The oral in the written

In “Total Translation: An Experiment in the Presentation of American Indian Poetry”, Jerome Rothenberg remarks that “everything in these song-poems is finally translatable: words, sounds, voice, melody, gesture, event, etc., in the reconstitution of a unity that would be shattered by approaching each element in isolation. A full & total experience begins it, which only a total translation can fully bring across”(1983, p.392).* Rothenberg is advocating a translation process in which the source element, in this case Navajo songs, is conveyed in a foreign language together with all its components: words, sounds, music.
This approach highlights the problems and potentialities of translating orality into print. Yet, academic research apart, how is this transition acknowledged by lay readers? What happens when readers open a book and find unusual constructions, suspended periods, fuzzy structures, an unexpectedly “low” register? I may be wrong, but I’ve got the impression that orality in books is not yet well received. At least in Italian. I have come across comments and opinions that remarked how “badly translated” a book was, because of purported “grammar mistakes” such as omitted subjunctives. While it may be true that subjunctives are a sore point, omitting them on purpose is – precisely for this reason – a way of trying to reproduce some sort of oral discourse in writing. Playing on grammar, syntax and vocabulary is certainly a strategy that helps give voice to the oral. Yet I’m wondering whether this strategy is really understood. Purism doesn’t always go hand in hand with creative writing. And sometimes, it actually goes, sword in hand, against.

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* Rothenberg, Jerome. “Total Translation: An Experiment in the Presentation of American Indian Poetry.” Rothenberg, J. and D. Rothenberg, eds. Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse Toward an Ethnopoetics. Berkeley: California U.P., 1983. 381-393

Today's problem

Finding the meaning and Italian translation of "écho-incidence" ("...les événements stressants surviennent de façon cyclique, en écho-incidence...").

Stupidity

Albert Einstein seems to have thought that the only two infinite things are the universe and human stupidity, though he was not sure about the former. Today, a silly verbal exchange proved this to me.

Bookworming: Magda Szabó - Az ajtó

Introducing a new label! Under “why I love books” I’d like to talk about the books I loved reading or that, for some particular reason, stood out among the various books I read. Since I have no intention of writing book reviews proper, I will take the liberty of making these posts as much subjective as I can! :-)

I would like to devote this first post to a book I found outstanding for its portrait of human characters: Magda Szabó’s* Az ajtó**, which I read in its Italian translation La porta (Torino: Einaudi 2005, trans. Bruno Ventavoli; thank you!).

Szabó wrote a tale of two women who are so different in character and attitude towards life that for some time their relationship sounds more like a clash. Yet this abysmal difference seems nothing but a screen behind which lies the key to why both cannot live apart: their need to love and be loved.

The somehow mother-and-daughter relationship between the narrator and Emerenc, her housekeeper, develops in 20 years of fights, arguments and reconciliations. Emerenc is a secretive woman who doesn’t allow any human being beyond the door of her apartment. The reason given appears more of an excuse, a shield which, together with her self-restraint and the headscarf she always wears, protects Emerenc and her feelings from the outer world. Because in her experience this is a world where love and attachment should not be revealed; as soon as you do, life snatches away all that you love most.

Yet the door is not completely close. Through several narrow openings, the reader gets to know the real woman behind Emerenc the housekeeper, a woman whose beliefs and principles transcend any ethics and whose heart cannot but heed the enchanting siren song of motherly love. And, as a sailor who capitulates under the appeal of sirens, Emerenc collapses under the burden of her own existence, and one is left to wonder whether in the end she really succumbs because she has “opened the door” or rather because she kept it closed for so long. I’d like to think the latter is the case.

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* Obituary available here.
** Book review available here.

Gotcha!

I've found it! A tiny, almost invisible clue, lost among words and words and words... But it was there, and somehow it answered this. Pheeew!

Behind a screen... and hoping to come out

I'm wondering, when somebody tells you to open all the windows, doors and screens in a room, do they mean mosquito screens or simply folding screens? (The person who's writing is Japanese, but addressing a US English-speaking readership.) On the one hand, in Italian both solutions would be quite specific (zanzariere/paraventi), whereas "screen" sounds rather generic, on the other I can't come up with any equally generic and at the same time useful term.

Not in good terms with equivalence (at least the way it's still taught)

I admit I have problems with a certain normative notion of equivalence. Some decades have passed since equivalence was discussed from a linguistic perspective.¹ In its evolution, Translation Studies has first looked into it, then found its weaknesses and finally set it aside for a more holistic approach that involved cultures, not only languages.² Yet, somehow the idea of word-for-word equivalence seems to be still haunting the profession. During some hands-on sessions in my undergraduate studies, I remember one of my teachers pointing out that even when the source text had an unintentionally obscure or unintelligible passage (in other words, an unfortunate choice of words), the translator was not supposed to disentangle it. That’s fair enough; it’s equivalence, after all. But are we really sure this is what the recipient (in my case, readers) wants? Federica Scarpa (2007)³ talks about translation quality and points out that “quality” is a relative concept, whose meaning depends on the different requirements of the market and is associated to customer satisfaction (14). This takes me back to my previous question; if my customers are not happy with obscure or unintelligible passages (and criticism from lay readers in various online bookstores/literary websites/discussion forums, etc. seems to confirm this), what path should I follow? Should I accept a normative theoretical approach or should I evaluate each case, maybe also discussing it with potential readers (editors, for instance, or publishers, if communication channels are open and functioning)? In other words, when it comes to doing your job, how useful are theories of equivalence? And how useful are translation theories altogether?⁴

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¹ See e.g. Catford, John C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford U.P., 1965.

² See Bassnett, Susan and André Lefevere, eds. Translation, History and Culture. London: Cassell, 1990.

³ Scarpa, Federica. “La responsabilità del traduttore”. Intonti, Vittoria, Graziella Todisco and Maristella Gatto. La traduzione. Lo stato dell’arte/Translation. The State of the Art. Ravenna: Longo, 2007. 13-28.

⁴ Yes, I know. It’s a rather negative and perhaps also silly question. They are useful, otherwise we wouldn’t waste our time on them. I just sometimes wish they were more usable, more down-to-earth, that’s all.