Eugene Nida - Riassunto The Translation Studies Reader PDF

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Riassunto saggio Eugene Nida...

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Eugene Nida There isn’t a full equivalence between two different texts. No statement of the principles of correspondence in translating can be complete without recognize types of translations, there are ultraliteral translations as interlinears , and other translations that involve concordant relationship, the same source language word is translated by one receptor language word.Some translations aim at very close and semantic correspondence but are supplied with notes and commentary. Many are not so much concerned with giving information as with creating in the reader something of the same mood as we conveyed by the original. Differences in translation concerned 3 basic factors: the nature of the message, the purpose of the author, the type of the audience. The content of a message sometimes can never be abstracted from the form and the form is nothing apart from the content. In poetry there is a focus of attention upon formal elements that one finds in prose. That content is not sacrificed in the poem. Only rarely translators try to reproduce both content and form, in general the form is sacrificed for the content. The purpose of translator is to consider which kind of translation he has to do, and he has to be able to convey content and form. Another important aspect of translation is adaptation that occur in a translation which has an imperative purpose, here the translator fells constrained not to suggest a possible line of behaviour, but to make an explicit action. He has to create a translation clear. The audience instead could be divided in decoding ability( involves four principles levels: capacity of children whose vocabulary and cultural experience is limitated, the double-standard capacity of new literates who can decode oral messages but his capacity of decoding written messages is limitated, the capacity of literate adult, and the unusual capacity of specialists) and in potential interest( translation designed to stimulate reading for pleasure or reading to learn). There are two different kind of equivalence: that is formal( focuse the attention on the message itself, in both content and form, there is correspondence in poetry to poetry, sentences to sentences. The translation that typifies the structure and that is the structural equivalence might be called’’ gloss translation’’ in which the translator attempts to reproduce the form and content of the original. This kind of translation want to permit the reader to identify himself as fully as possible with a person in the source language context and to understand the manner of thoughts, means of expressions) and that is dynamic that tries to reproduce a dynamic translation and not a formal one based on 4 principles of equivalence effect, in this kind of translation the relationship between receptor and message should be the same between the original receptors and the message. This kind of translation tries to express a mode of behaviour within the context of his own culture. There are several degrees of dynamic translations, one of the modern English translation which seeks for equivalence effect is Philips’s reading of New testament. Between the two poles of translating there are a number of intervening grades representing various standards of literary translating. A translation may involve languages and cultures, sometimes could happen that the cultures are connected but the languages are different, this is connected with the problem of false friends( borrowed or cognate word which seem to be equivalent but are not always so). When cultures are related but languages are different the translation is called upon to male a good many formal shifts in the translation, and in this case there are also parallelisms of content. There are different authors that define translations: 1. Prochazka who defines a translation in terms of requirement s made by the translator haa to understand the original word thematically and stylistically,he has to overcome the differences between the two linguistic structures and he has to reconstruct the stylistic structure of the original word in his translation

2. Matthews who translates a poem creating a new one and a whole translation has to respect the matter In poetry the most important element is the tension between form and content and the conflict between formal and dynamic equivalences are present, translating poems involves so much problems in terms of translation of rhythm, meter, assonance 3. Orr tries to resolve the conflict between literalness of form and equivalence in favour for the second one. He describes the translation as a paiting and the painters does not to reproduce every detail but he selects what seems the best for him. 4. Savory describes several translating features 5. Pound states the case for translations making sense by declaring for more sense and less syntax 6. Campbell explains that translation must convey the spirit and manner of the original 7. Goodspeed wants to create a translation that makes the reader to forget that is a translation It is really difficult to reproduce a natural translation if the original writing is good literature because truly good writing reflects and exploits the total idiomatic capacities and special genius of the language in which the language is done. 8. Arnold is one of the authors who rejects the principle of similar response because he thinks that English translation has to be idiomatic and interesting not only for scholar but for readers in general 9. Souter thinks that his ideal of translation is to produce on the minds of readers the same effect produced in the minds of the original readers Translation means following 4 basic principles: making sense, conveying the spirit of the original text, having a natural and easy form of expression, reproducing similar response. If in a translation a translator tries to produce only content without reference to form, the result is a mediocrity of the translation, instead if a translator tries to reproduce just form the result is an impression, but failing to communicate the message. Correspondence in meaning must have priority in correspondence in style. There are different principles that govern the translation which attempts to reproduce a formal equivalence(F-E)that is source-oriented and wants to convey the form and content of the original message. So, in doing this, F-E reproduces several formal elements including grammatical units( the reproduction of grammatical units( consists in translating nouns, verbs, keeping all phrases intact and preserving all formal indicators, marks of punctuation, paragraph break), consistency in word usage, meanings in terms of source context. An F-E translation make always use of parentheses for words added to make sense in the translation, but missing in the original document. In order to reproduce meanings in terms of source context, F-E translation reproduces expression more or less literally, in the fact the reader tries to perceive the way in which the original text employed local cultural elements to convey meanings. Sometimes could happen that a F-E translation contains marginal notes in order to explain some of the formal features that are not adequately represented . In contrast with F-E translation there is D-E translation that is concerned with a bilingual and bicultural person, this kind of translation is a translation that wants to reflect the meaning and intent of source. It is the closest natural equivalent to the source-language message. This type of definition contains 3 essential terms: equivalent which points toward the source-language message, natural which points toward the receptor language( natural is a concept applicable to area of communication process for a natural renderings must fit, the receptor language and cultural as whole, the context of a particular message and

the receptor language audience. A natural translation involves two principal areas of adaptation: grammar and lexicon. In general the grammatical modifications can be made the more readily , sometime it is obligatory to use verbs in place of nouns, or pronouns instead of nouns. Instead the lexical structure is less adjusted to the semantic recuirements of the receptor language. There are three lexical levels:1. Terms fot which there are available parallels, 2. Terms which identify culturally different objects but with similar functions,3- terms identify cultural specialities. Naturalness of expression in the receptor language is a problem of co-suitability but on several levels ,such as word classes, grammatical categories, semantic classes, discourse types, cultural context in fact in order to be appropriate to the receptor language and culture a natural translation must be in accordance with the context of a particular message and problems are connected with intonation and sentence rhythm. Onomatopoeic expressions are considered equivalent to slang but e speakers of some languages such as languages in Africa and the attitude of some missionary translators toward such vivid, colloquial forms of expressions have contributed to enrich the African languages. Connected with slang and vulgarism there are so much errors because sometimes could happen that are ambiguous. Another means of violating the co-suitability of message is Anachronism that involves two types of errors such as using contemporary words to falsify life and using old-fashioned language in the receptor language and giving an impression of unreality), and closest which connects the two orientation together on the basis of the approximation. Elements such as sarcasm, irony are reflected in D-E translation, where it is also reflected the difference into languages and dialect of every kind of people. A third element in the naturalness of a D-E translation is represented by the message that fits the receptor language audience. This appropriateness could be judged on the basis of the level of experience and the capacity for decoding. The limitation in translation involves three principles such as special literary forms, semantically exocentric expression, intraorganismic meanings that suffer most in the process of translating, because they depend so largely upon the total context of the language in which they are used....