Lost in Literary Translation!

Introduction
Radwa Kotait
PhD, Translation & Linguistics
Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University
 Translation

“Translation, like politics, is an

art of the possible;
compromise is inevitable and
universal.” John Bester
 Technical vs Literary Translation
• Technical translation focuses on information
whereas literary translation focuses on the
way the information is delivered.

(a lively, highly readable translation) VS

(a stilted, rigid and artificial rendering that
strips the original of its soul)
Technical vs Literary Translation
• More than other branches of the
translator's art, literary translation entails
an unending skein of choices; choices of
words, fidelity, emphasis, punctuation,
register, even spelling.

Therefore, no two translations of the

same work would ever be the same.
 Types
Translation of literary texts includes:
• literary translation of books, articles,
stories and other types of prose,
• literary translation of poetry,
• translation of advertising materials,
• translation of other texts that requires a
creative and flexible approach.
 Capabilities of Literary Translator
• Translation of literature is fundamentally
different from other categories.
• Main principle of literary translation is the
dominance of poetic communicative
function.
• Rendering information to the reader AND
artistic image created in the particular
literary work
 Capabilities of a Literary Translator?
• tone,
• style,
• flexibility,
• inventiveness,
• knowledge of SL culture,
• ability to glean meaning from ambiguity,
• an ear for sonority
• and humility!
 Knowledge
• Knowledge of the target culture is crucial
for successful English-Arabic-English
translation.
• Poor comprehension may arise from lack
of insight into the target culture.
• Culture is the complex whole, which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals,
law, customs, and any other capabilities or
habits acquired by man as a member of
society
 Prevailing View
• A translation should reproduce in the TL
reader the same emotional and
psychological reaction produced in the
original SL reader
• not without its hazards???
--- reproduce boredom? Incoherence?
Factual errors?
 It is said…

"A successful translation must sound

somewhat alien, strange, not because it is
awkward or unaware of the resources of
the second language, but because it
expresses something new in it." Murat
Nemet Nejat
 Transparency
• What is transparency? (vs Fidelity?)
• Translator’s invisibility
• A view to reappraising the role of the
translator as AGENT
• A translation should not read like a
translation (how far?)
• !‫“ يا عنترة‬Ya antara!” or “what a hero!”
 Resistance
• The resistance of SL culture and SL
language to being shoehorned into a
dissimilar cultural-linguistic frame.
• Translators who follow “resistance theory”
deliberately avoid excluding any
elements that betray the "otherness" of
the text's origin.
 Word-for-word OR
Thought-for-thought
• One problem is trying to squeeze every
last kernel of meaning from the SL text
• The result of overly zealous concern for
"fidelity" to the original.
• Don't go word-for-word!
 Word-for-word OR
Thought-for-thought
• Thought-for-thought should help you render
more fluent or transparent translations,
especially with highly emotional discourse.
• The goal is to translate not what the author
wrote, rather what the author meant.
• A competent translation will find an
equivalent phrase in the TL.
 Adaptation
• It is not straight translation
• When translating for the theater (translating
or rewriting?) (Egyptian or MSA?)
• When translating for a movie
"We must flee at once before the nitroglycerin
explodes into a raging inferno, destroying our
escape route and leaving this entire building
a charred ember!“
 Puns and wordplay
• No aspect of translation is more frustrating
and more rewarding
• Most puns are untranslatable.
• But the effect can be reproduced (such as
humour)
 Adaptation & Puns

Why did Humpty Dumpty have a great fall?

To make up for a terrible summer

‫حلق ايه اللي خادوه يا بت! حلق حوش؟‬

‫دعوني فإني آكل العيش بالجبن‬

 Adaptation & Puns
• "Mine is a long and a sad tale!"said the
mouse turning to Alice and sighing. "it is a
long tail, certainly" said Alice, looking
down with wonder to the mouse’s tail " but
why do you call it sad?"
• ‫إنھا قصة طويلة جدا وحزينة جدا!" قال الفأر بتعجب وھو‬
‫ "صحيح أنھا طويلة جدا" قالت أليس‬.‫يتنھد وينظر نحو ذيله‬
‫وھي تنظر نحو الذيل ھي األخرى والدھشة بادية عليھا "لكن‬
‫"لماذا ترى أنھا حزينة‬
 Register

• non-technical/technical,
• informal/formal,
• urban/rural,
• standard/regional,
• jargon/non-jargon,
• vulgarity/propriety
 Check this out!
• Naught have I (archaic)
• Nothing have I (poetic)
• I have noting (standard or formal, written)
• I don't have anything (standard, colloquial, more
spoken)
• I don't have nothing (substandard, almost always
spoken)
• I ain't got nothing (substandard, spoken)
• I don't got nothing (substandard, dialect)
 How about…

kidding – joking – jesting – japing – bullshi--

َ‫ َھ ِزق‬, ‫ئ‬
َ ‫ َھ ِز‬, ‫ض ِح َك‬
َ , ‫س ِخ َر‬ َّ َ‫تَب‬
َ , ‫س َم‬

die – kick the bucket – pass away – study

the geology of holy ground
ُّ ‫أ َ ْسلَ َم‬- َ ‫طفَأ‬
• ‫الرو َح‬ َ ‫ ِإ ْن‬- ‫ق األ ْعلَى‬ َ ‫ لَ ِق‬-
ِ ‫ ا ْنتَقَ َل إلى الرفِي‬- ‫ي ربَّه‬
‫س‬َ ‫ط‬ َ َ‫ ف‬- ‫اِ ْرتَا َح‬
 Tone
• It is the overall feeling conveyed by an
utterance, a passage, or an entire work,
whether consciously or unconsciously
• It can be: humour, irony, sincerity,
earnestness, naïveté, or any sentiment.
• It can shift mid-paragraph
• It helps in dealing with puns, and indirect
allusions
 Style
• It is more than just specific words
• It can be the ratio of long sentences to
shorter ones, paragraph division, figures of
speech, periodic sentences, etc.
 Style
• In theory, style in a translator is "oxymoron".
Remain invisible! Retain the individual
idiosyncrasies of the writer.
• In practice, the translator consciously or
unconsciously displays a characteristic mode
of expression. (couch/sofa, curtains/drapes)
 Case Study
• The author's style is characterized by
commas separating half a dozen of run-on
sentences!

Decision
Decision two:one:
usebreak the passage
semicolons into
instead
Decision
discrete four: leave
sentences. The it as is,
result hoping
might be for
a
of Decision
commas.three:
The result
use amight
dash be
herea and
stop-and-go an exotic
effect, which flavor!
is the opposite
bookish, academic
there look
of the hurry-hurry, out-of-breath pace
intended by the author
 Cultural Allusions
• Sometimes a text makes reference to
persons, objects and institutions not really
understood by another culture.
• If they are familiar to the SL reader, they
are often meaningless to the TL reader.
• How should this problem be solved?
 Allusions
• ST: Did you think you were Sir Lancelot to
involve in such a big fight?
• TT: ‫ لتتورط‬،‫ الفارس العظيم‬،‫ھل اعتقدت أن السيرالنسلوت‬
‫في قتال كبير كھذا؟‬

• ST: Your story is similar to that of Romeo

and Juliet.
• TT: ‫قصتكما تشبه قصة قيس وليلى‬
 Lacunae!
• The greater the cultural distance between
the source culture and the target culture,
the more the translator will need to bridge
that gap!
• Whether to provide sufficient background-
a great deal, not much, not at all…
• Three Options: footnotes, interpolation,
omission
 Footnotes
• yes, they convey the maximum possible
amount of information
• Yet! They break the flow, continually
drawing the eye away from the text; thus,
disrupting the "willing suspension of
disbelief"
• The book's primary purpose will help you
decide!
 Interpolation
• It is adding parenthetical word or phrase
• They should be done carefully and with
consideration for the rhythmic flow of
language.
• Keep them short!
 Omission
• leaving the reader to his own devises.
• e.g. money (type or sum)
 That’s all….

Questions?!!!