Translation theorists are continuing to develop axes along which translations can be evaluated, moving away from the elusive idea of accuracy (except for texts whose purpose is solely informative) and toward a more subjective and realistic understanding of translation as a form of human engagement and an interface between cultures.
This section will cover...
Feminist Translation Theory
In the 1980s and 90s, a group of women translators in Quebec started to formulate a new approach to translation, one that centered the subjectivity of the original text as well as the translator's right to appear fully as part of the translation (including through interventions like hijacking and supplementing).
References to this vague notion of faithfulness or accuracy crop up time and again in reviews and popular discussions of translated literature, and even in many translators’ descriptions of the work they do. Yet this stance betrays a misconception as deep as it is widespread. Translation has no truck with modest changes. The entire translation is a text that didn’t exist before: all the words are added; all the words are different. A translation adds a new iteration, in a different language, to the sum total of texts for a work.
Feminist translators used footnotes, glosses, and textual notes to make their presence in the translation evident. This new approach opened the door to our understanding all translation as inevitably a collaboration between the translator and the original text and led to a more consistent translator attribution.
As a counterpoint, Gayatri Spivak, whom we saw earlier arguing for the decolonization of translation, takes issue with the Western feminist translator. She believes the translator should always fully subjugate their own perspective to the text and culture of the original work.
In fact, both perspectives foreground the power of the translator in the translation process, but the feminist point of view is addressed to a subjugated voice translating dominating literature and Spivak's is addressed to a dominating voice translating subjugated literature.
Domesticating v. Foreignizing Translations
The translation theorist Lawrence Venuti argues that, while making countless decisions, translators tend to veer either toward foreignizing or domesticating their translation.
Foreignizing translations intentionally make the reader aware that they are reading a text from another language and culture.
Domesticating translations prioritize making the text sound familiar and accessible to the reader.
Many of the translation features we've considered so far (metaphrase/paraphrase/imitation, idioms, syntax, leaving words untranslated) can be part of foreignizing or domesticating a given translation.
An Illustrated Explanation (with baked goods)
Both the domesticating and foreignizing approaches are valuable. A translator will employ both at various points in a text, and the overall translation will fall somewhere on the spectrum. Multiple translations of a given text often oscillate between the two poles, collectively offering a more complete experience of the original.
Two Examples:
So what does this all mean?
All translated texts, be they scientific papers, newspaper articles, or novels, are a written record of an intimate, improbable collaboration between two writers. In any work of translation, the translator is as present as the original author, whether they announce it or not. The ability to recognize some of the parameters of this collaboration helps us be more aware of what we are reading and helps avert some of the misconceptions and cultural mis-assumptions that translation sometimes seeds.
Whether using translated texts in teaching, research, or reading for pleasure, it matters that we a have a conscious understanding of the translated work and an accurate sense of what it does and does not tell us about the original text, author, and culture.
A Last Example
From The Big Green Tent by Ludmilla Ulitsakaya, 2010 Russian
Irina graduated, and she got an excellent appointment with the Foreign Committee of the Writers' Union. An old comrade of her father's was in charge of the union and fixed her up with the job.
In 1970, Igor Vladimirovich died suddenly of a heart attack. Not long before his death, he caught wind of a rumor that Solzhenitsyn had been nominated for the Nobel Prize. He was agitated by this news.
"What kind of outfit is this Nobel Committee, anyway? They didn't give it to Tolstoy, but they're giving it to Solzhenitsyn?"
Tr. Polly Gannon 2015
original Russian
Ира окончила университет, распределение было шикарным: иностранная комиссия при Союзе писателей. Старый товарищ отца курировал этот Союз, через него и место вышло. В семидесятом году в одночасье от инфаркта умер Игорь Владимирович. Незадолго до смерти дошел до него слух, что Солженицына выдвинули на Нобелевскую премию, и был он недоволен: — Что там за комитет такой? Толстому не дали, а Солженицыну дают? (Original Russian)
Why are "fixed her up with a job," "caught wind of a rumor," and "What kind of outfit is this" instructive lines in an analysis of this translation?
Looking at the language cited above, what kind of translation does this seem to be?