Post on 29-Jan-2023
TIME is, TIME was, TIME’s past
Time in Translation StudiesSirkku Aaltonen
University of Vaasa
I 1999 publicerade Jay Griffiths sin ”sidglans” på tid, där hon
kritiserade det sätt som tid dominerar allt vårt tänkande. Livet
för oss är lineär och framtiden följer en rak linje från nuet
framåt. Utvecklingen sker stegvist där diakroni leder till
synkronisk orörlighet. Verkligheten har visat sig vara annorlunda
och livet olineärt och oorganiserat. I min artikel analyserar jag
den påverkan som lineärt tänkande har haft på
översättningsstudierna från tre synvinklar. Först ser jag på
historieskrivandet av både översättandet och
översättningsstudierna. Lineärt tänkande syns också i analyser om
utvecklingen av översättningsteorier och sätten att se på den
själva processen av översättning. Anpassningar har varit
oundvikliga. Till sist tas fram den heliga kon i vår moderna
värld, hastighet. Hur syns allt sörre hastighet i översättning.
Hur ser framtiden som vi glider mot.
Introduction
The Greek god Chronos has given his name to the title of
this conference. And to many other conferences before
this. To many papers and studies, to lines of research.
Chronos has given his name to absolute time, linear,
chronological and quantifiable. The English word “time”,
meaning “timing” or “ending”, has been claimed to be one
of the most widely used nouns in the language.
Time is, time was, time’s past. How well we all know
that. Our lives are timed to the minutest detail.
Sometimes to the second. Every transaction is recorded.
Each ticket and money exchange is timed. There are clocks
everywhere, on buildings and in buildings, on mobile
phones and on computer screens. Blinking the date and
time, sometimes down to tenths of seconds. When we stop
in the local supermarket to do our daily shop, we check
the cartons, bottles and packets for dates and times. At
the checkout, the receipt will tell us the date and time
– to the minute. If we receive a message on the mobile
phone or on e-mail, we can check the time: 9:23: 37! Turn
on the radio, and you can check the time. Turn on the TV
in the morning, and you can check the time. Do you feel
tired when your alarm goes off? Hopefully not, because in
a couple of months’ time it will snatch away another hour
from your night’s sleep. Don’t worry; you’ll get it back
in the autumn. You’ll get summer time, but not summer. Or
wintertime without winter. Our first thought on most
mornings is “what’s the time? Am I late?” If you are,
you’d better move fast forward. (see Griffiths 1999: 3)
Chronos rules. In the academic world as well. He has
percolated every cranny in study and research. He forms
the backbone of individual disciplines. The road on which
scholars move. The ribbon they should follow. In neat
chronological order. Fast forward. Time is, time was,
time’s past. In 1999, Jay Griffiths published “a sideways
look at time” and the way it has come to dominate our
thinking. Read her book, if you have time.
Following Jay Griffiths, I would like to look at time as
well, but in a narrower sense. I would like to look at
the construct of time in my own field, translation
studies. As in so many other disciplines, time is an
important measure there as well. As in so many other
disciplines, its use is not unproblematic there either.
Adjustments need to be made, ideas rethought. Jay
Griffiths (1999: 1-2) claims that we constantly need to
make adjustments to our construct of time, as it is such
an imprecise tool. Or the earth’s time is so unreliable.
Too inaccurate. This applies to translation studies as
well.
In what follows I will look at the construct of time in
translation studies from three points of view. First I
will look at how a reasonably young discipline has
appropriated time in constructing its own history, using
both historic time and mythic time. History is a look
back; in the west it is a look at the road behind. To
understand where we are now, we need to know where we
have been. The deeper the roots, the better. But
unearthing the history of translation or translation
studies has not been simple.
A typically western way of thinking is linear. Progress
means moving forward on a straight line, and evolution
takes place through steps: step one, step two, cause –
effect, cause –effect, past – present –future. We start
from details, facts, and statistics to construct the big
picture. Following diachronic development and arriving at
a synchronic standstill. With the aim to construct the
mother of all flowcharts, where evolution equals movement
forward towards a goal or the accomplishment of a task.
This has been the case in translation studies as well,
and I will next look at some aspects where linear
thinking has been most visible. Assumptions of linearity
underlie the accounts of the evolution of translation
theories, but also some of its central concepts. Attempts
have also been made to apply linearity in the translation
process itself. Adjustments have in all the above cases
been necessary.
Finally, I would like to throw a speedy look at the holy
cow of contemporary western culture, speed, and the way
it has entered the field of translation as well. Speed is
speedily challenging all elements of the translation
process, the role of the translator, the role of
translations, and the role of translation. I will close
with a vision of future, the future we are moving
towards, in a linear progress with increasing speed.
I shall begin with the beginning. An academic dicipline
requires a history. To ascertain its identity and justify
its existence. How far back do the roots extend? How did
it all start? Once upon a time or 4500 years ago? For
translation studies, both a mythological and a historic
narrative are on offer. The first one is more democratic,
open to interpretation. Each to her/his own taste. The
latter is non-negotiable. Confined to experts, their work
hampered by the lack of evidence. (see Griffiths 1999:
55)
Mythic vs. Historic Time
The beginning: a mythological narrative
Myths are often about beginnings: “once upon a time”. An
Irish myth begins “Once upon a time, or below a time, in
the time that was no time, that is our time, or not,
there was ( . . . )“. Myths do not require evidence;
they are stored in the communal memory, and passed on by
the word of mouth. With adjustments if necessary. Their
medium is spoken culture, so often dismissed as
unreliable. Mythic time is slippery of meaning; it is
ambiguous. An imprecise tool. (see Griffiths 1999: 48-49)
Translation hinges on the mystery of many languages, of
the primal scattering of the languages. Why were the
languages scattered thus? Two main explanations are on
offer. One negative, the other positive.
Negative explanations look at the scattering of languages
as something that should never have happened. Or would
not have happened if only. . . . According to one
explanation, some awful error was committed, which
released a linguistic chaos. Somebody opened the box
Pandora offered. Did not think of the consequences and
all evil spilled out. According to the biblical
explanation, the scattering of languages is a punishment.
(see e.g. Steiner 1975: 57) It is a punishment for big-
headedness, for attempts to seize power. For losing all
sense of proportion. In John Milton’s words in Paradise
Lost:
God . . . comes down to see their city, . . . , and in derision setsUpon their tongues a various spirit, to razeQuite out their native language, and insteadTo sow a jangling noise of words unknown.Forth with a hideous gabble rises loudAmong the builders; each to other calls.Not understood . . . Thus was the building leftRidiculous, and the work Confusion named. (Milton 1887: 350-351 )
There is another line of explanations, which sees the
scattering of languages as a stroke of luck. One that may
have rescued humankind. One that did not release chaos or
gabble, but saved people of boredom and indifference.
According to a Hassidic version of the Babel story, the
scattering of languages is richness. In the beginning
everybody spoke the same language and everybody
complained. Men complained about the weather, women
complained about their husbands, and everybody complained
about their health. People became so used to the
monotonous litany of complaints that they no longer
listened to each other. It was in order to get away from
this indifference and boredom that people begun their
hopeless construction of the tower. The work was done in
deathly silence. Then God, who watched this waste with a
sad smile, in his infinite mercy, created all the
different languages, dialects and patois to reawaken a
curiosity. Our mind is more preoccupied with what it
cannot understand than with what it has already
understood; people that were ignored the day before
became all at once enigmatic, objects of speculation,
study and interest. (Cronin 2000: 57, 165) In both
versions, translation became necessary and translators
mediators.
In the biblical resolution the translator became the
saviour. The apostles were gathered in a room on the day
of the Pentecost. The sound of a “rushing mighty wind”
filled the room and there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire. Filled with the Holy Spirit, the
apostles began to speak in other tongues so that the
polyglot crowd who were drawn to the spectacle were
amazed because every man heard the apostles speak in
their own language. (Cronin 2000: 131-132)
A mediator can also become the villain and mediation
result in disasters and destruction. In The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy by Richard Adams, a Babel fish is small, yellow
and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the
universe. If you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can
instantly understand anything said to you in any form of
language. According to The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy the
poor Babel fish has caused more and bloodier wars than
anything else in the history of creation by removing all
barriers to communication between different races and
cultures. (Cronin 2000: 131)
Both narratives, the translator as a saviour or the
translator as a middleman of misery and hatred, have made
translation studies possible.
The beginning: a historic narrative
When exactly was the world created? Archbishop James
Ussher had the answer and published it in the Annals of the
World in 1650: “The World was created on 22 October, 4004
BC at six o’clock in the evening.” Dr John Lightfoot, the
expert of all experts in Victorian England, corrected
Ussher’s information in 1859: “man was created on 23
October 4004 BC at nine o’clock in the morning”. Unlike
myths, history is committed to experts. It is written by
victors and taught by experts. Non-negotiable. (Griffiths
1999: 53)
History is committed in writing. It depends on the
explicit and visible nature of written language. That
makes history most undemocratic. Today the linguists have
identified more than six thousand languages spoken all
over the world, but only a few hundred of these have a
literary tradition. Does translation exist in those five
thousand or so languages that do not have a literary
tradition? Has it existed in them in their past? Have
they had translators? Who were they? Do they have
theories of translation? Histories require detective work
that is, in many cases, impossible with contemporary
tools. There is so very little concrete evidence. Spoken
word is so imprecise and unreliable when history demands
precise accurate information (see Griffiths 1999: 55-56).
Translation studies is founded on three histories: the
history of translators, the history of translation, and
the history of ideas about translation. Some parts of
these histories will always remain inaccessible, because
the evidence is no longer there. Or maybe it never was.
Not in the form we would find acceptable. Human beings
have been living and dying for some four million years,
but they have been writing for fewer than six thousand.
With writing, history was born and so was translation.
(Delisle and Woodsworth 1995: 7)
Some evidence has been found, though. Archaeologists have
uncovered Sumerian-Eblaite vocabularies inscribed in clay
tablets that are 4500 years old. These bilingual lists
provide some evidence of the existence of translation.
(Delisle and Woodsworth 1995: 9) Scattered pieces of
information, which have helped to place the beginning
somewhere. Lucky for experts.
In theatre translation the earliest examples of the exchange of dramatic texts go back to the Roman translations of Greek drama. The first play written in Latin was probably a translation. The author, Andronikos (Romanized as Livius Andronicus), a slave from the Greek colony of Tarentum in southern Italy, was commissioned towrite his play for the Roman Games in 240 BC in order to celebrate the end of the first Great War against Carthage. That is where theatre translation began.
(Aaltonen 2000: 21) Square one. Ground zero of the tower of Babel.
It is most likely that translators have played a
significant role in the invention of writing, in giving
us a memory, in giving us history. Their own names have,
however, been mostly erased from this memory. Either
their contribution has not been recognized or it has not
been recorded. It is only in recent years that a major
effort has been made in translation studies to bring into
light some of the evidence, when contemporary translation
historiographers have unearthed names of translators who
have helped to develop systems of writing. Ulfila, born
around the year 311, is regarded as the inventor of the
Gothic alphabet; Mesrop Mashtots has been recorded for
having invented the Armenian alphabet sometime between
392 and 406, and the brothers Cyril and Methodius, who
lived in the ninth century, have been credited for having
invented the Cyrillic alphabet. (Delisle and Woodsworth
1995: 8-9, 11, 14-16) Further back we cannot reach. At
least not yet.
Systems of writing have then made it possible for later
generations of scholars to gather information about
translation. Provided it has been seen worth recording.
Or that somebody bothered to record it.
King Alfred the Great practised and promoted translation
in the 9th century England and has been regarded to
rescue the English language. He used English rather than
Latin as the language of education of his people, and
learned Latin so that he could translate, or commission
the translation of some key texts. His use of English in
his own translations and those he commissioned laid the
foundations for English prose. In the 14th century
England, Geoffrey Chaucer made a conscious effort to
write in English. He adapted many works from French and
laid the foundations for narrative poetry. He imported
the ballade, the romance, and the fableau into England.
(Delisle and Woodsworth 1995: 28-29) The Finnish
reformer Michael Agricola (1510-1577) was sent to
Wittenberg in 1536 to be trained to translate the Bible
into Finnish. Even before he left, he had started to
translate the New Testament into Finnish. Agricola also
published almost a quarter of the Old Testament, which
appeared in three volumes between 1551 and 1552. His
extensive literary production makes him the founder of
the written Finnish language. (Laitinen 1981: 110,
Häkli:
http//www.virtual.finland.fi./finfo/english/kirjaeng.htm
l)
The names of King Alfred the Great, Geoffrey Chaucer,
and Michael Agricola have been considered worth keeping
in national memories. The names of many others have
disappeared or never appeared there in the first place.
Moreover, there seems to be a pattern in the omissions.
In 1603, John Florio, the English translator of
Montaigne, made the link between translation and the
status of women explicit. Florio’s claim was
straightforward: since translations are always defective,
they must be female. A second order activity confined to
second-class citizens. This has gone on for long.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, translation
was seen, overall, as one of the few socially sanctioned
ways of writing open to women. Provided the text was
suitable and their names were not published. In England,
women were restricted to the translation of religious
texts, and when the work of a woman translator was
published, it was often anonymous. If it was known to be
by a woman, it was usually restricted to manuscripts
within the family circle. (Delisle and Woodsworth 1995:
149)
The names of women translators thus tend to come up
relatively late in translation historiographies. Mary
Herbert (1561-1621) translated the first secular play
ever to be translated into English (Robert Garnier’s Marc
Antoine), and around the same time Jane Lumley (1537-76)
translated the first surviving English version of
Euripides’s Iphigenia. Sara Austin (1793-1867) is regarded
as the first professional woman translator of note. She
translated various travelogues and medieval poetry from
French, German and Provencal. Constance Garnett (1861-
1946) single-handedly introduced English readers to
contemporary Russian authors such as Chekhov,
Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, Gorky and Turgenev. (Delisle
and Woodsworth 1995: 149-151)
The first Finnish novel was written by a woman, Fredrika
Wilhelmina Carstens, who published Murgrönan in 1840.
Anonymously. (Forssell 1999: 286) And although we know
that Olga Aalto translated Tolstoi, Hilda Sorsa religious
literature, and Amanda Lydia Granfelt Enlightenment
literature in the 19th century, we know very little about
them and their lives and working conditions. (Kovala
1999: 305) Anni Levander was a prolific theatre
translator in the early years of the Finnish National
Theatre and so was Hilda Asp. Irene Mendelin, Aino
Malmberg, Alli Nissinen, Elisabeth Löfgren, Elvira
Willman, Saimi Järnefelt, and Maila Mikkola also helped
to create the repertoire for the early years of the
Finnish stage. (Aspelin-Haapkylä 1910: 322-352) The names
of these women have practically been erased from the
national memory. Or never admitted there in the first
place. Translation work was so poorly paid in the 19th
century that it was either a part-time activity or the
“hobby of housewives”, claims a recent article on
translation in Finland. (Kovala 1999: 305) In
translation, as in many other social and intellectual
activities in the history of the West, women appear as
less important contributors. Histories are written by
victors and taught by experts. Not by women. The mules of
the world with a double yoke: to be a translator and a
woman.
Linear time in Translation Studies
A typically western mode of thinking is linear rather
than holistic. We tend to see evolution as something that
takes place in stages. Problems are solved in stages too.
Attempts to see linearity in translation studies are
visible in a number of its aspects. The way its history
is written, the way some of the concepts have been
constructed and also the way the mental process of
translation has been seen. Linearity is, however, man-
made rather than natural, and adjustments have been
needed.
Linearity in the evolution of translation theories
The history of translators and translation reaches from
the present into the past. Both histories are on that
road we see when we throw a look back. In many places the
road is overgrown and almost disappears, but it is
nevertheless there. And it is a more or less straight
line. Translators are born and they die in neat
chronological order.
It is when we try to unearth the history of ideas about
translation or ideas about how translations should be
studied, that the road threatens to lose shape. There are
twists and turns, and sometimes the road seems to turn
back and form a loop. Ideas do not follow each other in
neat chronological order. They overlap and become
diffuse. The more extensive the focus, the less linear
the history. Still most historiographies insist on the
framework of linear evolution. Moving forward. Cause and
effect, cause and effect. Reaction upon reaction upon
reaction. Admitting that time is not synonymous with
progress, but insisting on linearity for clarity.
Insisting on imposing order where chaos threatens.
Reducing the big picture to its details.
According to a recent account by Andrew Chesterman (1997:
20-42), we can distinguish eight major stages in the
evolution of translation theory. The first stage goes
back to the classical Greek view of language as a
structure consisting of arranged parts. Translation was
seen as rebuilding, deconstructing meanings into words in
one language and reconstructing them into words of
another language. Words regarded as the smallest units of
meaning, stable and absolute. The following step was to
realise that words were too small to be used as building
blocks of meanings. Instead meanings had to be carried by
texts as a whole. At both stages, translations were
closely tied to their source texts and had no legitimate
existence apart from representing their sources. We enter
the third stage, when it was realised that not all texts
needed to be translated in the same way. Not all texts
needed to be mirror images of their source texts at all
cost. Non-sacred texts could be translated more freely
and priority given to the needs and tastes of their
readers. A reaction to the previous literalism. It did,
however, sow the seed of a counter-reaction: the fourth
stage brought back a respect for the source text. The
Romantic Movement disapproved of imitation, which it saw
to destroy the spirit of the original. Rather than
carrying the original to the reader the Romantics thought
the reader should be carried to the original. The fifth
stage saw translation as a linguistic operation, the
sixth as communication, the seventh stage relegated the
source to secondary status, and the eighth stage wanted
to look at translation as a cognitive process.
Diachronically, each stage responds partly to the
preceding one, synchronically of course, traces of
preceding ideas are observable at any given period.
Diachronic development leading to a synchronic
standstill, fragmentation.
A similar effort to pin translation theories of the
twentieth century on a linear, chronological backbone is
visible in Lawrence Venuti’s Translation Studies Reader (2000):
translation theory in the 1940’s and 1950’s was dominated
by the issue of translatability, in the 1960’s and 1970’s
by the concept of equivalence, and in the 1980’s
translation was seen as an independent form of writing,
distinct from the foreign text and from texts originally
written in the translating language. Finally, in the
1990’s theoretical approaches to translation multiplied
and research fragmented into sub-specialities. Diachronic
development leading on to a diversification and
synchronic standstill.
Although the above accounts of theories of translation
and translation studies by Chesterman and Venuti are made
to display a linear, limited pattern on the backbone of
chronology, both make concessions. Time may be linear,
evolution of ideas is not. Both admit that linearity in
their accounts is man-made, not natural. Andrew
Chesterman (1997) admits that “there is a good deal of
overlap, so that the stages are cumulative rather than
strictly successive: the stages primarily represent
clusters of ideas rather than historical periods” (20).
Also Lawrence Venuti concedes that theoretical trends can
be constructed according to different, even opposing
narratives of development. The order is in the eye of the
viewer. The emphasis can be on continuity and progress,
or it could just as well be on discontinuity and present
insufficiencies. A later theorist might be seen as posing
a problem for which earlier theories provide a solution.
(Venuti 2000: 5, 7) A road can bend back to a circle.
Conceptual Linearity
Attempts to see linearity are also visible in the way
some of the basic concepts in translation studies are
constructed. Already the very name of the activity,
translation, at the centre of the dicipline has the
inherent suggestion of linearity. Translation suggests
the carrying across of something from A to B, directional
movement, carrying words, carrying meanings or something?
The “carrying across” metaphor has its problems. If an
object, and it has been far from clear what this object
is, is carried from A to B, when it arrives at B, it can
no longer be found at A. In translation this is clearly
not the case. When a translator carries something from A
to B, s/he does not remove it from A. It is still there.
Adjustments have therefore been needed and made. One of
the most recent ones (Chesterman 1997: 8) is the
suggestion of replacing the metaphor with that of
extending or spreading rather than carrying across ideas
or meanings. Replication rather than linear movement,
adding value to a source text by increasing the number of
readers or readings of its ideas.
The two poles, the two basic theoretical concepts in
translation studies, the source text and the target text,
also suggest linearity. They suggest movement, which has
one obvious direction: from A to B, from the source to
the target. The source first, then the target. But is
that necessarily the true order? Researcher Pirjo Mäkinen
(2002: 3) has challenged the myth of the “logical” or
“natural” chronological order of the two concepts,
claiming that is not that simple to determine what comes
first and what follows. Linearity is in the eye of the
viewer.
Indeed, we do need the original to produce a translation.
Before we can produce a translation, we need to have the
text we are translating. The logical order of the
original and its translation is thus unambiguously
chronological. The relationship between the source and
the target is, however, more complicated than that.
Firstly, there can be no source text before it has been
translated. Only with the target text a source text is
born. Without a child, there can be no mother. Moreover,
for the reader, only the target text needs to exist. No
source text at all, as the reader of the target text does
not usually read the source text. If, for some reason,
the reader of a translation should want to read the
original after having read the translation, the reading
experience would be affected by the translation. The
first reading affecting the later one, the translation
creating a frame in which the source text is read.
(Mäkinen 2002: 3) Like seeing a filmed version of a novel
first. The film becomes the original, the novel a copy.
For so many contemporary children and adults, the real
Lord of the Rings will be the films by Peter Jackson, not the
novel by J.R.R.Tolkien which came out 1954. For so many
Finns, Hamlet, Macbeth or Othello are, in fact, written by
Paavo Cajander, not Shakespeare.
Linear thinking is also evident in the way translation
scholars have determined which texts can be regarded as
legitimate research objects. One of the prerequisites of
research has been the existence of a source text, and
most of the twentieth century, research has focused on
the relationship between the source text and its
translations. Legitimate objects of research have been
those translations, which have a recognizable source
text, and researchers have been primarily interested in
the textual features and operations or strategies that
distinguish a translation from the foreign text. If there
is no source text available, or if the source text is in
constant progress, changing shape like an amoeba,
linearity is disrupted, and research becomes impossible.
The source-text requirement as well as the aim to locate
differences has thus excluded a number of texts from
research. They have excluded pseudo-translations, that
is, texts, which have been presented as translations
although the corresponding source texts have never
existed. They have also excluded texts whose source texts
have not existed as independent texts but only served as
bases for the translations. Finally, they have excluded
texts for which the linearity between the source and
target texts has been difficult to establish for some
reason.
First a brief look at pseudo-translations, texts which
have been presented as translations but which have never
had a source text at all. Pseudo-translations have
flourished at certain times in literary histories, for a
variety of reasons. They may have provided a convenient
way of introducing novelties into a culture without
arousing too much antagonism. They may have also been
motivated by desire to impart to the text some of the
superiority attributed to the alleged source culture. A
third motivation may have been an author’s fear of
censorship. (Toury 1995: 41-42)
Superiority of the alleged sources has probably triggered
off the best-known pseudo-translations in the world. One
of the most notorious pseudo-translations in the history
of English literature in the 18th century is probably
James Macpherson’s Ossianic poems, which were presented
as translations of the old Gaelic folk tales. Macpherson
began with apparently harmless imitations and then found
himself compelled by circumstances to go on. First he
promised to publish the originals of the poems, but later
declined, which did not diminish his popularity. On the
contrary, his readers were obviously not interested in
academic debates. Instead, Macpherson offered the reading
public what they wanted: romantic love and patriotic
feeling and a respect for the standard epic ideal of the
time. He gave his readers stories with the true Gaelic
spirit. (Sampson 1965: 536). Overall, the 18th century
English Romanticism was good breeding ground for pseudo-
translations. Macpherson’s contemporary, Thomas
Chatterton, although far less famed than Macpherson, has
been recorded in Histories of English literature as “the
most famous of all literary deceivers”. Chatterton was
only eighteen when he produced his medieval imitations,
the Rowley poems, but was, unlike, Macpherson, revealed and
met with a gloomy end in London. Later literary histories
credit Chatterton with a real talent who could actually
have written his own poetry without needing to pretend to
have translated them, whereas Macpherson has been seen as
a good imitator. (Sampson 1965: 537)
The Book of Mormon is of a text where opinions differ
whether or not it is a genuine translation. Whatever the
truth, the source text is no longer available. For some,
The Book of Mormon is a genuine translation. Its origin
is assumed to be in the writings of ancient prophets on
gold plates, quoted and abridged by the prophet-historian
Mormon. After Mormon had completed his writings, he is
believed to have delivered the account to his son Moroni,
who added a few words of his own and hid the plates. On
September 21, 1823, Moroni, then a glorified resurrected
being, appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and
instructed him relative to the ancient record and its
destined translation into English. In due course the
plates were delivered to Joseph Smith, who translated
them. He was told not to show the plates to any person.
When Smith had completed his task, he delivered the
plates back to Moroni. The text was first published in
1830. (The Book of Mormon: Introduction)
In Russian literature at the beginning of the 19th century
there was a need for English novels of a particular kind.
In response to this internal demand, a great number of
books were produced in Russia itself, which were
presented as translations. Many were novels were “by Ann
Radcliffe”, but in fact written by Russian writers (Toury
1995: 42-43). In modern times, the global village as well
as the tightening of copyright laws has made the
introduction of pseudo-translations more difficult.
For pseudo-translations there is no source text, there
has never been a transfer operation, and there can be no
translational relationship. Another group of
translations, where a source text postulate would not
apply, are translations for which the source text has
never existed in the traditional sense. An example could
be found in the University of Vaasa. Arja Hovila’s
translation Kielten taitolaji – kielikylpy käytännössä from 2000 is a
translation from Swedish but does not have an original in
the traditional sense. It is based on a Swedidh study
Språkbad – forskning och praktik published almost
simultaneously. The translator Arja Hovila and the author
Christer Lauren wrote the two texts almost simultaneously
with two different target audiences in mind.
The search for a difference in textual features and
operations or strategies between the source and target
texts is complicated also in cases, where the source text
has, over time, diversified into many source texts. For
example, there exists five “registered” translations into
Finnish of Macbeth, of which some exist in various
versions. The first one of these, Ruunulinna from 1834 had
a Swedish source text, which had a German source text,
which had an English source text. The English originals
are, however, almost as many as the translations, each
reflecting the theatrical and editorial conventions of
their time. The scholar may be looking at the edited
version of the First Folio from 1623, of the Quarto
edition from 1673, of William Davenant’s stage version
from 1674. Of the Finnish translation, something can be
inferred from the context, something from details of the
translations of the possible source text. (Aaltonen 1999;
Aaltonen forthcominga)
And finally, amoeba-like source texts can be found in the
translation of contemporary drama. Laura Ruohonen’s Olga
has been translated into Scottish, and has a cluster of
source texts: Angela Landon wrote a “literary”
translation on the basis of the first original written
for a performance in the Finnish National Theatre in
1995-1996. The original has changed shape, and does not
exist in its original form any longer. Linda McLean wrote
her Scottish translation on the basis of Landon’s
translation, whose source texts does not exist any
longer, but she also consulted the English translation of
the play by Anselmi Hollo. She also discussed it with
Ruohonen. The play got a public reading, and after that
McLean produced the final Scottish version. (Aaltonen
forthcomingb) Where does one look for the difference in
cases like these where linearity is trembling in front of
chaos?
Amendments brought about by the nonlinear source-target
relationship have included, for example, a reduction in
the significance of the source text in translation
research. According to Gideon Toury, for example, (1995:
52), concrete texts in languages other than that of the
target text are not part of the necessary equipment for
launching research. We only need the assumption that one
has existed. Instead of a difference, researchers can
look for information about the status of translations in
a particular culture, about cultural hierarchies and also
the most conspicuous characteristics of translations.
Linearity in the mental Process of Translation
A third area of Translation Studies, where linear
thinking has needed adjustment, is in efforts to
reconstruct the mental process of translation, to
understand what goes on in the translator’s head. What do
translators do when they translate? Speculations have
led, for example, to models, which see languages as
similar to sets of mathematical signs. By means of
addition and subtraction they can be reduced to the same
value. (Chesterman 1997: 30) In particular in the sixties
and seventies in America, translation scholars promoted
models, which displayed linearity. The translator first
decodes the message of the source language and then
encodes it into the target language. Linguistics in these
models provided the tools for understanding what actually
goes on in translation, and research focused on the rules
or analyses that were assumed to apply at various stages
of the decoding and encoding processes.
The prototypical manifestation of the above flow chart
model is seen in machine translation. Peter Toma, the
leader of a team who developed SYSTRAN, in operation
since 1969 and one of the most successful of early
machine translation programmes, assumed that the basic
process of human translation process could be applied in
machine translation as well (Toma 1989: 163-164)
This speculative reconstruct of the translation process
needed adjustment, however, and scholars made concessions
and reservations. The path from the source to the target
could not be simplified to a straight line. Eugene A.
Nida (1989: 82) admitted that “rather than going from one
set of surface structures to another, the competent
translator actually goes through a seemingly roundabout
process of analysis, transfer and restructuring. A
translator is like a hiker who finds that a stream he
must cross is so deep and the current so swift that s/he
cannot risk crossing over directly from one point to
another. Therefore he goes downstream to a ford, at which
point the transfer from one side to another can be made
with the least possible danger to himself and his
equipment. He can then go back upstream to the point
which best suits him. Toma (1989: 163-164) also admitted
that linearity produced stilted translations.
More recently, empirical studies, for example think-aloud
protocols and computerized protocol studies, have helped
to reconstruct the translation process in the
translator’s head. A non-professional translator may
proceed in a linear fashion, but a professional process
is characterized by numerous back- and forward shifts and
concentration on problematic ideas. (Pöntinen and Romanov
as described by Jääskeläinen forthcoming)
The above are only a few examples of how the Western idea
of evolution has needed revision in translation studies.
Linearity has had to accept holistic adjustment. A
British mathematician Ian Stewart has written: “As the
world was a clockwork for the eighteenth century, it was
a linear world for the nineteenth and most of the
twentieth, but a decisive change has come about now in
seeing that nature is ‘relentlessly nonlinear’. Loops and
chaos are the rule, not an exception. (Griffiths 1999:
133)
Speed
Today, a so-called social revolution is happening to
time. We have moved into a twenty–four hour society,
where we work, shop, sleep study, do reasearch and write
without the traditional rhythm of day and night. The
twenty-four hour society demands twenty-four hour access.
(Griffiths 1999: 3, 163) Time is money, and that must not
be wasted. To be on time. To be in time. Time is, time
was, time’s past. Diaries are printed with gridded time.
Computers themselves split time and divide it into pico-
seconds and nano-seconds, far beyond any human sense of
time, or human need. Juha Mieto, Lasse Viren, Mika
Häkkinen, and Kimi Räikkönen have taught us that even the
split second can be split. Speed inspires. But the danger
of speed is in its black opposite, in the instant of
expiring – speeding up to a deadline, an expiry date.
In the universities, we are required to train
professionals who walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, write
fast, and translate fast. “if you don’t enjoy the rush,
you can’t do the job”. Students are taught to live by
deadlines: hand in your essay by twelve o’clock, get your
degree faster, beat the time-limit and you’ll be
rewarded. Run! Your success is not measured by the depth
of your understanding but by the speed of your progress.
Also translators live in the tyranny of real time, where
they have increasingly short response-periods for
translation assignments. There is less and less time,
partly because there is more and more translation. It is
estimated that around 250 million pages of technical and
commercial text are translated each year and the amount
increases all the time. Time pressure has always existed
but modems and Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) tools
such as translation memories and glossary managers have
greatly increased temporal expectations in a world of
short-batch production and time-to-market constraints.
The localisation ideal of “sim-ship”, where all language
versions are released at the same time and, if possible,
at the same time as the original language version, means
that there is less and less time to do the translation.
(Cronin 2000: 112)
Increasingly translation is being done by machine. In the
contemporary tyranny of real-time, human translation is
an impediment: it slows down the circulation of goods,
services and people. The increased speed of translation
lessens the resistance of duration. (Cronin 2000: 114).
Future
I started this talk with an account of the history of
translation. But what will its future be like. Where will
the road lead us? Will translation and translators live
“happily ever after”? Not necessarily.
One vision opens up a future where there is translation
but no translators. The world will be a monoglot or at
least an oligoglot place. According to some future
visionaries, between five and ten percent of the world’s
six thousand or so languages will become extinct within
the next century. Others claim that ninety per cent of
today’s languages will be doomed within a century.
Between twenty and fifty percent of existing languages
are no longer being learned by children. Some
2, 090, 000, 000 people (well over a third of the world’s
population) are routinely exposed to English and, some
scholars believe, in a few centuries’ time the world may
be a more or less monoglot place. Other language experts
believe that the position of English could be taken by
Chinese, Hindi, Spanish or Arabic, but they agree that
the present wealth of languages will be lost. The world
will become an “oligoglot” place.1 One of the problems
with a future like that is the same threat that we
encounter with gene manipulation. There is security in
having variation. If there is only one language and that
becomes warped and damaged, then the human mind itself
will be demeaned. If that language is over-simplified for
expedience, thought itself will become less subtle.
(Griffiths 1999: 220-221)
The translator as intermediary is not needed if everybody
speaks the same language. The presence of a global
language removes the translator but leaves translation,
and translation problems themselves do not disappear. In 1 Will the presence of a global language eliminate the demand for world translation services, or will the economics of automatic translation so undercutthe cost of global language that the latter will become obsolete. David Crystal sees machine translation as the only serious long-term threat to the global dominance of English.
the case of English, outside of the 337 million people
who speak it as their first language, other speakers of
the language will be translating at some level from
another language when they use English. (Cronin 2000:
114)
In the new “bitsphere”, the worldwide electronically
mediated environment, in which networks are everywhere
and where most of the objects that function within it
have intelligence and telecommunication capabilities,
translators may become replaced by software surrogates or
semi-autonomous software agents that perform various
tasks for the computer. They can filter e-mail, scan news
services, and consulting even while a client was away
from his/her computer. They might at some stage act as
translators, finding material in the foreign language and
translating it into the target language of the user,
functioning in effect as a heteronymous translation aid
for the cyber-traveller. (Cronin 2000: 155)
Translation will not disappear, only the role of
translators may need revision. The role of translators is
likely to change in machine translation. Increasingly MT
users are not concerned with the quality issues that
exercise the minds of professionally trained translators.
(Cronin 2000: 114)
The techno-social space of computer networks may emerge
as the new locus of translation communities. Already
these groups have begun to cluster around newsgroups,
bulletin boards, formal and informal e-mail lists and the
occasional on-line conference, and these contacts can
only increase and intensify over time. The Net has
obvious instrumental advantages for translators in terms
of accessing information, advertising services,
overcoming geographical peripherality and being itself a
potential source of localisation employment. However, its
more enduring importance may turn out to be as a site for
new virtual communities of translators who will be the
cyberspace equivalents of what once constituted the
translation centres. (Cronin 2000: 156)
In all the above predictions, future does not promise to
become a linear past. Ideas about translation will not
evolve on a linear cline either.
Maybe the time has come to bring forth another Greek god
and raise him above Chronos. Kairos was the god of
timing, of opportunity, of chance and mischance, of
different aspects of time, the auspicious and the non-
auspicious. If you sleep because the clock tells you it’s
way past your bed-time, that is chronological time,
whereas if you sleep because you are tired, that is
kairological time. (Griffiths: 21-22) If you can take
time to do your work properly and don’t need to accept
forever shortening deadlines, you follow kairological
time. Quality beats quantity. Maybe it’s time to change
gods and look at the big picture
Time’s up!
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