax by imptsur le transfert des capitaux, and vice versa. The English is more concise,but its grammar is a potential source of ambiguities for a lay person: isthis a transfer tax that is capital, or a tax that is a capital transfer, or atax on transfers that are capital, or a tax on the transfer of capital? Thegrammar of the French expression eliminates all such ambiguity, but it ismore cumbersome than the English. As all these examples show, transla-tion loss, as we have dened it, is inevitable, even if the TT gains ineconomy, vividness, avoidance of ambiguity, semantic breadth or narrow-ness, etc.

Before drawing conclusions for the practice of translation from thisdiscussion of equivalence and translation loss, we should briey explainthe advantages for apprentice translators of insisting that there is, alwaysand everywhere, translation loss. After all, we have just given examplesof gain.

There are two main reasons for calling these so-called gains losses.One is theoretical, the other practical. The theoretical one has to do withthe concept of equivalence. In so far as equivalence implies sameness, ordegree zero, gain implies a plus value, loss a minus value. And thisthree-valued view is what engenders our practical reason for insisting ontranslation loss: the belief in gain makes it very difcult for student trans-lators to resist the temptation of gratuitously adding or altering detail,either to improve on the ST, or in the vague hope that the losses willbe outweighed by a greater volume of gains. Here are two examples fromstudent translations, for discussion in class. The rst is from a text onmergers and takeovers:

The translator preferred hunting down to seeking or looking forbecause it is more vivid and more appropriate in a context of predatorytakeovers. The second example is from a text on the transport of nuclear

Preliminaries to translation as a product 23

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STLa mme tendance se note dans laconstruction aronautique, oBoeing vient dacqurir deHavilland Canada et recherche despartenaires, japonais et sudois,pour le 737.

TTThe same trend can be seen inaircraft construction, whereBoeing has just acquired deHavilland Canada and is huntingdown Japanese and Swedishpartners for the 737.

materials. Here, the correct order of the adjectives and the correct termi-nology were altered to make the text sound better and more idiomatic:

In both examples, the translator was looking for what can be put into theTT to make it a more dramatic or elegant TL text, rather than how topreserve what is important from the ST. In our experience, this approachis likely to be encouraged if translation is seen as the pursuit of equiva-lence as equi-valence or substantial sameness. Student translators willstrive to maximize sameness, haunted by the idea that somewhere outthere the right TL equivalent to the ST is waiting to be found. Failingattainment of that right TT, they will be encouraged by the three-valuedsystem (loss ~ gain ~ equivalence) to try to outweigh losses by accumu-lating gains. The practical advantages of the two-valued system (loss ~no loss) i.e. the notion that translation loss is inevitable, and that evena so-called gain is a loss are therefore the following. First, translatorsare unburdened of the demoralizing supposition that, if only they wereclever enough or lucky enough to nd it, the right TT is just round thecorner, and that if they do not nd it, they are failures. And, second,seeking to minimize difference, to save ST elements from disappearance,requires a closer attention to the properties of the text: to know what canand should be saved, one has to know what features are there, and whattheir functions are.

As some of the examples in this chapter suggest, if translation loss isinevitable even in translating single words, it is obviously going to featureat more complex levels as well in respect of sentence-structure, forexample, or discourse, language variety, and so on. There is no need togive further examples of these just now: plenty will arise, chapter bychapter, as we deal with these and other topics. For the moment, all weneed do is point out that, if translation loss is inevitable, the challenge tothe translator is not to eliminate it, but to control and channel it by decidingwhich features, in a given ST, it is most important to respect, and whichcan most legitimately be sacriced in respecting them. This is where theclassroom advantages of the translation loss approach lead directly to itsadvantages for the practising translator. For the translator has always to

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STLes quivalents de dose effectifscollectifs diffrentiels annuelsreus par les riverains et par lespassagers dautres vhicules sontdu mme ordre de grandeur.

(For analysis of this ST, see pp. 1768.)

TTThe different annual collectiveefcacious equivalent dosesreceived by people living alongthe route and passengers in othervehicles are of the same order ofmagnitude.

be asking, and answering, such questions as: does it matter if leader isforeign in French and not in English, and sounds different in each? Doesit matter if blind in one eye is semantically more limited than borgne?If On napprend pas un vieux singe faire des grimaces is phonically,rhythmically, grammatically, lexically and metaphorically totally differentfrom Dont teach your grandmother to suck eggs? There is no once-and-for-all answer to questions like these. Everything depends on the translationbrief, the nature of the target audience, and what role the textual featurehas in its context. Whether the nal decision is simple or complicated, itdoes have to be made, afresh, every time, and the translator is the onlyone who can make it.

As we have seen, this decision is not whether to replicate all the cultur-ally relevant ST features in the TT, which is impossible, but how to controltranslation loss by channelling it in such a way as to respect the ones thatare most relevant. This very often involves deliberately introducing blatanttranslation losses in order to avoid even bigger ones; we saw a simpleexample in the accountants report. This kind of compromise and compen-sation will be the subject of Chapter 4.

PRACTICAL 2

2.1 Degrees of freedom; translation loss

Taking the rst half of the ST below:

(i) Identify the salient features of its content and expression.(ii) Taking the TT (printed next to it) as a whole, place it on the scale

of degrees of freedom given on p. 16, and explain your decision.(iii) Taking the detail of the TT, discuss the main differences between

it and the ST, paying special attention to cases where it incurs, ormanages to avoid, unacceptable translation loss.

(iv) Where you think the TT can be improved, give your own revisedversion and explain the revision.

(v) In the light of this work on the rst part of the ST, outline andjustify a strategy for translating the rest of it.

(vi) Translate the rest of the text (the section entitled Le march) intoEnglish.

(vii) Paying special attention to cases where you managed to avoid unac-ceptable translation loss, discuss the main decisions of detail youtook, explaining what the threatened loss was and how you avoidedit.

(viii) Compare your TT with the published one, which will be given toyou by your tutor.

Preliminaries to translation as a product 25

Contextual informationThe ST is from the annual report for 1995 of Schneider, one of the biggestsuppliers of electrical equipment in the world. The TT was published inthe English version of the report. This part of the report is elaboratelyillustrated and precedes the detailed nancial statements and balance sheets.It thus combines publicity with information on the companys main activ-ities. Among other things, Schneider supply high-tension equipment (fornational grids, etc.), transformers and low-tension wiring systems in build-ings; basse tension terminale refers to the nal level of equipment switches, circuit breakers, etc.

ST (continued)

Le marchLe march de la basse tension terminale reprsente 30 milliards de francsen 1995. Quoique stagnant en Europe et aux Etats-Unis, le march mondialoffre des perspectives de forte croissance, pour rpondre aux besoinsdlectrication, de scurit et de confort des pays fort potentiel dedveloppement.

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STBASSE TENSION TERMINALE

Les produits et systmes de bassetension terminale permettent degarantir la scurit, damliorer leconfort, de raliser des conomies,bref de bncier de toutes lespossibilits offertes par lnergielectrique dans les btimentsindustriels, tertiaires et rsiden-tiels.

Loffre de Schneider se dclineen deux activits : dune part, ladistribution terminale constitue delensemble des produits etsystmes assurant les fonctions deprotection des personnes et desbiens et de contrle-commande ;dautre part, la scurit et lecontrle du btiment constitus delensemble des produits et serviceslis lintrusion, lincendie, lecontrle daccs et la gestiontechnique du btiment.

(Schneider 1996a: 22)

TTFINAL LOW VOLTAGE

Final low voltage products andsystems deliver the full benets ofelectricity to industrial, commer-cial and residential buildings.They ensure user safety, enhancecomfort and reduce costs.Schneider serves this marketthrough two activities.

We make nal distributionproducts and systems to protectpeople and property, and toperform control and monitoringfunctions.

We also supply products andservices for building security andcontrol, which comprises anti-intrusion, re prevention, accesscontrol, and building managementservices.

(Schneider 1996b: 22)

Schneider occupe la 1re place mondiale sur ce march. Cette positionsappuie sur plusieurs leaderships en Asie (Chine, Indonsie, Thalande,Singapour), qui sajoutent aux positions dominantes dtenues enAmrique du Nord et en Europe. Ce rsultat est le fruit de lavance tech-nologique de Schneider et de prix de revient trs comptitifs. Les usines vocation mondiale, trs automatises, sont compltes par des unitslocales charges dadapter les produits aux diffrents marchs.

(Schneider 1996a: 23)

2.2 Degrees of freedom; translation loss

AssignmentHere is an ST for comparison with two published TTs. Your tutor willtell you which of the TTs to discuss.

(i) Identify the salient features of content and expression in the ST.(ii) Taking each TT as a whole, place it on the scale of degrees of

freedom given on p. 16, and explain your decision.(iii) Taking the detail of each TT, discuss the main differences between

it and the ST, paying special attention to cases where it incurs, ormanages to avoid, unacceptable translation loss.

(iv) Where you think the TT can be improved, give your own revisedversion and explain the revision.

Contextual informationThe ST is from Camuss LEtranger (1942). Salamano is an old man witha skin condition who lives in the next-door at to the narrator, Meursault.Meursaults mother has recently died. Salamano has a dog, with whichhe has a lovehate relationship. The two men meet on the landing, andSalamano says that his dog has disappeared. When Meursault tells himhe can easily get it back from the pound for a small fee, he shouts andblusters and refuses to countenance the possibility. He and Meursault gointo their respective ats. This is when the ST starts. TT (i) was publishedin 1946, TT (ii) in 1982. Note that TT (i) was produced from the orig-inal edition of the ST, which nished with souper; this was amended todner in later editions.

STUn moment aprs, jai entendu le pas du vieux et il a frapp ma porte.Quand jai ouvert, il est rest un moment sur le seuil et il ma dit : Excusez-moi, excusez-moi. Je lai invit entrer, mais il na pas voulu.Il regardait la pointe de ses souliers et ses mains croteuses tremblaient.Sans me faire face, il ma demand : Ils ne vont pas me le prendre, dites,monsieur Meursault. Ils vont me le rendre. Ou quest-ce que je vais de-venir ? Je lui ai dit que la fourrire gardait les chiens trois jours la

Preliminaries to translation as a product 27

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disposition de leurs propritaires et quensuite elle en faisait ce que bon luisemblait. Il ma regard en silence. Puis il ma dit : Bonsoir. Il a fermsa porte et je lai entendu aller et venir. Son lit a craqu. Et au bizarre petitbruit qui a travers la cloison, jai compris quil pleurait. Je ne sais paspourquoi jai pens maman. Mais il fallait que je me lve tt le lende-main. Je navais pas faim et je me suis couch sans dner.

(A. Camus LEtranger, Editions GALLIMARD, 1947: 5960)

TT (i)A minute or two later I heard Salamanos footsteps and a knock on mydoor.

When I opened it, he halted for a moment in the doorway.Excuse me . . . I hope Im not disturbing you.I asked him in, but he shook his head. He was staring at his toe-caps,

and the gnarled old hands were trembling. Without meeting my eyes, hestarted talking.

They wont really take him from me, will they, Monsieur Meursault?Surely they wouldnt do a thing like that. If they do I dont know whatwill become of me.

I told him that, so far as I knew, they kept stray dogs in the Pound forthree days, waiting for their owners to call for them. After that theydisposed of the dogs as they thought t.

He stared at me in silence for a mome