Book Report for Jeremy Munday's Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Application
By Huang Qiuyue of Postgraduate 2011, School of Foreign Languages
1 Introduction
Generally, this book organizes the discussion of the theories of translation studies from various aspects, time and place. In early translation studies, attention are paid to how to translate, whether in the way of 'word-for-word' or 'sense-for-sense', later from the linguistic perspectives, the main focus is on 'equivalence' or 'equivalence effect', though some linguists proposes the social and cultural factors contributed to translation activity. As the 'cultural turns' comes, the translated literature are considered in a polysystem, thus more comprehensive theories of translation studies are developed, such as the manipulation school, postcolonization theories and so on, and even the studies has rapidly increased potential as an 'interdiscipline'. Therefore, The book is organized in a very clear order and the importance of those theories are right to the point. The biggest advantage is the case studies in each chapter for vivid explanation of related theories.
My discussion of this book will concentrate on several pointers. Firstly the decision-making for the translator is interesting to discuss, since as the development of the theories of translation studies, the role and subjectivity of the translators attract more and more attention. With the concepts collected from some of the famous writings or theories, the decision-making for the translator during translation is studied, which can direct us to know the most active elements in translation activity and the obstacles they are faced. Next, the important theory of Schleiermacher and its influence are discussed, showing its greatness in the history of translation studies. Finally some minor discussion will be given to the power relation of translation studies and the comparison between equivalence and adequacy for assessment criteria of translation.
2, The decision-making for the translator
In the very beginning, the discussion for translation just focus on the text themselves, with the triad debate of 'literal', 'free' and 'faithful', then it develops into the linguistic perspectives such as word, syntax, discourse etc, mostly concentrating on the equivalence effect. As the 'cultural turns' occurs, the translation activity is examined in a polysystem including literature, linguistics, society, history etc, thus more elements are contributed to this activity. Therefore, there are a lot of factors influencing the translation activity. Among them, the translators is the key factor.
Usually the sameness cannot exist between two languages, during transferring the ST to the TT, there are something lost but also something gain. It is the translators who directly make decisions on how to translate and what should be the loss and gain in a translated text, and they may make a compromise of all influential factors or sometimes just insists on their own artistic principles.
No matter what factors are, the core conflict in a translated text is normally between form and content. Content usually refers to the meaning and the information of the texts, while form closely relates to the manner and style of the texts. Because of the differences in languages, if the forms of the original is well preserved, usually the content will be to some extent distorted or lost, vise verse. The conflict is difficult to solve, so commonly the loss and gain of the original exists together in a translated text. Different translating will lead to different type and degree of loss and gain. Thus it is important for the translators to determine what should be sacrificed.
But the problem is how to determine. Usually they can resort to some typical laws or rules from those famous figures. For instance, Tytler has three general 'laws' and 'rules' to guild the translation activity:
(1) the translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work;
(2) the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of the original;
(3) the translation should have all the ease of the original composition.
(Tytler 1797: 15)
The first law typically refers to the content of the original, while the second law is to the form of the original. When a translated text needs to fulfill the third law 'all the ease of the original composition', there are a 'sacrifice' has to be made, either to well present the sense or to greatly preserve the form.
If there exists the conflict, almost translators should choose 'content', since the ease and 'naturalness' of the translated text is an decisive factor for the acceptance of the target readers. Target readers represent the TL culture, thus the 'content' of the original will be transferred to fit in TL culture as much as possible. Of course, there are also cases that both are to some extent changed due to the political or commercial factors, but commonly the 'form' is changed much more than the 'content'.
The ideal in translation should be 'literal' and 'free' perfectly combined, or as Unesco's recommendation of an intermediate way between something that 'sounds' like a translation and something which is so 'aggressively characteristic' of the translator's idiolect that it strikes the reader as 'unusual'. It is difficult for the translator to balance these two poles ('sound like a translation' and being 'aggressively characteristic') which is described by an image 'a perpetual feat of tight-rope walking', close to Dryden's famous simile of the clumsy literal translator as 'dancing on ropes with fettered legs'. (Munday 2010: 31)
Though the role of the translators is very important in translation,they are often repressed and constrained by the power network of the publishing industry or the political institution as well as many other factors. Early in Vermeer's Skopos theory, he points out the goal and commission which drive the translation activity. Later for Lefevere, extensive factors such as the professionals within the literary system, patronage outside the literary system and the dominant poetics are considered to affect translators to make decisions in their translation process. They are sometimes like negotiators who are painstakingly striving to find an intermediate way between ST and TT, SL culture and TL culture, the dominant ideology and the subordinate ideology or their own ideology, the masculine concepts or the feminist concepts etc.
Those players giving influence to the translators may change across time and location, what does not change, however, is that good translators need to follow some basic principles such as what are cited from Dolet's writing, which will help them face whatever requirements and obstacles in translation:
(1) The translators must perfectly understand the sense and material of the original author, although he [sin] should feel free to clarify obscurities;
(2)The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL, so as not to lessen the majesty of the language.
(Dolet 1540/1997)
As long as they meet these principles, they can at ease adapt themselves to all kinds of influence and produce their translated texts to best results.
3, Schleiermacher's theory and its influence
I will focus my discussion on Schleiermacher's theory and its development in the history of translation studies, since many later ideas of translation studies show great influence from it.
3.1 'Alienating' and 'naturalizing'
The core of Schleiermacher's theory is how to bring the ST writer and the TT reader together as the following famous description illustrates:
Either the translator leaves the writer alone as much as possible and moves the reader toward the writer, or he [sic] leaves the reader alone as much as possible and moves the writer toward the reader.
(Schleiermacher 1813/1992:41-2)
These are the famous two paths open for the 'true' translators with the first path preferred by Schleiermacher. In other words, there are 'alienating' and 'naturalizing' methods of translation, and Schleiermacher prefers the method of 'alienating'. By 'alienating' method of translation, it is preferred that those foreign elements in the ST are transferred to the TL, while 'naturalizing' will reproduce those foreign elements to match the TL culture.
Venuti's theory formulated in 90s, known to all, are influenced by the above theories of Schleiermacher. His terminology and definition of 'foreignization' and 'domestication' are similar to Schleiermacher's 'alienating' and 'naturalizing'. He considers domestication as a means of assisting the Anglo-American culture to dominate in translation and contests it since it causes 'an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to [Anglo-American] target-language cultural values'. Therefore, he advocates foreignization which 'entails choosing a foreign text and developing a translation method along lines which are excluded by dominant cultural values in the target language' (Venuti 1997:242). Thus the foreignization strategy is considered 'to restrain the ethnocentric violence of translation'. His theory develops from Schleiermacher's, but have more in-depth understandings since it involves the cultural tension and conflict between the ST and TT culture, and he suggests the importance of translation should be attached to the culture of the SL.
Besides Venuti, some theories from the linguistic perspective also shows influence from Schleiermacher's 'alienating' and 'naturalizing'. For example, the 'documentary translation' and 'an instrumental translation' termed by Christiane Nord. Documentary translation 'serves as a document of a source culture communication between the author and the ST recipient' (Nord 1991: 72). The aim of this method is to maintain the local color of the ST. Similar to Schleiermacher's 'alienating', it suggest to preserve the foreign of the ST to the TT readers. An instrumental translation, on the other hand, is similar to 'naturalizing' in the way that the impression created by ST to SL readers should be same for the TT to the TL readers. Others such as the 'dynamic equivalence' of Nida and 'communicative translation' of Newmark also shows the traces of influence from schleiermacher's 'alienating' in the way that the foreign elements of the original are suggested to maintain.
In the cultural studies of translation, similarity of Schleiermacher's theory can also be found. Even-Zohar has his discussion on the positions of the translated literature in the polysystem which can conditions the translation strategy. If it is primary, the translators probably will prefer to break conventions and follow ST literature mode in their translation, thus produce a TT more close to the ST, which to some extent reflects the theory of 'alienating'. On the other hand, if translated literature is secondary, translators tend to adopt the existing target language mode and are restricted to break conventions, thus their translation of the ST will be more naturally adapted to TL culture, which is similar to "naturalizing'. Other examples include the 'law of growing standardization' and 'law of interference' termed by Toury.
3.2 'A special language of translation'
Another interesting idea raised by Schleiermacher's requires our consideration:
A special language of translation may be necessary, for example compensating in one place with an imaginative word where elsewhere the translator has to make do with a hackneyed expression that cannot convey the impression of the foreign.
(Schleiermacher 1813/1992: 45)
'A special language of translation' he proposes is later pursued by Walter Benjamin as 'pure language'. Because of the differences between languages, especially their different culture-bond, people come to recognize the total equivalent respondence between languages is usually impossible, particularly the translation of poem. Thus the question is how to minimize the gulf between them in order to obtain a perfect translation. Should it be the 'special language of translation'? If it should, then what is it?
When Munday talks about the 'formal equivalence' of Nida, he gives an typical example of this kind of translation which is 'gloss translations'. This translation has 'a close approximation to ST structure, often with scholarly footnotes, allowing the student (since this type of translation will often be used in an academic enviroment) to gain close access to the language and customs of the source culture' (Munday 2010: 41). So the footnotes discussed here probably should be considered as part of the 'special language of translation' which helps the readers comprehend the meaning more properly. Or it can be viewed as the four step of the Hermeneutic motion that is 'compensation'. Such 'special language of translation' can cause a balance and compensation between the ST transferring into TT, and achieve the 'equity as providing real and "ethical" meaning to the concept of fidelity' (Munday 2010: 165).
As described by Walter Benjamin, the 'pure language' is formed by the compensation and improvement of languages. To more clear, the available target texts of a source text can compensate and enhance each other to finally reach a 'pure language", which we can consider as an ideal explanation of 'special language of translation'.
Generally speaking, there are not many words in Schleiermacher's theory, but they hit the point and inspire profound thoughts which lead to vigorous development of the translation studies as we discussed above. Undoubtedly, it will continue to direct and inspire our thoughts in various aspects.
4, Other discussion
In this book two pointers also attract my attention, which I will present as follow.
4.1 The power relations in translation
First Tejaswini Niranjana from the postcolonial perspective formulates the term of power relation in translation, which focus on the power imbalance between the western culture and eastern culture in translation activity, quite many discussion is related to it from different perspectives.
Venuti's has similar ideas to Niranjana's. In his decription, the 'domestication' represents the dominating Anglo-American culture in translation. He sees the domestication as 'the violence of translation', and calls for 'foreignization' strategy in translation to form the 'resistancy' to restrain such violence. Venuti also describes and laments the power network of the publishing industry gives a lot of negative influences to translation so as to minimize the translation costs.
Another focus is the asymmetrical power relationship in gender. The dominating position stands the masculine culture to which feminist culture is inferior, which is reflected in the translation activity.
Even-Zohar discusses the power relation of the translated literature with other members in the polysysem. He formulates different positions of translated literature in the polysystem and three conditions under which it occupies the primary position. The power of the translated literature gives influences to the translation strategies and the results of the TT.
The question is how we deal with such a power relationship between the dominating culture and inferior culture, and between the masculine and feminist culture, and the translated literature in the polysystem. one idea supposed by Brazilian cannibalism may catch the point, which suggests the inferior culture should 'devour' the dominating culture to enhance themselves, thus compensate each other. Probably, each voice should have their own representing translators who can comprehend the ST from their own viewpoints, and produce the translated texts accordingly. These different version of the translated texts can compensate each other.
4.2 The comparison between equivalence and adequacy
How to assess a translated text? There are various criterion, among which I would like to discuss are 'equivalence' and 'adequacy'.
The first question is what 'equivalence' is. In the beginning, 'equivalence' is termed by Nida, generally referring to keenly orientation towards the ST structure and the correspondence in meaning and style, which is just described in the linguistic level. Later, Baker develops and inputs some cultural factors into the concept of equivalence. "She looks at equivalence at a series of level: at word, above-word, grammar, thematic structure, cohesion and pragmatic levels. In particular, the importance is attached to her application of the systematic approach to thematic structure and cohesion and the incorporation of the pragmatic level, 'the way utterances are used in communicative situations'"(Baker, 1992: 217). Therefore, equivalence is not only judged by the word, sentence, grammar, structure, text and other linguistic elements, but also its social and cultural-bound.
As to 'adequate', it is more like meeting the 'needs' of translation. And those 'needs' depends on various conditions. One of such 'needs' is described by Vermeer's Skopos theory as 'commission which comprises (1) a goal and (2) the conditions under which that goal should be achieved (including deadline and fee), both of which should be negotiated between the commissioner and the translator' (Vermeer 1989/2000: 228). Vermeer considers that different skopos decides different translation strategies and when the "'TT fulfills the skopos outlined by the commission, it is functionally and communicatively adequate'''(Reiss and Vermeer 1984: 139). That means the translator needs to follow the goal and commission of each specific translating so as to produce a qualified TT accordingly.
However, Toury has a different view of 'adequacy' in translation.'Toury sees different kinds of norms operating at different stages of the translation process.' Thus, if these norms are close to ST culture and realized, the TT will be adequate, while if they are towards the TT culture and are fulfilled, the TT will be acceptable. But they should balance each other, since 'no translation is ever totally adequate or totally acceptable' (Toury 1995: 57). Actually his description reflects "the two paths open to the 'true' translator" proposed by Schleiermacher, so there are two kinds of norms--one is ST-oriented and the other one is TT-oriented. The TT is adequate only when it meets the ST-oriented norms, oppositely it is just acceptable. But the balance of two should be the circumstance what usually happens in translation.
Therefore, the criteria of 'equivalence' for translation assessment is detailed to almost every elements in transferring ST into TT, including linguistic and cultural elements. While the criteria of 'adequacy' is oriented to whether the translated text fulfilling the goal of translation or whether it is keenly close to the ST.
5, Conclusion
In translation, the role of the translator is essential, whose subjectivity can determine the 'loss' and 'gain' in a translated text. Facing the conflict of form and content in transferring the ST into the TT, they tend to modify the form more than the content. But their decision making is influenced or constrained by many factors, such as the commercial or social factors, so it is necessary for them to obtain some basic principles in order to handle all various needs or obstacles.
Schleiermacher's two-paths theory of translators and the special language of translation give extraordinary influence on the later theorists, such as Venuti, Nord, Even-Zohar and Benjamin to name just a few, who develops his ideas to much broader perspectives.
The discussion of the power relation of translation dig out the hidden social factors which exert great influence on translation activity. It directs our consideration to translation from our cultural or gender background. Translated literature does communicate different literatures, but may raise the conflict between different ideology and poetics.
The comparison between equivalence and adequacy reflects the conflict of judging a translated text. Conclusively, the balance between them is the ideal standard.
Work Cited
Baker, M. (1992) In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, London and New York:
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Munday Jeremy. (2010) Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Application.
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Venuti, L. (ed.) (1997) 'The American tradition', in M. Baker (ed.) (1997a), pp. 305-15.
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