The Difficulties of Translation

Since I have been doing quite a lot of translation of poems from Spanish or French into English and Chinese and from Chinese into English but have simply relied upon my own instincts, I often have doubts about whether my principles are right. I try my best to make my translations simple, brief and as far as possible, to keep to the original word order to enable the reader to have a sense in which the thought of the poet originally occurred. But sometimes, that may not always be possible because different languages may have very different type of permissible sentence structure with regard to where to place the subject, the object, the verbs, the adjectives and adverbs or the corresponding adjectival or abverbial phrases and certain images and symbols may have meaning in one culture which in another cultural context may have some very different connotations or even become meaningless. Sometimes it is necessary to cut out certain words which may be impliedly understood and sometimes, it may be necessary to add a subject or other adjective to make the translated version comprehensible at all. On rare occasions, it may even be necessary to introduce emotionally or meaning-wise equivalent images in the translated language quite different from that actually used in the original language. So notwithstanding my best efforts, I am always skeptical of the appropriateness of my own translations. 

Some fellow bloggers think my translation good and others may not agree. When I saw Xu Zhimo's translation of William Blake's poem "Tiger" and when I compare his version to my more literal translation, the problem of "translation" as against "re-writing" a poem in the translated language became even more stark. Which approach is "right" and which "wrong"? Even if there is no question of which is right and which is wrong, then there is still the question of which translation is "better" or may correspond more to the original poem in sense or sentiments. If there really is something called a "better" translation", what are the criteria to be used in determining what constitutes the "best" translation and what criteria are properly applicable to enable us to determine which of a number of translation is better than the others?  I turn to some experts in translation in the past to get some inkling.

Earlier in my Chinese book odyssey to both sides of the harbour, I bought a number of books on translation theory and practice. So tonight, I read my first one: "Western Theories of Translation" edited by 陳德鴻 (Chan) and 張南峰  (Cheung) by the City U of HK Press (2000, 2006).

According to Chan & Cheung, translation into Chinese has a history of more than 2000 years but such theories tended in the past to be confined to the impressions of translators after they have done certain translation and therefore were quite unsystemmatic. Only in the last 20 years has there been any professional scholarship on the problems of translation. To them, such theories have tended to emphasize setting up criteria for the practice of translation but like traditional theories of translation, they are dominated by the idea of "the supremacy of the original text" ( 原文至上) eg. theories like " 5 types of non-translatability" ( 五不翻) " fidelity, clarity and elegance" (信達雅) ," formal resemblance, resemblance in spirit and equivalence" (形似，神似，等值).

The authors think that the introduction of western translation theory did not start until the 1980's but that their scope was limited by the mainstream perspective of the Chinese translators. There are a number of such theories which may roughly be classified into those emphasizing language, linguistics, translation studies, deconstructionism, feminism and post-colonialism. But translated translation studies are confined to those by J. C. Catford, Eugune A Nida and Wolfram Wilss who all emphasize language and the importance of equivalence, rather similar to the views of mainstream Chinese translation theory. Thus recent works of those opposed to such an approach tend to be largely ignored.

The book shows samples of the translation theories from a fairly large number of writers from all ages and from all schools of translation theory most of whom are completely new to me. From the traditional language translation school they got John Dryden, Alexander Tytler. George Steiner and Friedrich Schleiermacher are semiologists. There is also Peter Newmark of a linguistic bent. All of such authors emphasize the importance of fidelity. Mary Snell-Hornby, however puts more emphasis on the relationship between translation and culture and is opposed to the theory of equivalence.

The authors also introduce another 13 other authors who are all opposed to the "fidelity" theory. Thus Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man and Lawrence Venuti, following Walter Benjamin's lead, advocate abolishing the distinction between author and translator, original text and the translated text. Han J Vermeer and Chistine Nord think that the crucial factor is the purpose of the translation. Itamar Even-Zohar, James Hlmes, Gideon Toury, José Lambert, Susan Bassnett think that the principal task of translation theory is to describe, understand and to predict translation and not to lay down criteria as to what is the best type of translation.

The authors regret that they have not been able to include in their work those writings of the latest influential theorists like Sherry Simon, Tejaswini Niranjana and Umberto Eco. I have lots to read about in the coming weeks. I hope to be able to introduce the ideas of some of the theorists in my blog when I have more time. For the time being, this blog shall serve as my introduction of the authors' introduction and as hints of some of blogs to come!