kniha klaudia gibova -bod-libre

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Klaudia Gibov

Translation Procedures in the Non-literary and Literary Text

Compared

(based on an analysis of an EU institutional-legal text and novel

excerpt The Shack by William P. Young)


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Klaudia Gibov 2012Rezensenten: Doc. PhDr. Marin Andrik, PhD.

PaedDr. Magdalna Rzusov, PhD.Herstellung und Verlag:Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt

ISBN 9783848201754


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Table of Contents

List of Tables and Charts ............................................................................................................... 5

List of Abbreviations and Symbols ................................................................................................ 6

Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 7

!elimitation of the "esearch #roblem Area ............................................................................ $

. Indicatin% a &iche ............................................................................................................. $

.2 An 'utline of "esearch (ethodolo%y .............................................................................. 3

.2. Aims ) 'b*ectives ...................................................................................................... 3

.2.2 "esearch +uestions ................................................................................................... ,

.3 "esearch (aterial !escri-tion ......................................................................................... ,

2 &onliterary ) Literary Te/t and Translation "evie0ed .......................................................... 6

2. To0ards !efinin% Te/t1 eneral #reliminaries ................................................................. 7

2.2 &onliterary Te/t and Translation .....................................................................................

2.3 Literary Te/t and Translation ............................................................................................ 2

2., Com-arin% &onliterary and Literary Te/t ........................................................................ 2,

3 An Analysis of Translation #rocedures in the &onLiterary and Literary Te/t Cor-us ............ 27

3. Leadin1 ettin% to ri-s 0ith the Terminolo%ical Culdesac .......................................... 27

3.2 Selected Translation #rocedures (odels ......................................................................... 3$

3.2. 4ean#aul inay ) 4ean !arbelnet ............................................................................. 3$

3.2.2 #eter &e0mar .......................................................................................................... 33

3.2.3 (ichael Schreiber ...................................................................................................... 3,

3.3 +uantitative Cor-us Te/t Analysis .................................................................................... 36

3.3. Trans-osition ............................................................................................................. 36

3.3.2 (odulation ................................................................................................................ ,,

3.3.3 /-ansion and "eduction .......................................................................................... 5$

3.3., #ermutation ............................................................................................................... 5

3.3.5 Cal8ue ........................................................................................................................ 62

3.3.6 9orro0in% .................................................................................................................. 66

3.3.7 Translation #rocedures 'ccurrin% in the Literary Te/t 'nly ..................................... 6:

3.3.7. "ecastin% sentences............................................................................................ 6:

3.3.7.2 &aturali;ation ..................................................................................................... 7$

3.3.7.3 Ada-tation .......................................................................................................... 72


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3.3.7., #ara-hrase .......................................................................................................... 73

3.3. Summary and Com-arison of "esults ........................................................................ 75

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 7

9iblio%ra-hy and "eferences ...................................................................................................... 2


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List of Tables and Charts

Table 1inay ) !arbelnets model of translation -rocedures .................................................. 3

Table 2&e0mars model of translation -rocedures ................................................................ 33

Table 3Schreibers model of translation -rocedures ................................................................ 35

Table 4An 'vervie0 of 0ordclass trans-ositions in the nonliterary te/t ............................... 3

Table 5An 'vervie0 of 0ordclass trans-ositions in the literary te/t ...................................... 3

Table 6An 'vervie0 of sentencemember trans-ositions in the nonliterary te/t .................. ,

Table 7An 'vervie0 of sentencemember trans-ositions in the literary te/t .......................... ,2

Table 8An 'vervie0 of modulations of e/-ressions in the literary te/t ................................... ,

Table 9/-ansion variation and its fre8uency distribution in the nonliterary te/t ................. 53

Table 10/-ansion variation and its fre8uency distribution in the literary te/t ....................... 5,

Table 11 #ermutations in the nonliterary te/t .......................................................................... 6$

Table 12 #ermutations in the literary te/t ................................................................................. 62

Table 13"ecastin% sentences in the literary te/t....................................................................... 7$

Table 14 Ada-tations re8uency distribution of e/amined translation -rocedures across the nonliterary )

literary te/t ................................................................................................................................. 76


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List of Abbreviations and Symbols

Adj Adjective

Adv Adverbial

Att N Non-congruent Attribute

Compl Complement

EN English version of the analysed (non-)literary text

N Noun

Obj ObjectSK Slovak version of the analysed (non-)literary text

SL Source language

ST Source text

TL Target language

TT Target text

V Verb/ verbal form

~ Corresponds to


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Introduction

What, if anything, is distinctive about non-literary and literary text and their

translation? Few would doubt their intuitive sense that there is a palpable difference

between e.g. a legal text and a work of fiction, which could be referred to as very

unlike or dissimilar ends of the range, respectively even by a lay person.

The present thesis object of interest lies in exploring translation procedures in

two typologically different text genres by means of a comparative analysis. The thesis

aims at juxtaposing translation procedures in the non-literary and literary text corpus

and in turn finds out their pertinent text genre characteristics. For this purpose, an EU

institutional-legal text Council Directive 2004/114/EC and a Christian novel excerpt

The Shack by a Canadian author William P. Young have been utilized. The reason why

these two case texts have been chosen is because the relationship of ostentatious

contrast obtaining between them is more or less evident and as such suitable for

investigating translation procedures in two, already at first glance, quite dissimilar text

types.

The focal point of the publication revolves around the concept of translation

procedure, i.e. a tool of textual analysis originating under comparing the source andtarget text affecting sentences and smaller units of language (Newmark, 1988: 81).

According to Molina and Hurtado Albir (2002: 509), translation procedures (or

techniques) are used functionally and dynamically in terms of the genre of the text

(Council Directive and novel in our case), type of translation (specialized and literary),

mode of translation (written translation, consecutive interpreting), purpose of the

translation and the characteristics of the translation audience and method chosen

(interpretative-communicative, etc.).However surprising this might seem, publications on translation procedures

have never been high on the agenda of translation studies (with the term per sebeing

slippery enough, cf. section 3.1 of this publication) and little more than sporadic articles

have been published right up to the present, with the exception of those by e.g.Salkie,

2001; Molina and Hurtado Albir, 2002; Klaudy and Kroly, 2005; Pym, 2005;

Kamenick, 2007; Ordudari, 2007 and more recently Zakhir (2008), Garnier (2009) and

Gibov (2011). Therefore, the existing state of affairs might be seen as a source of the

major motivation for the presented research comprising a comparative dimension. Since


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it would take at least one thesis worth of pages to give even the briefest survey of the

above-said scholars credits in terms of their mostly individual translation procedure

treatment, no such thing will be carried out in the present thesis.

Instead, the thesis will lean on translation procedures models by Vinay and

Darbelnet (1958/1995), Newmark (1981, 1988) and Schreiber (1993, 1998) as crucial

theoretical underpinnings to a large extent. The thesis simultaneously aims to put the

applicability of the authors own synthesizing translation procedures construct to the

examined literary text to the test. In addition, it stresses the need to enhance the

proposed construct by some further translation procedures so as to comply with the

multifaceted nature of the literary text, being a far cry from the non-literary text.

In the analysis, an array of research questions (cf. 1.2.2 for detail), rather than a

stated hypothesis, will be taken into consideration and answered. The questions that the

present-day translation-oriented publications and articles dealing with the outlined

problem area somehow seem to avoid asking are as follows: Do different textual

genres lead to the employment of different translation procedures? What profound

differences, if any, can be found between translation procedures across the non-literary

and literary text? Therefore, the present work will be an attempt at explaining what

these differences might actually be, and precisely in this lies its main contribution.

Notably, none of the secondary sources, however scarce in their number, has dealt with

a comparative aspect of translation procedures. For this reason, I seriously believe that

this publication will expatiate upon translation procedures from a novel perspective.

Moreover, the publication attempts to represent a contribution towards the

systematization of translation procedures, yielding more successful solutions for

translation problems.

As to the text corpus make-up, in case of the selected non-literary text, it is vital

to note that EU translation beyond a shadow of a doubt stands for one of the mostdynamic areas of non-literary translation in progress. The institutional-legal text has

been chosen as an illustratory sample of non-literary text not only because of its relative

importance from the point of view of its content but also due to being viewed as a rich

repository of both theoretical and practice-oriented translatological problems.

Moreover, current Pan-Europeanization process and lingering globalization tendencies

have significantly contributed to increasing the need of institutional-legal translation

which is unstoppably becoming the language of Europe, a creator of a modernEuropean legal way of expression within national, political and cultural communities.


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Indeed, translation of EU legislation represents a singular type of translation within

legal translation in general and within the translation of legislation in particular.

On the other hand, the selection of the literary illustratory text sample sourced

from a fiction best-seller The Shack by William P. Young was influenced by the

criterion of gaining a diametrically opposite text genre to the one mentioned above, yet

producing a meaningful comparative dimension, with the text stemming from a broadly

similar time period. Generally-speaking, by means of literary translation pinnacles of

the language can be achieved as the translation as such has the capacity to dynamize

our own literature and its potential of expression. Literary text in its translation may

reflect an understanding of the world which might be unfamiliar for a target text

recipient. Therefore, the literary translator must more often than not act as an

intermediary between two different ways of seeing the world, which must be expressed

by an adequate signalling words value in the target text. Unlike non-literary

translation, and EU institutional-legal translation specifically, literary translation comes

into existence as a subjectively transshaped reflection of the objective reality

communicating its content via an artistic image bearing primarily an aesthetic value.

The publication is organised into three major chapters, the first of which (i.e.

Chapter 1) should be viewed as partly introductory. It outlines the contemporary state

of knowledge in the given research area, basic research aims as well as overall thesis

methodology including a whole gamut of research questions. Chapter 2, being

essentially theoretical in nature, focuses on reviewing the principal features of non-

literary and literary text as such and their translation including their mutual contrasting,

preparing fertile ground for the ensuing corpus analysis. Chapter 3, blending the

theoretical and empirical, moves on to the actual quantitative analysis of translation

procedures across the non-literary and literary text, searching for their commonalities as

well as differences. As a rule, a few exemplifying instances of the respective translationprocedure are quoted to illustrate the points raised throughout the whole chapter. The

chapter in question is also rounded off by a summary and comparison of the results

gained. The concluding section of the present publication will finally point out the most

crucial findings of the whole work and make some suggestions as to further avenues of

research.


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1 Delimitation of the Research Problem Area

1.1 Indicating a iche

While the topic of translation procedures seems of considerable relevance

within translation studies nowadays, there are actually very few textbooks or academic

publications available dealing with this problem area. Whereas the topic at hand invites

a good number of scholars to touch upon it rather tangentially in terms of one-off

articles, we believe that this translatological problem area deserves a more focused

treatment so as to make up for this shortfall. Therefore, the current state of affairs in the

translation studies oriented literature motivated the presented research with the hope offilling a gap in the need for a complex analysis of translation procedures, enhanced to

their comparing in two dissimilar text types, in particular.

Indeed, one of the ground-breaking and highly influential monographs homing

in on translation procedures entitled Stylistique compare du franais et de langlais

was written by Paris-born Canadians Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet as early as

1958. Paradoxically enough, despite soon becoming a pre-eminent work in the ambit

of comparative stylistics and grammar, the English-speaking world did not witness its

publication until 1995. Out of all English translation studies scholars, Peter Newmark

seems to have been the only one who concerned himself with translation procedures to

some extent. However, his take on translation procedures was rather succinct in the

form of his 1981 model (see Newmark, 1981: 30-32). Perhaps this sketchy character of

his original translation procedures proposal made him come up with an up-dated

version thereof in his seminal 1988 publication A Textbook of Translation, where he

devotes a whole chapter to translation procedures. In the context of continental-written

publications attending to translation procedures based on the structural comparing of

the English, German and French language pairs, a distinguishing monograph was

written by Michael Schreiber in 1993. What all the above-mentioned translation

theorists have in common, though, is that they attempted to call into attention the

usefulness of the employment of translation procedures during the interlingual transfer

from one language into another in order to increase effectivity of solutions for

translation problems when overcoming conceptual and/or structural asymmetries

between languages in the same communicative situations.


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Interestingly enough, over the past decade, a good many articles touching upon

partial translation procedures have been published in a variety of translation journals,

testifying to the topicality and all-importance of this problem area. Among them to

mention are articles penned by Salkie (2001) offering a new look at modulation,

Klaudy and Kroly (2005) delving into implicitation in translation, Sewell (2001) and

Garnier (2009) analysing calques in comparable corpora. Recently, a number of

researchers have also started to pay heed to explicitation, putting its up-until-now

commonly accepted interpretation as a translation universal to the test (see Englund-

Dimitrova, 2003; Pym, 2005; Kamenick, 2007; Baumgarten, Meyer and zcetin, 2008

and Becher, 2010).

At a complex level, a critical review of translation procedures has been offered

by Molina and Hurtado Albir (2002) in their seminal article, where, unlike the majority

of extant approaches, they call for a dynamic and functional approach to translation

procedures (or techniques) because in their view most studies of translation techniques

do not seem to fit in with the dynamic nature of translation equivalence. According to

them, if the dynamic dimension of translation is to be preserved, a translation technique

can only be judged meaningfully when it is evaluated within a particular context,

supporting the functional and dynamic nature of translation (Molina and Hurtado Albir,

2002: 508-509). Similarly, moving from treatises on separate translation procedures to

a broad-brush picture of them, recent overview articles by Ordudari (2007) and Zakhir

(2008), drawing on primarily Vinay and Darbelnets and Newmarks earlier theoretical

underpinnings, serve this end.

In Slovakia, any readings on translation procedures in their entirety have been

almost completely absent so far, being restricted to less than a dozen articles, ranging

from somewhat oldish essays by Bare (1974) and Dokulil (1982), significantly

influenced by transformational grammar and structuralist traditions, up to Hjikovsshort article (2005) on translation procedures in legal documents intermingled with an

excursion into legal terminology, too. In this respect, the most comprehensive treatment

of translation procedures endemic to legal texts has been provided by Gibov (2010) in

her monograph. However, to this day, to the best of my knowledge no publication is

currently available which would deal with a comparison of translation procedures in the

non-literary and literary text, examining if different textual genres produce different

translation procedures on the part of the translator.


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Irrespective of this, the present publication by its focus endeavours to be

responsive to the current trends in the research of legal and literary texts. Notably, well

up to the present the research in the genre of legal texts has been first and foremost

terminologically-oriented. Of supreme importance was so that legal terms embedded in

the source legal systems were expressed by equivalent legal terms in the target legal

systems, achieving the same degree of semantic correspondence and an identical legal

effect (see arcevic, 2000; krlantov 2005; arcevic, 2006). However, after the so-

called communicative pragmatic turn in the approach towards language system a

sociological and ethnographic dimension of legal research has come to the forefront of

interest (see Koskinen, 2008). Despite these novel tendencies, though, in recent years

linguistic approaches to legal translations have bounced back with renewed vigour (see

arcevic, 2006; Cao, 2007), thus doing justice to the overall take of the present

publication.

As for the main developments in the study of literary texts, these have reflected

the current strands in the evolution of literary theory. Functionalist approaches to

tackling the study of literary translation began to be mooted in the 1970s and 1980s out

of growing dissatisfaction with decontextualised approaches, so typical of structuralists.

However, the explicitly functionalist skopos theory in the sense that it views translation

as a goal directed action (Nord, 1997), needed to suit different kinds of interests and

expectations of target readers, has had only limited impact on the study of literary

translation [...] chiefly because audience expectations are notoriously hard to define in

literature (Hermans, 2007: 87). Next, post-structuralist ways of studying literary texts,

with their two main critical currents of the 1990s, post-colonial and gender theory,

analysing translation both as an instrument of domination control as well as a means of

the identity construction, raise doubts about the very possibility of literary translation

by emphasizing the instability of meaning and the materiality of language (ibid.: 89).Last but far from least, although the application of linguistic frameworks to the analysis

of literary texts had its heyday primarily in the 1960s and 1970s, under the impulse of

transformational grammar and structuralism, this line of enquiry seems to be enjoying

resurgence of interest, similarly to the trends discernible in the study of non-literary

texts, as implied above. More recently, two lines of linguistic enquiry, i.e. corpus

studies and critical linguistics, building on insights from pragmatics and discourse

analysis, have been making vital inroads into the study of literary translation, too (ibid.:85).


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1.! An "utline of Research #ethodology

1.!.1 Aims $ "b%ectives

The aim of the research is to compare translation procedures in two

typologically dissimilar text types and subsequently find out their pertinent text genre

characteristics. To this end, an EU institutional-legal text and an excerpt taken from the

novel The Shackby William P. Young have been used.

As far as methodological considerations underlying this publication are

concerned, before a corpus text analysis can take place, a theoretical framework, which

would provide a point of departure for ensuing analyses, needs to be established. As

this research contains a comparative dimension, before anything can be juxtaposed,

there must be a somewhat clear picture of what non-literary and literary texts in most

general terms are, what their essential typological specificities are and what bearing on

translation they have. Similarly, in order to carry out a relevant corpus text analysis,

translation procedures have to be investigated in terms of their essence, function, and

impact on translation.

Therefore, the present thesis will be essentially theoretical-empirical. By means

of the study of the secondary sources relevant pieces of knowledge necessary for the

approach to non-literary and literary texts will be be inferred and consequently applied

to the corpus text analysis zeroing in on comparing translation procedures. Granted, in

order to perform a comparative analysis of translation procedures, the delimitation of

crucial terms such as transposition, modulation, expansion, reduction, permutation,

calque and borrowing has to take place first. Moreover, the gamut of the above-said

translation procedures will have to be expanded in case of the literary text so as to

comply with its considerably wider range of lexico-structural language resources and

metaphorical character. Vinay and Darbelnets (1958/1995), Newmarks (1981, 1988)

and Schreibers (1993, 1998) models of translation procedures will serve as crucial

theoretical frameworks in the present work. The applicability of the synthesizing

translation procedures model consisting of procedures such as those outlined above will

be at the same time tested for the selected literary text.

Even if the models of translation procedures by Vinay and Darbelnet, Newmark

and Schreiber will be taken as a point of departure, this does not mean, of course, that


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other translation studies scholars interpretations of the investigated procedures will be

strictly incompatible. Quite on the contrary, other elucidations of the examined

phenomena will be put under scrutiny whenever it will be deemed necessary, useful or

perhaps just thought-provoking to do so due to being sometimes at odds with some

commonplace accounts. By combining approaches of text linguistics to characteristics

of non-literary and literary texts, contrastive textual analysis and analytical-deductive

methods enhanced by a comparative dimension, the identification facet of research will

take turns with the interpretation line throughout the whole thesis layout.

1.!.! Research &uestions

Instead of a classic hypothesis, the following set of research questions, will be

taken into account and answered in the process of the unfolding analysis: Will oblique

translation procedures in the literary text surpass direct procedures? Will the non-

literary text exhibit a foreignizing veneer? Will modulation be extremely frequent in the

literary text translation? Which translation procedures will be distinctively

characteristic for the literary text? These questions, however, blending both theoretical

and empirical qualities, are very closely entwined and thus they ought to be researched

synchronically. The key research questions, though, are the following: Do different

textual genres lead to the employment of different translation procedures? What

striking differences between examined translation procedures across the selected non-

literary and literary text can be spotted?

1.' Research #aterial Descri(tion

The thesis corpus is made up of an English EU institutional-legal document

entitled Council Directive 2004/114/EC of 13 december [sic!] 2004 on the conditions

of admission of third-country nationals for the purposes of studies, pupil exchange,

unremunerated training or voluntary serviceand a novel excerpt The Shackpenned by

William P. Young including their Slovak translations. The whole text corpus comprisesa total of 16 179 words that will be subjected to a contrastive analysis. Both texts were


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selected from diametrically opposite textual genres quite deliberately so as to gain

a meaningful comparative dimension promising intriguing research results. An

important research inclusion criterion, however, was a roughly comparable time period

of a texts production so that no significant shifts in language development left their

mark on the examined textual genres. Further, the novel excerpts word count was

tantamount to that of the legal text in order to warrant relevant research outcomes.

The EU institutional-legal document (for conveniences sake hereinafter

referred to as non-literary text), falls under secondary legislation of the EU. More

specifically, it is sourced from the thematic repertoire of education and training. The

analysed text was retrieved from EUR-Lex databases website (http://eur-

lex.europa.eu/en/index/html) containing all EU legal documents published in the

Official Journal of the European Unionsimultaneously in all, up to this date, twenty-

three official languages. The selected non-literary text is approached as a paradigm text

typifying legal language commonly used in EU institutions. What is of paramount

importance, though, is that the non-literary text under discussion is a representative of a

so-called euro-text. That is to say that such a text is marked by an officially prescribed

style, which is manifested in a very high degree of language similarity (from text to

text) so that it is possible to speak about its matrix form (see Gibov, 2010: 103) or

homogenous discourse (Schffner, 2001: 172).

On the other hand, the fiction sample The Shack (hereinafter abbreviated as

literary text) is a novel with palpable religious undercurrents written by a Canadian

author William P. Young and published in 2007. The Shack has become a publishing

phenomenon in the United States and it was the top-selling fiction on the New York

Times best sellers list from June 2008 to early 2010. Despite the success and wide

appreciation by readership, the blockbuster novel has stirred criticism for its apparently

edgy theological slant1. On the other hand, as much as magnified it might seem, thenovels reviewer Eugene Peterson uplifted the legacy of this work of fiction looking at

deep moral issues and questioning ones approach to faith and forgiveness by the

following statement: This book has the potential to do for our generation what John

Bunyans Pilgrims Progressdid for his (Young, 2007: book blurb). All in all, further

particularities of non-literary and literary text as such will be examined in greater detail

in Chapters 2.2 and 2.3 of this publication, respectively.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shack.


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! on)literary $ Literary Te*t and Translation Revie+ed

Non-literary translation is the art of failure.

(Mike Shields)

Literary translation bridges the delicate emotional connections between cultures andlanguages and furthers the understanding of human beings across national borders. Inthe act of literary translation the soul of another culture becomes transparent, and thetranslator recreates the refined sensibilities of foreign countries and their peoplethrough the linguistic, musical, rhythmic, and visual possibilities of the new language.

(Professor Rainer Schulte, Co-Founder of AmericanLiterary Translators Association)

The purpose of this chapter is to present and contrast non-literary and literary

text as two distinct genre/text types in the sense of the specific classes of texts

characteristic of a given scientific community or professional group and distinguished

from each other by certain features of vocabulary, form and style, which are wholly

function-specific and conventional in nature (Alcaraz and Hughes, 2002: 101). Inaddition, the chapter also aims at juxtaposing the two text types from the point of view

of their translation specificities.

Admittedly, the theory of text types, which seeks to classify texts according to

their functions and features duly places non-literary and literary texts in a class of their

own. The fact, however, that most text typologies do not seem to agree on what to

contrast literary texts with technical, pragmatic, non-fictitious or even ordinary

implies that what distinguishes literary from other texts may not be entirely obvious.Commonsensically speaking, if there is no tacit agreement on what makes the realm of

non-literature and literature singular, it may be equally uneasy to decide on what

grounds non-literary and literary translation, respectively, should be awarded their own

niche (see Hermans, 2007: 77). In this light, the opinion that the difference between the

language of the non-literary and literary text is tangibly easier to feel than pinpoint has

been voiced by many (Vilikovsk, 1982; Hermans, 2007; Snchez, 2009). Therefore,

the present chapter will try to give a true picture of this issue, first and foremost from


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the angle of text linguistics, paving the way for the ensuing comparative

translatological analysis in Chapter 3.

!.1 To+ards Defining Te*t, -eneral Preliminaries

Text may be taken for a specific language medium which enables the formation

of cognitive ideas with the aim of imparting information and forming/interpreting a

coherent sequence of utterances. It is supposed to be endowed with referential

continuity and logical reasoning. For this reason, to create, understand and translate a

text means to form a specific cross connection between its semantic contents.

Within the ambit of text linguistics, text was initially viewed as an organised

unit larger than a sentence which consists of a sequence of formally (i.e. morpho-

syntactically) and semantically linked utterances unified thematically as well. This

means that a text was understood as a network made of intertwined syntactic wholes:

individual sentences and paragraphs. This, by a long way, oversimplified formal

conception of a text was substantially altered after the so-called communicative-

pragmatic turn in linguistic studies at the outset of the 1990s when a text started to be

conceived of as text-in-function, text-in-situation, as a socio-communicativefunctional unit (Schmidt qtd. in Gpferich, 2006: 61). Hand in hand with this, one of

the central issues became the elaboration of the notion of textuality: which properties

does a text have to possess in order to be called a text?In this regard, de Beaugrande

and Dressler (2002: 10) interpret text as a communicative occurrence which must

meet certain standards/criteria of textuality, these being: cohesion, coherence,

intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality and intertextuality. If any of

these standards is not considered to have been satisfied, the text will not becommunicative and in turn, non-communicative texts are treated as non-texts.

Gpferich offers the following definition of text in her article in the seminal

German publicationHandbuch Translationby Snell-Hornby:

A text is a thematic and/or functionally oriented, coherent linguistic or linguisticallyfigurative whole which has been formed with a certain intention, a communicativeintention and which fulfils a recognizable communicative function of the first or seconddegree and represents a functionally complete unit in terms of content (for the

communicative function of the first or second degree); (Gpferich, 2006: 62; translationby author).


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As it follows from the recent definition of text given above, the modern perception of

text takes it beyond a mere list of sentences and emphasizes the communicative act-in-

situation providing the framework in which the text has its place. Nowadays, the

linguistic and semiotic fashioning of text seems determined by its communicative

function and the requirements for the above-said thematic orientation, intentionality, a

recognizable communicative function, coherence and completion, seem common for

the majority of text definitions available (cf. de Beaugrande and Dressler, 2002;

Doloughan, 2009).

!.! on)literary Te*t and Translation

The label non-literary text, as broad as it may seem, covers a wide range of

texts from administrative, legal and other official documents, via economic and

business texts, scientific, technical up to publicist texts. If the style of non-literary texts

were to be analyzed, one of their quintessential features would in all probability be

represented by notionality, being the consequence of their thematic structuring since

pragmatic content requires precision and unambiguously stated terms. In accord with

this, the semantics of non-literary texts words is confined to systemic coherence and

all the other irrelevant associations are pushed to the background.As far as the language of non-literary texts is concerned, there is a striking

tendency towards stereotypical structures and language clichs in general. Precisely

these means of expressions make the non-literary style more or less formalized. The

direct relationship between language on the one hand and extra-linguistic reality on the

other seems crucial in the non-literary style. Accordingly, non-literary translation in its

essence stands for a stylistic operation which is based not on the transfer of aesthetic

but pragmatic information (Popovi, 1977: 192, translation by author). Despiteinsurmountable differences between non-literary and literary texts, a common point

where literary and non-literary style meet is a stylistic field of iconicity since the

translator of a non-literary, specialized, pragmatic or non-fictitious text,

whatever its name, cannot be completely resistant to the figurative way of expression

(ibid.: 193).

Even if the customary perception of translation might be in the minds of many

linked up with translating literature, at present belles-lettres is believed to occupy notmore than 5% of the total of translated works. The remaining 95% of translations on the


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present-day market are made up by texts originating in other fields bearing the common

umbrella term non-literary translation (Newmark, 2004: 8). This figure suggests that the

non-literary translation in the 21stcentury is of supreme importance.

The non-literary text chosen for the purposes of the present publication

represents an institutional-legal text, stemming from the secondary EU legislation.

Within the context of legal texts, the analysed specialized text is unique in a sense that

it blends traits of both international legal documents and domestic law (Kjaer, 2007:

40) for many texts sourced from secondary EU legislation are directly applicable in the

individual Member States of the EU.

Furthermore, seen from the point of view of text linguistics, the non-literary text

under scrutiny belongs according to Schffner and Adab (1997: 325) to a very

distinctive text type, so-called hybrid text. These texts, being the upshot of cultures and

languages in contact, are a feature of contemporary intercultural communication

marked by an increasing level of internationalization. They result from a translation

process and exhibit features that somehow seem out of place, strange or unusual

for the receiving, i.e. target culture. Hybrid texts allow the introduction into a target

culture of hitherto unknown and/or socially unacceptable/unaccepted concepts through

a medium which, by its non-conformity to social/stylistic conventions and norms,

proclaims the otherness of its origin (ibid.: 328). Hence, hybrid texts are endowed with

features that are somehow contradictory to the norms of the target language and culture.

Seen from a different angle, within the framework of Reiss translation-oriented

text typology, borrowing Bhlers three-way categorization of the functions of

language, the non-literary text under focus can be positioned as informative and

operative text type. Notably, the non-literary text is based on the plain communication

of facts and information; and simultaneously it appeals to the receiver (i.e. citizens of

the Member States in the EU) to act in a certain way (Reiss, 1981/2000: 163).Moreover, despite the fact that the institutional habitat epitomizes a proverbial

melting pot of motley cultures of the Member States, communication in this ambience

should be thought of as essentially acultural, or at least marked by the reduction of the

cultural embedding (van Els qtd. in Biel, 2006: 4) since it is not possible to determine

the source and target culture unequivocally. In addition to this, affinities with any

existing target language conventions are to be explicitly avoided so as to differentiate

between the EU level and national practices (Koskinen, 2001: 294). Even if thecomparison of non-literary and literary text will be postponed until section 2.4 of this


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publication (see below), it is noteworthy to mention at this point that literary texts, in

contrast to specialized texts, certainly stand for a very cultural medium of expression

where the achievement of the proximity of (socio)cultural norms between the SL and

TL is of supreme importance.

From a translatological point of view, the non-literary text corresponds to

Newmarks semantic translation which is marked by a great respect for the original

tending to be more complex, more awkward and more detailed (1981: 39). The

translator perpetrating semantic translation is heedful of the syntactic structures and

stylistic peculiarities of the ST, transferring not only meaning but also the form of the

original. The semantic translation, as elucidated by Newmark, could also be likened to

Nords documentary translation which serves as a document of a source culture

communication between the author and the ST receiver (2005: 80), allowing the TT

receiver access to the ideas of the ST but making them aware that they read a

translation.

More narrowly, legal translation is often treated as a specific category in its own

right within non-literary translation and is described as the ultimate linguistic

challenge, combining the inventiveness of literary translation with the terminological

precision of the technical translation (Harvey, 2002: 177). Nonetheless, the primary

purpose of institutional-legal translation is to recreate the SL content in the TL in such a

manner so as to achieve the identical meaning, intent and legal effect. As arcevic

aptly explains:

Since the success of an authenticated translation is measured by its interpretation andapplication in practice, it follows that perfect communication occurs when all paralleltexts of a legal instrument are interpreted and applied by the courts in accordance withthe uniform intent of the single instrument(arcevic, 2000: 5).

Thus, it can be said that the ultimate goal of legal translation is to produce parallel texts

that will be interpreted and applied uniformly by the courts. In present-day multilingual

society legal translation plays a key role as a communication mediator in international

law. As noted by Sandrini (2006: 117), as globalization trends intensify, the role of

national legal systems as the all-important factor in legal translation is being diminished

by transnational legal frameworks. Since legal texts result in legal effects their

translation ought to be as accurate as possible so as to not cause any inconvenience.


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!.' Literary Te*t and Translation

Although it must be admitted that not much attention has been paid to the issue

of the definition of literature over the past two decades or so, what has attracted

interest, as Culler contends, is that literature is seen as a historical and ideological

category with its social and political functioning (Culler, 1997: 36). Nowadays,

definitions of literature tend to be functional and contingent rather than formal or

ontological, as illustrated by Eagleton (2008: 9) who argues in his influential textbook

Literary Theory that literature is best defined as a highly valued kind of writing. On

the other hand, Culler adopts in hisLiterary Theory: A Very Short Introductiona two-

pronged approach: the designation literature serves as institutional label, denoting a

speech act or textual event that elicits certain kinds of attention (ibid.: 27). However,

for historical reasons attention of the literary kind has been focused on texts displaying

certain features, notably such things as foregrounding of language, the

interdependence of different levels of linguistic organisation, the separation from the

practical context of utterance, and the perception of texts as both aesthetic objects and

intertextual or self-reflexive construct (Hermans, 2007: 79). This specificity of

literature is also confirmed by Toury (1980) who depicts it by means of the presence

of a secondary, literary code superimposed on a stratum of unmarked language (qtd. in

ibid.: 78)

In order to grasp the specifics of literary translation, it is deemed reasonable to

look at the properties of a literary text first. These are pre-determined by the realm of

literature, which has an innate capacity to appeal to ones feelings and unfetter ones

imagination. Bearing this in mind, it might seem appropriate to pose a question why

most people usually enjoy literary texts much more than their non-literary counterparts.

It would not be an overstatement to suggest that literary texts guarantee entertainmenton the basis of their artistic quality, provide the recipient with the authors experience

or world-view which may motivate them to think, act and re-evaluate their attitudes.

Clearly, the most important feature of a literary work of art is that it is a bearer

of an aesthetic function. Literary text comes into existence as a subjectively

transformed reflection of the objective reality in tune with the aesthetic-emotional

intent of the author: he/she endeavours to convey his/her ideas, thoughts and emotions,

which is enabled by his/her orientation towards experience. From the point of view ofthe language resources choice, an immense lexical variability coupled with the


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uniqueness of expression comes to the fore here. Another crucial feature of literary text

is connected with the release of the polysemy of words for an adequate understanding

of the text is achieved only through a careful mapping of its entire denotative and

connotative dimension (Hermans, 2007: 82). Besides, it is claimed that the principal

feature of literary text rests on its focus on the message, not on content (Landers, 2001:

7; Burkhanov, 2003: 139; Hermans, 2007: 78-79; Snchez 2009: 123).

Consequently, literary translation must be approached as a kind of

aesthetically-oriented mediated bilingual communication, which aims at producing a

target text intended to communicate its own form, correspondent with the source text,

and accordant with contemporary literary and translational norms of the receptor

culture (Burkhanov, 2003: 139). In the ambit of literary translation, the translator

delves in the aesthetic pleasures of working with great pieces of literature, of recreating

in a TL a work that would otherwise remain beyond reach or effectively encrypted.

One of the exasperatingly difficult things about literary translation in general is

the translators ability to capture and render the style of the original composition.

Notably, in literary translation how one says something may be as significant,

sometimes even more significant, than what one says. In technical translation, for

instance, style is not a consideration as long as the informational content makes its way

unaltered from SL to TL. Landers illustrates this issue by using a vivid freight-train

analogy:

In technical translation the order of the cars is inconsequential if all cargo arrives intact.In literary translation, however, the order of the cars which is to say the style canmake the difference between a lively, highly readable translation and stilted, rigid,artificial rendering that strips the original of its artistic and aesthetic essence, even itsvery soul (Landers, 2001: 7).

Ideally, the translator should take pains to have no style at all and endeavour to

disappear into and become indistinguishable from the style of the author he/she

translates now terse, now rambling, sometimes abstruse but always as faithful to the

original as circumstances permit (ibid.: 90). However, all literary translators have their

individual styles, i.e. characteristic modes of expressions, which they more or less

consciously or unconsciously display.

More specifically, literary translation traditionally splits into translation of

poetry, translation of prose (fiction) and translation of drama, reflecting three major


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strands of literary texts. While in the translation of poetry, achievement of the same

emotional effect on the TT recipient is intended, in drama the relationship between text

and performance, or readability and performability comes under focus (see Hrehovk,

2006: 53-55).

Translating prose is of special interest to us since the literary text under

investigation represents a sample of fiction. Compared to other genres of literary

translation, poetry in particular, far fewer works have been devoted to the specific

problems of translating literary prose. One explanation for this could be the higher

status that poetry usually holds, but this is more probably due to the proliferated

erroneous assumption that a novel is usually supposed to have a simpler structure than a

poem and is therefore more straightforward to translate (Bassnett, 2002: 114). Since

two prose texts differ not only in languages entering the process of translation but also

in terms of cultures and social conventions, fiction translation must be thought of as

not only interlingual transfer but also cross-cultural and cross-social transference.

Unlike other literary genres, fiction translation is not endowed with an insignificant

social influence because translated novels or short stories (being the most common

genres of prose fiction) may be read by millions of voracious readers and sometimes

successful novels may adapted into movies. All in all, the yardstick by which quality of

fiction translation is measured is the correspondence in meaning, similarity in style

(both authorial and text style) and function (Hrehovk, 2006: 54).

Turning our attention to the selected literary text subject to analysis, it should

be said that the novel pertains to expressive text type within the framework of Reiss

text typology because the author foregrounds the aesthetic dimension of language

(Reiss, 1981/2000: 63). Drawing on a well-known Barthes-inspired dichotomy

employed for literary texts classification, the analyzed novel belongs to so-called

readerly texts. These texts have a fairly smooth narrative structure and commonplacelanguage, with narratives and characters presented to the reader by the text allowing

him to be a consumer of the meanings, as opposed to writerly texts, challenging the

reading process in some way and making the reader work much harder to produce

meanings from a range of possibilities (see Thornborrow and Wareing, 1998: 148-149

for more detail).

From a translatological angle, the literary text corresponds to Nords

instrumental translation, which


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2,

serves as an independent message-transmitting instrument in a new communicativeaction in the target culture, and is intended to fulfil its communicative purpose withoutthe receiver being aware of reading or hearing a text which, in a different form, wasused before in a different communicative action (Nord, 2005: 81).

In order to flesh out the explanation above, it should be added that TT receivers read

the TT as if it were a ST written in their own language. What is more, Nords

instrumental translation can be put on a par with Newmarks communicative

translation whose essence rests on producing on its readers an effect as close as

possible to that obtained on the readers of the original, being smoother, simpler,

clearer, more direct and tending to undertranslate (Newmark, 1981: 39). Last but not

least, literary texts may brim with culture-specific terms, in contrast to non-literary

texts, which supports the idea that literary translation champions rendering as aninstrument of cultural transmission and negotiation.

!. Com(aring on)literary and Literary Te*t

Having paid due attention to non-literary and literary text separately, this

subchapter can now home in on juxtaposing the two text types. The substantial

difference between the two is that whereas non-literary text is concerned withinformation, facts and reality, literary text comprises the world of the mind, i.e. ideas

and feelings and is grounded on imagination.

While non-literary texts are primarily about objects from the extra-linguistic

reality, literary texts usually revolve around fictitious characters, being ontologically

and structurally independent from the real world. Even though literary texts attempt to

represent reality, they only imitate it at their best, which makes them mimetic in nature.

This pre-determines some semantic specifics of these two text types under discussion:while non-literary texts are based on precision, reason and can be characterized by

more or less logical argumentative progression, literary texts as the product of authors

imagination offer a breeding ground for vagueness of meaning, ambiguity and multiple

interpretations. Besides, non-literary texts are written to be skimmed or scanned, while

literary texts are produced to be assimilated slowly or repeatedly and widely

appreciated by readership. Non-literary texts, on the one hand, are expected to fulfil a

certain pragmatic function while literary texts, on the other, are not intended for any

specific purpose; they can convey a range of intentions (to inspire, offer advice or even


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shock), although they can gain their more specific and possibly individual pragmatic

function during the reading process.

Concerning linguistic properties of the investigated textual genres, the language

of literary texts is susceptible to getting old quicker because the texts stylistic layer is

burdened more in comparison to non-literary text. By contrast, what is getting old in

non-literary text is actual text information only (Popovi, 1977: 192). Further, in terms

of lexical specificities, vocabulary of non-literary texts is based on a high degree of

notionality, standardized language schemata and clichs with no register blending

permitted. On the contrary, the lexical facet of literary texts cannot be squeezed into

any sort of universal patterning, depending on author and his/her lexical richness it

varies from text to text. An important difference in lexis between the two textual genres

also lies in the use of poetic language, so endemic to literary texts, abounding in

metaphors, similes, personifications and other poetic devices which in a way make the

language of literature truly specialized, too. However, in marked contrast

to non-

literary texts, no specialized subject matter knowledge is usually required for a literary

texts comprehension (granted, unless one reads e.g.John Grishams novels which are

set in a lawyers environment where the rudimentary knowledge of law for translator

would not come amiss).

Moving onwards, contrasting non-literary and literary texts from a translational

point of view, some radical dissimilarities can be observed, too. Firstly, rendering non-

literary text demands frequently complete faithfulness to the ST and utmost precision in

terminology, not admitting a very creative participation for the translator. Especially the

translation of institutional-legal text, constituting a partial subject of interest of this

publication, is heavily controlled and governed by norms. On the other hand, translation

of literary text is freer and more creative for it is supposed to offer an undistorted

interpretation of the fictitious metaculture, serving as a gateway to the fictitious worldand its culture. Thus, if literary translation is considered an art, then non-literary

translation may be considered a science (Hrehovk, 2006: 56). Secondly, in non-

literary texts the authors personality is hidden to say the very least, if not invisible,

whereas in literary texts writers personality is fully exposed given the communication

of his/her world-views, attitudes, and convictions. Thirdly, the interpretation aspect in

the non-literary text fulfils only an auxiliary function in stark contrast to literary

translation (see Popovi, 1977: 192). Consequently, the non-literary translator is


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required to be an expert in the field in which he/she translates in order to be able to

perform an adequate intrasemiotic translation.

Last but far from least, the always sound Peter Newmark in his article cogently

sums up the difference between non-literary and literary translation as follows:

Literary and non-literary translation are two different professions, though one personmay sometimes practise them both. They are complementary to each other and arenoble, each seeking in the source text a valuable but different truth, the first allegoricaland aesthetic, the second factual and traditionally functional. They sometimes eachhave different cultural backgrounds, occasionally referred to as the two cultures,which are detrimentally opposed to each other (Newmark, 2004: 11).

Taking a critical approach, he then goes on to assert that while literary [translation] is

viewed as traditional, old-fashioned, academic, ivory-tower, out of touch, the non-

literary is philistine, market-led, coal in the bath [and] uncivilized(ibid.).

One way or another, having contrasted the two textual genres from the point of

view of their properties, language content and translation, seen matter-of-factly the

differences between them are more than obvious. However, comparing two very

dissimilar textual genres is likely to yield yet intriguing outcomes in the following

comparative analysis of their translation procedures.


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' An Analysis of Translation Procedures in the on)

Literary and Literary Te*t Cor(us

The present chapter aims to investigate translation procedures as occurring in a

comparable non-literary and literary text corpus consisting of a selected EU

institutional-legal document and an excerpt from William P. Youngs best-selling novel

The Shack against a background of the English-Slovak language pair. The chapter sets

as its goal to classify, compare and subsequently find out the characteristics of

translation procedures as employed in the textual genres under study.

First, existing terminological and conceptual confusions concerning translation

procedures will be reviewed. Second, the selected translation procedures models by the

Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1995), Newmark (1981, 1988) and Schreiber (1993, 1998)

will be presented, thus preparing the ground for the ensuing corpus text analysis.

'.1 Lead)in, -etting to -ri(s +ith the Terminological Cul)de)sac

Before delving into the problem area of translation procedures it might seem

fitting to elucidate what actually translation as such is. In general, seen purely from ateleological angle, translation is an act of expressing a meaning which is communicated

in the source language (SL) into the target language (TL) as according to the meaning

contained in the source language. Accordingly, Newmark (1981: 7) defines translation

as a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in

one language by the same message and/or statement in another language. In a similar

vein, Catford (1965: 20) argues that translation lies in the replacement of textual

material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL).In addition, Nida (qtd. in: Zakhir, 2008: 3) states that translation consists in

reproducing in the receptor language the natural equivalent of the source language

message, first in terms of meaning and second in terms of style.

When analysing translations of any sort, be it literary or non-literary texts, there

are certain categories that allow us to examine how the target text (TT) functions in

relation to the source text (ST). These categories are widely known as translation

procedures or translation techniques. It should be highlighted at this stage, though,

that considerable terminological disagreement looms large among translation studies


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scholars regarding the proper label to be used in this connection (cf. Molina and

Hurtado Albir, 2002: 498-499; Ordudari, 2007: 2; Gibov, 2010: 116 ff). For this

thesis sake, however, the author holds on to the former terminological designation. 2

Let us now shed some light on translation procedures from a conceptual point of

view and let us try to draw a sharp line of demarcation between translation procedures

and other closely related translatological notions (translation methods and translation

strategies, in particular) with which they are more often than not unjustly confused. 3

Translation procedures may be understood as a tool of textual analysis that represents a

process of searching for notable semantic and formal relations arising between the

original and the target text. Besides, translation procedures commonly originate under

textual comparing the original and its pertinent translation and in the long run they have

a bearing on a texts microstylistics, i.e. they influence lower levels of a texts structure,

notably its sentences and parts thereof. In light of the above, since translation

procedures enable us to analyse and classify how translation equivalence works, the

following quintessential characteristics can be ascribed to them (cf. Molina and

Hurtado Albir, 2002: 509):

they affect the result of translation

they are classified by comparison with the original

2 As it follows from Molina and Hurtado Albirs seminal article (2002), they consider translation

procedure to be largely synonymous with translation technique. However, there are translation studiesscholars who have voiced an opinion that such distinction is not very precise and call for a more rigoroustreatment of the problem under scrutiny. Nowadays, there is a tendency to use the term translation

procedureas a general category referring to particular steps undertaken by the translator while the termtranslation techniqueseems to be singled out to name an act of selecting target-language units, i.e. anactual operation or manipulation with linguistic material (Hrehovk, 2006: 44). All in all, one of thegreatest credits of Molina and Hurtado Albirs article rests in their ubiquitous drawing attention toterminological-conceptual discrepancies between translation method, translation procedure (or technique)and translation strategy.3 This translation procedure-related designation confusion goes as far back as Vinay and Darbelnets

Comparative Stylistics of French and English (1958/1995), the first comparative study of its kind intranslation studies ever, wherein they introduced the perplexity by dividing the translation proceduresfollowing the traditional dichotomy between literal and free translation. As they worked with isolatedlanguage units they did not distinguish between categories that affect the whole text and categories thatrefer to small units. Furthermore, the subtitle of their pioneering book, A Methodology for Translation,stirred up even more uncertainties. In our view, a distinction should be made between translation method,that is part of the process, a global choice that affects the whole translation, and translation techniquesthat describe the outcome and affect smaller sections of the translation. Moreover, another downside ofVinay and Darbelnets proposed translation procedures model was a fine line between language and textproblems. Their work was based on comparative linguistics and all the examples used to illustrate theirprocedures were decontextualized. In addition, since they gave a single translation for each linguisticitem, the result was pairs of fixed equivalences. This led to a confusion between comparative linguisticphenomena and phenomena related to translating texts. Therefore, translation techniques as put forward

by the French Comparative School of Stylistics are confined to the classification of differences betweenlanguage systems, not to textual solutions needed for translation (cf. Molina and Hurtado Albir, 2002:506-507 for more detail).


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they affect micro-units of texts

they are by nature discursive and contextual

they are functional.

When opting for appropriate translation procedures, the translator should not

refrain from keeping their eye on the translation method he/she had chosen initially.

Indeed, translation procedures are contingent upon the choice of translation method,

which is a global choice of a translator on a large scale. For instance, if the aim of a

translator is to produce an exoticising translation which should respect all the

particularities of a source culture, they are to opt for a foreignizing translation method

and in tune with this the translation procedure of borrowing should rightly be expected

to be the most frequent. For this reason, one may unanimously agree with Newmark

(1988: 81) that while translation methods relate to whole texts, translation procedures

are used for sentences and the smaller units of language.

However, translation procedures and translation methods are not to be muddled

with translation strategies which refer to the procedures that translators themselves

activate when dealing with translation problems: when they unscramble semantic

relations among words, when they distinguish between core and less important ideas or

when they reformulate some information. All in all, translation strategies form a firm

part of a translators competence and they open up ways for finding an appropriate

translation solution on the basis of a suitable translation procedure chosen. Thus,

translation strategies and translation procedures occupy different places in problem

solving. While the former are part of the process, the latter affect rather the result.

(loosely based on Molina and Hurtado Albir, 2002: 508). Moreover, Krings (qtd. in:

Ordudari, 2007: 2) looks upon translation strategies as translators potentially

conscious plans for solving concrete translation problems in the framework of a

concrete translation task. As it is stated in the given definition, the notion ofconsciousness appears to be of paramount importance for telling strategies apart from

all the other above-discussed translation-related categories, so commonly jumbled.


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'.! Selected Translation Procedures #odels

'.!.1 /ean)Paul 0inay $ /ean Darbelnet

Vinay and Darbelnet, pre-eminent representatives of the French ComparativeSchool of Stylistics, were among the first to have identified direct and oblique

translation procedures in their seminal monograph (1958/1995). It should not pass

unnoticed that their now-traditional distinction harks back to a well-known literal vs.

freetranslation dichotomy (see Table 1).

The authors draw on the idea that in some translation tasks it may be possible to

transpose the source language message element into the target language, because it is

based on either parallel categories (structural parallelism) or on parallel concepts,

which are the upshot of metalinguistic parallelisms. This is the case of so-called direct

translation procedures which occur when there is an exact structural, lexical or even

morphological equivalence between the languages. Thus, these are based on a

minimum source structure modification.

However, the harsh reality is that translators must many a time grapple with

certain gaps, or lacunae,to put it in Vinay and Darbelnets term,in the target language

(TL) which must be filled by corresponding elements in such a manner so that there is

an impression that the resulting texts message is the same. Due to structural or

metalinguistic dissimilarities between the languages entering the translation process the

translator must face situations where certain SL stylistic effects cannot be transposed in

the TL without upsetting its syntactic order or even lexis. From the above-mentioned it

follows that translators many a time need to have recourse to more complex, i.e.

oblique translation procedures. If translation were always only the instance of the

application of direct translation procedures, it would not require any special stylistic

skills on the part of the translator. In addition, translation would miss out on a certain

intellectual challenge for it would be relegated to an unambiguous transfer from the SL

into the TL (based on Venuti, 2000: 84 and Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958/1995: 31 -34).

Oblique translation procedures are employed when a literal translation is unacceptable,

when structural or conceptual asymmetries arising between the SL and TL are

incommensurable. This pertains, in Vinay and Darbelnets view, to cases when the

message, when translated literary (ibid.: 34-35)


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gives another meaning, or

has no meaning, or

is structurally impossible, or

does not have a corresponding expression within the metalinguistic

experience of the TL, or

has a corresponding expression, but not within the same register.

Table 1 below gives a classification of translation procedures as propounded by Vinay

and Darbelnet (see 1958/1995: 31-34 for more detail)4.

Table 1 Vinay & Darbelnets model of translation procedures

When assessing Vinay and Darbelnets model in its entirety one can hardlyoverlook two fundamental translation methods that are mirrored in it, notably

exotization and naturalization. While the former is grounded on an undisturbed

approach towards the TT and retains elements of the source language (culture)

environment, the latter rests on the substitution principle underscoring the TTs

potential and its culture. Since in the institutional habitat it is first and foremost the

source text and its structure which make for crucial factors having a bearing on the

translation method choice on the basis of which the EU translator approaches thetranslation process, an overall exoticizing approach to the studied non-literary text may

4 A detailed explanation of the adduced translation procedures one by one will be postponed until the

later sections of this thesis (cf. 3.3.1 onwards). It should be clarified at this stage, though, that someVinay and Darbelnets procedures, especially those of equivalence and adaptation are expected to beconspicuously absent from the non-literary text under investigation due to its legal nature as these aremuch more typical for a metaphorical and fictitious literary text. By way of definition, equivalencewithin Vinay and Darbelnets conception is used to refer to cases where languages describe the samesituation by different stylistic or structural means (qtd. in: Munday, 2001: 58), which pertains totranslating idioms and proverbs, in particular. As it is evident from this quotation, Vinay and Darbelnetsunderstanding of equivalence is not be confused with its general perception in translation studies where it

refers to a relationship between ST and TT which enables us to call the final product translation. On theother hand, adaptation involves changing the cultural reference when a situation in the source culturedoes not exist in the target culture(ibid.).

Direct translation

procedures

Borrowing

Calque

Literal Translation

Oblique translation

procedures

Transposition

Modulation

Equivalence

daptation


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rightfully be expected, as opposed to the naturalizing approach which should occur to a

considerably lesser extent. However, these assumptions for the selected EU non-literary

text are contrary to those concerning the literary text under scrutiny where a

naturalizing approach to translation is expected to be prevalent. In other words, the use

of oblique translation procedures in the literary text is presupposed to surpass the direct

translation procedures.

Furthermore, when appraising the outstanding merits of the French School of

Comparative Stylistics one should not leave unmentioned that Vinay and Darbelnet

were among the first to categorize the translation process in terms of small linguistic

changes occurring in translation of ST into TT,(qtd. in: Munday, 2001: 55) which later

started to be dubbed as shifts5. A further crucial parameter taken into consideration

by them was that of servitude and option. While the former is inexorably bound up with

mandatory transpositions and modulations due to dissimilarities between the two

language codes, the latter refers to non-obligatory changes in TL due to the translators

own style and personal preferences.

Notwithstanding the above-said merits of the distinguishing personalities of the

French Comparative School of Stylistics their work cannot escape certain points of

criticism with the lapse of time, though. These being first and foremost, hazy

boundaries between their suggested taxonomy categories, confining of their language

unit analysis down to lower discourse levels and differences between language systems

as such, not to text solutions as wholes. For this reason, in order to map out translation

procedures in the studied literary and non-literary texts with all their abundance of

lexico-stylistic language resources it was vital to enhance my theoretical framework by

other models, as outlined below.

5 Indeed, the term shift originated in Catfords highly influential work A Linguistic Theory of

Translationwhere he views translation shifts as departures from formal correspondence in the processof going from SL into TL(1965: 73). Of supreme importance for translation theory were Catfords leveland category shifts, encompassing structural, class, unit (rank) and intra-system shifts (see Catford, 1965:

73-82 for more detail). However, Catford was dealing with shifts at the linguistic level only. It was notuntil Popovi(1975), however unexpected this might seem, that the notion of shift has been enhanced byanother culture-oriented and interpretation facets.


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Table '*c'reibers model of translation procedures

Procedure Note/Explanation

Le*ical

Le)ical borrowing Ta"ingover of a le)ical unit

Le)ical substitution *ubstitution of a *L le)ical unit by a TLle)ical unit +trivial case,

C'ange of a le)ical unit structure C'ange in t'e realm of wordformation

-rammatical

3ordforword translationwit' wordcount- wordclass and word

position retained

0ermutation 1elocation of sentence constituents

E)pansion 2ncrease in wordcount

1eduction Decrease in wordcount

2ntracategorial c'angeC'ange of grammatical function wit'in

a word

Transposition C'ange of wordclass

Transformation C'ange of syntactic construction

Semantic

*emantic borrowingVerbali4ation of t'e same content

features- e5g5 wit' turns of p'rases oridioms

Modulation C'ange of t'e point of view

E)plication 2ncrease in t'e degree of e)plication

2mplication Decrease in t'e degree of e)plication

MutationC'ange of t'e denotative content for

ot'er invariant(s sa"e under t'e r'ymeconstraint in translating poetry

Judging by the information in Table 3 one can easily draw the conclusion that

certain translation procedures such as e.g. lexical substitution, intracategorial change or

mutation will have to be excluded from my analyses due to obvious non-applicability of

the said procedures to the scrutinized texts arising from their genre characteristics.

Overall, by mutually comparing the translation procedures models as put forward

by Vinay and Darbelnet, Newmark and Schreiber respectively, it has been ascertained

that all the presented models partially overlap as well as differ with respect to theterminology used. The terminological labels for the pertinent translation procedures and

their corresponding definitions as occurring in Vinay and Darbelnets and Newmarks

systems tend to be pithier than those in Schreibers model. Sometimes, on the other

hand, quite the contrary is true about some translation procedures in Schreibers system

compared to the previous two models. Precisely these subtle differences in terminology

as well as in the overall scope of the individual procedures, among other things, will be

touched upon in the thesis next chapter.


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36

'.' &uantitative Cor(us Te*t Analysis

'.'.1 Trans(osition

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the comparison of originals with translations reveals

that more often than not two languages make use of grammatically dissimilar means

when conveying the same message. This may be attributed to insurmountable

structural-typological differences, or lacunae, in Vinay and Darbelnets words,

between the language codes.

Transposition, or shift, as Catford calls it, will be used in this dissertation in the

sense as it is commonly interpreted within translation studies; as an intentional and

often unavoidable grammatical change that occurs in translation from SL into TL (cf.

Bare, 1977: 110;Dokulil, 1982: 260; Newmark, 1988: 85; Venuti, 2000: 88; Zakhir,

2008: 2). In a narrow sense, transposition will be apprehended as replacement of one

word-class or syntactic category with another without altering the semantics of the

message, thus keeping the (non-)literary texts information invariant. First, our

principal translation studies scholars definitions of transpositions will be presented and

compared. Next, a quantitative corpus text analysis zeroing in on formal and functional

transpositions with an ensuing discussion of results gained will follow.

Newmark, in agreement with Schreiber and Vinay and Darbelnet, looks at

transposition as a change of the grammatical category in TL in comparison with that in

SL. In addition, he emphasizes that transposition may be used when literal translation

is grammatically possible but may not be in accord with natural usage in the TL

(Newmark, 1988: 86). Newmarks main contribution lies in the observation that shifts

illustrate frequent tension between grammar and stress (ibid.: 88). Nevertheless, from

the point of view of the present study his last remark seems particularly enticing:

Transposition is the only translation procedure concerned with grammar, and mosttranslators make transpositions intuitively. However, it is likely that comparativelinguistics research, and analysis of text corpuses and their translations, will uncover afurther number of serviceable transpositions for us (ibid.).

Furthermore, transpositions have been brought to notice by Schreiber, too. He

defines them in a very straightforward way as a change of word-class in translation

(Schreiber, 1993: 223). He argues that transpositions may be mandatory, when they are

caused by grammar or optional, when they are triggered off by stylistic needs.


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37

Schreiber seems fully aware of the omnipresence of transpositions in translations for he

admits that they are fairly often employed in partnership with other translation

procedures.

When dealing with transposition within Vinay and Darbelnets model, it should

be mentioned that their clarification of the term under discussion seems to be the most

comprehensive. In their view, transposition encompasses not only change of parts of

speech but also syntactic transformations. Apart from these, a special understanding of

transposition relates to chass-crois, i.e. change of positions, which, however,

corresponds more with permutation, as propounded by Schreiber (cf. 3.3.4). In the same

way as Schreiber, the authors from the French Comparative School of Stylistics, split

transpositions into obligatory and optional. All in all, Vinay and Darbelnets approach

to transpositions is oriented more towards practical translating without analyzing the

circumstances and motivations of the shift. Precisely this was the criticism levelled at

their translation procedures by Delisle who argued that their procedures did not

describe the process through which equivalents appear but only the upshots thereof

(Klgr, 1996: 18). What is more, since Vinay and Darbelnets time attention has shifted

due to new developments in linguistics from microprocedures to text as a whole as a

unit of translation (see Neubert and Shreve, 1992).

Generally-speaking, transpositions commonly split into word-class and sentence-

member transpositions depending on whether word-classes or sentence-member

categories are liable to alter in translation into TL. In this connection, the Czech scholar

Klgr (1996: 129) speaks of formal and functional transpositions, respectively. Since

word-class (or formal) transpositions, as already their name betrays, are grounded on

the change of word-classes between SL and TL, they would most likely correspond to

class shifts and unit (rank) shifts within Catfords classification of category shifts.6

Tables 4 and 5 below give an overview of the most common word-classtransposition types present in the studied non-literary and literary text that have been

revealed by means of a contrastive corpus text analysis.

6 Catfordsclass shifts comprise shifts from one part of speech to another. On the other hand, unit (or

rank) shifts take place where the translation equivalent in the TL is at a different rank to the SL. Rankhere refers to the hierarchical linguistic units of sentence, clause, group, word and morpheme (Munday,2001: 61).


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3

Table n %verview of wordclass transpositions in t'e nonliterary te)t

EN S !" Type Abbr# $

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