Lecture 2 Aspects of Translating Process
Description of the translating process is one of the major tasks of the translation theory. Here we deal with the dynamic aspects of translation trying to understand how the translator performs the transfer operation from ST to TT.
Psychologically viewed, the translating process must include two mental processes – understanding and verbalization. First, the translator understands the contents of ST, that is, reduces the information it contains to his own mental program, and then he develops this program into TT. The problem is that these mental processes are not directly observable and we do not know much of what that program is and how the reduction and development operations are performed. That is why the translating process has to be described in some indirect way. The translation theory achieves this aim by postulating a number of translation models.
Although model theory is a field of study in itself, a comprehensive definition of the concept of model remains problematical. This is partly because models can be of very different kinds, ranging from iconic or diagrammatic representations (known as analogue models) to conceptual and theoretical models, and partly also because there is little agreement among theorists about the classification of models into types.
Theo Hermans distinguishes such common properties of models.
First, a model is always a model of something, called the object, or the original, or the prototype. In this sense, a model, when perceived in terms of its modeling function, is a vicarious object, i.e. a substitute. It represents, reproduces, refers to something else, which is necessarily anterior to it. Model and prototype therefore have a different ontological status which arises from the fact that one represents while the other is represented. Neither model nor prototype need to be physical realities: they can be abstract, mental or hypothetical entities.
Second, a modeling relation is not an objectively given fact or a state of affairs existing naturally between two entities. A model requires a human subject, who may be a collective, to recognize it as a model of something. That is, a model can only be a model of something if there is someone who perceives it as such, and who recognizes the appropriate relation between model and prototype. The modeling operation therefore involves three components: a prototype, a model, and a human subject.
Third, the model represents its prototype though approximation. It is not a reproduction of the prototype in its entirety and in all its aspects. The model reduces the complexity of the prototype by retaining only certain features of it, and in so doing establishes a certain similarities or correspondence between itself and the object to which it refers. The similarity is of a certain kind (for example isomorphic), deemed by the human subject to be functionally relevant; and the model exhibits this particular kind of similarity in a certain manner and to a certain degree.
Fourth, while from the point of view of the modeling relation only the representational aspects of a model are normally regarded as pertinent, every model of necessity also contains other, non-functional or ‘contingent’ features.
It is possible to consider the relevance of models in the context of translation from four different angles:
The use of theoretical models as heuristic tools in translation studies;
The use of diagrammatic or analogue models to represent certain aspects of translation;
The view of translating as a modeling activity;
The relation between models and norms.
Theoretical Models
Theoretical, or conceptual, models are hypothetical constructs which are derived from an established field of knowledge and then tentatively projected onto a new, wholly or partly unknown domain. Because the model is first mapped on one field and then applied to another, it employs language appropriate to the first field to speak about the second. This is what enables a conceptual model to function heuristically: the researcher may derive cognitive gain from deploying the model as an actively probing instrument, a prism or searchlight which allows him or her to see new things, or to see things in a new light. At the same time, theoretical models inevitably construct the object in their own image: they apply their own terms, categories and distinctions to the new domain, illuminating certain aspects which obscuring others.
In translation studies, a number of theoretical models derived from other domains and disciplines have been applied to the object of study. They range from linguistic and semiotic to literary and sociocultural models. Several of these in turn make use of terms and concepts imported from other disciplines such as philosophy, history or sociology. In each case, particular current of thought within the fields concerned have served as more refined research tools. For example, the linguistic model has generally tended to see translation primarily as a linguistic operation. Within this broad conceptual frame, structuralist linguistic models of translation focus on relations between linguistic systems, while text-linguistic models concentrate on the pragmatics of given communicative situations, and psycholinguistic models look at linguistic aspects of the mental operations involved in the translation process. Semiotic models see the field of enquiry as extending to forms to transfer between signifying systems other than natural languages. Sociocultural models and social action theories tend to emphasize contextual features of translation and the interactive social web of which the various participants in the translational communication are in a part. Literary models have approached translation in terms of the categories of (particular kinds of) literary criticism, literary history and literary theory, especially structuralism and post structuralism. In recent years gender studies, cultural studies, systems theory and Deconstruction have served as new conceptual models in the study of translation.
It would be futile to attempt a clearly defined listing of theoretical models of translation. The models are complementary and often overlap and conflict. In mapping the domain of translation in their own terms they also delimit it in different ways, or highlight precisely the problematic nature of such delimitation. Within their own parameters they are likely to prioritize certain kinds or aspects or areas of translation, and concentrate their efforts accordingly.
Analogue Models
Analogue models are used to represent those characteristics of a prototype which are considered relevant in a given context. They serve an intellectual and pedagogic purpose in visually foregrounding pertinent features while ignoring others. In the study of translation, flow charts and other diagrammatic representations are most commonly used to represent certain processes and relations.
The communicative process involving translation is often represented as an extension of the scheme ‘sender → message → receiver’, with the translator first acting as a receiver and then as the sender of a new (translated) message to a new receiver; hence: ‘sender 1 → message 1 → receiver 1 = translator = sender 2 → message 2 → receiver 2’. Elaborations of this basic scheme typically bring into view a number of contextual features and relations, as well as the actual translation from one signifying system to another brought about by the translator. This latter activity, the translation process itself, is a mental operation not open to direct observation. It has nevertheless been hypothetically reconstructed, especially by psycholinguists, and represented by means of diverse diagrammatic forms, most commonly flow charts. While the input (the source utterance and its reception) and the output (the generation of the target utterance) tend to remain stable in these representations, considerable differences exist elsewhere among the diagrams and reflect different assumptions about the way in which the human mind processes the source text, brings about a conversation of one kind or another and constructs a new utterance in the other medium.
Diagrams are also frequently used to map a variety of textual filiations, textual and contextual relations between source and target utterances and the communicative relations within and between the two systems involved. While flow charts purporting to represent the translation process serve a cognitive purpose, diagrams of (con)textual and communicative relations are mostly pedagogical, as they highlight relations regarded as legitimate objects of research.
According to Komissarov, a model is a conventional representation of the translating process describing mental operations by which the source text or some part of it may be translated, irrespective of whether these operations are actually performed by the translator. It may describe the translating process either in a general form or by listing a number of specific operations (or transformations) though which the process can, in part, be realized. Translation models can be oriented either toward the situation reflected in the ST contents or toward the meaningful components of the ST contents. The existing models of the translating process are based on the identity of the situations described in the original text and in translation – the situational model – and the semantic-transformational model postulates the similarity of basic notions and nuclear structures in different languages. These postulates are supposed to explain the dynamic aspects of translation. In other words, it is presumed that the translator actually makes a mental travel from the original to some interlingual level of equivalence and then further on to the text of translation.
In the situational model this intermediate level is extralinguistic. It is the described reality, the facts of life that are represented by the verbal description. The process of translating presumably consists in the translator getting beyond the original text to the actual situation described in it. This is the first step of the process, i.e. the break-through to the situation. The second step is for the translator to describe this situation in the TL. Thus the process goes from the text in one language through the extralinguistic situation to the text in another language. The translator first understands what the original is about and then says “the same thins” in TL. (Manson Walked quickly down the platform, searching eagerly for some signs of welcome. → Мэнсон быстро прошел по перрону, оглядываясь, не встречает ли его кто-нибудь.)
A different approach was used by E. Nida who suggested that the translating process may be described as a series of transformations. The transformational model postulates that in any two languages there is a number of nuclear structures which are fully equivalent to each other. Each language has an area of equivalence in respect to other language. It is presumed that the translator does the translating in three transformational strokes. First – the stage of analysis –he transforms the original structures into the nuclear structures, i.e. he performs transformation within SL. Second – the stage of translation proper – he replaces the SL nuclear structures with the equivalent nuclear structures in TL. And third – the stage of synthesis – he develops the latter into the terminal structures in the text of translation.
A similar approach can be used to describe the translation of semantic units. The semantic model postulates the existence of the “deep” semantic categories common to SL and TL. It is presumed that the translator first reduces the semantic units of the original to these basic semantic categories and then expresses the appropriate notions by the semantic units of TL. (John is the proud owner of a new car. →John has a new car. He is proud because of that. → У Джона (есть) новая машина, которой он очень гордится.)
In describing the process of translating we can explain the obtained variants as the result of the translator applying one or all of these models of action. This does not mean that a translation is actually made through the stages suggested by these models. They are not, however, just abstract schemes. Coming across a specific problem in ST the translator should classify it as situational, structural or semantic and try to solve it by resorting to the appropriate procedure. (He is a poor sleeper → Он плохо спит.→transformation).
Another approach to the description of the process of translating consists in the identification of different types of operations performed by the translator. Here the process is viewed as a number of manipulations with the form or content of the original, as a result of which the translator creates the text in the target language. The type of operation is identified by comparing the initial and the final texts.
The first group of operations (or transformations) is characterized by imitation of the form of a word or of a collocation. In the first case the translator tries to represent the pronunciation or the spelling of the foreign word with the TL letter. (Transcription, calques).
The second group of operations includes all types of lexical transformations involving certain semantic changes. As a result, the meaning of a word or word combination in ST may be made more specific, more general or somewhat modified as a way to discovering an appropriate equivalent in TL. (modulation, generalization, concretization).
The choice of a more specific word in translation which gives a more detailed description of the idea than does the word in SL is a very common case in the English-Russian translating process. English often makes use general terms to describe very definite objects or actions. (My mother had left her chair in her agitation, and gone behind it in the corner.→Взволнованная матушка вскочила со своего кресла и забилась в угол позади него.)
The third group of translating procedures comprises all types of transformations involving units of SL grammar. The translator may solve his problems by preserving the syntactic structure of the source text and using the analogous TL grammatical forms or “a word-for-word translation” (“zero transformation”). (John took Mary by the hand.→Джон взял Мэри за руку.)
In other cases the translator may resort to various types of grammatical substitutes. (Partitioning, integration, transposition, replacement, addition, omission, antonymous translation, explanation, compensation (stylistic, emotional)).
Translating as Modeling
Translating can be seen as a modeling activity in that the result of the operation, i.e. the translated text, commonly claims, explicitly or implicitly, to represent an anterior discourse in a way comparable to the representational function of models. This makes a translation, under its aspect as representation, a vicarious object, a substitute or at least a metatext. Also, like a model, a translation is derived, second-order product, so that the relation between translation and its prototype is neither symmetrical nor reversible. Moreover, a translation can stand as a representative or substitute of a source text only if a (collective) subject will recognize it as such. In other words, a translation that goes unrecognized as a translation is, functionally speaking, not a translation at all because its modeling aspect remains inoperative. Inversely, a translation which does purport to represent a source text and is accepted as such is, functionally speaking, a translation, even if no prototype can be identified; this is the same case with so-called pseudotranslations.
In contrast to models, translations may replace and even displace their prototypes. But this is mainly because translation typically involves one or more semiotic transformations, as a result of which the source text is left at the other side of at least one of these semiotic barriers (e.g. natural language) and may thus become inaccessible to those on this side of the barrier. The modeling relation itself however is not affected by this. Another objection might be that translations, as opposed to models, `constitute objects of the same order as their prototypes. However many cultures maintain the ontological distinction by assigning different places in value and classification systems to translated in contrast to non-translated texts. The two kinds of text are likely to be ranged in the same class only in cultural situations where all texts are perceived essentially as transformations of other texts. In those cases, the notions of translation and of related forms of textual processing and modeling tend to encompass virtually all text production.
While under their representational and representative aspects translations can be seen as approximations of their prototypes, all translations also exhibit contingent features: a material surplus not reducible to the modeling function.
Models and Norms
To the extent that translating involves a process of decision making which takes place in a communicative context, the activity is governed by norms. Norms may be regarded as social regulation mechanisms which make certain choices and decisions by the translator more likely than the others. They consist of two parts: a directive aspect which exerts pressure on members of a community to behave in certain ways, and a ‘content’, which is an intersubjective notion of correctness, i.e. a notion of what is proper or correct in particular situations. Because notions of correctness are abstract values, more concrete models of correct behavior are derived either directly from the values and attitudes which make up the correctness notions or from individual instances and occurrences which have come to be regarded as exemplifying such notions. These models, which represent correctness notions, can in turn serve as prototypes to be imitated as examples of good practice. They play a strategic role in the dynamics of culture in that they are implicated in the hierarchical structure of communities and in the power struggles between individuals and groups that may ensue.
In translating, compliance with a set of translational norms regarded as pertinent in a given cultural system means that the product, i.e. the translation, is likely to conform to the relevant textual or discursive model(s), and therefore accord with the relevant correctness notions. However, establishing conformity with relevant models occurs not only at the level of the translation as representation, i.e. the modeling aspect of translation, but also at the level of its contingent features, i.e. those textual elements which are not directly relevant from the point of view of the modeling function of the translation (as happens, for example, in selecting stopgaps in a rhyming version of a poem). Both modeling features and contingent features require the selection of certain means of expression in preference to others, with a view to attaining certain goals such as fulfilling contractual obligation, promotion, commercial success, critical acclaim; this selection process is governed by norms and behind them by models representing correctness notions.
Since cultural systems and subsystems are highly complex entities, they may be expected to contain a range of competing, conflicting and overlapping norms and models embedded in different spheres of activity, which themselves form part of changing historical configurations. The motivational and directive force of norms and models, therefore, depends on their nature and scope, their relation to other canonical and non-canonical norms and models, and so on. It one of the tasks of historical translation studies to identify particular clusters of translational norms and models and to explain their nature and functioning.