Translation Criticism- Potentials and Limitations
eBook - ePub

Translation Criticism- Potentials and Limitations

Categories and Criteria for Translation Quality Assessment

Katharina Reiss

Share book
  1. 140 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Translation Criticism- Potentials and Limitations

Categories and Criteria for Translation Quality Assessment

Katharina Reiss

Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

Katharina Reiss's now classic contribution to Translation Studies, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungskritik: Kategorien und Kriteren fĂŒr eine sachgerechte Beurteilung von Übersetzungen, first appeared in 1971. This is the first English translation of this major work, allowing students and practitioners of translation in the English-speaking world to make more extensive use of Reiss's pioneering treatment of a central theme in translation: how to develop reliable criteria for the systematic evaluation of translations. Using a wealth of interesting and varied examples, Reiss offers a systematic and illuminating text typology, a pragmatic approach to text analysis, a functional perspective on translation and a hermeneutic view of the translator, thus accounting for some of the most important aspects of the translation process: the text (both source and target versions), the conditions which determine the translator's decisions, and the translator as an individual whose personal interpretation has to be respected by any critic.

In the three decades since Katharina Reiss wrote, the terminology of translation studies has evolved on many fronts. Erroll Rhodes' translation strikes an optimal balance between remaining faithful to the original presentation and using terminology that today's reader would generally understand and value.

Frequently asked questions

How do I cancel my subscription?
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Translation Criticism- Potentials and Limitations an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Translation Criticism- Potentials and Limitations by Katharina Reiss in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Linguistics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2014
ISBN
9781317642060

B. The Potential of Translation Criticism

DOI: 10.4324/9781315760407-2
Nothing is more difficult than to enter into the thought processes of another person and be able to rebuild his whole perspective in all its particularity 
. And yet it is only when one can reconstruct the framework and how it operates in all its parts that one can claim to understand a work and its spirit. Formulating this general understanding in explicit terms is called characterizing, and this constitutes the task and essence of criticism.
Friedrich Schlegel, 1804
Schlegel’s statement about the essence of criticism goes doubly for translation criticism. Doubly, because for the critic to make a properly balanced judgment on a translation, not only must the translator’s work be characterized, but it must also constantly be compared with the original “in all its particularity,” making a “general understanding” of the original author’s work the touchstone authenticating any final judgment. This consideration underlies the maxim we stressed in the Introduction as a basic requirement: No critique without a comparison with the original! This process of comparison is indispensable for a balanced judgment; any alternative would only invite charges of subjectivity and caprice.

1. Criticism and the target language text

And yet the widespread traditional practice of limiting criticism to translated texts may have a degree of justification, at least for literary texts. This kind of criticism, based solely on the translation in the target language with no consideration for the original, can be useful only if its inherent limitations are acknowledged. What lies within the range of these limitations?
The judgment of a translation should never be made one-sidedly and exclusively on the basis of its form in the target language. If the work is a novel, the translation critic may well assume it to be an example of light fiction, while in actual fact the translator has simply been incapable of integrating the text’s elements of content, structure and style. 9 A definitive judgment is possible only if its inadequacies can also be observed and demonstrated in the source of the translation. It should be evident that the analysis and evaluation of a translated text can serve as the first stage, but it must be followed by the second and indispensable stage of comparison with the source text.
9 See H. F. Foltin (1968, p. 267): “This brings us to what for literary studies is probably the essential characteristic of inferior forms of belles lettres, namely how far they fail to integrate the elements of content, structure and style which are dependent on the constant and variable factors described above, 
 for it is the combination of these elements that determines esthetic quality for the literary scholar. At the lowest level of quality we encounter innumerable errors of fact, composition and style that reflect the author’s ineptitude; 
”
In some instances, of course, the reverse process is also possible, as when comparing several translations from a single original. Horst von Tscharner (1963) gives an example of such an approach. Tscharner first gives an analysis of a poem in its original form, and then proceeds to exhibit several translations together with his comments for and against their solutions.
But usually the first step begins with the translated text. How, then, should the critic begin?
As Julius Wirl (1958, p. 64) states, “A person who cannot read the original may not be able to use the same criteria as one who can, but other criteria may be available. A novel in translation may be judged by certain values that are expected of the category, and the translation adjudged so fluent that it does not read like a translation.” But there are further questions which must also be considered: 1. whether the original was written in a fluent style so that the fluency of the translation corresponds to it; and 2. whether fluency in a translation is an absolute or a relative value, i.e., whether fluency is a necessary characteristic, something to be striven for in every kind of text under all circumstances, or even a universally desirable goal for a translation. These questions will be discussed more thoroughly elsewhere. 10
It is generally acknowledged today that a translator should have “a real talent for writing in his own language” (Sir Stanley Unwin, in On Translation: See GĂŒttinger [1963, p. 219]) since “clumsiness in the language of the translation has a certain prejudicial effect on the work as a whole,” because “if a translator does not have a mastery of his own language and is incapable of writing well, his translation is bound to be poor, however well he may understand the text” (Hillaire Belloc: See GĂŒttinger[1963, p. 219]). Hans Erich Nossack (1965, p. 12) puts it even more strongly when he insists: “the purpose is to place in the hands of the reader a readable book in the reader’s own language, and not some schoolboy’s raw gloss, reproducing sentence structures, participial constructions and the like, whether Anglicisms, Latinisms, or whatever. An awkward and artificial translation can do more to kill a foreign masterpiece than a smattering of outright errors in translation.”
10 See 6.1 (Resumés and summaries) and 6.7 (Scholarly translations).
Awkward and artificial expressions in the target language can certainly be identified without reference to the original text. According to Fritz GĂŒttinger (1963, p. 143ff) a rough gauge of a [German] translation can be gained by a simple spot-check: “Just think of the words that occur most frequently in German and do not occur in the foreign language, and you can tell whether a translation is any good. In a word-for-word translation these words will be lacking because they are not in the original. The missing words tell whether the translator really knows German and can meet the first requirement for making a good translation.”
This practical rule of thumb (which has its limitations, as do all such rules) can apply not only to “words that occur most frequently in German and do not occur in the foreign language,” but also to all the concepts and idioms that are expressed differently in the foreign language. If the critic is very knowledgeable in the source language, he will easily recognize instances in the target language where the translator has slipped up. Slips and oversights of this kind can cast a cloud on the quality of a translation.
This is illustrated by the account in the SĂŒddeutschen Zeitung for April 22, 1970, given by the Spanish news correspondent M. von Conta of his interview with the then Spanish Foreign Minister, Gregorio LĂłpez Bravo. He reported: “LĂłpez: Der Handel zwischen unsern LĂ€ndern, bei dem zum Ausdruck kommt, daß die deutsche Bundesrepublik einen Vorzugsplatz unter unsern KĂ€ufern und VerkĂ€ufern einnimmt 
.” [“LĂłpez: Trade between our countries may be characterized by the fact that the Federal Republic of Germany occupies a special place among our buyers and sellers”]. This rendering of the Minister’s response not only sounds odd in German (“unsere VerkĂ€ufer,” our sellers could be misunderstood), it is also grammatically wrong. The German word “Handelspartner” (trading partners), for which Spanish lacks a single word, did not occur to the reporter. The concept is usually expressed in Spanish by “compradores y suministradores” (= “KĂ€ufer und Lieferanten” buyers and suppliers); the literal translation in place of the idiomatic “Handelspartner” (trading partners) reflects an inadequate command of the language.
Another example: “Die natĂŒrliche Logik enthĂ€lt zwei Fehler: Sie sieht nicht, daß die SprachphĂ€nomene fĂŒr den Sprechenden weithin Hintergrundscharakter haben und mithin außerhalb seines kritischen Bewußtseins und seiner Kontrolle bleiben” [“This simple logic has two flaws: it does not recognize that for the speaker of a language its phenomena are largely a matter of background, and consequently lie beyond the range of his critical awareness and control”]. Anyone with a knowledge of English would recognize the German text as a translation from an English or American source, because the English word “control” has the meaning “exercise authority over” or “manipulate,” while the German word “Kontrolle” is properly used only in the sense of “verification” or “checking”. Wolf Friedrich (1969, p. 37) cites this example and comments: “It is wrong and misleading. People can verify the phenomena of a language, but not manipulate them – this is not in their power.”
The translator’s knowledge of a language is not to be gauged simply by the criteria of words lacking in the vocabulary of the source language, or by the recognition of false friends, but even more by what we may call supplemental words, Porzig (1962, p. 145). Even Luther had to deal with this problem. Luther (1963, p. 20f) defended his method of translating Romans 3, where the Latin does not have the word solum and he introduced the word “allein” (alone) in his German translation: “But it is the nature of our German language that in speaking of two things, one of which is affirmed and the other denied, we use the word solum ‘allein’ [alone or only] along with the word nicht [not] or kein [no] 
. It is the nature of the German language to add the word allein in order that the word nicht or kein may be clearer and more complete.” This “allein” which Luther defends is an example of supplemental words, particles which do not serve in German as relational connectives but define the nature of a sentence (a speech-act). In many other languages there are no lexical forms which correspond to these particles (such as eben, etwa, doch, nur, aber, auch, ĂŒberhaupt, etc.) in their distinctive, intensive or clarifying function. 11 In Spanish and English these nuances can only be inferred from the entire context, and then not always with certainty, so that any translation necessarily involves a degree of subjective interpretation. This is especially true of written texts where the aid of intonation which would clarify the intention of the spoken word is lacking. Especially in texts where the translation must not only be in correct but also fluent and idiomatic German, it is appropriate to make use of these particles, even when there is nothing in the literal text of the source that would correspond to them. 12
11 In German they serve to add a certain nuance to a question, an exclamation, a request, or a statement. In a question they may imply the expected answer: “Soll ich das etwa glauben?” [“Should I ever believe that?”] suggesting the answer “No.” They may add emphasis to a request or exclamation: “Das ist doch nicht möglich!” [“That is just impossible!”] which contrasts with the simple “Das ist nicht möglich!” by a degree of personal emphasis. See W. Porzig (1962, p. 145 f.). 12 Accordingly H. J. Kann considers the introduction of these “necessary” words in a German translation as altogether commendable. See Kann (1968, p. 57): “This subtle distinction between the two languages [conservative formal English and a more aggressive German] is made particularly noticeable by the large number of words which are necessarily added in German to flesh out the implications and emphases of the text.” Similarly pp. 84–85 and 114.
When translating from German to Spanish or English, on the other hand, it is necessary to consider carefully whether these particles carry full weight in the sentence, or only serve it with an element of nuance. The decision then has to be made whether to translate them with equivalent expressions, or to ignore them (representing them by a null equivalent). 13
This suggests another criterion for judging a translation solely on the basis of its target language: a mastery of stylistic and grammatical standards must be supported by a familiarity with idiomatic usage.
13 In the sentence “Ich habe dieses Buch auch gelesen” the word auch is significant: in Spanish it would be “Yo tambiĂ©n he leĂ­do el libro,” and in English “I have read this book, too.” In the sentence “Hast du auch gelesen, was du unterschreibst?” the auch is a nuance word. Translating it by tambiĂ©n or too would distort the meaning of the German word, so that the translation should be “¿Has leĂ­do lo que estĂĄs firmando?” or “Have you read what you are signing?”
And there is yet another way of evaluating a translated text: internal inconsistencies. H. Kellner (1964, p. 87) writes: “Absurdities may be conspicuous even without a comparison of the two texts, for which most critics do not take the time.” These “absurdities” might be simple translation errors due to an inadequate knowledge of the vocabulary or grammar of the source language, or even a failure to appreciate non-verbal factors 14 operative in the target language, though this requires a comparison with the source language for confirmation. Errors of this kind generally occur on the semantic level of translation, bringing to the lexical, grammatical and stylistic criteria a fourth and last criterion which can be relevant to judging the target language version of a text.
14 See the discussion of non-verbal factors below (B.4).
As we have noted, a critique based on the target language version of a text can be quite productive. But our discussion has indicated that on the whole its role in the evaluation of a translation is distinctly limited. It is limited by a lack of reference to the original, and if it is to avoid such vague generalities as “fluent translation,” “reads like an original,” 15 “uneven translation,” etc., it needs to be supplemented by a close comparison with the original. Besides, an evaluation on the basis of the translation alone has a largely negative cast. Conformity to grammatical and stylistic standards as well as lexical and semantic norms of the target language are only to be expected, or at least should be, and should warrant no particular conclusions. It can ...

Table of contents