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Basics of Translation spring 09 Lecture notes week 5

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen Aalborg University SIS English

Text analysis for translators 1. Introduction Having been introduced to some basic concepts in translation, such as target text and source text as well as some of the uses of translation theory, we will now turn to the process of analyzing a text before translating it. 2. Reading The very first thing to do is to read the source text through so as to:

understand the text and what it is about to analyze it from a translator's point of view in order to determine its intention and how it is written in order to identify problems/challenges select an appropriate translation method

And it is not enough to just read it once. Preferably you should first do what is called general reading to get the gist, or general idea, of the text. Then you subject the text to close reading to identify any potential problems, such as words that need to be looked up in a dictionary or grammatical structures that may serve specific purposes as well as any other possibly challenging element in the text. You may even have to do some research into the subject matter of the text, because if you understand it, it is easier for you to convey the information to the readers of the target text. You should also read your own target text through a couple of times and virtually subject it to translation criticism to make sure that there are no problems. 3. Intention and attitude There is an intention behind all texts. By intention, we understand the source text writer's intentions or (hidden) agenda behind the text, or, as Newmark puts it the SL writer's attitude towards the subject matter. The intention of a text often surfaces in the choice of words and grammatical constructions. For instance, the following text is about George Bush's presidency: (1) These principles illuminate a central, and tragic, paradox at the heart of the Bush presidency. The president who vowed to lead America in a moral crusade to win hearts and minds around the world has so inflamed anti-American sentiment that America's moral standing in the world is at an all-time low. The president who vowed to defend the Good in the world from the forces of Evil has caused the United States to be held in deep contempt by large segments of virtually every country on every continent of the world, including large portions of nations with which the U.S. has historically been allied. The president who vowed to undertake a war in defense of American values and freedoms has presided over such radical departures from the defining values and liberties of this country that many Americans find their country and its government unrecognizable. And the president who vowed to lead the war for freedom and democracy has made torture, rendition, abductions, lawless detentions of even our own citizens, secret "black site" prisons, Abu Ghraib dog leashes, and orange Guantnamo jumpsuits the strange, new symbols of America around the world. In sum, the great and tragic irony of the Bush presidency is that its morally convicted 1

Basics of Translation spring 09 Lecture notes week 5

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen Aalborg University SIS English

foundations have yielded some of the most morally grotesque acts and radical departures from American values in our country's history. The president who insists that he is driven by a clear and compelling moral framework, in which the forces of Good and Evil battle toward a decisive resolution, has done more than almost any American in history to make the world question on which side of that battle this country is fighting. The more convinced President Bush and his followers become of the unchallengeable righteousness of their cause, the fewer limits they recognize. And America's moral standing in the world, and our national character, continue to erode to previously unthinkable depths. But it is more than just a text on George Bush. The choice of diction in text text reveals that the intention behind the text is not so much to inform the readers about the Bush presidency as it is to criticize it. Perhaps the following set of terms from pragmatics may be useful:

locution (a.k.a. propositional content): the conceptual content expressed by the words and structures in the speech act illocution(ary force): the sender's intentions behind the speech act perlocution: the resulting effect (on the recipient)

Essentially, the target text should have the same illocutionary force (and the same perlocution) as the source text, and so, the challenge to the translator is to transfer not just the locution, or propositional content, but also the illocution into the target text in accordance with whatever norms apply in the culture associated with the target language. The translator should read the text closely to be able to identify the intentions behind it. For instance, is the purpose to make some sort of plea, to mediate information objectively, or to subjectively sell an idea etc.? You will also have to consider whether or not you want to retain or change the quality of the writing in the target language. A problem here, especially in English-Danish translations, is that quite often there is a tendency to retain too much of the structure of the English text in the Danish target text, because the English structure is considered to be good writing. The problem, however, is that transferring English-like structures directly into Danish results in texts that seem artificial or even lofty, or just Undanish. 4. Readership How much attention you have to pay to the readership depends on the situation, the text, and the task, but generally you should consider who the target text readers are and your translation should be aimed at the ideal reader which is a type of generalized stereotype of the intended readership. You will have to consider criteria such as for instance age, gender, edicational background, social class membership, religious orientation, political stance, expertise etc. 5. Stylistic scales The style of a text depends on many parameters style being the use of words and grammatical structures in accordance with a certain contextual factor. One parameter of style is the type of text itself. Translation theorists traditionally operate with four types of text. These four types are basically defined in terms of the word classes and phrase structures that typically appear in them, and how they serve the purpose of the text. The four types of texts are:

Basics of Translation spring 09 Lecture notes week 5

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen Aalborg University SIS English

narratives: dynamic sequence of events the emphasis is typically on verbs, dummy verbs, and deverbal noun phrases descriptions: description are static with emphasis on copula verbs, adjectives and adjectival nouns discussion: treatments of ideas with emphasis on abstract nouns, cognitive verbs, logical argument and connectives dialogue: emphasis on colloquialism and phaticisms

It should be mentioned that the boundaries between these are not clear-cut, and that features of one type of text can easily appear in another type. Text styles are often described in terms of stylistic scales, as it is believed that syle is a scalar matter. Here are Newman's scales:

scale of formality: officialese > official > formal > neutral > informal > colloquial > slang > taboo scale of generality/difficulty: simple > popular > neutral > educated > technical > opaquely technical scale of emotional tone: intense > warm > factual > understatement

In addition, other translation theorists operate with the following scales:


scale of politeness: polite > neutral >impolite scale of impersonality: objective/impersonal > subjective/personal scale of accessibility: implicit (difficult) > explicit (accessible)

How these dimensions are appropriately applied may, and often will, differ from language to language, even if the settings and the purposes are the same, and so, the challenge for the translator is to find an appropriately corresponding style in the target language. 6. The exercise Translate the following text into Danish, keeping in mind the aspects mentioned in this chapter of the textbook (from 'A Room with a View' by E. M Forster, Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics):

Basics of Translation spring 09 Lecture notes week 5

Kim Ebensgaard Jensen Aalborg University SIS English

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