UNIVERSITY OF LOS ANDES

SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Looking for a Ghost: Why is the

Translator (In)Visible?

Kellynsky Y. Dvila M.
v-20434734

Mrida, November, 2013.

In the University of Los Andes, School of Modern Languages, you can choose an
option of specialization called Translation. This option allows initiating in the study
and making off of translations. In this paper, we will focus on this option,
specifically literary translation. Translators have a valuable work in our culture;
without them we would not be able to know such precious and important works that
are not written in our mother language. Without them we would not be able to know
about William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Honor de Balzac or other priceless
literary works around the world.
However, the conception of a translator is not reduced to just one. We will
introduce two main theoretical schools that defend two different conceptions. On
the one hand, we have the traditional school which sustains the idea of the
invisibility of the translator. (Milton, 1996, p. 186) On the other hand, we have the
vanguard school, which defends exactly the opposite to the first one. (Ibdem, p.
187) The question we will try to answer is this one: why is the translator considered
(in)visible?
Thus, who is a translator? According to the Collins Dictionary a translator is a
person who can express and expresses meanings in another language different
than the one in the original text. (http://www.collinsdictionary.com/). However, even
when this dictionary uses this definition, the most common one is that one of the
translator seen as a converter of information (http://www.bls.gov/). In contrast, we
think being a translator is more than that. Besides being fluently in at least two
languages, a translator must know about the cultures and people involved in the
source text. In fact, Robinson (1997) highlights cultures and people as two of his
five axioms of what translation is about: Translation is more about people than
about words. (2) Translation is more about the jobs people do and the way they
see their world than it is about registers or sign systems. (p. 49)
Nevertheless, the translator seen as a converter was the dominant theory during
centuries. In fact, it is part of the translators invisibility theory defended by the
traditional school. The invisibility refers to the way a good translation is felt as if it
were the original text itself; as if there were no translation at all. Venuti (1995) also

applies this term to how translators are seen and evaluated in several cultures:
with no good acknowledgement of their jobs.
A translated text, whether prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction, is judged
acceptable by most publishers, reviewers, and readers when it reads
fluently, when the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it
seem transparent, giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writers
personality or intention or the essential meaning of the foreign textthe
appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation,
but the original. The illusion of transparency is an effect of fluent discourse,
of the translators effort to insure easy readability by adhering to current
usage, maintaining continuous syntax, fixing a precise meaning. (p. 1)
Effectively, making a translation in order to look exactly as the original was the
premise for long time. Since the goal of translations was to know the ideas of
authors in others cultures the first requirement in every translation was to be as
close as possible to the original. To accomplish that requirement strategies could
vary. According to Alexander Fraser Tytler in his Essay on the Principles of
Translation, Horace and Cicero had opinions about what a translator should do. In
Art of Poetry, Horace thinks translators must not render their work word for word
like a lavish translator, and believes translators should not waste their time trying
to copy the source model. He and Cicero emphasized the aesthetic view of the
final translation, preferring sense by sense than word by word. However, Tytlers
point of view was addressed to the fidelity. In his words, there are three rules to
follow in order to have a good translation:
1. The translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the
original work.
2. The style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that
of original.
3. The translation should have all the ease of original composition. (p. 22)
As we see, these rules are just a recipe to have a translated copy of the source
text. They keep a word by word idea of translation; it follows the idea of the
invisible translator. The translator had to reproduce in the target language the
ideas, the technique and the fluency of the author.

The German Romantics had differing points of views. The Hermeneutics were an
approach to the translation created by the German Romantics. Steiner (1975) tells
us that they took the word hermeneutic after the greek word hermeneuein, which
means to understand. In The Translation Studies Reader, Venuti (2000) says
this hermeneutics meant that [] language is not so much communicative as
constitutive in its representation of thought and reality, and so translation is seen as
an interpretation which necessarily reconstitutes and transforms the foreign
text.(p. 11). The novelty of their approach was the introduction of the interpretation
as one of the requirements for good translation and the reconstitution of the text as
an effect produced by the translators interpretation of it. Nevertheless, this
interpretation was still intended to make the writer visible and thus the translator
invisible.
Keeping this intention, a French humanist called Etienne Dolet presented his ideas.
In his work La manire de bien traduire dune langue en autre (How to Translate
Well from One Language into Another) (1945), he sets a number of principles that
a translator should guard:
1. The translator must fully understand the sense and meaning of the
original author, although he is at liberty to clarify obscurities
2. The translator should have a perfect knowledge of both SL and TL. 1
3. The translator should avoid word-for-word renderings.
4. The translator should use forms of speech in common use.
5. The translator should choose and order words appropriately to produce
the correct tone. (p. 23)
With his theory, Dolet gives some flexibility to translation conceptions. Translators
have now liberty to recreate the original text in a more comprehensible way even if
the writer was not clear enough. This was done in order to express unmistakably
the spirit of the text, since it was more important the principal meaning than the
structures of it. This opinion was also shared by several others theorists and
writers. Namely, George Chapman who said the work of a skilful and worthy
1 SL: Source Language. ST: Source Text. TL: Target Language. TT: Target Text.

translator is to observe the sentences, figures and forms of speech proposed in his
author. (1598, in As-Safi, p. 23) Additionally, in An ABC of Translation similar
opinions are exposed when the authors quote Douglas Robinson and Eco. In this
way, Robinson says: The translators task is to step aside and let the source
author speak through him or her. Eco also tells us it is most important to translate
the deep story of the text, or, in other words, the general emotional and intellectual
effect on the reader. (Bland, et al, 2002, p. 28)
There are several authors who share the idea of the ideal translation as that one
that evokes the feelings a person would sense reading the original. That is, a
sense-by-sense translation. Benjamin (2000) says: The task of the translator
consists in finding that intended effect [Intention] upon the language into which he
is translating which produces in it the echo of the original (p. 20). Although he is
conscious that the ideas of fidelity and freedom are contradictories in this field, he
affirms they are both necessaries in a good translation. Fidelity is presented when
there is a wish of linguistic complementation with the original. Freedom appears
when the translator goes beyond the barriers of his own language and allows the
foreign language to shape the final text. This theory goes beyond the comfort of
having the target language dominating the text; it uses the foreignization as a
strategy to better access what is present in the original.
Hazo, (1993) also thinks a good translation is that one in which the translator
succeeded in making the spirit of the original text to come through his words. This
conception sets translator as artists: only an artist is able to recognize the essential
soul of writing and then give it a new life in another language. Indeed, he presents
the goal of translation as a re-creation of a text doing it well thus they approximate
the originals so that even the translated work becomes an original in its own right,
[translators] have tried to make their translations so true as to be invisible [] (p.
3).
As regards to the vanguard school and its theory of translators visibility, the origins
of the term are fairly recent. In 1995, Venuti presents it as a term which refers
equally to the appreciation of translators in both theoretical and work field.

However, Venuti emphasizes his theory in the second one instead of the first. His
arguments are intended to support more recognition, easier legal conditions and
appropriate salary for the translators. (Pym, 1996, p. 168) He meant translators
visibility as a term that implies recognition by publishers, editors, reviewers and
readers. As for the second part of Translators visibility, the theoretical conception,
Venuti just stated it as a proposal to give more freedom to translators. This
freedom would be in form of the incorporation of non-standard language in
translations as well as the possibility of translators language to be non-fluent,
non-standard and heterogeneous quite independently of any fidelity to the source.
(Ibidem, p.171). The reason behind this is Venutis searching for respect to
translators personal identities as well as to the minorities or repressed groups.
Now, through this paper we have known some of the theories about the roles and
participations of the translator. So, why is the translator considered invisible? We
think the answer to this is in the way a good translation is perceived. All of the
theories presented here follow a standard: in some way, the target text must be as
close as possible to the source text. It can be a copy word by word, so the final
translation is structurally the same as the original or it can be sense by sense, so
the final translation evoke the same feelings one would sense if read the original:
The best translation is not one that keeps forever before the readers mind
the fact that this is a translation, not an original English composition, but one
that makes the reader forget that it is a translation at all and makes him feel
that he is looking into the ancient writers mind, as he would into that of a
contemporary. This is, indeed, no light matter to undertake or to execute, but
it is, nevertheless, the task of any serious translator. (Goodspeed, 1945
quoted in Nida, 1964, p. 133)
Indeed, every single theory about translation appears to be like this one. The
answer to that is very simple. When someone read a text, they are expecting to
know the original writers ideas. They are expecting to feel what the readers who
speak the author mothers tongue felt. Why would anyone want to read about the
translators ideas if is not that what they are looking for? However, it goes beyond
this. Because even if they want to feel and know like if the translated text were the
original, they want to experience these feelings in the comfort of their own

language. So if at moment of reading they notice certain mistakes, if they do not

feel the translated text as a natural in their language, then definitely the translator
did a bad job:
I see translation as the attempt to produce a text so transparent that it does
not seem to be translated. A good translation is like a pane of glass. You
only notice that its there when there are little imperfections scratches,
bubbles. Ideally, there shouldnt be any. It should never call attention to
itself. (Norman Shapiro, as quoted in Venuti, 1995, p. 1)
As regards to the Translators Invisibility, we would rather to redefine the term
Venuti proposed. We will use the term visibility as the one used in functional
approaches of language. As Hnig (1998: 1213) said: in functionalism the
translator inevitably has to be visible, since functional approaches do not establish
rules but support decision-making strategies and the translator has to make critical
decisions. This term would imply that no matter how a translator writes a
translation, he or she will always be visible. We would like to state that all of those
arguments in favor of the translators invisibility are at the same time arguments
that hold the idea of a translators visibility. If you do not realize of a translation
being there, if you think it is exactly as the original, is because a translator made a
sort of decisions in order to recreate the spirit of the original. In order to do this, he
or she had to make a lecture of the original text and to select and identify this spirit.
They had to make an interpretation. One must not imagine that the process of
translation can avoid a certain degree of interpretation by the translator, (Nida,
1964, p. 126).
In addition to that interpretation, the translator had to choose which words and
which semantic structures would reflect better that interpretation of the original text.
So she or he could have choose one word that was the closest semantically to the
original, but instead he or she chose another word that in the target language
inspire us the sentiment of the original text better than the original word he or she
could have use:
If the language of the original employs word formations that give rise to
insurmountable difficulties of direct translation, and figures of speech wholly
foreign, and hence incomprehensible in the other tongue, it is better to cling

to the spirit of the poem and clothe it in language and figures entirely free
from awkwardness of speech and obscurity of picture. (Cooper, 1928 quoted
in Nida, 1964, p. 131)
Consequently, the interpretations and choices translators make are elements that
make them visible to whom look closest in the text. What is more, these elements
are proof of the translators existence in the text since every interpretation and
every choice they do are influenced by their own personalities, experiences and
translational backgrounds. As Hazo (1993), an American poet and translator said:
After all, the translator does recreate the poem he is translating from another
language into his own through the prism of his own personality, and some of that
personality is bound to find its way into the translation (p. 4).
To sum up, a translator is considered invisible because the ideal notions of
translation: those ones in which the spirit, ideas and structures of the original text
have to be highlighted while translators opinions have to be hide away. However,
the decisions a translator make while translating also make him visible since every
choice he or she made is marked consciously or unconsciously by his own
personality and ideologies. Finally, we would like to add that even if in translation
theories the translators invisibility is somehow accepted and required, in work
fields translators have to be considered and appreciated as visible. The ideas that
came to them should be taken into account in the prefaces of the books they
translate, their names should appear in reviews and covers of the books and
finally, society should give them more appreciation by knowing their names and
studying their works in literary subjects. After all, translators are key actors who
hide behind culture [they are] key elements inside the cultural dissemination of a
final product that goes beyond being foreign to be part of the identitys space in
which they plunge (Morat, 2008, my own translation, p. 1).

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