Translation

Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the meaning of a text in one language — the source text — and the production of a new, equivalent text in another language — called the target text, or the translation.

Criticism of translation

From time to time, criticism can be made of the act of translation. One such criticism is the lack of "coherence" in translation. The criticism can be stated as follows. If a story originally written in English, and taking place in an English speaking country, is translated into French, for example, it can lose its logic because of sentences like "Do you speak English?" The critic asks what the translation should be. "Parlez-vous anglais?" or "Parlez-vous français?". According to this criticism, the answer will be self-contradictory. If the answer to the question were yes, for the first translation this would mean something like, "Yes I speak a language you are not using and that is absolutely irrelevant". For the second translation it would mean "Yes, this is an English speaking country, and yet everyone, including myself, is speaking French." The gist of this criticism that one of the main rules in translation is to "keep the context", and that the language of the document is itself the heart of the context.

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This criticism can be rebutted in several ways. First, this kind of situation arises rarely in real-world translations. When it does, the translator can use techniques to avoid the problem by, for example, translating "Do you speak English?" by "Do you speak my language?" or "Do you understand what I say?" Another point is that a French-speaking reader who is reading a book written by, say, Agatha Christie describing a murder in an English stately home, most likely realises that the characters were speaking English in the original.

Related Topics:
Agatha Christie - Murder - Stately home

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Another criticism is of a more philosophical nature. It claims that translation can be described as writing what you have read in another language. The question arises whether the reader can know whether the translator understands the original author perfectly. While this is the translator's job, it is the author who is praised for the work; but can a translation of Asimov be considered as Asimov's work? According to this criticism, translation could even be seen as "legal plagiarism". Translations can be quite different from the original: for instance, the name of Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was translated into French by Jean Bonnefoy as Zapi Bibici. While this is not a huge difference, it is there. Adams may not have been completely happy with this change, and it is by a series of such small changes that a translation becomes an adaptation, according to this criticism.

Related Topics:
Philosophical - Asimov - Plagiarism - Zaphod Beeblebrox - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - Jean Bonnefoy

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This is a long-time complaint of translation, that is expressed in the Italian expression Traduttore, traditore — every translation is a betrayal. On the other hand, rarely is a work of fiction translated without a negotiation as to rights, and many an author will be happy to put aside reservations about the names of characters for the opportunity to increase his readership.

Related Topics:
Italian - Betrayal

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