The invitation is evidently ironic because an author's communicative intention is never transparent or obvious (it would be too easy). Unlike numbers, words express not only an object meaning, but also the attitude of the speaker toward such object. Available at http//:www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/opus/volltexte/2008/3726. This pre-eminence of the pragmatic nature of translation equivalence helps to understand the limitations of wrongly oriented theoretical approaches that still maintain, rather naively, that semantic meanings and grammatical structures should be kept identical in the translation process, thereby ignoring the complex relationship between thought and language, on the one hand, and the richness and diversity of expression means of the different languages of the world, on the other hand. Culture as Text. In the translation of Cien años de soledad into English, Rabassa seems to have received almost no instructions as to how he should translate. Borges, in order to stress the inadequacy of words, proposed one of his translators not to translate what he said, but what he meant to say. [ Links ], Komissarov, V. N. (1999). 1991), p. 2; Gregory Rabassa, ‘No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor’, in The Craft of Translation, pp. John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, eds. Skopos and Commission in Translational Action. F. p. 12 Ce fut vers cette époque qu'il prit l'habitude de parler tout seul, arpentant la maison sans prêter attention à personne, tandis qu'Ursula et les enfants courbaient l'échine, dans le potager, à faire pousser les bananes et la malanga, le manioc et l'igname, la citrouille et l'aubergine. How a translation should be done (translation strategies). This fact has also been highlighted by Russian translation scholars such as Federov, Shveitser, and Komissarov, among others, and by German authors from the Leipzig school, such as Kade and Jäger, as well as other modern representatives of this approach such as House, and Koller. In other words, as long as the communicative purpose of the original is maintained equivalently in the target text, there is proper room for variation at the semantic and grammatical levels. In the next example, Rabassa and Mayer-Clason, the German translator, maintained the original word reales, which evokes the Spanish historical heritage depicted in some parts of the novel. He must have a good ear for what his author is saying and he must have a good ear for what he is saying himself. Rabassa's first work for a commercial publisher was the translation of Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Argentinian author Julio Cortázar: "When the translation came out it got a positive review on the front page of The New York Times Book Review by Donald Keene" (Rabassa 2005:28). Nowadays when the equal sign is placed between two numbers mathematicians are more careful than some time ago (although, fortunately, accountants and book-keepers continue their business as usual), and prefer the word "approximation" to "equivalence", a stronger reason yet that we should use a grain of salt when expressing certainties about the meanings of words. G. p. 8 Gegen Zahlung von fünf Reales preßten die Leute das Auge an das Fernrohr und sahen die Zigeunerin zum Greifen nahe. (ibid., p. 3). More practice-oriented theories can be devised and, as a result, this can help to bridge the gap between mostly non-empirical based, speculative statements about the nature of translation and the reality of translators' actual performance. Chicago: U of Chicago Press.. Reddy, M.J. (1979). stylistic resources thought to be typical of a 'literary' text and therefore recreated by the translators even if they did not appear in the original. (ed.) These authors express their concerns as to the social role played by translators in society. L. Venuti (ed) (2000), (pp. Actually, only the simultaneous presence of author and translator, together with the object the text he wants to express, could contribute to the elimination of possible misunderstandings of verbal expression, but with them also some of the polysemic richness of the utterances. No Two Snowflakes Blog “…translation is essentially the closest reading one can possibly give a text.” Gregory Rabassa — Translation Workshop UFRN . Whenever it was possible to render a Spanish word by two choices, either a word of Anglo-Saxon origin or another one from a Latin root, Rabassa tended to choose always the lexical entry from Latin origin, and in case there is another choice also from Latin origin that is not similar to the Spanish original, he would generally prefer the similar one. In: Biguenet J, Schulte R (eds) The craft of translation. The only occasion when he had to interfere in the original text, was when the publisher had him concoct a family tree of the Buendía family that was to be added at the beginning of the English translation of the novel. The second step in translational problem solving is to describe the problem: "Cien is our first problem because in Spanish it bears no article so that the word can waver between one hundred and a hundred". verbalized and categorized through language will depend on the surrounding reality itself and on aspects of it which turn out to be essential to satisfy certain survival needs such as food and shelter and to perform social-cultural activities. The Translation Studies Reader. Special considerations of literary translation • Rabassa, G. (1989). 1-12). 4, völlig neu bearbeitete Auflage. G. p. 11 Einige Tage war er wie verhext und murmelte unablässig eine Litanei erstaunlicher Mutma­ßungen vor sich hin, ohne der eigenen Einsicht Glauben zu schenken. At first Rabassa thought it was a good idea, but then he changed his mind: Later on, after the book had come out, I had second thoughts. Cambridge: Gregory Rabassa, in a short essay marked by refined sense of humor, gives some useful indications useful for sweeping away any pretence to equivalence in a light but clear-cut way within the framework of all languages including, he says, artificial languages like mathematic languages. F. p. 131 Le chef du détachement, specialisé dans des exécutions sommaires, portait un nom qui était bien plus qu'un simple hasard: capitaine Roque Carnicero. The other translators adapted the word to the corresponding grammatical plural forms in their languages: (3) S. p. 8 Mediante el pago de cinco reales, la gente se asomaba al catalejo y veía a la gitana al alcance de su mano. Heidelberg / Wiesbaden: Quelle & Meyer Vorlag. In kurzer Zeit füllte er nicht nur sein eigenes Haus, sondern auch alle anderen des Dorfes mit Turpialen, Kanarienvögeln, Meisen und Rot­kehlchen. In a short time he filled not only his own house but all of those in the village with troupials, canaries, bee eaters, and redbreasts. London & New York: Routledge. I argue that most of Rabassa's stances towards translating can be explained and are still valid within the framework of a modern translation approach. The Ear in Translation. (Rabassa, 1991, p. 42). Some of the key aspects of Rabassa's translational views are already expressed in The World of Translation, published by the PEN American Center in1971 (reprinted in 1987). All in all, I can say that although Gregory Rabassa is not a translation scholar, his views, once 'translated' into technical jargon, are valuable, valid and relevant in modern translation studies. Fictionalizing also turned out to be a special strategy Rabassa used in the translation of Cien años de soledad. In his essay; "No Two Snowflakes are Alike: Translation as Metaphor" Rabassa cites sound, curses, and articles as problems in literary translation, but then focuses on three larger issues that make translation a quixotic enterprise. [Modern Translatology]         [ Links ], Mounin, G. (1963). ), Translating Latin America. —Gregory Rabassa, “No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor” The conduit metaphor -- a case of frame conflict in our language about language. However, respect of the original author's ideas does not mean literalness. Also, there was no cavil on his part over the title in English" (ibid., p. 96). E. p. 4 When he became an expert in the use and manipulation of his instruments, he conceived a notion of space that allowed him to navigate across unknown seas, to visit uninhab­ited territories, and to establish relations with splendid beings without having to leave his study. The other, was a Scheme for entirely abolishing all Words whatsoever: And this was urged as a great Advantage in Point of Health as well as Brevity. Such words can be left in the original, thus giving the translation a deliciously exotic flavor which it should not have; or a footnote can be added. P. p. 10 Esteve vários dias como que enfeitiçado, repetindo para si mes­mo em voz baixa um rosário de assombrosas conjeturas, sem dar crédito ao próprio entendimento. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzykoplädie. This may correspond to a translational norm, according to which translators consider that the translation of a literary text should result in an 'actual' literary text. But this does not suffice. A linguistic universal would say that languages around the world serve their purpose very well in helping humans to apprehend reality through several thought categories. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1989. It was then that Rabassa put into practice his translation method: "I translated the book as I read it for the first time [...] This would become my usual technique with subsequent books" (ibid., p. 27). In Spanish you ARE not cold, you HAVE cold: 'TENGO frío', as well as in French 'J´AI froid' and in Italian 'Io HO freddo', whereas in other languages such as German and Russian one IS neither cold nor HAS cold. This is patently impossible, no snowflakes are ever alike, nor does 2 ever equal 2 outside of a mathematical formula because the second 2 is, among other things, younger than its predecessor. [ Links ], Catford, J. C. (1965). G. p. 10 In dieser Zeit gewöhnte er sich daran, Selbstgespräche zu führen, und, niemandes achtend, durchs Haus zu strei­fen, während Ursula und die Kinder sich im Gemüsegar­ten bei der Pflege der Bananenstauden und der Malanga, der jukka- und Yamswurzel, der Ahuyama und Aubergi­nen fast das Kreuz brachen. This has to do with the specifics of reading a text for translation purposes. In The Craft of Translation. It could be 'to experience ice.' In this same sense, it should also be recognized that the same or similar meanings can be expressed by using different linguistic means available in typologically different languages around the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp1–12 In: Biguenet J, Schulte R (eds) The craft of translation. 1-12 (p. 1); William Weaver, ‘The Process of Translation’, in The Craft of Translation, pp. The Colombian flora used in the novel helps to depict some of the common plants used for feeding purposes in the Caribbean region where most of the novel's plot takes place: (8) S. p. 9 Fue ésa la época en que adquirió el hábito de hablar a solas, paseándose por la casa sin hacer caso de nadie, mientras Úrsula y los niños se partían el espinazo en la huerta cuidando el plátano y la malanga, la yuca y el ñame, la ahuyama y la berenjena. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 1-12. (ibid., p. 85). Siting Translation. He illustrated the application of this strategy in some translation problems of One Hundred Years of Solitude. RABASSA G. No two snowflakes are alike: translation as metaphor, in The Craft of Translation, edited by John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, Chicago, London, The University of Chicago Press, 1989, ISBN 0-226-04864-3, p. 1-12. This WAS the blog space for the Translation Workshop at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, in which we examined theories of and approaches to the practice of literary translation, as well as doing some of our own. In J. Biguenet & R. Schulte (Eds. (1977). [ Links ], Bolaños, S. (2009). For Rabassa, equivalence in translation is not to be confused with equivalence in mathematics: There seems to be a demand on the part of critics and readers for the version in another tongue to be the absolute equivalent of what it had been in the original language. Preface for the Third Printing. In this paper I aim at presenting and discussing his viewpoints as to the definition of translation (with a key discussion of the concept of equivalence), the role of the translator (a model speaker-listener of the target text), and some of the translation strategies he applies in his translational work (original's pre-eminence, problem solving, foreignizing, fictionalizing, and semantic networking). For instance, in the case of literary texts one tends to assume that they fulfil an aesthetic communicative purpose that intends to move the target audience and make it experience the world depicted in SLT. Rabassa, Gregory; In The Craft of Translation. This intriguing issue deserves a paper of its own and I have dealt with it elsewhere.1 For the time being and for the purposes of this paper it suffices to say that I would entertain the hypothesis that translators do play an active role in their professional activity to the extent that they apply, conscientiously or otherwise, their views on 1. New York: First Perennial Classics edition. If García Márquez had wanted such a table he would have put one in the first Spanish edition. Special recognition should be given to Rabassa's stance that the translator has to always respect the original and in case he is interested in expressing his own views, he should write a text of his own. Welcome to the No Two Snowflakes Blog, dedicated to the late Gregory Rabassa, hero and guardian Angel of this site. It is clear that Rabassa, in discussing the translational problem posed by the title, weighed up not only the original author's intent but also the TL readers' effect. "The author who knows his language inside out" (8) is the first. F. p. 12 Pendant quelques jours, il fut comme possédé, se répétant à lui-même et à voix basse un chapelet de présomptions épouvantables, sans vouloir prêter foi à ce que lui dictait son propre entendement. [ Links ], Fedorov, A. V. (1953). Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei. In this respect, the translator emulates the intended effect the translation is likely to have on the target audience. New York: A New Directions Book. No two snowflakes are alike: translation as metaphor. Within this framework, a first aspect to bear in mind is that translation is a linguistic operation, as George Mounin and John C. Catford used to put it. As Rabassa (2005, p. 5) puts it, "In translation as in writing, which it is as we have said, the proper word is better than a less proper but standard one", or: We are faced, then, still with the intangibles of translation; what makes one version better than another after the accuracy of both has been established? imitations and counterfeits and pastiches"1. Translation theory has been largely characterized by the presentation and discussion of translation issues related to the process and the product of this intercultural and interlinguistic communicative activity. [ Links ], Koller, W. (1992). The word “snowflake” has been used to describe an individual who is unique, as no two snowflakes are perfectly alike. 93: The Process of Translation. entirely of apocrypha, of false attributions, of Numbers exist inasmuch as the relations between them exist, so we are not amazed at the fact that 9 ¸ 3 is 3, since 3 + 3 + 3 is 9. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, London, Random House, 1998, ISBN 0-749-39923-6. [ Links ], Koller, W. (2000). At the same time, however, there ought to be some kind of under-current, some background hum that lets the English speaking reader feel that this is not an English book. The Craft of Translation. In other words, the translator should refrain from modifying arbitrarily the contents of the original, its message i.e. Translated by Eliane Zagury. To do so would be to produce some kind of gibberish that would be unintelligible to both sides. Menos conocidas son sus opiniones sobre la traducción. Rabassa's stance is still valid and coincides with the linguistically oriented approaches to translation. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1989; On translating Günter Eich's poem 'Ryoanji' Middleton, Christopher; In The Craft of Translation. This is a notion representatives of the skopos theory would support but which I consider leads to the production of other texts not to be recognized as translations proper because the communicative purpose of the original has been completely obliterated and the original is not a source text but simply becomes a motif to produce a brand new text. Virgil didn't have to decide but his translator must. The Process of Translation. Perhaps you’ve seen the word on social media, in posts about issues that are sensitive or controversial. The Art of Poetry. No Two Snowflakes are Alike: Translation as Metaphor. Recibido 07-05-2011, aceptado: 10-06-2011. Rabussa, No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor, in THE CRAFT OF TRANSLATION 12 (1989); see Kannar, The Constitutional Catechism of Antonin Scalia, 99 YALE L.J. E. p. 2 When José Arcadio Buendía and the four men of his expedition managed to take the armor apart, they found inside a calcified skeleton with a copper locket containing a woman's hair around its neck. He is interested in finding out what lexical and syntactic choices have been made by the author of the original text and what specific communicative intention he had in mind at the time of writing. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. The decoding of the communicative purpose of the original is twofold. 1: Poem 145 of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. PhD Dissertation, University of Hamburg. Rabassa never names the interpretant, but the notion is implicitly present throughout the article. Ha must always be dissatisfied with what ha does because ideally, platonically, there is a perfect solution, but ha will never find it. (pp. About. Pragmatic Approach: Original's Pre-eminence. [ Links ], García Márquez, G. (1969/1994). When you get to know something for the first time, you've discovered it. 1-12. 1-12. The World of Translation. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. In The Craft of Translation. We are faced with the same interpretive dilemma as the translator of the Aeneid as he starts off with Arma virumque cano. It requires peeling back the layers that contribute to the effect of language on the reader—not just feeling the effect, or even naming it, but naming the small, under-recognized factors that create it. (2000). There is much to be gained in this endeavour. (1989). A Model Revisited. This confirms the view we expressed above that Rabassa's overall translation strategy approached him very closely to a translation that respects the original's content at all times, but that when it comes to stylistic matters, it displays a clear foreignizing strategy, by using calques, that attempts to show English readers that the original was written in Spanish. Les problèmes théoriques de la traduction. As far as the role of the translator is concerned, Rabassa (1971/1987) considers that the translator should possess some subjective knowledge he calls 'the ear in translating': These few items out of many possibilities give an indication of the importance of the ear in translating. In this paper I have shown that Rabassa's views on the nature and definition of translation are still valid. It can only be a felicitous choice of words and structure which not only conveys the meaning in English but enhances it by preserving the tone of the original. —Iren Kiss, Mapping Literature: The Art and Politics of Translation . In A. Neubert (Ed), Grundfragen der Übersetzungswissenschaft (pp. On the one hand, an overall communicative purpose can be identified according to the text type. "Ermes Marana dreamed of a literature made 1-12; Friedrich, "On the Art of Translation" and Dryden, "On Translation," Theories of Translation, pp. He speaks of the words expressing "dog" in various cultures, about the Muslim culture's contempt toward this animal (that has negative connotations as soon as it is named, for this reason), about peculiar connotations in each different, not only national, but also individual culture: just think of the different interpretants of "dog" in two persons that as children had, one, important affectionate relationships with dogs and, in the other case, has been bitten, for example. What is troublesome, of course, is that both interpretations are conjoined subconsciously for the reader of the Spanish, just as in the Latin example they are for the Romans. [ Links ], All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. Words, on the other hand, were and continue to be created and freely and spontaneously altered, and their semantic content varies over time, in space, in individuals, in cultures. Write a reflection of at least 200 words. “Variations on the Eclogues.” Valery, Paul. It implies, 'How do you do ice?' What translation is/ should be, 2. Cien años de soledad. Rabassa also resorted to foreignizing not as a general but as a punctual translation strategy to be used whenever the original's transparency may help to reproduce a specific effect on the target language audience. An opposite view to this is held by representatives of the so called 'skopos theory' (e.g. Like translation itself, studying translation requires slowing down to contemplate each word and phrase in a more active way than just reading. You could use the following questions to get you started if you'd like: What particular passage/phrases struck you? Vermittelte Kommunikation, Sprachmittlung, Translation. its communicative purpose because he is dealing with a translation, and not with the writing of an original work of his own. Hundert Jahre Einsamkeit. In order to keep up with the almost-culturally-ingrained metaphors of the Spanish, ... “No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor.” n.d. Valery, Paul. Ed. London & New York: Routledge. Rabassa reiterates this same idea in his 1989 article "No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor": Wishful thinking and early training in arithmetic have convinced a majority of people that there are such things as equals in the world [...] In this sense, then, a translation can never equal the original; it can approach it, and its quality can only be judged as to accuracy by how close it gets. By Latin standards it could be (and is) both. 11-29). Einführung in die Übersetzungswissenschaft. 2. John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte. J. Biguenet and R. Schulte. In other words, the fictionalizing strategy consists in the use of a more 'literary or 'colorful expression' in the Target Language Text that does not appear with that stylistic mark in the original. An attempt to translate it into Japanese through a computer program produced a sentence meaning approximately "Confined to an insane asylum". G. p. 8 Als es José Ar­cadio Buendia und den vier Männern seiner Expedition gelang, die Rüstung auseinanderzunehmen, fanden sie darin ein verkalktes Gerippe, das ein kupfernes Medail­lon mit der Haarlocke einer Frau darin um den Hals trug. I eschew “target language” because when I was in the infantry a target was something to shoot at and, ideally, kill, which does, indeed, often happen in the matter of translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 – 12. The concept of equivalence as the defining feature of translation cannot be approached in mathematical terms. Are translators cooperating in postcolonial and imperialistic agendas of the dominating social actors that happen to commission translations? Rabassa (1989) expresses a view I would call 'pragmatic' which intends to respect the original author's intention. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. 54: Pleasures and Problems of Translation. The most important stylistic phenomena that could be perceived in the comparison between the original and the target languages texts is the use of what I have called 'fictionalizing strategy' i.e. 13: Translating Medieval European Poetry. In this case Rabassa applied a foreignizing strategy by keeping the term Carnicero in English, but added an explanation 'which meant butcher', intended for readers not familiar with the Spanish language. In Biguenet, John and Schulte, Rainer (eds.). Also I liked distant when used with time" (ibid., p. 97). The first part of this paper will focus on Rabassa's conception about the nature of translation; next his appraisal of the role of the translator will be discussed, and finally some of the stated translation strategies used by him will be illustrated. This foreignizing strategy is more difficult to maintain at the syntactic stylistic level. Translation Norms in Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad translations into English, German, French, Portuguese, and Russian. In A. Ortony (Ed. [ Links ], Rabassa, G. (1971/1987). Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. E. p. 4 He spent several days as if he were bewitched, softly repeating to himself a string of fearful conjectures without giving credit to his own understand­ing. ), but also because he wrote in several occasions about his translation experience and finally he collected his views on translation in his 2005 book If this be treason. "No Two Snowflakes are Alike: Translation as Metaphor." “Education As Translation: Students Transforming Notions of Narrative and Self.” CCC. Read a literary translation article: No two snowflakes are alike: translation as metaphor by Gregory Rabassa 1. As far as the translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude is concerned, Rabassa (2005, p. 96) mentions some of the problems he faced and how he solved them. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record. [ Links ], Spivak, G. C. (2000). En este artículo me propongo presentar y discutir sus puntos de vista respecto de la definición de la traducción (prestando atención al concepto de equivalencia), el papel del traductor (un modelo hablante-oyente del texto meta) y algunas de las estrategias de traducción que utiliza en su labor traductora (predominio del original, resolución de problemas, extranjerización, ficcionalización y redes semánticas). This is done in order to get a 'feeling' of the text to be translated or to pinpoint any technical, unknown or difficult words to translate. “The author who knows his language inside out” (8) is the first. Only after that can you come to come to know it in the full sense. This critical issue of the translator's stance towards the original author is also discussed by Rabassa (1971/1987). There is argument for the fact that it may be even more important here than in original writing, for in translation the one doing the writing must be both listener and speaker, and he could go astray in either direction. No Country for Subtitles. In French the captain's last name was not translated and, as its meaning is not transparent, an explanatory footnote was added (carnicero: boucher). Berkely: University of California Press. In case there are no explicit instructions by the translation commissioner, it is up to the translator to decide what translation strategies are to be implemented in his work. What part of reality is apprehended i.e. A man or the man? (ibid., p. 98), An immediate consequence of Rabassa's stance towards respecting the original and its comprehensibility for the TL readership is his advocacy of using what we would call a foreignizing strategy when translating apparently 'untranslatable' terms, i.e. Let's see some examples: (4) S. p. 9 Cuando se hizo experto en el uso y manejo de sus instrumentos, tuvo una noción del espacio que le permitió navegar por mares incógnitos, visitar territorios deshabitados y trabar relación con seres espléndidos, sin necesidad de abandonar su gabinete. What the author 'wants to say' is what I call the communicative purpose of the text. On Definiteness: a Study with Special Reference to English and Finnish. But an English speaker reading Spanish will have to decide subconsciously which meaning is there. As to the role of the translator, in Rabassa's approach the translator should 'have an ear in translating' that I understand as his competence to emulate the intended effect the translation is likely to have on the target audience. On the other hand, this overall communicative purpose can be achieved only as the translator advances in his work of decoding the sequence of communicative purposes embedded in the original text. An Essay in Applied Linguistics. (ibid., p. 14). (Rabassa 1971/ 1987, p. 85). John Biguenet and Rainer Schulte, eds. Rabassa, Gregory. [ Links ], Rabassa, G. (2005). In C. Fabricius-Hansen and J. Ostbo (Eds), Übertragung, Annährung, Angleichung. PERSPECTIVAS DE GREGORY RABASSA SOBRE LA TRADUCCIÓN, Sergio Bolaños Cuéllar Universidad Nacional de Colombia [email protected], Artículo de investigación científica. If not, he had best return to the original urge of writing something of his own inspiration and bust out.