INTERTEXTUAL INTRUSIONS: TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR HARNESSING THE POWER OF THE

ABSENT TEXT IN TRANSLATION – BASIL HATIM

INTERTEXTUALITY: AN OVERVIEW

 Questions like  how is a prior text called up by actual or virtual element of a text
currently unfolding? How are such acts handled in the process of translating or
interpreting? Have been motivated because of discourse errors attributed to
mishandling of intertextual relations, where the notion of intertextuality is rather loose.
 FOUCAULT  there can be no statement that in one way or another does not reactualise
others.
 The term intertextuality was coined by Kristeva in the late 60s, but it was Bakhtin who
developed an approach to intertextuality that is generally applicable not only to literary
texts, but also to language use in general.
 BAKHTIN  he points to the vital role which both “prior” and “subsequent” texts play
in shaping utterance and texts. According to him, two dimensions of intertextuality may
be distinguished:
o Horizontal intertextual relations  between a text and those texts which
precede and/or follow it in the chain of texts (to other specific texts.)
o Vertical intertextual relations  between a text and another texts with which it
is somehow and rather less explicitly linked (to textual conventions.)
 This distinction can be linked to another useful distinction:
o Manifest intertextuality  other texts are explicitly present in the text under
analysis. Usually cued by surface features such as wording or quotation marks.
o Constitutive intertextuality  it captures the way configurations of text
conventions are exploited in a text currently unfolding.

SEMIOTICS AND SOCIO-TEXTUAL PRACTICE

 These taxonomies are of little use in the practice of translating, unless related to the
complex decision-making process that typifies activities such as translation.
 Alternative approach to intertextuality  to see intertextual reference as underpinned
by the way we use texts and elements within texts as signs in responding to the
requirements of semiotics of the communicative act.
 Intertextual reference may be seem in terms of two basic strata:
o Socio-cultural practice  it yields what may be best referred to as “socio-
cultural objects” of the kind familiar to students of cross-cultural
communication: nomenclature for institutions, habits and customs, modes of
existence, etc.
This practice seems to use predominantly horizontal intertextuality.
o Socio-textual practice  by far the more interesting and challenging aspect of
the intertextual potential of utterances. Culture is no longer defined solely in
terms of the socio-cultural objects but it terms of the way its member think
through the kinds of texts they naturally use or to which they have access.
TEXT ABSENCE AND DEGREES OF INVISIBILITY

 As translators, we often deal with fairly rudimentary levels of reference to a prior text.
Cases of this kind are mostly a matter of perceiving a fairly passive form of referral that
is at least-mediated, remarkably horizontal and patently manifest. Here translators face
no serious problems, and what is involved is simply a matter of interacting with a
straightforward reference and rendering it with minimal intervention  intertexts
would most probably be socio-cultural objects.
 But texts are not always so simple, there are intertextual relations of a more complex
type. Prior texts at this end of the scale are invariably highly mediated, vertical and
constitutive. What is at stake may be a socio-cultural practice, but only after these have
become part of socio-textual practice and have acquired considerable weight as
semiotic constructs in pushing forward communication.

GENRE, DISCOURSE AND TEXT

 In literature, the term ‘text’ has been loosely used to cover a variety of aspects of
language in use. This has not been helpful.
 Here, the term text is restricted to what we do with a sequence of sentences when this
is intended to serve a give rhetorical purpose.
 The term ‘genre’ will be used for the specific textual activity of exploiting linguistic
expression in a conventional manner to cater for particular social occasions and for the
purposes of participants in them.
 The term ‘discourse’ will be used to refer to what we do with language when the
expression of attitudes is involved, to how language conventionally becomes the
mouthpiece of societal institutions.
 The generic use of the term ‘text to cover a bunch of socio-textual activities has been
made popular by the intrinsically extensive remit accorded to the term ‘intertextuality’
itself  there are instances in which intertextuality specifically involve what we have
defined text proper, genre or discourse.
 KRESS  genres are to be understood as conventionalised forms of linguistic expression,
reflecting the functions and goals of participants involved in particular social occasions.
 Through genres, language users are at the intersection between different cultural
setting both across linguistic and cultural boundaries and within one and the same
language and culture.
 FOUCAULT  discourses ae institutionalised modes of speaking and writing, they are
the vehicle through which we communicate particular attitudes towards areas of socio-
cultural knowledge or socio-textual activity. It is conventional and culture-specific, as
genres.
 The text is a semiotic construct deployed in the service of a give rhetorical purpose.

EXPECTATION FULFILLED OR DEFIED

 Intertextuality becomes the source of much of the ambivalence of text, and this is where
translation comes in. Texts will vary a great deal depending on whether their
intertextual relations are complex or simple, on the extent to which their heterogeneous
elements are integrates, and on whether they are or not accentuated.
  When the surface of the text is ‘multiply determined’ by the various other texts or text
conventions which contribute to its development, intentionality becomes opaque and
different meanings may coexist.
 A similar problem has to do with the fact that elements of a text may be designed to be
interpreted in different was by different readerships or audiences.

THE ABSENT TEXT AND THE TRANSLATOR

 The translator is faced with a range of choices conceived within a complex decision
making process.
 In dealing with intertextual reference (the absent text), the translator operates with
something like the scale of variable values presented in the course of the following
discussion under the headings of “socio-culture” and “socio-textual” practice.

DEALING WITH SOCIO-CULTURE

 The socio-cultural domain is not always stable. Elements in this domain of signs could
take on varying degrees of dynamism and thus become slightly problematic, calling for
wider context to be integrated into the unfolding text.
 One aspect of this dynamism emerges when socio-cultural concepts take part in the
formation and propagation of socio-textual practices.
 Another rout pursued by socio-cultural in acquiring socio-textual practices dimensions
is that of the “extended thematic net”  a ‘master’ concept is echoed normally through
elegant variation over and over again throughout an entire sequence of utterances.

DEALING WITH SOCIO-TEXTUAL PRACTICES

 Socio-textual practices manifest themselves through a finite setoff macro-signs – texts,

discourse or genres.
 Values yields by these semiotic constructs have already begun to creep into the domain
of socio-cultural signs through fairly horizontal and manifest intertextuality.
 Strictly speaking, however, it is vertical and constitutive intertextuality that commonly
carries through socio-textual specifications of text in context.
 Socio-textual practices are not always dynamic, especially when the intertext is more or
less table and concretely realised in source or target renderings
 What makes these multiply determined texts, discourses and genres particularly
challenging to the translator and interesting to the translation theorist is the most
attractive and ample scope they can give to the translator to exercise control, to be
creative and don the mantle of the text producer, to innovate.

CONCLUSIONS

 Translators could be said to be working with the following scale of values in dealing with
intertextual reference or the absent text. These range from straightforward to extrema
opaque:
o Static socio-cultural objects venturing into prominently horizontal-manifest
slightly-mediated intertextuality.
o More dynamic socio-cultural objects venturing into prominently vertical-
constitutive fairly-mediated intertextuality.
o Marked socio-cultural objects giving rise to either form of intertextuality.
o Fairly stable socio-textual practices giving rise to predominantly vertical-
constitutive fairly-mediated intertextuality.
o More abstract socio-textual practise giving rise to predominantly vertical-
constitutive fairly-mediated intertextuality.
o Marked socio-textual practices giving rise to either form of intertextuality.
o Drastic forms of subtle intertextuality involving hijacking other texts, discourses
and genres.
o Drastic forms of subtlety of socio-textual/cultural reference, inviting hijacking
or indeed the wilful introduction of other texts, discourses and genres.
AND YET… IT’S STRANGE HOW SUCH A SMALL WORD CAN MAKE SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE! –
MARION EDWARDS

 The application of a text typological approach to translation teaching and training with
comparative discourse organisation and technique offers the most positive ad
productive framework from which to work with all types of discourse.
 A macro-view of the organisation of translation courses and techniques needs to be
championed.
 Foreign language teaching and translation training have long been influenced by
theories of process of comprehension developed during the 1940s and 50s, which
assumed comprehension was built up from the bottom.
 Linguistic studies limited to the sentence level offer little to language learners who need
to gain suprasentential knowledge to develop skills for listening, speaking and in
particular, writing and reading.
 Research in cognitive psychology has shown that most cognitive activity involves the
two kinds of processing in combination: bottom-up or stimulus-driven processing, which
is directly affected by stimulus input, and top-down or conceptually driven processing,
which refers to processing affected by what an individual brings to a stimulus situation,
such as expectations determined by context and past experiences.
 Similar to what Popper argumented, experience in translation reveals that when
students are told “translate”, it never occurs to them to respond “translate what?” Face
with “translate the following” the tendency is to start translating the title or the opening
sentence, at best after a brief perusal of the passage, without taking advantage of access
to general information or expectations regarding both form and content.
 Knowing the type and function of the text can help the student predict the difficulties
that are likely to appear and the way the text needs to be translated.