week 2

SOME REMARKS ON THE EVOLUTION OF CONTEMPORARY TRANSLATION THEORIES

Bertolt Brecht, who is regarded as one of the most influential theatre theorists of the twentieth century, was commonly reluctant to have his theoretical writings translated into foreign languages. This attitude of Brecht may seem like a contradiction with the German dramatist’s stance which was based on a dialectical relationship between the reader and the writer. On the other hand, one can easily grasp that Brecht was aware of the fact that the translation act was a self-referential form and would therefore, certainly include various viewpoints of different translators who undertake such a painstaking task under several socio-cultural circumstances. Since Brecht’s theoretical writings were his self-defence against the critics, who were hesitant towards his form of theatre, Brecht wanted his writings to stay untouched just because of the fact that any loss of meaning in those works could also distort the main points of his arguments on which he has built his theories upon. During the course of time, however, it would be the translations of the German playwright that would allow him to gain the recognition within the realm of theatre history. Even Brecht, who can be considered as a totally irrelevant figure with the study and practice of translation, was conscious of the perils that lurk beneath the translation process.

The concerns of Brecht on the notion of translation have long been occupied the minds of the scholars in the history of the study and practice of translation who are mainly regarded as the chief figures of contemporary translation theories nowadays. Most of the works of these scholars, on the other hand, were primarily focused on the notions of fidelity, faithfulness, equivalence, all of which were/are closely related with the very word translation, and as a consequence, they failed to examine the socio-cultural aspect of translation to a certain extent in the long run. As a matter of fact, translation theories were bound to be source-oriented until the last decade of the twentieth century. Yet, their contribution to the evolution of contemporary translation theories is undeniable. Hence, a brief analysis of the writings of four major literary figures, say, Etienne Dolet (1509-1546), John Dryden (1631-1700), Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), and all of whom were chiefly associated with the study and practice of translation would yield a better understanding of the roots of contemporary translation theories. Still, in order to conceive an entire understanding of contemporary translation theories, a comparison between the Western thinking and the Eastern thinking on translation suggests itself as another point to be discussed.

In his essay entitled How to Translate Well From One Language to Another (1540), Etienne Dolet sets forth five main requirements for one who is eager to fulfil the translation task. According to Donet, the translator ought to be competent enough to understand the complete meaning of the source text and when necessary should take the liberty of polishing the obscurities of the source text author, ought to have a perfect knowledge of both source language and target language, ought to prevent him or herself from word-for-word translation, ought to choose the daily expressions, and ought to produce a translation which can sound, say, in terms of phonetics, rhyme, and tone as the same as the source text (cf. Robinson 2002: 95-97 with Bassnett: 2004 58-59). Despite the fact that Dolet proposes to avoid word-for-word translation, and advises the translator to take the liberty of clarifying the obscurities of the source text, he does not explain how to do so. Furthermore, by proposing principles and advising the translator to follow these, Dolet seems to restrict the quality of translation to his rules, hence develops a reductionist approach.

More than a century later, John Dryden, who was one of the most influential figures of the history of critical theory, introduced the concepts of metaphrase, paraphrase and imitation to the study and practice of translation. In Dryden’s understanding, metaphrase represented word-for-word translation, paraphrase, sense-for-sense translation, and imitation, free translation. By adding a third dimension, that is to say, imitation, to the study and practice of translation, Dryden has (re)evaluated the theories established by the scholars dating from the times of Cicero and Horace. Nevertheless, Dryden’s idea of imitation was nothing new when his dramatic works are taken into account; he was only implementing t/his idea on the translation act.

Dryden’s engagement with drama coincides with the Restoration Era in which a new wave of drama tradition (heavily influenced by the tragedies of Racine and Corneille) was competing for the throne of Shakespearean tragedy. Dryden saw himself as the one to resist this tradition and attempted to restore the dominant tragic sense of the Elizabethan Era by adding a neo-classic approach to the already established dramatic understanding. In order to do so, he wrote various plays most of which became unsuccessful. After that failure, Dryden drew heavily on his theoretical writings, though, he continued to write plays; plays which imitated Shakespeare. In his preface to All for Love (1678), Dryden defends his style by stating, “[the confines of neo-classical drama] are too little for English tragedy; which requires to be built in a larger compass… In my style, I have professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare” (quoted in Steiner 1996: 40). In the light of this clear statement, one can acquire a better understanding of Dryden’s notion of imitation which he imposed upon to the study and practice of translation. What is more, one can even be tempted to interpret Dryden’s remark on imitation, “I take imitation of an author…to be an endeavour of a later poet to write like one who has written before him [or her], on the same subject; that is, not to translate his [or her] words, or to be confined to his [or her] sense, but only to set him [or her] as a pattern, and to write, as [s/]he supposes that author would have done...” (Robinson 2002: 172) as a comment he has granted upon himself. Even though Dryden’s arguments rest on a solid ground when the aesthetic reasons are considered, his approach is source-oriented, prescriptive, and confines the translation act to the principles he states.

Although it may sound prescriptive enough –and indeed it is– Alexander Fraser Tytler’s essay entitled The Proper Task of a Translator (1791) gives a hint or two about the contemporary translation theories. Of course, the Dolet-echoing-laws that Tytler deduces from translation are not the clues related with contemporary translation theory; rather the explanations given for his laws. Take, for instance, these two excerpts:

Where the sense of an author is doubtful, and where more than one meaning can be given to the same passage or expression (which, by the bye, is always a defect in composition), the translator is called upon to exercise his [or her] judgment, and to select that meaning which is most consonant to the train of thought in the whole passage, or to the author’s usual mode of thinking, and of expressing him [or her] self.

A good translator must be able to discover at once the true character of his [or her] author’s style. [S/]he must ascertain with precision to what class it belong; whether to that of the grave, the elevated, the easy, the lively, the florid and ornamented, or the simple and unaffected; and these characteristic qualities [s/]he must have the capacity of rendering equally conspicuous in the translation as in the original.

(Robinson 2002: 172)

In these passages, one can see how Tytler regards translation –though much more explicitly than Dolet– as a decision making process to some extent in a manner evoking the ideas put forth by Katharina Reiss and Hans J. Vermeer, the two distinguished translation scholars whom are mostly celebrated with their functional approaches to the study and practice of translation. Vermeer, by regarding translator as an expert in his or her field, founds some parts of his “skopos” theory on this premise. Moreover, particularly the second excerpt brings to mind the text types proposed by Katharina Reiss. Reiss, by distinguishing text types under categories, have developed an influential theory which eventually paved the way for new approaches in translation criticism (cf. Reiss 2000: 160-171, Vermeer 1989: 173-200). In this sense, one can see the importance of (re)evaluating Tytler’s study from the standpoint of contemporary translation theories.

Following Tytler, Friedrich Schleiermacher suggests himself as one of the other important theorists of post-romanticism period to take a brief glance at. Schleirmacher, who is widely recognized by his studies in the field of hermeneutics and theology, has also contributed to the domain of translation. In his study entitled On Different Methods of Translating, Schleirmacher –as the title signifies– seriously questions the established translation methods, such as paraphrase and imitation. The scholar draws a conclusion: Whereas paraphrase is more commonly used in scholarly translation products, imitation is generally implemented in literary translations, and neither of them can fulfil the ultimate needs of the translation act. Instead of these two translation methods, Schleirmacher sets forth his own translation methods, namely “reader-to-author” approach and “author-to reader” approach; the translator being the mediator. In the first approach the translator disturbs the writer as little as possible and moves the reader in his or her direction, whereas, in the second approach, the translator disturbs the reader as little as possible and moves the writer in his or her direction (cf. Robinson: 2002 228). And among those two he favours first method: bringing the reader to the author. By regarding translator as a mediator, thereby giving priority to the translator during the course of translation, Schleirmacher’s approach once again evokes Hans J. Vermeer’s ideas. What makes Schleirmacher’s study quite prescriptive is the fact that he strongly rejects another approach.

In the light of this general overview of the works of the four major theorists of Western translation tradition, one can infer how most of the points raised in their studies sound prescriptive to a certain extent as opposed to the descriptive approach prevailing in contemporary translation theories. Even so, these scholars have planted the seeds of contemporary understanding of translation by discussing points which would eventually become the most important points (i.e. text types, considering translator as an expert, domestication versus foreignization, and so forth) during the course of building a totally different approach to the study and practice of translation.

So, what could be the possible reason/s which impeded the Western thinking on translation from liberating itself from the boundaries of faithfulness and freedom? In his influential essay “Chinese and Western Thinking on Translation”, André Lefevere sees religion as an answer to that question. According to Lefevere, “translators of the Buddhist scriptures learned to live with the fact that their translations were done by mortals and would therefore of necessity be imperfect” (1998: 19), while on the contrary the translators of Holy Scriptures in the West strictly clung on to their source texts just because of the fact that it was the Word of God. Such an understanding emerging from the translations of the Holy Scripture became dispersed in almost all of the translation practices. Moreover, during the course of time, this understanding affected to a certain extent the understanding of translation in history.

Another important difference between the two traditions is the way that how the translations were being done. Whereas the translations in the East were being done in three stages (the first being the oral interpretation of the text, the second being the oral instruction, transmission and recitation, and the third being the inscribing process) Western translations were being done by only single person; the rest of the people being the assistant. Perhaps that was the most striking difference between the two traditions and one might find it enticing to link these three stages with the Eastern drama tradition which is mainly based on the notion of alienation, that is to say, being aware of acting the play as being merely a play. To return once again to Bertolt Brecht’s understanding of theatre which is heavily influenced by the Eastern drama tradition, one can associate German dramatist’s exploring this tradition and deriving his theories from that, might achieve a solid ground. In a manner evoking the early Chinese translators who were undertaking teamwork, Bertolt Brecht himself established this group-work in his own theatre Berliner Ensemble.

All in all, as this brief overlook to the works of the four major theorists of the Western tradition along with a brief comparison of them with the Eastern thinking on translation hopefully signified, the roots of contemporary translation theory have already been there and were merely waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, thanks to the reductionist and the prescriptive approach prevailed in the Western tradition, the socio-cultural aspect of the study and practice of translation has been ignored for a long time.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bassnett, Susan, Translation Studies, Third Edition, London-New York: Routledge, 2004

Bassnett, Susan and Lefevere, André (eds.), Constructing Cultures, Multilungual Matters, Clevedon, 1998

Reiss, Katharina, “Type, Kind and Individuality of Text, Decision Making in Translation”, in, Venuti, Lawrence (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader, London-New York: Routledge, 2000, 160-171

Robinson, Douglas (ed.) Western Translation Theory: from Herodotus to Nietzsche, St. Jerome, UK, 2002

Steiner, George, The Death of Tragedy, Yale University Press, USA, 1996

Vermeer, Hans J., “Skopos and Commission in Translational Action”, in, Readings in Translation Theory, (ed.) Andrew Chestermann, Oy Finn Lectura Ab, 1989, 173-200