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English Department Translation Studies: Cohesion and Coherence in Translation A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the licence degree in American Cultural Studies Submitted by: Supervisor: EL AIDA Sara Dr.BNINI Chakib Academic Year: 2016/2017 1 Table of contents...

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Translation Studies: Cohesion and Coherence in Translation Sara EL AIDA

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English Department

Translation Studies: Cohesion and Coherence in Translation

A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the licence degree in American Cultural Studies

Submitted by:

Supervisor:

EL AIDA Sara

Dr.BNINI Chakib

Academic Year: 2016/2017 1

Table of contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Section I ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 General Background ..................................................................................................................................... 6 1-What is Translation studies? .................................................................................................................. 7 2- The Holmes/Toury “map” of Translation: ............................................................................................ 8 3-The Dual Role of a Translator: ............................................................................................................ 11 Section II ..................................................................................................................................................... 13 Cohesion and Coherence in Translation ..................................................................................................... 13 1-

Cohesion: ........................................................................................................................................ 15

1.1. Types of cohesive devices: ............................................................................................................... 16 1.2. Shifts in Cohesion:............................................................................................................................ 21 2-

Coherence: ...................................................................................................................................... 22

2.1. Importance of Coherence in Translation .......................................................................................... 22 2.2. Views on Coherence ......................................................................................................................... 22 2.3. Levels of Coherence: ........................................................................................................................ 23 2.4. Shifts of Coherence:.......................................................................................................................... 24 Section III.................................................................................................................................................... 27 Additional Examples: Translation of More Quran Verses and a Proverb................................................... 27 1-

Other examples of reader-focused coherence shifts: translation of additional Quran verses ......... 28

1.1.

Partial referential gap example : ................................................................................................. 28

1.2.

Complete referential gap example : ........................................................................................ 28

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Example of text-focused coherence shifts: analysis of an Arabic proverb translation ................... 28

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 30 References ................................................................................................................................................... 31 Webography ................................................................................................................................................ 35

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Dedication This research work is dedicated especially to my parents. Thank you for your constant support, unconditional help and continuous encouragement. To my wonderful uncle, sisters and close friends for their boundless support, motivation and patience.

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Acknowledgments My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor Dr. BNINI Chakib for his inspiring guidance, generous advice and encouragement throughout this research work. Thanks to all my professors who enlightened me throughout these three years at Hassan II University. My thanks are also extended to all the professors at the English Department for their moral support, understanding and patience. I would like also to expend my deep appreciation to Ms. FLAH Loubna and Mr. MAJHAD Khalid for their valuable suggestions and remarks.

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Introduction According to Toury (1978), translation is a process which certainly involves at least two languages and cultures. Since cultures vary, the translator projects the source culture onto the target culture. The final translation must cover the semantic and grammatical dimensions that should be as close as possible to the source. This research paper tackles two of these main dimensions in translation studies, namely: “cohesion and coherence”. These concepts are fundamental to the creation of textual continuity. Cohesion helps to create text and express the continuity that exists between one part of the discourse and another. However, it is not sufficient for a text. In daily life, people can often encounter sentences that are well-connected by cohesive devices, but not coherent at all (Wang and Guo, 2014). According to the authors, coherence is not something that exists in the language, it is something that exists in the people. It is people who make sense of what they read. Translators aim to attain an interpretation which is in line with their experience and background knowledge of the world. In the process of reading and rewriting, hence translating, translators face problems such as: issues of equivalence, different language structures and cultural voids that lead to shifts of target text coherence. This paper is divided into three sections. The first one explores the general background of translation studies as well as the dual role that the translator plays. The second section sheds light on the theories underlining the concepts of cohesion and coherence, as well as their importance in discourse analysis and translation. Moreover, a special study of coherence shifts in some verses of the Quran will be explored in this section. The last section deals with additional examples depicting some issues related to reader-focused coherence shifts in some translated verses of the Quran. A translation of a proverb is also analyzed in this section to emphasize the issue of text-focused coherence shifts.

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Section I General Background

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1-What is Translation studies? According to Dr. Hassan Ghazala (2006) in his book “Translation as problems and solutions”, translation as a subject, is generally used to refer to all the processes and methods used to transfer the meaning of the source language text into the target language text, using: 1- Words, which already have an equivalent in the Arabic language1; 2- New words for which no ready-made equivalents are available in Arabic beforehand; 3- Foreign words written in Arabic letters; 4- Foreign words changed to suit Arabic pronunciation, spelling and grammar. Translation studies is the analysis of the theory and practice of translating and interpreting especially in an academic context. It has become an important field of study. The concept of Translation: The English word “Translation” is derived from the Latin word “Translatio”, which means, “carry” or “bear across”. Long ago, this Latin word referred only to « word-for-word » translation. Today this definition is no longer relevant, since a word can carry several meanings. Two translators may be translating the same source text into the same target text, but the result may be very different depending on: 1- The purpose of translation; 2- The visions of translators themselves; 3- The receptor language audience. Generally, Translation is a process of transferring a message from a language to another, but the problem is: “is it possible for translators to preserve the meaning of source language when translating into the target language?”. It is very difficult to come out with the same message while translating, even if we get the meaning. Roman Jakobson (1959; 2000) in his essay ‘’On Linguistics Aspects of Translation’’ states three forms of translation: 1

The book deals with translating into the Arabic language. We take its conclusions as a generalization to the exercise of translation to any other language.

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1- Intralingual translation: translation within a language, which would involve explaining it in words of the same language; 2- Interlingual translation: translation from one language to another or reinterpretation of the message in another linguistics code; 3- Intersemiotic translation: translation from one linguistics system to another, which means the transference of meaning from a verbal to a non-verbal system or from one medium to another. Intralingual translation is used for example when explaining a difficult term to someone. Interlingual translation takes place in every translator’s life; it pertains translating words from one language into another linguistic code. Intersemiotic translation is from one linguistic system to another which means the transfer of meaning from a verbal to a non-verbal system. This type of translation deals with two or more completely different semiotic codes. For example, from a linguistic code to a musical code and/or choreographical code (through dancing). It is largely used in image design, advertising and publicity.

2- The Holmes/Toury “map” of Translation: In his seminal article « The Name and Nature of Translation Studies », Holmes (1972) puts forward a set of ideas for describing and characterizing the main features of the nascent discipline which he calls “translation studies”. Toury (1978) has attempted to reformulate the ideas of Homes using an illustrative map.

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Holmes and Toury’s map of Translation Studies (Munday, 1995)

For Holmes (1972), the field of translation studies2 is divided into two branches: “pure” and “applied” areas of research. The “applied” area of research is also divided into three branches. The first branch is the translator training, which includes teaching methods, testing techniques, curriculum design and so forth. The second is translation aids such as dictionaries, grammar and information technology. The last branch is translation criticism, which according to Holmes (1972) involves evaluation of translations, including marking student translations and reviewing published translations. The “pure” area of research, on the other hand, has two main branches “descriptive and theoretical”. ➢ Concerning the first branch, the aim is to describe the phenomena of translating and translation as they manifest themselves in the world of experience;

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See also Munday (1995).

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➢ The second branch deals with establishing the general principles, by means of which these phenomena can be explained and predicted. Holmes’ (1972) categories are simple, scientifically framed, and hierarchically arranged. The theoretical branch is in turn divided into general and partial branches. As the name implies, research belonging to the “general” branch seeks to make generalizations that are applicable to all translations. It also describes and accounts for every type of translation (Munday, 1995). “Partial” theoretical research is restricted to certain parameters such as specific languages or language groups (area restricted theories). It refers to specific problems like the issue of equivalence or whether universals of translated language exist (problem restricted theories). It looks also at specific discourse types in different text genres (text-type restricted theories). The other branch of the “pure” area of research is the “descriptive” branch. Descriptive translation studies field examines: (1) the product, (2) the function or (3) the process of translation. Product-oriented descriptive translation studies examine existing translations, describing and/or analyzing source text-target text pairs. Function-oriented descriptive translation studies examine the function of translations in the socio-cultural context for which they were produced; in other words, what was translated, when, where and why. Finally, Process-oriented descriptive translation studies are concerned with the psychology of translation. They aim to find out what happens in the mind of a translator when he/she translates.

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3-The Dual Role of a Translator: Newmark (1988) defines translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text”. The translator must read the text before he/she begins to render its meaning to the target language readers. Zonglin (2003) illustrates the two roles in the diagram below:

This diagram emphasizes the dynamic process of translation. The translator is first a reader who aims to render the original text onto a target text. Then, he/she is an author who conveys a message and becomes, therefore, a new sender or a rewriter. This role depends on reading, interpreting, decoding and then deconstructing the meaning conveyed from the source text to the target language’s readers. By doing so, the work of the translator extends the life of the source text and communicates it to the target language readers. The process of deconstructing the text and rendering it into a target language requires both lexico-grammatical and pragmatic analysis. BlumKulka (1986) states “a successful process of translation necessitates a complex text and discourse 11

processing”. As a reader and a rewriter, a translator is constantly making choices on various linguistic levels, namely words, collocations, fixed expressions, clauses and structures. What happens during the process is that a translator reads and then reproduces the text in the target language, within his personal, social and cultural parameters. As such, the translated text, is but “one of many possible texts” and shall be seen as an evidence of a communicative transaction than a final product (Hatim and Mason, 1990).

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Section II Cohesion and Coherence in Translation

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It is worth noting that the dual role that a translator plays, as being both a reader and a rewriter, is very essential in the decision-making process of choosing linguistic features. The latter allow target language readers to identify a text as a unit (one connected structure). According to Widdowson (2007), discourse analysis is a branch that attempts to study language beyond the limits of the sentence. It studies the relationship between language and the context in which it is used. The author points out that discourse analysis deals with how people understand each other, make sense of what they read or hear, recognize whether a text is meaningful, understand the nature of a text (is a unit well-structured or not), and how they differentiate between what is communicated and said. Generally, any piece of language, whether written or spoken, involves forms and structures. McCarthy (1991) notes that, any type of discourse is usually assumed to be meaningful, wellstructured, and leads to a successful communication. This means that its words and sentences “are interrelated in conventional formulae”. These conventional formulae involve all those norms and rules people follow when they speak or write. Beaugrande (1981) and Madoui (2004) suggest seven criteria that have to be fulfilled to qualify any type of discourse. These include: -

Cohesion: it refers to formal surface relations between the sentences that make up the text;

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Coherence: it refers to the underlying relations that hold between the sentences making up the text. The latter establish their relevance to the central thought of the text;

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Intentionality: it refers to the text producer’s attempt at handling the linguistic resources of the text in a way that meets their intentions and communicates the message to be conveyed, in an appropriate and successful way;

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Acceptability: it refers to the receiver’s ability to perceive any relevance of the text in question, which help the reader to recognize the textuality of the text materials and its properties;

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Informality: it refers to the newness or the giveness of the information presented in the text, i.e. whether the information in the text is known or not to the receiver. A text to be informative must assure a balance between giveness and newness;

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Situationality: it concerns the factors that make up a text relevant to a situation of occurrence. So, it is important to determine what is said, by whom, why, when, and where; 14

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Intertextuality: it deals with the factors that make the use of one text dependent upon knowledge of previous texts. A text, in fact, belongs to a wider universe of discourse, thus the text receiver is able to perceive the intended message. It is noted that “cohesion and coherence are distinct from each other but share one crucial characteristic. Cohesion can be defined as the way in which words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs link together to create a text that flows logically in structure and meaning”. In the case of cohesion, Baker (1992) notes that “stretches of language are connected to each other by virtue of lexical and grammatical dependencies”.

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Cohesion: Cohesion is a series of lexical, grammatical and other relations which provide links

between the various parts of a text. In studying cohesion, we should distinguish “linguistic cohesion” and “pragmatic cohesion”. Consider the following exchanges3: (a) John likes Helen. (b) She, however hates him. (c) Do you have coffee to go? (d) Cream and sugar? ➢ In the first case the link between (a) and (b) is provided by pronominalization, which is purely a linguistic link. In the second, the connection between (c) and (d) depends on knowledge and experience of the real world. ➢ Linguistic and pragmatic presupposition differ in a similar manner. While in linguistic presupposition the information can be extracted from the linguistic context, in the case of pragmatic presupposition, the information is deduced from outside the linguistic context.

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A didactical document issued by the University of Rome. For more details, see the following website:

www.uniroma2.it/didattica/ling_ing1.../Textual_cohesion.doc

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Example: John gave his br...