Chapter I

Literary translation

1. Definition of literary translation

The word “literature”, used commonly, may signify any text that is written or body of texts bearing from a given established canon of admired and famous work, plus it esteemed modern ones, to mere documentation issued for a specific but ephemeral practical purpose. However in general usage both terms “literature” and “literary” suggest aesthetic purpose, together with a degree of constancy and the presence of intended stylistic effects. So defined literature normally contains, mainly, fiction, poetry and drama. There is exception in the case of certain culturally prominent texts such as the Bible, the Koran, and a few exceptional historical, philosophical and reflective writings (Bukowski 2009).

Translation is a form of intercultural communication which rises the problem that are not only at the linguistic or at the verbal level. Therefore translation is no longer a problem of finding verbal equivalents, it is also problem of interpreting a text encoded in one semiotic system with the help of another (http://www.translationdirectory.com/article301.htm). Translation can be generally outlined as a means of providing the semantic equivalence between the source language and the target language. In recent years it has become a very important instrument of communication between different nations in all brand of human knowledge and experience. Thanks to translation we can reduce the distance which is caused by geography and culture. Many currents of though like renaissance, transcendentalism, colonialism, imperialism, communism and so on were known all over the world through the means of translation (Dutta 2009, 59).

Across the history translation has expanded different theories, which are different from one another, in terms of orientation or perception. However all of them keep in concord the dominant trend of the age as functionalism, structuralism and cognitivism (Dutta 2009, 59).

J.C. Catford (1965) is considered to provide the first theory of translation and scientific analysis. According to Catford translation “is the replacement of textual material in one language in another language”( J.C. Catford 1965 quoted in Dutta 2009, 59). Notwithstanding translation is the substitution of meaning and neither the transmission nor the transcoding of meaning, there can not be textual equivalence at all levels. Catford pounders the definition of total translation as delusory because there is no contextual translation. He treats translation equivalence as “an empirical phenomenon discovered by comparing the source language and target language texts” ”( J.C. Catford 1965 quoted in Dutta 2009, 59) and this discovery is an analytic and objective procedures independent from the intuition of the bilingual informer. The source and target language text or items that are replaceable in a given situation are the main condition that he establishes for testing translation equivalence. Catford’s analysis is based on the earlier general theory of linguistics oh Halliday, that is focused on the surface structure of language pushing the functional aspects of language (Dutta 2009, 59).

E. Jakobson identically defines translation as a craft similar to a manual skill where one is perfected through practice. Language has to take into consideration the socio-cultural reality, namely that the translation is not systematic governed by rules transfer from code 1 to code 2 as the under difference and over differences. This Jakobson’s idea influenced by the behaviouralist hypothesis as a skill denies implicitly the role assigned to the human mind (Dutta 2009, 60).

Quite different from Jakobson’s and Catford’s analytic approaches is intuitive Nida’s approach. According to Nida anything which was said in one language is possible to be said in another language. In pursuance of this theory the original components of the communication event are the source, the message and the receptor, which has the cultural and linguistic context. The translation is suitable when the recipients of the target language understand the message in relatively similar way, however never the same as the original recipients understand the message in the source language. The basic priorities in Nida’s framework are:

1. contextual consistency is more important than verbal consistency;

2. dynamic equivalence is prior to formal correspondence;

3. forms used and acceptable by the audience which is the main recipient of the translation are major than forms that may be traditionally more prestigious (Dutta 2009, 60).

According to Theodore Savory (1957), translation as an intellectual activity which engages emotional responses and creativity is an art. Language is not only a code and in accordance with the author or speaker’s communicative intentions the message has to be renovated (Dutta 2009, 60).

Literary translation is a translation of composed texts which are intended for wider public or performance. It is not just a second-rate communication or copy of a message or a text in a source language. Literary translation is a type of cross-cultural communication, a creative process of communicating of meaningful experience from one community to another (Dutta 2009, 60). It is opposed to so called “technical translation”, i.e. that of texts with a technological, scientific or legal function(Classe 2000, 8). One’s creativity is not allowed during translating of a scientific text. The process of translation of a scientific text can be described as the encoding and decoding of the language by another. Scientific texts depend on explicit meanings, so there is no question of meanings, of creativity or of aesthetic appeal as long as meaning is concerned. The topic of exploration is a point to which we can make the claim that literary translation cannot be presumed to be too accurate or too far from the original. When the translation is too accurate it is no readable and its form in unaesthetic, but when it is too far from the original it is not a tranlastion anymore, it becomes adaptation. A constructive translator can produce something that is similar to other works of art in his or her language during that time not destroying the identity of the original. A translation needs to have permissibility and understandability for the readers in the recipient language despite its differences from the original. In the 1980s, there were some attempts to connect linguistics and the literary theory of translation. These attempts sought to notice language and literary texts as units deriving from the cultural matrices of a speech community (Dutta 2009, 61). According to Larson (1984) who said that “Each society will interpret a message in terms of its own culture. The receptor audience will decode the translation in terms of its own culture and experience of the author and audience of the original document”( Larson 1984 quoted in Dutta 2009, 61). The main purpose of translation is communication and the context of language use should be considered. This context has the possibility to create secondary, figurative or aesthetic meaning (Dutta 2009, 61).

In literary studies literary translation is a term of two meanings. In the first meaning it is a literary work, which has its prototype in a foreign language (original); in the second meaning it is a creative process, in which the literary work, which is made in one language is being reconstructed in another natural language system. It is a type of literary creativeness where the written work of one language is recreated in another. The definition of literary translation depends on the ingested definition of literature- narrower (covering only genres belonging to belles-letres for instance works of fiction, poetry and drama), wider (covering also frontier genres such as essay, memorials or coverage), or even wider – the literature understood as a whole writing, all kind of works protected by copyright(). According to this translation is just a copy of the unique entity, which by definition isn’t possible to be copied (Bukowski 200. To narrow the definition- there is a practice to differentiate the written products oh high culture for those who are concerned with literature, whereas treating both kinds of product with due interest and attention (Classe 2000;8). It is possible for any numbers of translations of any given literary work to exist, every of each is justified and having right to exist like other translations. Thanks to numerous versions of translations reader is able to draw conclusions about the values in the different versions(Rama Rao 2009, 67).

Generalizing, the purpose of literary translation is trying to finding expressions in another language while simultaneously maintaining semantic and stylistic equivalence, matching grammatical structures and cultural contexts. According to the Aristotle, translation is probability or a reproduction, but not a reflection or a mirror image. The translator should take maximum attention while manipulating the translating text to avoid paraphrasing on one hand, and substitution on the other. In order to the translation be accurate, artistic and harmonious a translator has to be good writer. Not only the words or syntactic structures should to be taken into consideration, but also the cultural connotations that are inseparable in particular linguistic expressions. Wittgenstein claims that we know how to use this structures in particular context. The reason is that the language is not monolithic, homogenous entity used in a void or an isolation. Language is a means of realization ot the interpersonal relations, keeping the social relations and performance of social transactions (Dutta 2009, 61).

Traditional discussion of literary translation considers finding equivalents not only for syntax, concepts or lexis, but also genre, style, historical stylistic dimensions, figurative language, polyvalence connotations and cultural items, culture specific concepts and values and denotations (http://www.translationdirectory.com/article301.htm). The knowledge of the source and the target language, and a cleverness for literary nuances in both would be useful (Rama Rao 2009, 67). The choices made by translator such as decision to preserve the historical stylistic dimensions of the original or to keep stylistic features of the source language text are important in the case of literary translation. Nevertheless, when the source and the target language come from different cultural groups, the first problem which is faced by the translator is to find terms in his/her own language that express the highest level of accuracy possible to the meaning of certain words. For instance, there are some words that are connected to typical jobs, specialities, cookery or fabrics (Classe 2000, 8). Every translator should decide the limits of freedom, which degrees are different for each translator, and according to this cultivate accuracy to the original;. The most important in translation is that it should be reader-friendly (Rama Rao 2009, 67).

The text of literary translation is a result of four basic transformation rules: 1) reduction (limitation, diminution); 2) amplification (enrichment); 3)inversion (exchange, displacement); 4)substitution (replacement, substitution). Literary translation in contemporary vision can’t interfere in represented world of the work or to make changes in its ideology, it should provide creative reconstruction of the style and essence of the work. Literary translation is an object of translantology, comparative, semiotics and philosophy of language research(Bukowski 2009).

Doceniam przejrzaną przez Panią literaturę, ale zaprezentowany fragment jest bardzo chaotyczny i mało spójny. Przedstawia Pani w kolejnych akapitach różne drobne aspekty, dotyczące tłumaczenia, które same w sobie są prawdziwe, ale nie tworzą spójnej całości w Pani wywodzie. Powinna Pani jeszcze raz przeorganizować cały materiał zgodnie z zasadą „od ogółu do szczegółu” czyli zacząć od tłumaczenia w ogólnośći, przejść do tłumaczenia literackiego, do tego, co to tłumaczenie wyróżnia i do przedstawienia kilku poglądów na przekład literacki różnych autorów. Bardzo poważnym niedostatkiem tego, co Pani pisze powyżej jest bazowanie w zasadzie tylko na jednej pracy. To nie do przyjęcia. Ponadto z pracy tej przepisuje Pani konkretne teorie i pojęcia. Proszę bardzo uważać, bo jeśli zapytam Panią na obronie o Hallidaya czy o ekwiwalencję u Nidy a Pani tego nie będzie umiała wyjaśnić to może Pani nie obronić pracy. Idea pisania pracy i obrony jest taka, że autor pracy mgr wie o czym pisze i rozumie co pisze.

Proszę się nie zrażać i cały ten materiał gruntownie przepracować. Treści przedstawione powyżej akceptuję, ale nie przedstawione w taki chaotyczny sposób