_______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER In the full version of the program, this file contains four separate sections. ("A Translation Triptych" is the name used for an intermediate version of the program, assembled from existing elements for showing at a conference of trans- lators.) In order, these sections would be: 1. The Paper entitled "The Genesis and Methodology of `A Translation Triptych.'" This Paper was published in the 1995 Proceedings of the American Translators Association Annual Conference in Nashville and is reprinted here with permission from the publishers. 2. The Acknowledgments section of this project, expressing gratitude to all those who helped with the developments of the program. 3. The List of Sources for all the quotations found in the first section of the program, "TRANSLATION AND TRANSLATORS: Quotations Through the Ages." 4. The Bibliography for this section of the program. The free Shareware version of this program, "TRUTH IN TRANSLATION," contains only the first two sections. Information on ordering the full version is contained in the file ORDER.DOC. See the file README.1ST for further information about both programs. It is not possible to duplicate the typography of the first item in ASCII format, and so some slight editing has been undertaken to make up for differences in typographical style. The Paper appears first, followed by the Acknowledgments. 1. THE GENESIS AND METHODOLOGY OF A TRANSLATION TRIPTYCH By Alex Gross Cross-Cultural Research Projects, ATA KEYWORDS: Famous Quotations About Translation, Translation History, Translation Errors, Language As Evolved Animal Spray, Computer vs. Print Presentations ABSTRACT: This paper discusses "A Translation Triptych," an electronic presentation about translating and interpreting. As its name implies, the presentation consists of three principal parts: 1. "Translation and Translators--Quotations Through the Ages," comprising approximately 150 observations on both the spoken and written forms of our profession. 2. "Famous Translation Bloopers, Real or Imagined." This is a collection of some remarkable translation errors, many of them first noted in the pages of the ATA Chronicle. 3. "An Unofficial History of Language and Translation." The presentation takes the form of an electronic slide-show lasting approximately eighty minutes. It will be continually recycling throughout the Nashville Conference, so that sooner or later most people in attendance will have a chance to see most of its parts. In the paper the respective advantages and drawbacks of the print and electronic media are discussed, the contents of the presentation are analysed in some detail, and the strategy for creating a scholarly apparatus for electronic works is examined.. A Translation Triptych will be located in a central area of the Conference site. In their preface to "The Craft and Context of Translation," William Arrowsmith and Roger Shattuck observed in 1964: "...intelligent comments on translation...tend to be unavailable or scattered, tucked away in odd corners, and their arguments diffused1." Although many excellent general treatments and specialist studies on translation have been published during the thirty years since they wrote, on the whole their observation rings as true today as it did then. Only a few "traductologues" or "translatologists" (the French term being somewhat more common than the English one) are likely to have access to such information, and even they might be hard pressed to separate "intelligent comments" from the far greater body of less striking ones. How much truth their observation contains may perhaps be gauged by the fact that it was, for all its centrality, encountered relatively late in the research for the current project. "A Translation Triptych" represents a first attempt to break through this specific language barrier and present such comments, along with related material, to a wider audience. Its three main sections comprise a compendium of about 150 translation-related quotations through the ages, a selection of outrageous translation errors, and a semi-humorous sketch on language and translation, with a brief "quiz" on translating and interpreting as an addendum. This work differs from previous studies of the subject in two important ways. First, it is directed mainly towards two audiences: a somewhat new genre of specialist audience in the first instance but in the long run towards the general public as well. So far neither potential audience has had any extended opportunity to examine this material. Even the specialist audience in question, though an entirely logical one for these texts, has for some reason rarely been addressed by the scholarly community in the past. It is none other than the community of working translators, including not only scholars, literary specialists, and teachers of translation but also conference and courtroom interpreters as well as business and technical translators. The presentation of this version has in fact been designed to be premiŠred at our very own 1995 National Conference of the American Translators Association in Nashville. Aside from this somewhat atypical venue, "A Translation Triptych" differs in one other important respect from previous studies on translation. Its chosen medium is not a book, a monograph, or a lecture--it has in fact been organized on a disk as a computerized slide show, though it will also be available in printed form. The very nature of the electronic medium has of course influenced the manner of presentation, as have engraved stone or clay, papyri, incunabular and printed books, films, and audiotapes in their respective eras. Each of these media has its own advantages and drawbacks, and the computer is no different. It should perhaps also be added that all previous studies of the history of translation have been for all practical purposes exclusively eurocentric in their approach--to the author's knowledge, this collection of quotations about the translation process marks the first time other cultures have been represented in such studies. Since the presentation will be viewed during a busy conference, certain liberties have been taken with the manner of displaying some information on the screen, though fail-safe mechanisms have been set in place to ensure the maintenance of scholarly rigor. It is perhaps useful to remember that those viewing this work will be balancing food and refreshments, consulting programs, and dashing off to meet friends or attend sessions, all of these activities necessarily encouraging a short attention span even among the scholarly. On the other hand, unlike most conventional presentations, "A Translation Triptych" can be continually recycled for twelve hours every day, perhaps on more than one monitor, so that all who wish can return and review its contents more reflectively. One further factor surrounding the development of this project actually had the effect of encouraging more rigorous treatment rather than the reverse. Although "A Translation Triptych" was intended primarily as a Conference event, from the outset it was also conceived as part of a more ambitious proposal for a museum exhibit devoted to translation and interpreting, which might hope to reach and educate a more extended audience about this field. Within the fifty separate displays of this larger exhibit, A Translation Triptych would comprise no more than one. Such an exhibit would echo to some extent the excitement and "information overload" of the conference setting, making it feasible to convert the one into the other with at least some degree of ease. But since both projects went through their initial research phase within a similar time frame, more extensive work on the larger presentation could fertilize the smaller one to some extent. Before reviewing the actual content of "A Translation Triptych," a discussion comparing and contrasting print and electronic media as vehicles for presenting ideas may be in order. It should not be supposed that any simplistic dichotomy between these two media can exist. There are many different styles and approaches in using computers to display information, just as there are many different ways of employing print. And in each case both creativity and native presentation skills are certain to play a role. Moreover, the available range of authoring software--even at this early stage of computer history--is more than broad enough to allow a veritable gamut of creative choices. Only after carefully examining some twenty different shareware and commercial products of this genre did the author finally settle on one program called Automessage. That so thorough a search was needed reveals much about the many faces of this medium. Some programs permit instantaneous flashing of a message on the screen, but this can induce boredom or even hypnosis over the long term. Others enforce strict message boundaries and/or uninspired typefaces. Still others boast an infinity of typefaces and colors but lack crucial editing tools. Automessage was chosen because it offered the best of many possibilities for this particular purpose and also because of its engaging manner of painting messages on the screen as one watches, a sort of latter-day "handwriting on the wall." The options of using a hypertext or expert system environment were also considered but rejected because they limit the number of people who can use the computer at once. The print medium uses the "page" as its model, while computers are ineluctably bound to the "screen," assuming the message is meant to be viewed on a monitor. This limitation is actually less restrictive than may at first appear. In order to grasp more clearly how "screen" and "page" can differ from one another, let us look at an excerpt from this presentation and compare the two versions. One of the quotations from A Translation Triptych looks something like this on the screen: Now it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, not ideas...there is no idea...which cannot be adequately produced as idea in English words. --Sidney Lanier, 1897 [In the non-ASCII print version, this citation appears surrounded by a box.] The quotation is placed within a box to simulate screen borders, with the bottom line in capital letters to represent the different colors on the screen. This is an ideal passage in terms of this particular program because it is exactly seven lines long or, rather, has been "segmented" to fit into seven lines (no actual editing has occurred per se). A blank line is inserted above and below the quotation simply to make it more readable, and the type has been centered for the same reason. Thus, it is not merely by "screens-full" that messages on monitors are to be measured, but by "readable screens-full." This important criterion also has its print counterpart, as we shall see. The reason the number of lines is important is that the Automessage program permits exactly ten lines on each screen (or only five if one were to choose the "double-height" option for the message). But this is not a general computer standard or even a DOS one--it applies only to Automessage, and other programs will have their own internal limits and/or drawbacks. It is necessary to work within the limits of each program to achieve appropriate results. Now here is the very same passage as it might appear in an academically "correct" printed format: Now, it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, not ideas...there is no idea...which cannot be adequately produced as idea in English words. --Sidney Lanier, 1897 The English Novel. New York: Scribner's & Sons, 1897. pp. 190-91. (cited by Morgan, 1959. Original text examined and one missing word restored.) It should be clear from the beginning that the printed form of this citation is intrinsically less easy to read than the screen form, even if we ignore the several lines needed for a correct scholarly reference. Although more information has ostensibly been transmitted, the overall effect could actually become one of less information. The other lines add what might be termed a "noise factor" by the standards of Shannon's Information Theory. If these last three lines were included in the screen version, where six lines might be required--and if this model were followed throughout the presentation--overall readability would be greatly reduced and the willingness of conference or museum goers to keep watching would be sorely taxed. This extended form is indeed closely related to the one which appears in the printed List of Sources, with the exception that the book reference is shown simply as "Lanier. 190-91." with the full details present in the Bibliography. Here we also see the typographical counterpart of contrasting screen colors: in this case bold, italic, and slightly reduced fonts are used for the attribution and notes. But what if the message is more than seven lines long--does this mean it must be "procrusteanized" into a shorter form? This is by no means the case, as the program also permits scrolling the screen down for longer text, or splitting a message into two segments, or setting up top and/or bottom lines that can announce a continuity of theme, as in the "Tale of Moses Ben Ezra" or the examples of Machine Translation. It is theoretically also possible to employ 256 different color combinations on each line of each screen, though only a few have been chosen here: the ATA colors of light blue and white for the "body font," black on white for attributions and comments, and yellow on red for occasional emphasis. Actual editing of these texts has been avoided in almost all cases, and only two are marked as having been "adapted." It nonetheless remains true that in a conference or museum setting, shorter messages are more likely to be read than longer ones. For this reason the author has sought out citations between three and thirty words long, though a number of exceptions have been made. There is probably a lesson here for intellectuals and scholars in general--the assumption that longer treatments of a subject are necessarily more accurate or convey more actual information than shorter ones is possibly in error. A popularized magazine article can indeed be more informative than a scholarly book, and even a bumper sticker can on at least some occasions say more than the thickest Germanic "Prolegomena zum..." From Ancient Greek epigrams down to Quotations from Chairman Mao, people have sought out simplified summations of knowledge in the hope of understanding more of the world around them. As for the quotations themselves, what is perhaps most remarkable is that only a few recurrent themes seem to emerge over the span of more than two millennia. Aside from those passages offering specific technical advice or singling out specific works for criticism, these themes are really only three or four in number. By far the most frequently mentioned issue is the ongoing debate between "literalists" and "liberalists," between translating "words" vs. translating "sense." And by far the majority--though not all--of the most famous authors and commentators come down decisively in behalf of the latter. Granted, these are for the most part translators of literature rather than technical or scientific specialists, but a general feeling of consensus is nonetheless present. (It should perhaps be added that the author did not expressly seek out passages favoring this opinion and would have gladly included those expressing the opposite view, but they were distinctly hard to uncover). There is also a clearly recognizable counter-current of those who suppose translation is nearly impossible, is practiced mainly by self-deceiving incompetents, or even constitutes a breach of human or divine law. Typifying this school of thought through the ages, one may encounter the added suppositions that one language is "inferior" to another or that the crux of the matter lies in the great number of "bad translations." When the problem is thus defined, the solution often emerges that all translators must be trained in a single translation method with clearly set rules, an argument heard more than once over the centuries. These rules frequently belong to the person advocating such a system, even though it remains far from clear that the problem has been correctly defined to begin with. How are we to explain the continuous reemergence of these same disagreements through so many eras and cultures? In the sketch comprising the third part of the "Triptych," it has been suggested that language might be an actual biological process analogous to--and evolved from--primitive spraying by animals. Because language is such an instinctive process, most people are quite unable to view it as a complete system or make meaningful generalizations about it beyond a certain limited point. This was indeed the argument advanced by Leonard Bloomfield's "Secondary and Tertiary Responses to Language," which the author has discussed elsewhere 2. Bloomfield concluded that many of our attitudes to language might turn out to be "a matter of psychology and sociology." Although much of his work is now forgotten, this particular observation perhaps deserves further attention. The notions of "culture shock" or "future shock" are both familiar to us. A comparable emotional confusion may affect many people when they first encounter a foreign language or even a translation from a foreign language. Perhaps it should be called "language shock" or even "translation shock." Depending on the circumstances, such a state can prove more or less serious for those suffering from it. Suddenly the familiar furniture and surroundings of one's own language, which one had supposed were synonymous with reality itself, are ripped away. One is invited- -in some cases even forced--to assume that a totally new way of categorizing the surrounding world is possible. It is a break in the fabric of life that most people--and even quite a few translators--are unable to fully account for. Add to this the virtual certainty that no two translators will ever translate the same text in exactly the same way and that inexperienced translators can argue endlessly over which is the so-called "correct" translation of almost any passage. Considerable grounds for confusion are quite clearly present. Such an experience can cause a considerable jolt, especially if one had never really devoted any thought to language before. The immediate reaction of those so afflicted is familiar to all of us and may provide a concise symptomology of "language shock." Those suffering from this condition profess to disdain the other language--and perhaps the other culture as well. They may reject any influence springing from that language or culture--including the work of a translator or interpreter. Alternately, they may choose to blame their own language or culture. What we may be seeing in many of these quotations may be nothing less than a repeated reinfection by "translation shock" or "language shock" through the centuries. But can there ever be any reliable cure for this syndrome? If so, it can only come about when human beings become more sophisticated about the true nature of language. To what extent are we all like moles, happily burrowing through our own networks of tunnels and patiently laying down our own scents upon our domain? And how do we differ from such moles as they suddenly come upon a neighboring set of burrows with totally different scent marks they can neither recognize nor understand? Let us now suppose that a "translator mole" came along and tried to explain these foreign aromas to the others. How would moles react in such a case, and how do we? We know the answer only too well. The mole's reaction will be to defend, to repulse, to kill. Humans are not usually allowed this option, and so we settle for criticizing the intruders' spray marks--their spelling, punctuation, accent, grammar, or choice of words, not to mention their appallingly "bad translation." And yet, at the very moment of our utmost arrogance about language-- just as we assert our superiority over animals for having invented it and boast of our scientific methods for studying it-- at that very instant perhaps we should recall that we too are at work as animals, spraying everything around us in the hope of protecting our environment or effecting a magical change in its nature. Another major theme present in these quotations is of, course the practical value of translation, with such major voices as Bruno, Goethe, Roget, and Kelly summoning us to recognize the crucial connections between translation, science, and the entire world economy. One further frequently voiced attitude--here exemplified by Fray Ponce de Le˘n, Luther, Cowley, Ladmiral, Meschonnic, Levy, and Fauchereau--is that the academic establishment--and perhaps even those who purport to study translation--penetrate only marginally into its real nature and produce little beyond "chatty essays." This position is taken even further by the striking observations of Steiner and MacFarlane: However, despite the rich history, and despite the calibre of those who have written about the art and theory of translation, the number of original, significant ideas in the subject remains very meagre. 3 [My intent is] to underline the need for some new provisional theory of translation--new in the sense that it should be diagnostic rather than hortatory...concerned... with actualities...It is not the principles of translation that need re-adjusting...but rather our ideas about them.4 There is also a fair consensus through the ages, shared by Cicero, Quintilian, Iamblichus, Roger Bacon, and Tytler, that no so-called "universal grammar" can account for the many differences between languages and that only concerted creativity and inventiveness can bridge the scarcely trivial gaps between them. One author goes even further and insists that there may be circumstances where no such bridge can be built at all: True, translation may use the value terms of its own tongue in its own time; but it cannot force these on a truly alien text.5 This observation necessarily brings us back to Sidney Lanier's assertion in our first example, that any idea, as idea, can be expressed in English. Such a claim remains essentially unprovable--if an idea did exist that could not be expressed in English, precisely how would we learn about it? We are confronted here by a genuine paradox, one which poses for language the same order of difficulty that G”del's Entscheidungsproblem posed for mathematics. As noted, research procedures for this study have been rigorous, though this has been less necessary for the two specially composed sections and the collection of translation errors, many of which were printed in the ATA Chronicle. But the compendium of quotations has required and received special attention. Although its actual text is a mere 3,000 words, about the same length as many magazine articles, this section comprises a veritable mine field of attribution problems, covering many eras and cultures. Unlike typically journalistic "Thoughts on Spring Through the Ages" (or "Thoughts on Love, Friendship, Wine, etc."), its citations could by no means be found simply by picking up one's desktop Bartlett's. Almost all these passages have indeed proved Arrowsmith and Shattuck's words: they are truly "scattered," "tucked away in odd corners," or sometimes close to "unavailable." From the outset it also became clear that any usable citations must meet three highly selective criteria: 1. They should be relatively brief, ideally no longer than 30 words (in fact, the average length is 21 words). 2. They should be intrinsically interesting and contain some useful insight for today's translation professionals. 3. They should, wherever possible, come from the pen of well-known authors or authorities in the field. Thus, the aim of the project was from the outset an extremely specialized and selective one. This goal made a careful search strategy essential from the very beginning. The work that ought to have provided many solutions, Lefevere's "Translation-- History, Culture: A Sourcebook" is entirely composed of quotations about translation through the ages and is doubtless extremely useful for some scholarly or classroom purposes. But almost all its selections were too long or diffuse for the purpose of this presentation, and none in fact has been used (though one or two may overlap from other references). The most valuable resource encountered was not a book at all but Bayard Quincy Morgan's twenty-page bibliographical section from the 1959 collection of essays "On Translation," edited by Reuben Brower. This bibliography provides some 280 listings related to translation, about half of them containing quotations, partial quotations, seeming quotations, or summaries. Of these 140 listings about 32 proved of immediate interest and were in almost all cases traced to their source or sources. The well-known books by Steiner and Ballard have been two other useful resources, and to a lesser extent the volumes by Rener, Kelly, and Apter have also been consulted. Given the scope and complexity of this subject and the relative scarcity of useful leads, some 40 existing dictionaries of quotations, together with a few electronic resources, have also been consulted and compared. A final source has been the author's own general reading over several decades, though this became more directed in nature as the project matured. As of this writing, a more diffuse "fishing expedition" has also been launched into the pages of the profession's many journals in the hope of discovering yet other quotations. In all cases, even where the credibility of a source has been impeccable, an earnest attempt has been made to trace each citation to its original source and in almost all cases has been successful. While seemingly a scholarly crotchet, such a procedure has on several occasions revealed that some quotations were incorrectly or incompletely copied from their sources or that equally incisive material lay close by. Wherever this procedure has failed, the comment "Cited by...." or "Summarized by...," followed by a name appears in the List of Sources. Perhaps the most important finding arising from this research: fully one-half of these quotations do not appear in major texts on translation history, and only a small fraction appears in any single treatment. Ironically, many have never before been translated into English. Much of the scholarly work takes place in an undergrowth of references. Many citations were in fact doubly or trebly embedded: thus, Ballard citing Holmes citing Levy, Steiner citing Florio citing Bruno, or Ballard commenting on Tytler by citing Newmark and Widmer. Passages from St. Jerome, which came from Labourt's bilingual French and Latin edition, were first encountered in Ballard's French citations. Two passages by Luther cited by Rener in German and one cited by Ballard in French eventually led to Luther's full text in his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen of 1530. All errors in fact and procedure are the author's responsibility alone, and an attempt will be made to remedy them in future editions, which are somewhat easier to produce and publish in this electronic medium than in print. It is indeed hoped that ATA members and others will suggest further quotations that should have appeared in this first version. Perhaps these will suddenly become plentiful, now that the initial work of discovery has been undertaken. It is sincerely hoped that "A Translation Triptych" will prove of interest to translators, interpreters, terminologists, and all those concerned with language both within the ATA and beyond it. Perhaps this presentation can also prove of use to the various translator- and interpreter-training programs both here and abroad. 1 Arrowsmith, William and Shattuck, Roger, editors. "The Craft and Context of Translation: A Critical Symposium." Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1964. Preface, p. xiii. 2 Bloomfield, Leonard. "Secondary and Tertiary Responses to Language." In "Language" 20: 45-55 (1944) and in C.F. Hockett (ed.). "A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology." Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. For the discussion mentioned here: Gross, Alex: "Limitations of Computers as Translation Tools." In Newton, John (ed.). Computers in Translation: A Practical Appraisal. London: Routledge, 1992. pp.96- 130. 3 Steiner, George. "After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation." Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. p. 238. 4 MacFarlane, John. "Modes of Translation." In Durham University Journal, 45: 92-93, 1953. 5 Miles, Josephine. "Poetry and Change." Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. p. 200. 2. Acknowledgments As should be more than clear from the preceding Paper, the author is considerably indebted to the work of such scholars as Morgan, Ballard, Steiner, Rener, Kelly, Apter, and many others, as a glance at the Bibliography will surely show. As in the body of the program itself, I welcome a further opportunity to express my thanks to the members of the Public Relations Computer Presentation Sub- Committee : John Bukacek, Vigdis Eriksen, Loi‰ Feuerle, Harald Hille, Alex Schwartz, Marilyn Stone, & Robert Sussman. Many thanks are also due to Ali Ekram Ali, Ronnie Apter, Walter Bacak, Bob Bononno, Albert Bork, Mark Herman, Muriel J‚r“me-O'Keefe, Peter Krawutschke, Edith Losa, Liz Scott Andrews, Laurie Treuhaft, Ernst Waldeck, and Leslie Willson. And to all those at the New York Public Library who never failed to be helpful, including the Ghost in Catnyp's machine. Some expression of gratitude is also in order for the authors, editors, and publishers of all books of quotations that have ever been written. I am particularly grateful to Lionel Tsao and Apollo Wu for their advice on Chinese quotations. Copyright (C) 1995 & 1996 by Alexander Gross