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9 - Translation as a mental process

In the previous three units, we focused mainly on two mental activities ' reading and
writing ' that are part of the translation process, and we tried to describe some of their
phases and the applicable implications with reference to mental functioning. We observed
that ' even within the framework of one code, that is to say without shifting to another
language ' we have to accomplish more than one translation process, involving nonverbal
processing. Moreover, we observed that there is an intermediate stage during which
words, or word combinations, are translated into an idiosyncratic mental nonverbal
language that is understandable (and hence translatable into words) only by the
individual accomplishing such effort in her mind.
ON THE NET
(english)
TOROP P.
ON THE NET
(spanish)
LEUVEN-ZWART, K. M., y T. NAAIJKENS
Such analytic exam was necessary in order to identify the single mental processes
involved in the mentioned activities; we know, however, that such activities are actually
carried out in a minor span. During this mental work, there is a constant focusing shift
between microanalysis and microanalysis, between micro-expression and macroexpression, i.e. a constant comparison between the meaning of the single utterances and
the meaning of the text as a whole. Or, on a larger scale, a constant comparison between
the sense of a single text and the comprehensive sense of the corpus that, consciously or
unconsciously, forms the "intertext". In this context, "intertext" should be understood as
the complex of intertextual links in which a text is located, with, or without, the authors
acknowledgement.
After said analytic exam, we must bear in mind that the mental processing of verbal data
undergoes many simultaneous, interdependent, and holistic processes1. In order to
describe the mental process occurring while translating, it is necessary to temporarily put
aside the individual mechanisms of the microactivities and analyze the translation process
in the whole, with a systemic approach.
An important translation-studies researcher, James S. Holmes, has proposed a mental
approach to translation processes, the so-called mapping theory. He presents a
synthesis of his approach in this paragraph:
mapping theory: the original and the wanted
I have suggested that actually the translation process is a multi-level process; while we
are translating sentences, we have a map of the original text in our minds and at the
same time, a map of the kind of text we want to produce in the target language. Even as
we translate serially, we have this structural concept so that each sentence in our
translation is determined not only by the sentence in the original but by the two maps of
the original text and of the translated text which we are carrying along as we translate2.
The translation process should, therefore, be considered a complex system in which
understanding, processing, and projection of the translated text are interdependent
portions of one structure. We can therefore put forward, as does Hnig, the existence of
a sort of "central processing unit" supervising the coordination of the different mental

processes (those connected to reading, interpretation, and writing) and at the same time
projecting a map of the text to be.
controlled/uncontrolled workspace
Let us follow Hnig's passages. The original, in order to be translated, is "moved out" of
its natural context and projected onto the translator's mental reality. The translator does
not work on the original text, consequently, but on its mental projection. There are two
kinds of processing, the controlled workspace, and the uncontrolled workspace. In the
uncontrolled workspace, the first understanding of the text takes place, consisting of the
application of frames and schemes, an assortment of semantic patterns based on the
perceptive experience of the translator. Such semantic schemes are not very different,
from a conceptual point of view, from the cognitive types we dealt with in the unit about
the reading process.
simil
ar to
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As it happens in reading (it is possible to read fractions of words or sentences and


construct the unread parts), using the semantic schemes our minds tend to postulate the
affinity of the utterances in the original to utterances already read or heard and
assimilated.
Semantic schemes are long-term memory structures reflecting the reader's expectations,
her meaning conjectures, and in part are already oriented towards a translated text that '
although existing only within the translator's mind ' is taking shape in her mental map.
Translation micro-strategies are composed of the interaction between the original text,
the hypotheses on the translated text and the uncontrolled workspace. For the
experienced professional a nearly automated process can become more conscious owing
to the translation-oriented analysis of the text.
Researchers postulated the existence of an uncontrolled workspace using a thinking
aloud protocol. Some translators were asked to say aloud what they were doing or
thinking to do while they were intent in their work. Mental processes described by these
protocols are those that are called "controlled workspace". Uncontrolled workspace
contains, in contrast, mental activities different from those described in thinking aloud
protocols. In the controlled workspace, mental processing is conscious: the translator
knows that given mechanisms take place but, at the same time, she is usually unaware of
them because she performs them automatically.
A translator using only the uncontrolled workspace does not have any comprehensive
strategy, which takes into consideration the translated text as a whole. Such a
hypothetical translator is guided only by her linguistic reflexes originating from her
perception of the original text. If one wants to achieve a complete translation
competence, it is necessary to adopt a rational macro-textual strategy as well.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:
HOLMES J. S. Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies.
Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1988. ISBN 90-6203-739-9.
HNIG H. G. Holmes' "Mapping Theory" and the Landscape of Mental Translation
Processes, in Leuven-Zwart and Naaijkens (ed.) Translations Studies: The State of the
Art. Proceedings of the first James S. Holmes Symposium on Translation Studies,
Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1991. ISBN 90-5183-257-5, p. 77-89.
1 Hnig 1991, p. 78.
2 Holmes 1988, p. 96.

10 - Verbal communication - Part 1


We have dealt quite thoroughly with the mental aspects of the reading, writing, and
translating processes. Now, we will examine some less individual aspects of the exchange
(translation) of information, to see what actually happens when language involves many
people in communication. In order to do that, we will draw especially on the writings of
Roman JAkobsn, a great Russian scientist who - driven by an interdisciplinary attitude made fundamental contributions to an impressive number of fields, such as linguistics,
semiotics, theory of literature, translation studies.
ON THE NET
(english)
JAKOBSN R.
GOLDMAN W. (Marathon man)

Back in 1958, in his essay Closing Statements: Linguistics and Poetics - which is still
mostly up-to-date after more than forty years - JAkobsn examined the six main
elements that characterize communication and their related functions.
The addresser is the person who sends out themessage, addressing an addressee,
within the framework of a given context. The two following tables are taken from one of
JAkobsn's texts:
Factors of verbal communication:1
CONTEXT
ADDRESSER -------> MESSAGE -------> ADDRESSEE
CONTACT
CODE
Fundamental functions of verbal communication2:
REFERENTIAL
EMOTIVE -------> POETIC -------> CONATIVE
PHATIC
METALINGUAL
The referential function
The context is extremely important. In most cases, decontextualized utterances become
meaningless or, at any rate, very ambiguous. This is basically due to the fact that
communication is very efficient and tends not to make explicit - hence to take for granted

- some aspects of the message that are considered to be implied (i.e. context-bound). If,
on a bus, a ticket collector says "Your ticket, please", it would sound rather redundant to
explain what ticket he is referring to: the context makes it clear.
If, for example, we come across the utterance
Is it safe?
out of context, the utterance is ambiguous, polysemic; it can imply an impersonal or
personal construction and refer to an indefinite number of things/people. That is exactly
what experiences Babe, the main character of William Goldman's Marathon Man, when
another character places him under interrogation to force him to confess something he
does not know. His torturer keeps on asking him "Is it safe?", and Babe gives him any
possible answer, attaching any possible meaning to the question, making every effort to
put an end to that torment. And the torturer seems to deliberately avail himself of the
ambiguity of that question, on the one hand to be able to repeat incessantly the same,
insisting sentence and, on the other, to ask - through a single sentence - a polysemic
question, appealing to the tortured man's possible reticence.
Through this example, we can see very clearly what is the referential function that
JAkobsn talks about, as well as the importance of the context of the utterance.
In addition, in the ad language, the ambiguity of a decontextualized utterance can be
useful, thanks to its inherent polysemy and interpretive ambiguity. Many advertising
slogans are based on this principle.
The emotional function
The addresser-based function is called emotional or expressive. It is that part of the
message which supplies information about the person who is sending the message, about
the "first person" of the communicative situation. JAkobsn cites, as a typical example of
emotional function, the interjections, which - according to the scholar - are not elements
of the sentence, but complete sentences. "Pooh", "upsidaisy", "tut-tut" are actually
complete expressions, which can be uttered separately and give a clear idea of the
addresser's mood. "A man, using expressive features to indicate his angry or ironic
attitude, conveys ostensible information [...]"3.
The intonation of the message can be another form through which the emotional
function manifests itself. JAkobsn tells about one sentence that an actor uttered fifty
times in order to convey fifty different situations, which the audience unmistakably
deciphered. Hence, the emotional function is extremely important to point the message in
the right direction too.
The conative function
Still within the framework of the fundamental group, we will now deal with the conative
function, namely the one that refers to the addressee. The addressee, the "second
person" of the situation, may be implicit, but may sometimes be emphasized, which
occurs especially in the vocative and in the imperative. In the vocative, this happens
because the addressee is invoked ("Listen, oh Lord!"), in the imperative because he is
given an order ("Get out of my way!").
The term "conative" originates from the Latin verb conari, "to tempt", and it means
"persuasive". Actually, both the orders of the imperative and the invocations of the
vocative have the purpose of persuading the addressee to do something.

In the next units, we will examine the remaining three functions of the verbal
communication.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:
JAkobsn R. Language in Literature. Ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy.
Cambridge (Massachusetts), Belknap Press, 1987. ISBN 0-674-5128-3.
1
2
3

JAkobsn 1987, p. 66.


JAkobsn 1987, p. 71.
JAkobsn 1987, p. 67.

11 - Verbal communication - Part 2


In the previous unit, we introduced, in their outline, the mechanisms of verbal
communication according to JAkobsn. In order to pinpoint the fundamental triad of this
diagram of the communication system, we concentrated on three elements only addresser, context, and addressee. One of the reasons is that - as we have seen - the
referential function plays a vital role in completing the sense of the utterance. In an
utterance, we never take such care as to specify every detail: we take for granted many
aspects of the context, otherwise the communication would be very inefficient. The
emotional and conative functions are crucial too: the former because of the role that the
addresser plays in communication, the latter owing to the position of the message
towards the addressee when the communication takes place.
ON THE NET - english
JAKOBSN R.
The basic approaches to the construction of utterances
In order to continue our analysis of verbal communication, we need to consider the two
main aspects of sentence building from a mental point of view.
Experiments carried out on subjects suffering from aphasia showed that the two
cerebral hemispheres, the right one and the left one, govern two different functions. The
left hemisphere presides over the paradigmatic selection of words, while the right
hemisphere presides over their syntagmatic combination 1. Here is what that means, in
simple terms:
Let us imagine the following panel as representing a slot machine. Suppose that, by
pulling its (fictional) lever, we spin its parallel vertical wheels showing on their facets
different words or blanks, until they stop - forming a combination of words. Our slot
machine, though, even allows us to see all the words on the facets not appearing in the
central window, the one showing the utterance starting with "Giampaolo".

Yesterday

Now

Alfredo

loves

Who

touches

he

ran out

Giampaolo

runs

will go

To learn

requires
you give

Gertrude
[the]

pasta?
of red
wine

[the]

coffee

company
to buy

the paper
an effort

[did]

to
Matilda?

What

First, let us have a look at the table horizontally, starting from the first line. The mind of
the addresser who wants to express a concept begins, say, by looking for the subject of
the action: he carries out a selectiveprocess, until he gets to the word "Alfredo", which
satisfies his need of communication at that moment. In order to go on building his
sentence, he has now to face a syntactical problem: after the word "Alfredo", what kinds
of words are likely to follow according to the grammar rules of the English language? By
raising this question, he carries out a combinational process. There are many different
possibilities, but it is more likely that, after the subject, a verb will turn up. At this point,
the addresser mentally reviews all the verbs he knows (selective process), singles out the
one he considers fit (to love), and properly conjugates it. To get to Gertrude, he must
carry out another combinational process (which prevents him from saying, for example,
"Alfredo loves although") and a selective one, until he gets to "Gertrude".
Slot machines do not have combinatorial capabilities. Or rather, they randomly combine
what is shown on bordering wheel facets, without asking syntactical or constructional
questions. Were they humans, one could say that they suffer from right-hemisphere
aphasia, or contiguity disorder. Indeed, our imaginary slot machine may bring forth
incomprehensible expressions, such as "To learn touches to Matilda an effort" or "Now to
learn loves coffee an effort". In other words, the slot machine has a paradigmatic
capability (by simply pulling its lever, we can review the whole range of possibilities), but
not a syntagmatic one (indeed, it combines words randomly).
Conversely, subjects suffering from left hemisphere aphasia do not have any
paradigmatic capability: in other words, they are not able to refer to the range of
possibilities.
As JAkobsn ingeniously understood by reworking concepts that had already been
partially identified by de Saussure, all linguistic acts are based on combination and
selection capabilities.
As for the combination (syntagmatic, horizontal, metonymic axis), a word is in relation
to the next one bycontiguity. In the sentence "Giampaolo runs the coffee company",
between "Giampaolo" and "runs" there is no similarity, just contiguity, and the two words
are combinable. The same goes for "runs" and "the coffee" and for "the coffee" and
"company".
As for the selection (paradigmatic, vertical, metaphorical axis), a word is in relation to
the others (above and below, in our model) by similarity.

A metonymy is a figure of speech built on the contiguity relation between literal and
figurative term. For instance, "He earns his living by the sweat of his brow" substitutes
"He earns his living by the work that causes his brow to sweat". As we can see, it is a
syntagmatic relation (subtraction).
On the other hand, a metaphor is a simile that does not express the terms of
comparison. "Golden hair" is a metaphor that originates from the implicit comparison
between the color of the hair and the color of gold, a paradigmatic 2 operation.
These concepts are indispensable for dealing with the three other functions of verbal
communication, which we will examine in the next unit.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES:
JAKOBSN R. Brain and Language. Cerebral Hemispheres and Linguistic Structure in
Mutual Light. Columbus (Ohio), Slavica, 1980. ISBN 0-89357-068-0.
MARCHESE, A. Dizionario di retorica e di stilistica. Milano, Mondadori, 1991. ISBN
88-04-14664-8.
1
2

JAkobsn 1980.
Marchese 1991, p. 186, 187, 190, 191.
In this unit, we will examine the other three elements of the communication system
along with their three functions:

ON THE NET - english


JAKOBSN R.
a.

message (poetic function)

b.

contact (phatic function)

c.

code (metalinguistic function).

Factors of verbal communication 1:


CONTEXT
ADDRESSER ------------------ MESSAGE ----------------- ADDRESSEE
CONTACT
CODE
Fundamental functions of the verbal communication 2:
REFERENTIAL
EMOTIVE ------------------ POETIC ----------------- CONATIVE
PHATIC
METALINGUAL

Poetic function
In the previous unit, we affirmed that an utterance is built by selection (syntagmatic
axis) and combination (syntagmatic axis). Well, JAkobsn states that The poetic function
projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of
combination 3. In simpler words, we can say that, in poetry, the principles of syntactical
construction - rules that prevent certain types of contiguousness - are sometimes ignored,
and syntagmatic construction (verse composition) occurs by referring to the paradigmatic
repertoire. Here is an example. Although it is in Italian, it should be clear that its
importance is in the sound of word and word combinations, not in their denotative
meaning:
Chi mai grida in Crimea
dai crinali violacei?
Quale ardente chimera
incrimina la pace?
Lacrime di Crimea!
La chimera dilegua
oltre le creste cremisi
col grido della tregua. 4
"Le creste cremisi" is an example in which two words, in this case "creste" and "cremisi",
are close on the paradigmatic axis (they both begin with accented "cre"), while they are
not a common combination on the syntagmatic axis. The repetition of the string "cri",
and its absence when the reader is induced to expect it ("chimera", with the "r" sound in
a different position so that the quick reader is induced to read again "Crimea" instead of
"Chimera", or "crinali", which is easier to read as "crimali") is one of many points of this
poetic texture that flows on its own, without any syntagmatic concern. Poetic discourse is
based on collocation, meter, paronomasia, displacement, and actual or feigned
parallelism. If one tries to translate this passage into prose, or into English, one realizes
at once what is not always apparent.
It can be, therefore, inferred that the poetic function is based on the message, which
becomes important as such, almost regardless of the other six elements of the
communication.
It is important to keep in mind that the poetic function can be found even in a prose
text. In this case, the poetic function is not the dominant, but it can be found under the
layers of the other (more important) functions. Here is an example taken right from the
JAkobsn's text we are dealing with.
['] in metalanguage the sequence is used to build an equation, whereas in poetry the equation is used to
build a sequence 5.

We can see that the two phrases, separated by "whereas", have a parallel construction,
and are characterized by the chiastic exchange of "sequence" and "equation". Parallelism
and chiasmus are peculiar to the poetic function, even in an essay - where the poetic
value is definitely of secondary importance.
The phatic function

Some messages are not relevant to the MESSAGE in the center of the table above: their
main aim is to maintain the contact with the addressee. Good examples could be
sentences like "Hello?" or "Can you hear me?" (speaking by phone) or, again, sentences
that aim at prolonging a contact, a conversation. In an elevator, for instance, the contact
with other people is an end in itself and its function is that of avoiding some embarrassing
minutes of silence: the sentence "It's a nice day, isn't it?", disguised as a question, is
merely a way of making some kind of conversation. An answer like "Yes, but yesterday it
was less windy" actually means ("Yes, I am ready to keep a contact with you, provided
that, in our relationship, we will limit ourselves to formal exchanges").
In fact, the term "phatic" originates from the Greek term phatiks, which means
"statement, utterance".
Before learning to speak - according to JAkobsn - the infants learn the phatic function:
when they understand that, by pronouncing a syllable or a vowel, there's someone who
responds to them, who tries to get in touch with them, by replying, by making
interpretations in a loud voice, by exchanging glances (eye contact), they are induced to
make certain sounds in order to establish a contact (preverbal communication).
The metalinguistic function
When language is used to talk about language itself (code), the communication is
metalinguistic. A good example would be: "What are you saying? Are you speaking in
English or what?".
The same occurs when language is used to explain the meaning of a word. This is called
autonymy, i.e. a word that refers not to its signified but to itself, to the signifier.
By "metalinguistic function", we mean an utterance in which the addressee gives or ask
for information about the code.
The reader is not supposed to know the meaning of "metalinguistic function", which is
explained in our example. It is apparent that the locution above cannot refer to its
signified, because the latter is supposed to be unknown to the reader.
In other words, autonymy is a sort of "short circuit" of the usual signifier-signified
relationship. The signified is mentioned, but not to trigger possible associations with likely
meanings: the signifier is temporarily "off", "deactivated"; it is only a sound or a sign that
do not refer to anything, because we are talking about its cross-references, its links.
Bibliographical references
JAkobsn R. Language in Literature.
Ed. by Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy. Cambridge (Massachusetts), Belknap Press,
1987.
JAkobsn R. Linguistics and poetics. In Language in Literature.
Ed. by K. Pomorska and S. Rudy, p. 62-94. Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University
Press, 1987. ISBN 0-674-51028-3.
Scialoja T. La mela di Amleto.
Milano, Garzanti, 1984.

13 - JAkobsn and translation - part 1

ON THE NET - english


JAKOBSN R.
Among JAkobsn's works, an essay written in 1959 stands out for its importance in the
framework of general, fundamental reflections on translation problems. On Linguistic
Aspects of Translation, seven pages in all, includes what more than 40 years later is still a
precious source of reflections for researchers of the nature of the translation process.
Before analyzing the question in a more detailed way, a warning is appropriate: the
reader should not be misled by the title of JAkobsn's essay, particularly by the adjective
"linguistic". JAkobsn has a broad conception of "linguistics", far beyond the traditional
limits of this discipline.
Our purpose here is to read passages of JAkobsn's essay together and comment on it,
dwelling on some ideas that are of great help in thinking about translation problems. The
essay is not devoted to translation as an action, but to the importance of translation in
semiotic studies, to translation as a concept. Here comes one of the first and most
important concepts:
No one can understand the word "cheese" unless he has a nonlinguistic acquaintance with
cheese
These are Bertrand Russell's words, quoted by JAkobsn. Russell, in fact, holds that
words as such are not capable to convey meanings that do not have roots in a direct
subjective experience of what is meant.
This statement is controversial for a translator, because to accept it would mean to state
that - for a subject unfamiliar to a given culture - it is impossible to figure out words
referring to concepts or objects typical of the source culture and alien to his own.
JAkobsn questions such a statement affirming that the solution could be an intralingual
translation, i.e. in this case, to explain that "cheese" means food made of pressed
curds 1.
For a subject belonging to a culture where cheese does not exist it is, therefore, enough
to know what "curds" are to get an idea about the possible meanings of "cheese". The
signification process often works in this way. When we are told that the Jews fleeing from
Egypt during their long journey through the desert ate "manna", we, readers of the Bible,
even though we never could taste manna, can get an idea of what manna could be: a
different idea for each of us, that however has a common share.
From his argument, JAkobsn draws a very important conclusion:
The meaning [...] of any word or phrase whatsoever is definitely [...] a semiotic fact 2.
It therefore does not make any sense to assign a meaning (signatum) to the object and
not to the sign (signum): nobody has ever felt the smell - or the taste - of the meaning of
"cheese" or "apple". A signatum may exist only if a signum exists too. Someone tasting
Gorgonzola or Emmenthal cheese without verbal coding is not able to infer the meaning
of the word "cheese" because, in order to explain the meaning of an unknown word, a

series of linguistic signs is necessary. The meaning of a word - if we remain in the verbal
context - is nothing but its translation into a series of other words: and in this passage
we notice the importance of translation, intended in a broader sense, for communication
in general, and for intercultural communication in particular.
Without translation, it would be impossible to get someone to understand objects that
are not part of his culture. In JAkobsn's opinion, there are three ways of interpreting a
verbal sign:
1.

Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of


other signs of the same language.

2.

Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by


means of some other language.

3.

Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by


means of signs of nonverbal sign systems. 3

In the aforementioned examples related to the word "cheese", there was an attempt to
make an intralingual translation, i.e. to explain with a periphrasis, a circumlocution,
without recurring to another language, the meaning of "cheese". The point, in other
words, is to find words that are nearly synonyms. "Yet synonymy, as a rule, is not
complete equivalence" 4, warns us JAkobsn. The translation into other words of the
meaning of an utterance is always the result of an interpretation; therefore, it can - and
does - vary according to the subjects who perform it. From this fact we can infer the
variety of the possible translations in interlingual translation too.
All cognitive experience and its classification is conveyable in any existing language.
Whenever there is a deficiency, terminology can be qualified and amplified by loanwords
or loan translations, by neologisms or semantic shifts, and, finally, by circumlocutions 5.
Of course, a universal, empirical, and repeatable method of determining when such
deficiencies do occur, whether and how - among the ways pointed out by JAkobsn cultural intermediaries (translators, for example) should play an active role in their
decoding does not exist. In other words, it is impossible to refer to a single method to deal
with the problem of loss in translation. For instance, the Northeast Siberian Chukchees
refer to the "screw" as a "rotating nail", to the "steel" as a "hard iron", to the "tin" as a
"thin iron" and to the "chalk" as a "writing soap" 6
However, as every technical or literary translator knows very well, it is not always enough
to say the right thing; very often it is essential to say it in the right way too. To this point,
we will go back many times, in particular in the third part of this course.
Bibliographical references
JAkobsn R. Language in Literature
Ed. by Krystyna Pomorska e Stephen Rudy, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Belknap Press,
1987.
JAkobsn R. On Linguistic Aspects of Translation, in Language in Literature,
a c. di Krystyna Pomorska e Stephen Rudy, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University
Press, 1987, p. 428-435. ISBN 0-674-51028-3.

14 - JAkobsn and translation - part 2


ON THE NET - english
JAKOBSN R.
When dealing with interlingual translation - the most recognizable, superficial, apparent
activity of a professional translator - we face the problem of the inexistent equivalence.
Since seldom, if ever, in two languages we find two words covering the same semantic
field 1, it is more common trying to translate not single code units, but complete
messages.
The translator recodes and transmits a message received from another source 2.
JAkobsn's example refers to the Russian sentence "prinesi syru i tvorogu" 3 that, in a
literal translation, would sound as: "bring cheese and cottage cheese".
The reiteration of the word "cheese" makes even superficially clear that the concept of
"cottage cheese" is comprised within the wider semantic category "cheese": that's the
reason why the sentence sounds absurd, redundant. Cottage cheese is one of the many
varieties of cheese, while tvorg is not one of the many varieties of syr. The
communication problem derives from the fact that the Russian word "syr" is connected to
fermented cheese only.
In a technical text, having a purely denotative nature, it is possible to deal with such
difference in semantic fields acknowledging that and translating, if necessary, "syr" as
"fermented cheese" instead of simply "cheese". On the contrary, in a more connotative
text it is more difficult to translate expressions like this one, in which the obstacle consists
in the cultural - rather than linguistic - difference. Not always, in such cases, explicitation
(in this case adding the word "fermented") will do as a pragmatic or functional equivalent
4
.
While in the past, in order to deal with translation problems, we often had to turn to
linguistics, in a sense JAkobsn reverses the approach.
No linguistic specimen may be interpreted by the science of language without a translation
of its signs into other signs of the same system or into signs of another systems 5.
This means that linguistic research has to turn to translation - intralingual, interlingual, or
intersemiotic translation. There is no possibility to study language without dealing with its
interpretation, i.e. with its possible "translations". We can therefore state that linguistics is
centered on semiotics and on translation intended in a broad sense. In this way, JAkobsn
proposes a conceptual revolution comparable to the shift from the Ptolemaic view to the
Copernican conception. Translation studies 6, seen this way, are no longer a marginal
subfield of linguistics; they become the Sun around which language science orbits.
Unlike artificial languages, in which it is possible to draw neat borders between the
meanings of different utterances, in JAkobsn's opinion the main question in linguistics is
equivalence in difference. We are not going to deny that verbal communication is at least
in part possible but, in the meantime, we have to acknowledge that verbal communication
normally produces a loss, and there are no two persons totally sharing the link between
sign, sense, and mental image (interpretant, in Peirce's vocabulary).

Consequently, linguistic work is based on the notion of translatability, on the possibility to


transmit verbal communication from one individual to another, and from one person's
mind to the utterance that person processes in order to communicate the message to the
outer world. Such work is based on phenomena described in the previous units.
Since between mental imagery and its verbal expression there is a reciprocal influence,
there is still a theoretical difference caused by a different formulation of apparently
identical facts.
Facts are unlike to speakers whose language background provides for unlike formulation of
them 7
These are words of the famous linguist Whorf, quoted in JAkobsn's essay. If we adhere
rigidly to this assumption, we must admit that any kind of translation is impossible. In this
case, linguistic expression is not conceived as a function of mental contents; it is viewed
as a mold shaping mental contents. Such statements, emphasizing expressive, perceptive,
and cognitive peculiarities of every individual, cannot help discovering shared knowledge,
which would be useful dealing with translation, with bilateral understanding.
Fortunately, linguistic and metalinguistic abilities are always copresent, which is very
useful for understanding each other.
An ability to speak a given language implies an ability to talk about this language. Such a
metalinguistic operation permits revision and redefinition of the vocabulary used 8.
Any speaker, for this reason, is able to make statements about what he is trying to express
and, if necessary, to adjust vocabulary - his own or the other speakers' one - in order to
make communication possible.
Bibliographical references
JAkobsn R. Language in Literature, Ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy. Cambridge
(Massachusetts), Belknap Press, 1987.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale [Total Translation]. Ed. B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos,
2000. ISBN 88-8049-195-4. Original edition Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu University
Press, 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
WHORF B. L. Language, Thought, and Reality. Selected Writings, edited by John B. Carroll.
Preface by Stuart Chase, Cambridge (Massachusetts), Technology Press of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1956.

In the previous units, we showed that this is impossible even within one language, and
that often one word has not entirely the same meaning for two speakers.
2
JAkobsn 1987, p. 430.
3
"Bring cheese and cottage cheese".
4
For a more detailed study on the different conceptions of "equivalence", see the second
part of this course.
5
JAkobsn 1987, p. 430.
1

In this instance, we use "translation" in a very broad sense, the same meant by Peeter
Torop with "total translation" (Torop 2000). In the next units, we will go back on Torop's
views about translation.
7
Worf 1956, p. 235.
8
JAkobsn 1987, p. 431.
6

15 - JAkobsn and translation - part 3


ON THE NET - english
JAKOBSN R.
An important aspect of translation problems has to do with the effect of the existence/
nonexistence of grammatical categories on translation and its possible outcome. At first
view, "to walk in the park is pleasant" and "a walk in the park is pleasant" are very similar
utterances; someone could even say "equivalent" expressions. JAkobsn holds that this
aspect, the change in grammatical category - for example the use of a name instead of a
verb or an adjective - has many consequences. In two essays, "Poetry of grammar and
grammar of poetry" 1 and "Grammatical parallelism and its Russian facet" 2, JAkobsn
emphasizes the structural importance of the grammatical categories in the text, especially
in the literary text. Using a verb instead of a name is not the same; it has consequences
in the expressive sphere.
In the quoted essay on translation, the problems deriving from translations between
languages with different grammatical categories are properly stressed.

It is more difficult to remain faithful to the original when we translate into a language provided with a
certain grammatical category from a language lacking such a category 3.

A frequent problem for the translator from English is the use of the simple past.
Sometimes, from the co-text, it is impossible to understand whether a perfective or
imperfective value should be attributed to the verb, if the action is finished and definite or,
on the contrary, is repeated and unfinished; it is therefore difficult to decide what tenses
to use in the target language.
Another tricky situation is caused by the fact that, for someone writing in English, it is not
necessary even to decide if a simple past verb should be interpreted as a perfective or
imperfective action. The possibility of the English language to express a "not well defined
past" is an expressive tool that other language don't have, because it allows English
authors not to define - to leave ambiguous - what the grammatical category doesn't imply.
"Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what theycan convey. Each verb of a
given language imperatively raises a set of specific yes-or-no questions, as for instance: is the narrated
event conceived with or without reference to its completion? is the narrated event presented as prior to the
speech event or not? Naturally the attention of native speakers and listeners will be constantly focused on
such items as are compulsory in their verbal code" 4.

When a text is translated into a language in which such ambiguity is not guaranteed by
the grammatical categories, the translator is forced to make an interpretation that the
author had not made, is forced to make a choice and to prefer a vision that suppresses
the potential for other perspectives.

JAkobsn proposes very interesting examples. The point is to translate into Russian the
sentence "I hired a worker". The Russian translator must make two decisions the English
speaker has not foreseen; first, deciding whether the verb "hired" has a perfective or
imperfective aspect, which, as a consequence, produces a choice between "nanjal" and
"nanimal"; the second concerns the gender of the worker, which produces a choice
between "rabotnika" and "rabotnicu".
On the other hand, from the Russian text, we will not be able to understand whether it is
"a worker" or "the worker", i.e. whether it is an indefinite person or a person we have
already heard of. In this case, the determinative article takes on an anaphoric value. This
ambiguity of the Russian text is due to the absence of the article as grammatical category
in the Russian language.
What we said about the use of grammatical categories is mostly referring to a less than
rational use of language. When language is employed in a rational way, the grammatical
model is far less important, because what we experience is closely linked to a continuous
interpretive and decoding action - a translation work.
It is therefore inconceivable that rational data could be untranslatable, because in this
case we would imply that we are not able to understand the rational experience itself.
What can be untranslatable is experience "in jest, in dreams, in magic, briefly, in what one
would call everyday verbal mythology, and in poetry above all" 5, where grammatical
categories have an enormous semantic significance. JAkobsn's essay in the end quotes
the Italian epigram in rhyme:
Traduttore, traditore 6.
In the history of translation studies, the quantity of trivial observations on the subject is so
vast, that once again we are astonished to observe how JAkobsn can make on this basis
deep, original reflections that have many important scientific consequences.
First, the question of translating this epigram into English is considered: If we were to
translate it "the translator is a betrayer", we would deprive it of all its paronomastic value.
(Paronomasia consists in juxtaposing two words with a similar sound, or of one word
being the anagram of the other.) We could be tempted, therefore, to take on a more
rational point of view and to make the aphorism explicit, to answer the questions:
translator of what messages?
betrayer of what values?7
With JAkobsn's levity and elegance, the reader is thus invited to understand the
characteristics of the following parts of this course, whose aim is to do away with many
translations studies clichs. Betrayer of what values? And, consequently, what do we mean
by "fidelity"? No translator, we think (and no lover) would be openly proud of his
"infidelity". To state that translations should be "faithful to the original" has the same value
of the sentence "We should behave well. We should not behave naughtily". The soldiers of
the French captain J. de Chabannes - monsieur de La Palice, who died during the battle of
Pavia (1525) - who remembered him with verses like "Fifteen minutes before his death /
he was still alive", if compared to some translation "scientists", are just beginners.
Obviously, we must be faithful, but this is indefinite - JAkobsn tells us between the lines if we do not state what we have to be faithful to.
Translator of what messages? This question encourages us to investigate the complex
nature of translation, its multifaceted nature and, consequently, the relative nature of the
question. We have to define exactly from the beginning the terms of our discourse if we
want to do serious scientific work. In this course, we will draw often on Peeter Torop's

works. He is chief of the Department of Semiotics of the Tartu University, in Estonia, and
scientific and academic heir of the great scientist JUrij Lotman. Torop's conception of "total
translation" will help us greatly in trying to answer JAkobsn's questions.
Bibliographical references
JAKOBSN R. Language in Literature, a c. di Krystyna Pomorska e Stephen Rudy,
Cambridge (Massachusetts), Belknap Press, 1987.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Pozija grammatiki i grammatika pozii, 1960.


Grammatical Parallelism and Its Russian Facet, 1966.
Jakobsn 1987, p. 432.
Jakobsn 1987, p. 433.
Jakobsn 1987, p. 433.
Jakobsn 1987, p. 435.
Jakobsn 1987, p. 435.

16 - Translation studies - part 1


ON THE NET - english
TOROP P.
In the previous units, we saw how many processes are involved in the everyday activity
we refer to as "translation", and how wide the continuum is of concepts we refer to as
"translation": within this wider concept, interlingual translation is but one of its many
expressions.
Many people say that (interlingual) translation is one of the oldest activities in the world.
The Bible is a good example of translation: in fact its oldest versions contain words in
Aramaic, parts in Hebrew and, in what is often called the "New Testament", parts in
Greek. In spite of that, until the 1980s there was no specific discipline dealing with
translation and/or its problems.
One could suppose that, just because translation has always existed, for centuries it
simply went unobserved, as an element of the cultural landscape to be taken for granted,
and, even though, from Cicero's day on, a number of writings were dedicated to that
subject, nobody felt or expressed the need to create a specific discipline.
On the other hand, many arts or sciences have dealt with translation in a more or less
marginal way, from rhetoric to narratology to linguistics. Until recently, however, nobody
thought that the landscape could be turned upside down, that a Ptolemaic revolution
could be made, in order to place interlingual translation, which has always been in the
position of a transitory and an unauthorized satellite of the other sciences holding a
stronger position. Translation can be qualified as a system having the broader concept of
(total) translation at its center, and the various types of translation in satellite positions:
textual, metatextual, intratextual, extratestual translation.
How this relatively new science is called? It has so many names that we need the help of
translators in order to understand each other.

English-speaking researchers call it "translation studies" or, familiarly, TS. In this way,
they have coined a locution untranslatable into nearly any other language, untranslatable,
at least, without creating an important loss. The main problem comes with the word
"studies", which in languages other than English is not always translatable simply using
the plural of a word translating "study". However, a science called "translation studies" is
undoubtedly a scientific endeavor related to translation.
Frenchmen use the term traductologie. Berman wrote in 1985:
The awareness of translation experiences, as distinct from all objectifying knowledge not within its
framework (as dealt with by linguistics, compared literature, poetics) is what I call traductologie 1.

Some translation researchers and some translators, including those translating from
French, think that "traductologie" is a swearword, not meaning literally that it is obscene,
alluding instead to its disagreeable aesthetic taste. Not every translation researcher would
be glad to print "traductologist" on her business card, even if we cannot deny that the
construction of this word follows widely accepted criteria.
Germans prefer another solution. Maybe at a first glance you could think it is a rather
long word: they call this discipline bersetzungwissenschaft, that is to say "translation
science", stressing in a still stronger way that they believe in the scientific character of
their endeavor, which is obviously welcome.
Russians, offer another alternative, with a similar process of word composition, speak
about perevodovdenie, which however does not mean exactly "translation science",
because "science" - and "discipline" - is usually expressed by the word nauka. Vdenie is
something between competence and awareness. It has an old Indo-European root: in
Sanskrit, we find the word vida, meaning "knowledge". Russians are lucky, because with
the suffix -vdenie they solve many terminology problems: literaturovdenie, for example,
means "literary theory", "narratology", and many other similar disciplines.
In Italy many terms are used: traduttologia, scienza della traduzione, teoria e storia della
traduzione, an old and obsolete denomination implying a nonexisting distinction between
translation theory and practice, recalling linguistics applied to translation problems.
In this course, we will use both the terms: "translation studies" and "translation science".
A Tartu University scholar, Peeter Torop, who inherited JUrij Lotman's place as a chief of
the local Semiotics Department, in 1995 wrote a book entitled Totalnyj perevod [Total
Translation], which is soon to be printed in English by the Guaraldi Logos publishers 2. We
share Torop's general approach to the question of translation research. Let us explain
what Torop means by "total", an adjective that might induce awe owing to its absolute
value.
In Torop's opinion, translation should be total for two reasons. First, by "translation" we
mean not only interlingual translation, but metatextual, intratextual, intertextual, and
extratextual translation as well. (We will see in the following units what we mean by these
definitions.) We feel that the total approach to overall translation problems has a greater
chance of obtaining scientific results because translation - as a process - is the same in all
these instances. Differences concern only the initial product and the final result, which
may or may not be texts. That is why the overall translation process is the core of our
studies.
The second reason to consider translation in a total sense is that, even if we value the
various contributions made to translation studies ante litteram, or before the existence of
this science, we wish to pursue the "search for a comprehensive methodology" 3, the
creation of a translation science that can plunge its roots in previous studies.
In doing so, we face an apparently insuperable obstacle: every science has its own
terminology and, often, every author has idiosyncratic preferences for single words. The
result is that two essays may deal with the same subject even if their superficial contents

are very different one from another, and the subjects themselves are nominated in
different ways: a sort of pre-translation-science Babel.
We share the hope with Torop that the translation researchers will first translate the
results of translation studies into one metalanguage, and then translate the different
analysis methods into one unifying methodology. In other words, translation researchers
should first methodologically translate the results of translation studies into a single
language, so that we can use this basis to do research in a scientifically homogeneous
context, preventing the risk of being misunderstood by colleagues and translators.
Bibliographical references
BERMAN A. et al. Les tours de Babel. Essais sur la traduction. Essays by Antoine Berman,
Grard Granel, Annick Jaulin, Georges Mailhos, Henry Meschonnic, Mos, Friedrich
Schleiermacher. Mauzevin, Trans-Europ-Repress, 1985. ISBN 2-905670-17-7.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Original edition in Russian: Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli
Kirjastus [Tartu University Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.

Berman 1985, p. 38.


The Italian edition was published in November 2000 (ISBN 88-8049-195-4). The English
edition should be printed by 2001.
3
Torop 2000, p. 24.
1
2

17 - Translation studies - part 2


ON THE NET - english
TOROP P.
We have seen in the previous unit that Torop distinguishes various kinds of translations.
Let us examine them one at a time.
Textual translation: this is the core of translation studies, also because it is the kind of
translation activity about which we have the widest literature. It is, moreover, what more
traditionally is referred to as "translation".
By "textual translation", we mean a process by which a text is transformed into another
text. This term does not make a distinction between interlingual and intralingual
translation. The textual paraphrase of a text, for example, is a kind of textual translation,
even if the two texts - prototext and paraphrase - are composed with the same code.
The "prototext" is what is sometimes referred to as "original", or "source text". The word
is formed by the prefix proto-, deriving from the Greek word prtos, meaning "first", a
meaning that can be used both to mean "first in time" and "first in space".
Using the same word-formation principle, what sometimes is called "translated text" or
"target text" - that is to say the result of textual translation - can be called "metatext". The
prefix meta-, from the Greek word met, meaning "after" (and also "with" and "for"), can
refer to a shift, a continuum, a transfer, or also to posteriority, additionality. We must
stress the difference between two meanings of the word "metatext", both of them
relevant to translation studies: first, "result of a textual translation process", the second
one is "metatextual translation process" (see further details in the next paragraph).

Being the most visible, textual translation is the kind of translation with a wider
literature. When we talk about the other types of translation, we still have the model of
textual translation in mind: that is the reason why the general methodology of translation
science, even when meant in a "total" sense, should be based on textual translation.
Textual translation studies are often based on literary texts. This fact should not fool
translators or future translators, especially those working with nonliterary texts: one
should not think that an analysis of a literary text is meaningful only for a literary text or,
worse yet, only for that single literary text. This would be in contrast to one of the two
main principles of total translation: the center of translation studies is the translation
process, whose core is common to all types of translation and, therefore, to all kinds of
interlingual, textual translations.
By "metatextual translation", we mean a process transferring a text not into another text,
but into a culture: in other words, the metatext is the overall image a text creates of itself
in a given culture. The overall image of a text in a culture is determined by the text itself
and by what in that culture is said about that text. A hint at a text, made publicly by
someone, in a written or oral form; a quotation; a critical essay; an item in an
encyclopedia referring to that text or author; an afterword to a text or the critical
apparatus to an edition, and so on: all that contributes to create the overall image of a
text in a culture.
If metatextual translation is intralingual, then the metatext consists of the
aforementioned elements only; if it isinterlingual, then among the metatextual elements
there also can be the translated text that, as we have just seen, can be called "metatext"
even by itself. Actually, it is a part of the whole metatext of an interlingual translation.
Sometimes, as Torop stresses, textual and metatextual translations are simultaneous,
contextual operations: they go together:
When the translator or the publisher himself prepares the preface, commentary, illustrations, glossaries, and
so on to a translated text, it is possible a translation being textual and metatextual at the same time1.

In some cases, the interlingual translation is written by a translator, the preface by another
author and the critical apparatus by a third person. The metatext is then a collective
endeavor, not always coordinated and coherent.
Intertextual translation. In our world, no text rises in autonomy, outside a context.
This is increasingly true when we face the faster and capillary circulation of information
that, on one hand, tends to globalize culture but, on the other hand, makes easier the
interchange between cultures and promotes development beyond differences.
The great Russian semiotician JUrij Lotman (1922-1993) in 1984 published an essay on
this topic called "The semiosphere". The cultural universe is compared to a body, on the
model of Vernadsky's concept of biosphere 2. This body may have more psychological than
biological features, but it has the characteristics of a system:
[...] the modern world semiosphere that, having grown wider and wider through centuries, has now a
universal character, includes signals from satellites and poets' verses and animal cries. [...] The dynamic
development of semiosphere elements (of substructures) tends toward specification and increases,
therefore, the inner variety of the whole 3.

We feel reassured, in a time when there are people who are afraid that the internet will
standardize local cultures, tastes and traditions:
[...] the process of reciprocal information and inclusion in a general cultural world not only nears different
cultures, but emphasizes their differences too. By entering in a general cultural world, a culture begins in

fact to cultivate more intensely its originality. [...] An isolated culture is always "for itself", "natural", and
"ruled by customary laws". As soon as it becomes a part of a wider system, it gets to know an outer point of
view about itself, and discovers its own specificity 4.

We can see the similarity between this argument and what we said in unit 5 referring to
linguistic self-consciousness. One's own way of verbal expression appears to be "natural"
as soon as we do not observe it from outside, we do not begin to make questions about
its mechanisms, and we do not acquire a core of metalinguistic self-consciousness.
These considerations of semiotic and psychological character suggest a systemic
approach to the problem of intercultural influences. The literary critic Harold Bloom,
theorizing on cultural influences in literature, synthesizes systemic approach and Freudian
psychoanalysis. He finds in the cultural system a mechanism in which the author of a text
is in the position of a son trying desperately to emerge with an identity of his own despite
the cultural domination of his "fathers", his literary precursors.
We can easily notice that said vision is strongly influenced by the Freudian concept of
Oedipal complex: the emerging identity of an author is considered a metaphor of the
definition of a son's identity, taking for granted the existence of a conscious or
unconscious conflict with his father. In the case of cultural influences, every precursor is a
potential father, more or less "encumbering" according to his importance in a given
culture. In Bloom's opinion, the text becomes
a psychic battlefield upon which authentic forces struggle for the only victory worth winning, the divinating
triumph over oblivion 5.

Every author, in Bloom's vision, is annoyed realizing that what he writes is not completely
original, that he writes also as a reaction to his precursors - in the same way as a son is
annoyed to behave in reaction to his father's personality, instead of following his own
desires and aspirations. For this reason the author tends to deny this kind of influence or,
as one says in psychoanalysis, to repress the debt. Repression, like any other psychic
mechanism intended to create a false perception of reality in order to make it acceptable,
causes - as a side effect - the impossibility to interpret the precursors' works in a
conscious way. Bloom's work is centered on this kind of interpretation, which is neither
lucid nor aware, and becomes a misinterpretation: every work is thus the misinterpretation
of a parent work, and every reading is actually a misreading of what was written by the
precursor.
Bibliographical references
BLOOM H. Poetry and Repression: Revisionism from Blake to Stevens. New Haven, Yale
University Press, 1976
LOTMAN JU. Lekcii po strukturalnoj potike. In JU. M. Lotman i tartusko-moskovskaja
somioticheskaja shkola. Moskv, Gnozis, 1994, p. 10-263. ISBN 5-7333-0486-3.
LOTMAN JU. O semiosfere [Sulla semiosfera], in Tid mrgissteemide alalt/Trudy po
znakovym sistemam/Sign Systems Studies, volume 17, Tartu, 1984. ISSN 1406-4243.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi-Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed.Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.

VERNADSKIJ V. I. Biosfera [The Biosphere], Moskv, 1967.

1
2
3
4
5

Torop 2000, p. 31.


Vernadskij 1967.
Lotman 1985, p. 69.
Lotman 1985, p. 76.
Bloom 1976, p. 2.

18 - Translation studies - part 3


ON THE NET - english
TOROP P.
In the previous unit, speaking about intertextual translation, we were led to widen
the object of our analysis to the whole semiosphere, to the whole cultural universe, the
environment in which cultural influences interact.
As we said, there are no texts rising from nowhere, independently of the context, from
outside the semiosphere system. Consequently, when an author writes a text, a part of
what she writes is a product of outer influences, while another part is a product of her
own personal contemplation. The author's creativity, however, is not shown only in the
part of the work deriving from her personal creation, but also in her ability to choose and
synthesize what others have written or said.
When an author assimilates material - in an explicit or implicit, conscious or
unconscious way -coming from others' texts, she makes an intertextual translation,
and the assimilated material is called intertext 1. At this stage of our exposition, we are
not yet interested in defining whether the other's material is originally written or
pronounced in the same code as the metatext or in another. For the moment, we need
only define whether it is a quotation and, if so, if it is an explicit or implicit one. If, on the
other hand, it is an allusion, we need to know how difficult it is for the reader to
understand it. Otherwise, the author can also unwillingly echo elements she has absorbed
from the semiosphere system.
Torop makes an important point here: The author and the translator and the reader all
have a textual memory 2. This synthesizing comment has many repercussions on the act
of practical translation. This means that, beyond the author's memory, allowing her to
insert other's texts in her text, the translator must - if she wants to do a good job realize the presence of the other's text and make it recognizable to the reader of the
metatext.
If, for example, an author "quotes" a passage by someone else without using quotation
marks or other graphic devices to indicate the beginning and end points of the
quotations, it is very important for the translator to catch the citation and convey it to the
reader of the metatext. In every single case the translator must decide how to do that,
for instance whether within or outside of the translated text.

It is also very important to remember that the reader has a textual memory, because
that determines the possibility to grasp the presence of other's text (intertext) within the
declared author's text.
Whenever the reader's textual memory or her encyclopedic ability are insufficient to
grasp said intertextual links, the damage is limited to the fruition of this reader and of
those who are going to receive information about that text from her. On the other hand,
when the reader is the translator - i.e. when the translator's textual memory (or
competence) is insufficient - the problem is more complex, because the risk is to be
unable to convey in the metatext the mark of other's language (of other's word, in
Bakhtinian terms). Such missing links have repercussions not only on one single reader,
but on all possible metatext readers.
As to intratextual translation, all that was said about intertextual translation is true,
with the exception that, in some way, we have to deal with "inner quotations", of links of
the author to herself, from a passage of her work to an other one: it is, therefore, the
interweaving of the author's poetics. While the intertext has the semiosphere as a
reference system, "intratext" refers to the microsystem of the author's text.
Extratextual translation concerns the intersemiotic translation described by
JAkobson. In it, the original material - prototext - is generally verbal text, while metatext
is made, for example, of visual images, still, or moving as in film. It can also work the
other way round, with a prototext made of music, images and so on, and a verbal
metatext.
Every art's language has its own articulation; its composing elements can be completely different. At the
same time, however, natural language can be used as a language to describe all of them (metalanguage).
Art criticism is actually a description of visual and linguistic art works by means of the natural language 3.

In every art, expressive devices are different, and each art provides expressive
capabilities that the other arts may not possess. In cinema, it is the director's creativity
that allows her to choose and combine the expressive capabilities available and may be
missing in other kinds of codes. Torop gives us a very interesting example of creativity in
the choice of cinematographic devices:
[...] in Buuel's last film That Obscure Object of Desire, where the aged man's incapacity to understand a
young woman (later his wife) is rendered - in the psychological space - using two distinct actresses for the
role of the same character. In the topographic chronotope, therefore, the lines of the plot see the hero meet
two women, that in the psychological chronotope is one concrete and well defined woman in each scene,
while in the metaphysical chronotope they are a mysterious and unappreciated woman 4.

In literature, this kind of artistic device would be unfeasible, because what in the film is
rendered by an image (the viewer suddenly sees another actress on the screen, but he
realizes that she represents the same character as the other), in terms of natural language
that would be rendered very clumsily owing to the lengthy and difficult verbal explanation.
The writer would need an additional artistic device.
Such reflections have important consequences when we must translate a written text
into a film, because the equivalence principle is far from being present, and we must
work instead on the different expressive potential of all the codes involved. The analysis

of this kind of problems falls within the framework of the analysis of translation in a
broad sense, of total translation.
What we said about the various kinds of translation suggests that a solely linguistic
approach to translation studies in inadequate in itself because it "doesn't cover the whole
range of translation problems" 5. The methodological contribution of semiotics is
necessary because semiotic metalanguage is more open, on one hand, to the different
codes or sign systems, and, on the other hand, to the cultural aspects of the translation
reception 6.
The core of translation studies must be a universal model of the translation process
applicable to all of the various kinds of translation we have talked about. And, on the
basis of this model, we must try to describe, without any evaluative purpose, how the
translation process works. This because "a science that has as a purpose to describe
translation as a process should not be prescriptive, it should be theoretical" 7.

Bibliographical references
EVEN-ZOHAR I. Polysystem Studies. Poetics Today, 11, n. 1, 1990.
GORLE, D. L. Semiotics and the problem of translation with special reference to the
semiotics of Charles S. Peirce. Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1994.
REVZIN I., ROZENCVEJG V. Osnovy obshchego i mashinnogo perevoda [The bases of
general and automatic translation], Moskv, 1964.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed.Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
TOURY G. In Search of a Theory of Translation, Tel Aviv University, The Porter Institute for
Poetics and Semiotics, 1980.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Torop 2000, p. 223-304.


Torop 2000, p. 31.
Torop 2000, p. 316.
Torop 2000, p. 326.
Torop 2000, p. 188.
Gorle 1993; Even-Zohar 1990; Toury 1980.
Revzin, Rozencvejg 1964, p. 21.

19 - The translation process - part 1


ON THE NET - english
JAKOBSN

TOROP P.
As we said at the end of the previous unit, the unifying element of any translationscience research must be the understanding and description of the translation process
that is shared by all the types of translations we have described.
Some researchers tend to distinguish neatly between:

product-analysis approaches, that concentrate on the translated text or metatext,


and

process-analysis approaches, that concentrate on the process through which from


the prototext the metatext is obtained.

According to one of the more important translation scientists, James S. Holmes


(1924-1986), who laid the foundations for the new translation-studies discipline, this
distinction is nearly impossible at a practical level and does not provide many results:
True, it is very useful to make a distinction between the product-oriented study of translations and the
process-oriented study of translating. But this distinction cannot leave to scholar leave to ignore the selfevident fact that the one is the result of the other, and that the nature of the product cannot be understood
without a comprehension of the nature of the process 1.

When we say that we want to pay much attention to the translation process in
translation science, we have better view of it in a broad sense, i.e. not as something
complementary to the translation product. The translation process is viewed as an
interrelation between the original and the translated text.
The translator reading the text she is about to translate does so projecting the potential
metatexts into a virtual space within which the new text begins to take shape, first in
terms of mental material (processing of material as perceived by the translator), then in
terms of concrete insertion of such material in a rigid and conventional structure: the
future metatext code (the language of the translated text). The human mind takes into
exam - a very quick but not always thoroughly conscious way - the various potential
possibilities to project the prototext into the metatext language and - with a procedure of
choice that has much in common with the games theory 2 - opts for the optimal solution
among the prefigured ones.
This selection work is made more complicated by the awareness that often choices
made have chain of consequences. To opt for one translating word instead of another
precludes some semantic potentials while stressing other possible meanings, creates new
intratextual and intertextual links while erasing other possible links. Every temporary
choice should be weighed in view of the whole text, and there is never a "final" choice
because the evolution of the prototext in relation to the global text is limitless.
The text, as we saw, is a complex entity composed, among other things, of a system of
intertextual and intratextual links. One of the aspects which the translator's attention
should particularly focus upon is the distinction between standard and marked elements:
the neutral/specific nature of an element is to be considered in the light of the cultural
context (intertextual links) and of the single author's poetologic context (intratextual
links). It is to be viewed in relation to the verbal units immediately preceding and
following (co-text) the examined word.

The reader of a poem or the viewer of a painting has a vivid awareness of two orders: the traditional canon
and the artistic novelty as a deviation from that canon. It is precisely against the background of the tradition
that innovation is conceived. The Formalist studies brought to light that this simultaneous preservation of
tradition and breaking away from tradition form the essence of every new work of art 3.

Since there is never a real sign-sign equivalence on the linguistic plane or on the
cultural plane, in her projective activity the translator is biased toward certain aspects of
the prototext and pays less attention to other elements that she considers of secondary
importance. At the basis of the translation activity there is "the choice of the element you
consider foremost in the translated production" 4; in other words, the text is to be
analyzed with criteria that should be as much objective as possible in order to isolate an
element, a dominant, forming the main entity around which the identification of the
whole text is built:
The dominant may be defined as the focusing component of a work of art: it rules, determines, and
transforms the remaining components. It is the dominant which guarantees the integrity of the structure 5.

Not only literary works can undergo such analysis that determines translation choices:
every text has its own dominant. What distinguishes a literary work is, in some cases, the
aesthetic function of the dominant:
[...] a poetic work is defined as a verbal message whose aesthetic function is its dominant 6.

In the translation process, the dominant of a text must not be identified depending on the
literary/non-literary nature of the prototext. Even if this aspect may appear fundamental in
the analysis of the text apart from the translation, in the real translation process we need
to concentrate on the complex interweaving of the relations between the role of the
prototext in the source culture and language and the role of the metatext in the target
culture and language 7.
The theoretical model of the translation process, the core of translation science, should
describe the various possibilities in the transfer of the dominant, i.e. the various
theoretical possibilities to translate 8.

Bibliographical references
BRJUSOV V. Fialki v tigele [Violets in the crucible], in Sobranie sochinenij v semi tomah
[Selected works in seven books], vol. 6, Moskv 1975.

GORLE D. L. Semiotics and the Problem of Translation with Special Reference to the
Semiotic of Charles S. Peirce. Alblasserdam, Offsetdrukkerij Kanters, 1993.

HOLMES J. S. Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies.


Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1988. ISBN 90-6203-739-9.

TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed.Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Holmes 1988, p. 81.


Gorle 1993.
JAkobsn 1987, p. 46.
Brjusov 1975, p. 106.
JAkobsn 1987, p. 41.
JAkobsn 1987, p. 43.
Torop 2000, p.197.
Torop 2000, p.197.

20 - The translation process - part 2


ON THE NET - english
ECO U.
TOROP P.
TOURY G.
The translation process is characterized by an analysis stage and a synthesis stage.
During analysis, the translator refers to the prototext in order to understand it as fully as
possible. The synthesis stage is the one in which the prototext is projected onto the
reader, better, onto the idea that the translator forms of who will be the standard reader
of the metatext.

[...] the text postulates the reader's cooperation as a condition for its actualization. Or, better, we can say
that a text is a product whose interpretive fate must be part of its generation mechanism: to generate a text
means to enact a strategy enclosing the prediction of the other's moves - as, by the way, it happens in every
strategy 1.

In other words, Eco tells us that, when we create a text (Eco does not speak about
translation, but his points holds for us too) we foresee the reader's moves. We postulate,
therefore, the existence of a Model Reader:
The Model Reader is a set of conditions of happiness, textually established, that must be satisfied for a text
to be fully actualized in its potential contents 2.

This means that the translator, elaborating her translation strategy, projects the prototext
onto her Model Reader, onto a type of reader that she infers from the relation between
prototext and target culture. Noone of the real readers, or empirical readers, can therefore
coincide completely with the Model Reader. And what Eco tells us is that is that, the more
the empirical reader X is different from the postulated model, the less complete will be the
actualization of the potential contents of the text, i.e. the less complete the text fruition or
understanding will be.
This is what happens during the synthesis stage of the translation process.

As we will see better in the following parts of this course, we do not approve of or share
in the opposition between "free" and "literal" translation be-cause we do not think that
either of these two types of translation can be defined with scientific criteria. Much more
interesting is, in our opinion, to concentrate on the dominant of the translation: the
translation process can be centered on the analysis phase; in this case, the dominant of
the translation is focused on the author of the prototext, and on the translator. The
translation process can also be centered on the synthesis stage; in this case the
translation dominant will be the focus on the Model Reader of the metatext 3. Of course,
the dominant of the prototext and the dominant of the metatext may not always coincide.
The two polarities toward which the translation process may be oriented are what Toury
calls adequacy principle and acceptability principle. Adequacy is the measure of the
adherence of the metatext to the prototext, from the translator's point of view, also
considering her deontological principles. Acceptability is, on the other hand, seen in
relation to the culture receiving the metatext, the target culture. An exaggeratedly
"adequate" translation can be unacceptable, i.e. there may not be any concrete
expressions of its Model Reader.
This somewhat abstract argument needs some concrete examples if we do not want to
loose the thread of what we are saying. One of the most translated books in the world,
probably the most translated, is the Bible. The translations made before Martin Luther
tend mostly toward the "adequacy" pole, for a very simple reason. The Bible is a sacred
text for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. For this reason, the translators attributed a
very high value not only to its contents, but to its form as well: to its sounds, even to the
form of its signs; for this reason they tried to produce a version as close to the letter of
the original as possible.
Martin Luther realized that the German translation of the Bible was incomprehensible to
most German speaking believers, and that this fact was causing a gap between the
Church and its flock. Therefore, he proposed a more understandable version:
I wanted to speak German and not Latin or Greek, because I had the purpose of speaking German in my
translation. [...] One should not ask the letters of the Latin language how one should speak in German, as
these asses do; one should ask that of the mother in her home, of the kids in the street, of the common
man in the marketplace, and one should watch each mouth to know how they speak and then translate
consequently. Then they will understand and realize that we are speaking with them in German 4.

The Roman Catholic Church considered this operation sacrilegious, and was one of the
causes of Luther's excommunication. This is how the Lutheran or Protestant religion
began. Afterwards, however, the Roman Catholic Church also changed its position and
proposed increasingly understandable texts to its believers in a form increasingly close to
the "acceptability" pole.
The Bible, however, is being translated even today, and sometimes the translations are
very different from the most widespread versions, so different that some consider them
too far from the "adequacy" principles. Here are some passages from Exodus in the King
James version (left column) and in Young's literal version (right column):

1 Now these are the names of the children


of Israel, which came into Egypt; every
man and his household came with Jacob.
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4 Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
5 And all the souls that came out of the
loins of Jacob were seventy souls: for
Joseph was in Egypt already.
6 And Joseph died, and all his brethren,
and all that generation.
7 And the children of Israel were fruitful,
and increased abundantly, and multiplied,
and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land
was filled with them 5.

1 And these [are] the names of the sons


of Israel who are coming into Egypt with
Jacob; a man and his household have
they come;
2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
4 Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.
5 And all the persons coming out of the
thigh of Jacob are seventy persons; as to
Joseph, he was in Egypt.
6 And Joseph dieth, and all his brethren,
and all that generation;
7 and the sons of Israel have been
fruitful, and they teem, and multiply, and
are very very mighty, and the land is
filled with them 6.

As you can see, Young's version is closer to "adequacy", to the point that some phrases
contain no verb (indicated in square brackets), and sometimes phrases are difficult to
understand from a grammatical point of view. With this example of the concrete difference
between the acceptability principle and the "adequacy" principle, we hope to ease the
comprehension of the ideological choices translators and publishers make that have so
much influence on the form of translated text.
Bibliographical references
ECO U. Lector in fabula. La cooperazione interpretativa nei testi narrativi. Milano,
Bompiani, 1991. ISBN 88-452-1221-1.English edition: The role of the reader: explorations
in the semiotics of texts. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1979
LUTHER M. Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, 1530.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed.Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
TOURY G. In Search of a Theory of Translation, Tel Aviv, The Porter Insistute for Poetics
and Semiotics, 1980.
1
2
3
4
5

Eco 1991, p. 54. Author's emphasis.


Eco 1991, p. 62. Author's emphasis.
Torop 2000, p. 200 - 201.
Martin Luther 1530, p. 106.
The Bible Gateway http://bible.gospelcom.net/
The Bible Gateway http://bible.gospelcom.net/

21 - The translation process - part 3


6

Having examined the consequences of a practical nature in the difference between an


adequacy-oriented approach and an acceptability-oriented approach, we are aware of the
fact that - pointing to the main ideological dichotomy at the basis of any translation - we
have stressed the most self-evident and important distinction. Nevertheless, we are still far

from providing a full description of the criteria through which it is possible to define a
general model of the translation process.
The Danish researcher L. Hjelmslev 1 proposed the distinction, within a text, between, on
one hand, form and substance of the content and, on the other hand, the form and
substance of expression. In this way, the text is divided into two planes (expression and
content), each of which is divided into two parts (form and substance), producing the
following quadripartition:
the content substance is, in a sense, objective, and does not vary from one language
to another, but points to inherent qualities. For example, colors can be described as a
certain range of visible frequencies. What in English is called "green" is, for most Englishspeaking people, related to a given combination of impressions linked to the perception of
wavelengths comprised between 5000 and 5700 angstrom. Therefore, if we superficially
think of the translatability of the English concept of "green", we might think that it is easy
to transpose it into another language;
the content form: in English, the word "green" points to the content substance we just
described. Hjelmslev observes that the content form varies from one language to another.
This means that we do not have a perfect match between the semantic fields of similar
content forms in different languages. Hjelmslev provides as example the mismatching of
the names of colors spanning from green to brown in the English and in the Welsh
languages 2:
green gwyrdd
glas
blue
gray llwyd
brown
Among other examples of mismatching between content form and content substance in
different languages are the English words "abortion" and "miscarriage", that in some
languages are identified by a single indistinctive word (for example, "aborto" in Italian,
"avortement" in French). On the contrary, the content form of English word "hair" in many
other languages matches two different words, one indicating the head hair, the other
denoting the body hair (for example, in Italian "capello" and "pelo", in French "cheveu"
and "poil");
expression substance is the graphic and phonic expression of the content. If an
utterance is a graphic expression substance, it has corresponding phonic expression form.
Hjelmslev uses as an example the toponym "Berlin" (expression substance), which is
translated into different expression forms, depending on the fact if it is pronounced (and
then actualized) in German, English, Danish, or Japanese . If, on the other hand, an
utterance is a phonic expression substance, it has its graphic expression form. To
illustrate, Hjelmslev uses the example of the sound /got/, which corresponds to different
expression forms and content substances according to the different languages. The
pronunciation of got is the graphic form of the expression that, in English, matches the
content substance "past form of to get"; but it also corresponds to the pronunciation of

Gott, the graphic form of the German content substance "God"; and it is the same as the
pronunciation of godt, the graphic form of the expression matching the Danish content
substance of "well";
expression form is the way in which the expression substance is actualized, i.e. the
way in which a graphic form is pronounced or a phonic form is written.
Hjelmslev's distinction between expression plan and content plan is carried on in
translation studies by Torop, who postulates that the expression plane (substance and
form) of the prototext is
recoded - through the means of the other language and the other culture - into the expression plan of the
translated text, while the content plan is transposed into the content plan of the translated text4.

By recoding, we mean a linguistic, formal, style process, while transposition is a


process that, as regards literary texts, implies the understanding of the poetic model, of
the content structure of the text. The two processes are not, however, independent one of
the other. They are interrelated on the methodological plane. When discussing translation
problems, however, it is better to consider them separately in order to better understand
their different functions within the context of the translation process.
Recalling what we have covered in the previous unit, and the distinction between the
analysis and synthesis stages, Torop makes use of a model that results from the
intersection of the distinction between phases (analysis/synthesis) and the distinction
between processes (recoding/transposition). From these two pairs of elements, Torop gets
a quadripartition of the potential actualizations of the translation process.
Before exposing a taxonomy of the various kinds of translation, Torop states his general
definition of "adequate translation": it is a translation in which transposition and recoding
go through the analysis and synthesis stages, preserving the peculiar interrelations
between expression and content plans of a given text in the process. In other words, the
dominant of the original is preserved.
However, there are many ways to preserve the peculiar interrelations between expression
and content plans (to preserve the dominant of the prototext). Depending on the means
the translator chooses, she may produce various translations that can be equally
"adequate" . "Adequate" translations are further subdivided by Torop into "dominantcentered" [dominant-nye], and "autonomous", i.e. having the purpose of transmitting only
one of the plans of the prototext. For example, an autonomous translation could be the
prose translation of a poem 6.
Summing the quadripartition analysis/synthesis and transposition/recoding and the
dichotomy dominant-centered/autonomous, Torop produces the following eight-part model
7
.
adequate translation
recoding
analysis

transposition
synthesis

analysis

synthesis

autonomus

dominantcentered

autonomous

dominantcentered

autonomou
s

dominantcentered

autonomo
us

dominantcentered

macro-style

precision

micro-style

quotation

theme

description

expression

freedom

1
2
3
4
5
In the next unit we will examine in detail this model.

Bibliographical references
HJELMSLEV L. I fondamenti della teoria del linguaggio. A cura di Giulio C. Lepschy. Torino,
Einaudi, 1975. Or. ed.Omkring Sprogteoriens Grundlggelse, Kbenhavn, Festskrift udg.
af Kbenhavns Universitet, 1943. English translation: Prolegomena to a Theory of
Language, ed. by F. J. Whitfield, University of Wisconsin, 1961.
TOROP P. La traduzione totale. Ed. by B. Osimo. Modena, Guaraldi Logos, 2000. ISBN
88-8049-195-4. Or. ed.Totalnyj perevod. Tartu, Tartu likooli Kirjastus [Tartu University
Press], 1995. ISBN 9985-56-122-8.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Hjelmslev 1975.
Hjelmslev 1975, p. 58.
Hjelmslev 1975, p. 61.
Torop 2000, p. 200.
Torop 2000, p. 200
Torop 2000, p. 56.
Torop 2000, p. 204.

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