Bibliogaphy

Chesterman, A. Memes of Translation. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1997.

Codde, Philippe. “Polysystem Theory Revisited: A New Comparative Introduction.”  pp 25-37  Poetics Today. Vol.24, No.1, Spring 2003.

Even-Zohar, Itamar. “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem.” 1976. In Venuti, Lawrence. The Translation Studies Reader. (2^nd Edition) New York: Routledge, 2000. pp 199-204

Gaddis Rose, M. Translation and Literary Criticism. Manchester: St Jerome, 1997.

Gentzler, E. Contemporary Translation Theories. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.

Hermans, T. Translation in Systems. Descriptive and Systemic Approaches Explained. Manchester: St Jerome, 1999.

Munday, Jeremy. Introducing Translation Studies. Theories and Applications. London: Routledge, 2001.

Nam Fung Chang. “The Cultural Turn of Itamar Even-Zohar’s Polysystems Studies Promises and Problems.” www.art.man.ac.uk

Toury, G. Descriptive Translation Studies – And Beyond. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1995

Style and Stylistic Accommodation in Translation

Abstract: Accommodation in translation emerges in perspectives such as cultural accommodation, collocation accommodation, ideological accommodation and aesthetic accommodation. (see for reference my article entitled Accommodation in Translation atwww.accurapid.com ) This article focuses specifically on stylistic accommodation in translation, proposing that accommodation should be oriented to style which includes writer’s style, genre style and historical style.

Style

Style means all kinds o' things. Encarta English dictionary lists 11 definitions for it. Its third definition says: way of writing or performing: the way in which something is written or performed as distinct from the content of the writing or performance. This is where we commence our discussion. Lynch provides us with more or less what  is generally understood of style in our school days. He says that at its broadest, it means everything about your way of presenting yourself in words, including grace, clarity, and a thousand undefinable qualities that separate good writing from bad. (Lynch, 2001) I also remember huge amount of stress from my teachers is placed on economy, precision and so on, plus clarity as stated by above. In a word, style is used as a term distinguished from content in writing and it stresses form or format. In other words, style means ‘how’ whereas content refers to ‘what’.

If style comes only second in priority, it certainly stands very high in importance. It is only natural that good form conveys the content in more sufficient and adequate way. In translation discussion faithfulness in content has always been emphasized and treated seriously, but faithfulness in style seems to pose more difficulties. In literature, style is the novelist’s choice of words and phrases, and how the novelist arranges these words and phrases in sentences and paragraphs. Style allows the author to shape how the reader experiences the work. For example, one writer may use simple words and straightforward sentences, while another may use difficult vocabulary and elaborate sentence structures. Even if the themes of both works are similar, the differences in the authors’ styles make the experiences of reading the two works distinct. Without extensive reading the capture of the so-called style is really a tough challenge.

Translation

E.Nida(1984) difines translation as “ Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language massage, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” How is style transferred in the receptor language becomes a problem and challenge for every translator or interpreter.  As translators and interpreters we are mediators. The ancient Chinese referred to the translator as a “match-maker” or “go-between”(mei) and translation as a medium through which both parties finally understand each other, though it was not considered a highly-valued profession. Obviously, the translator should not only have a bilingual ability but also a bi-cultural vision. Translators mediate between cultures (including ideologies, moral systems and socio-political structures), seeking to overcome those incompatibilities which stand in the way of transfer of meaning. What has value as a sign in one cultural community may be devoid of significance in another and it is the translator who is uniquely placed to identify the disparity and seek to resolve it.

But there is another sense in which translators are mediators; in a way, they are ‘privilege readers’ of the SL text. Unlike the ordinary ST or TT reader, the translator reads in order to produce, decodes in order to re-encode. In other words, the translator uses as input to the translation process information which would normally be the output, and therefore the end of, the reading process. Consequently, processing is likely to be more thorough, more deliberate than that the ordinary reader; and interpretation of one portion of text will benefit from evidence forthcoming from the processing of later sections of text. Now, each reading of a text is a unique act, a process subject to the particular contextual constraints of the occasion, just as much as the production of the text is. Inevitably, a translated text reflects the translator’s reading and this is yet another factor which defines the translator as a non-ordinary reader: whereas the ordinary reader can involve his or her own beliefs and values in the creative reading process, the translator has to be more guarded. (cited from Wilss,2001)

It is widely-acknowledged nowadays that translation is interaction. The key concept here is interaction. I suggest that interaction is a process which takes place not only between participants (the traditional ‘trinity’ in the translation process: author, translator and target reader), but also between the signs which constitute texts and between the participants and those signs.

Armed with this complex structural outline, the translator makes choices at the level of texture in such a way as to guide the target reader along routes envisaged by the ST producer towards a communicative goal. That is, items selected from the lexico-grammatical resources of the TL will have to reflect the overall rhetorical purpose and discoursal values which have been identified at any particular juncture in the text.

Ideological nuances, cultural predispositions and so on in the source text have to be relayed as closely as possible. To achieve that end, accommodation must, more often than not, be adopted. In this case, it is accommodation in writing style, more accurately, in rewriting style.