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Brainstorming: opinions on transferring ideology from source text to target text; CDA
Thread poster: adriana508
adriana508
adriana508
Bosnia and Herzegovina
TOPIC STARTER
Another question May 12, 2020

Dear Sadek_A, yes that question was for Jan Truper. However, I would like to ask you something as well. You are completely against any kind of adaptation and you believe that adapting would mean putting word into the mouth of the author.

OK, now a question for you: Can a translator himself/herself misunderstand a text, or can he or she sometimes even subconsciously understand a discourse in a certain manner and then translate it in such a way? Is the translator himself/herself some
... See more
Dear Sadek_A, yes that question was for Jan Truper. However, I would like to ask you something as well. You are completely against any kind of adaptation and you believe that adapting would mean putting word into the mouth of the author.

OK, now a question for you: Can a translator himself/herself misunderstand a text, or can he or she sometimes even subconsciously understand a discourse in a certain manner and then translate it in such a way? Is the translator himself/herself sometimes more prone to his or her own interpretation of a text and then to such a translation? This can happen with any text, I assume, but maybe it is even more possible with literature. And what to do in such cases? How much of the original text is lost though this? Where does the original text stops and the interpretation begins in a translated text?
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:48
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Fire May 12, 2020

adriana508 wrote:

..... Can a translator himself/herself misunderstand a text, or can he or she sometimes even subconsciously understand a discourse in a certain manner and then translate it in such a way? Is the translator himself/herself sometimes more prone to his or her own interpretation of a text and then to such a translation? This can happen with any text, I assume, but maybe it is even more possible with literature. And what to do in such cases?


A translator like that would be so incompetent that they should not be doing the work. They should be fired.


 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Fire? What, all of us? May 12, 2020

You can’t translate anything ever without making some choices and judgements based on what you personally think is best, from register to explanations to adaptations... That’s the difference between a human and a machine.

There is no right and wrong. It’s up to the translator and perhaps the client to make that judgement.


Jan Truper
P.L.F. Persio
 
adriana508
adriana508
Bosnia and Herzegovina
TOPIC STARTER
CDA May 12, 2020

I am not sure you understood well. I was not talking about people who do not understand the words or what the text is about. Actually I was talking about something else. I don't know if you are familiar with critical discourse analysis. To put it simply, there are discourses that can convey certain meaning sometimes even on a subconscious level. This kind of understanding is very often linked to your own culture. For example, talking about some protests, a certain newspaper article may use lexis... See more
I am not sure you understood well. I was not talking about people who do not understand the words or what the text is about. Actually I was talking about something else. I don't know if you are familiar with critical discourse analysis. To put it simply, there are discourses that can convey certain meaning sometimes even on a subconscious level. This kind of understanding is very often linked to your own culture. For example, talking about some protests, a certain newspaper article may use lexis associated with fire: "The riots engulfed the city" or "Police had to extinguish the flame of the protests", etc. Now, to a mind of a reader, protesters are associated which something that might be violent and harsh and it should be "extinguished".

However, this same discourse might mean something completely else in a society where fire is perceived as something nice and peaceful and they may not get the same feeling when reading this. They will of course understand what happened and how there were some strong protests, but they may not be under this kind of "discourse" influence.

Critical discourse analysis is what analyses discourses in general and tries to see how a discourse influence society.

Now, you have a translator from one culture and a text from another culture. Subconsciously, the translator might "feel" or understand a discourse on a different level and then translate it to even some other, completely different, third culture.

Any thoughts?


Tom in London wrote:

adriana508 wrote:

..... Can a translator himself/herself misunderstand a text, or can he or she sometimes even subconsciously understand a discourse in a certain manner and then translate it in such a way? Is the translator himself/herself sometimes more prone to his or her own interpretation of a text and then to such a translation? This can happen with any text, I assume, but maybe it is even more possible with literature. And what to do in such cases?


A translator like that would be so incompetent that they should not be doing the work. They should be fired.
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Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:48
English to Arabic
+ ...
Here May 12, 2020

adriana508 wrote:

You are completely against any kind of adaptation and you believe that adapting would mean putting word into the mouth of the author.


No, I'm against adaptation cloaked as translation of original author's source message.

If it's a translator injecting their own thoughts, then it's something different than translation. Call it adaptation, (ghost-)authoring/writing, or anything else; but, it shouldn't be presented as translation.

adriana508 wrote:

Can a translator himself/herself misunderstand a text?


Sure; hence, the known word "mistranslation." And, misunderstanding is unintentional, as opposed to the intentional injection of new thoughts to source work.

adriana508 wrote:

or can he or she sometimes even subconsciously understand a discourse in a certain manner and then translate it in such a way? Is the translator himself/herself sometimes more prone to his or her own interpretation of a text and then to such a translation? This can happen with any text, I assume, but maybe it is even more possible with literature. And what to do in such cases? How much of the original text is lost though this? Where does the original text stops and the interpretation begins in a translated text?


From the beginning, if they know they won't be able to stay unbiased, then they shouldn't accept the project, whether it's translation, proofreading, or editing.

We have to stay clear on the difference between vocabulary and ideas.

An example: "any sexual activity between 2 consenting adults is permitted." This is a sentence that can be "offensive" to some.

When borrowed, it can be translated into "any sexual act between 2 accepting people of legal age is allowed," but it can't be translated into "only generally-accepted sexual contact between 2 people in marriage is to be tolerated." This is not translation, this is some twisted individual imposing their view, not only on the audience but also on the author and the work.

It should have never been borrowed if the original message isn't going to be presented honestly.


 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:48
Spanish to English
+ ...
A society where fire is perceived as something nice and peaceful May 12, 2020

I think there must be a better example somewhere, Adriana! A society where fire is perceived as something nice and peaceful can be any society at all, if you're sitting in front of a log fire as the wind howls outside and the rain whips at the windows, perhaps with a glass of wine, gazing into those dancing flames.

But no society perceives fire as nice and peaceful all the time, because you might then get up and go to the kitchen for a wine refill, and maybe a slice of cheese on Ry
... See more
I think there must be a better example somewhere, Adriana! A society where fire is perceived as something nice and peaceful can be any society at all, if you're sitting in front of a log fire as the wind howls outside and the rain whips at the windows, perhaps with a glass of wine, gazing into those dancing flames.

But no society perceives fire as nice and peaceful all the time, because you might then get up and go to the kitchen for a wine refill, and maybe a slice of cheese on Ryvita, topped with a gherkin or two, why not, come back into the lounge to find a log fell off the fire as you were busy cutting the cheese, and the whole room is ablaze. Not such a nice and peaceful fire now, because it all depends on context. Do you ring the fire brigade, or do you just let that nice and peaceful fire burn your house to the ground? If there even is a fire brigade. After all, why would a society where fire is perceived as something nice and peaceful need any firefighters?

[Edited at 2020-05-12 17:22 GMT]
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Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:48
Spanish to English
+ ...
Full Marx May 12, 2020

As for something on Marx being translated for your Catholic gathering, let's say that "Religion is the opium of the people" comes up. How can you adapt it? You're translating a book on Marx. You don't have to even think about it. You just translate it.

If the author starts arguing for it, or against it, you translate that too without any subconscious involvement. In my time I must have translated hundreds of political/economic/social/sexual sentences I agreed with, or didn't, but I
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As for something on Marx being translated for your Catholic gathering, let's say that "Religion is the opium of the people" comes up. How can you adapt it? You're translating a book on Marx. You don't have to even think about it. You just translate it.

If the author starts arguing for it, or against it, you translate that too without any subconscious involvement. In my time I must have translated hundreds of political/economic/social/sexual sentences I agreed with, or didn't, but I doubt anyone could get any insight into my views on the subject, because they didn't matter and I didn't (couldn't!) convey them.

They can read my Marx translation and make what they want of it. Even if it makes sense or doesn't. I get a translation that says "Dogs quack and ducks bark", and I translate what I see, even if it's plain daft, because if somebody has no idea what they're writing about in the first place or their politics are right or wrong, I don't care because I'm not paid to care. And after my translation, if they want to learn more about Marx, they can watch A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Duck Soup or any of those films.
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neilmac
 
Jan Truper
Jan Truper  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 12:48
Member (2016)
English to German
... May 12, 2020

adriana508 wrote:
Do you personally believe that the original text was lost, or maybe some of its essential elements?


I have translated texts where I had to completely reinvent essential elements of the source, because a straightforward translation would have been meaningless for a German audience. This can happen if there are pictures and/or word plays involved in an advertisement, for example.
(I actually stopped translating advertisements, because the remuneration was nowhere near what I know people in the advertisement world would make for similar efforts.)

adriana508 wrote:
How did you manage to find this border between "regular" straightforward translation and too much adaptation?


Experience, good taste and good decision making -- which is basically what clients pay for (when translating ads, you sometimes have to provide multiple versions with back translations and explanations, so they can actually gauge whether they get what they pay for.)

adriana508 wrote:
Also, do you have any examples of this register or sociolect adaptations?


I'll take one from today's job -- may the NDA gods have mercy on my soul.

German subtitles for a US comedy series.
Fat white kid, who is about to start driving lessons soon, and who always tries to sound like a Gangsta Rapper, says:
"Just keep that ten and two noise out of my head."

Translation into standard English: "During driving lessons, please do not bother me with instructions on correct hand positioning (10 o'clock and 2 o'clock) on the steering wheel." In the next line he says that he is just using one finger.

Now, I have to consider the German audience in the following ways:
-These are subtitles; therefore I have to stay within a limit of 17 characters per second so the audience has a chance to read them without stressing out.
-The correct driving hand position is generally taught as 9 / 3 in German driving schools, not as 10 / 2. Since the audience can listen to the English audio while reading the German subs, they will be confused if I use these numbers (plus, nobody really remembers these numbers anyway, unless they had driving lessons recently).
-German Gangsta Rappers are completely different beasts than US Gangsta Rappers; I have no chance of conveying this element without making a complete fool of myself.

Best solution I came up with: "Hände am Lenkrad nerven doch nur." (Back translation: "Hands on the wheel are just annoying".)
The sentence has exactly 17 cps, the basic sense is conveyed and fits the context, and the Gangsta Rapper sociolect has been transformed into a somewhat juvenile, uppity register (which you don't notice in the back translation, but it's there in German.)


Edited to add:
Good luck with machine translation, suckers...

[Edited at 2020-05-12 20:41 GMT]


Kay-Viktor Stegemann
P.L.F. Persio
MollyRose
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 12:48
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
On discourse, critical linguistics, etc. May 12, 2020

adriana508 wrote:
I don't know if you are familiar with critical discourse analysis.


Yes, but I stopped using words like "discourse" and "lexis" when I completed my translation studies. (-:

I don't know if you are familiar with critical discourse analysis.


For the benefit of those in this thread who did not realise that the "CDA" tacked onto the end of your subject line means "critical linguistics", here's what some of my books have to say about it:

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an analytical research methodology that investigates discursive manifestations of ideological positioning. Its primary aim is “to expose the ideological forces that underlie communicative exchanges”, and to examine the way text and talk are used to legitimize abuse of power, discrimination and inequality.
-- Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (3rd ed) (2020, Baker and Saldanha)

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) investigates how language use may be reproducing the perspectives, values and ways of talking of the powerful, which may not be in the interests of the less powerful. It thus focuses on the relationship between language, power and ideology.
-- Linguistics Encyclopedia (3rd ed) (2010, Kirsten Malmkjaer)

The ‘critical’ aspect of critical discourse analysis (CDA) refers to [inter alia] a committed agenda to reveal how discourses produce and reproduce unequal power relations within society. CDA “aims to investigate critically social inequality as it is expressed, signalled, constituted, legitimized and so on by language use (or in discourse)”. In particular, it attempts to show how the binaries that underpin language and culture tend to render one side as normal and the other as invisible and un-natural, thus creating social inequalities.
-- Research methodologies in translation studies (2013, Saldanha and O'Brien)

Critical discourse analysis [is a] branch of linguistics which aims to reveal hidden power relations and ideological processes at work in spoken or written texts. ... Critical discourse analysis is a perspective which studies the relationship between discourse events and sociopolitical and cultural factors, especially the way discourse is ideologically influenced by and can itself influence power relations in society.
-- A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed) (2008, David Crystal)

A newspaper article may use [words and phrases] associated with fire: "The riots engulfed the city", ... [but], this same [phrasing] might mean something completely else in a society where fire is perceived as something nice and peaceful.


If you're looking for more examples of this sort of thing, I suggest you take a look at the challenges of translating for deaf people. Hearing people associate certain sounds with certain emotions, without thinking, and therefore associate things that make those sounds with those emotions.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters... a certain Bible for the Deaf translated this as roughly "A shepherd brings his sheep to good pastures, they eat enough and they lie down. He brings them to water, and there they lie down and rest." Taking into account that is poetry, where you don't have to translate literally, but you don't want to translate utterly dry and descriptively either, what do you think of how the translator did it?



[Edited at 2020-05-12 20:58 GMT]


 
adriana508
adriana508
Bosnia and Herzegovina
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks! May 12, 2020

Thank you very much, I love your example!
This is exactly a type of adaptation I meant.

Jan Truper wrote:

German subtitles for a US comedy series.
Fat white kid, who is about to start driving lessons soon, and who always tries to sound like a Gangsta Rapper, says:
"Just keep that ten and two noise out of my head."

Translation into standard English: "During driving lessons, please do not bother me with instructions on correct hand positioning (10 o'clock and 2 o'clock) on the steering wheel." In the next line he says that he is just using one finger.

Now, I have to consider the German audience in the following ways:
-These are subtitles; therefore I have to stay within a limit of 17 characters per second so the audience has a chance to read them without stressing out.
-The correct driving hand position is generally taught as 9 / 3 in German driving schools, not as 10 / 2. Since the audience can listen to the English audio while reading the German subs, they will be confused if I use these numbers (plus, nobody really remembers these numbers anyway, unless they had driving lessons recently).
-German Gangsta Rappers are completely different beasts than US Gangsta Rappers; I have no chance of conveying this element without making a complete fool of myself.

Best solution I came up with: "Hände am Lenkrad nerven doch nur." (Back translation: "Hands on the wheel are just annoying".)
The sentence has exactly 17 cps, the basic sense is conveyed and fits the context, and the Gangsta Rapper sociolect has been transformed into a somewhat juvenile, uppity register (which you don't notice in the back translation, but it's there in German.)


Edited to add:
Good luck with machine translation, suckers...

[Edited at 2020-05-12 20:41 GMT]


 
adriana508
adriana508
Bosnia and Herzegovina
TOPIC STARTER
Very interesting! May 12, 2020

Samuel Murray wrote:

If you're looking for more examples of this sort of thing, I suggest you take a look at the challenges of translating for deaf people. Hearing people associate certain sounds with certain emotions, without thinking, and therefore associate things that make those sounds with those emotions.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters... a certain Bible for the Deaf translated this as roughly "A shepherd brings his sheep to good pastures, they eat enough and they lie down. He brings them to water, and there they lie down and rest." Taking into account that is poetry, where you don't have to translate literally, but you don't want to translate utterly dry and descriptively either, what do you think of how the translator did it?



[Edited at 2020-05-12 20:58 GMT]


Thank you very much, this is a very interesting perspective! Is this a real quote from the Bible for the Deaf, this translation you provided? Because if so, it does sound so dry.. Peacefulness as a notion exists for every human being, whether deaf or not, so I don't see why this original would be changed?


P.L.F. Persio
 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:48
Spanish to English
+ ...
I retract May 13, 2020

I also think Jan's example of 10/2 and 9/3 was pretty good. Thinking back, I've done it myself in other ways. I can see that there may have to be adaptation sometimes.

And ... adverts are terrible news!! All those plays on words. Forget it.


Jan Truper
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 12:48
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Adriana May 13, 2020

adriana508 wrote:
Is this a real quote from the Bible for the Deaf, this translation you provided?


Yes, though translated into English by me. It reads:
’n Herder bring sy skape na goeie weiveld,
hulle eet genoeg en hulle gaan lê.
Hy bring hulle na die water,
en daar gaan hulle lê en rus.

https://www.bible.com/versions/2-aba-bybel-vir-almal

Compare this to a literal translation of the original Hebrew:
In pastures // green // he makes me to lie down // beside // the waters // still // he leads me.



[Edited at 2020-05-13 08:33 GMT]


 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 12:48
German to English
German artworks May 13, 2020

Sadek_A wrote:

But, when I translated those books about Brahmans, I did it to the letter. Client never asked me to adapt content, and I never allowed myself to do so.


Whether you are talking about caste society or Vedic philosophy, what would it even mean to translate those books to the letter? A book is the intersection of hundreds or thousands of conversations: You grasped every significance of every statement in the book and miraculously found a way to re-express them inside a completely different linguistic and cultural context in such a way that they reappeared in all competent readers' minds with no significant loss?

A translation begins as a faulty interpretation of something someone else wrote. This interpretation is then imperfectly reconstructed using building blocks and guidelines poorly suited for the task. For all that, it usually works surprisingly well if everyone involved is competent and does their best. Nonetheless, we should not get carried away by optimism about what exactly it is that we are doing.
On the other hand, it is also important not to put too much thought into all of this and, if you can't avoid that, then to avoid acting on the logical conclusions of those thoughts as much as possible. It is easy to get carried away and end up lost in the unreasonable results of rational theories, and the advantages of overthinking are usually greatly outweighed by the disadvantages.

An example from my work is that German artworks "entstehen," that is they "emerge" or "come about" and they do so in passive sentneces. However, those same works are almost always "created" or "painted" (or whatever) in my translations. I believe that is a fundamental ideological difference of perspective masquerading as a linguistic quirk, but I'm not sure, and fortunately there is no reasonable way around it, so I don't care.


Nadja Balogh
 
Sadek_A
Sadek_A  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:48
English to Arabic
+ ...
Michael Wetzel May 13, 2020

First of all, your post is both aggressive and sarcastic towards me for no reason, or maybe you have a hidden reason; but, this is your problem, not mine, so go punch a wall or something!

When you ask me a question, be respectful so I can extend you the same courtesy. If you don't, you will leave me no choice but to treat you in the same disrespectful way you used.

I've given examples to prove my point, and now someone like you is out and about to try and undermine my c
... See more
First of all, your post is both aggressive and sarcastic towards me for no reason, or maybe you have a hidden reason; but, this is your problem, not mine, so go punch a wall or something!

When you ask me a question, be respectful so I can extend you the same courtesy. If you don't, you will leave me no choice but to treat you in the same disrespectful way you used.

I've given examples to prove my point, and now someone like you is out and about to try and undermine my contribution to this thread, in the most horrible way, and for God knows why (maybe it's because I challenged the sacred eggs&basket rule in another thread?!).

It's quite clear to me that you're trying to lay a heap of philosophical, unfounded statements of yours on the thread, in an attempt to bury everyone else under it. The same has been done in a different thread where specific contributor(s) tried to bury the debate under a mountain of unfounded numbers on the topic at hand there.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
Whether you are talking about caste society or Vedic philosophy, what would it even mean to translate those books to the letter?


It would simply mean I never added to, removed from, or otherwise in whatever way changed an original message of the book.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
A book is the intersection of hundreds or thousands of conversations.


Is it hundreds or thousands? Be specific. And, for how long was each conversation? I will need an Excel sheet with all the numbers.

Also, is this statement coined by you, or by someone else I can verify their intellectual contribution to the world of books.

And, is a book, short or long, on animal kingdom, where the author sat alone in the wild observing those animals also the intersection of hundreds or thousands of conversations (with those animals, maybe!). He went to the wild, observed alone, came back and wrote the book, strictly on animals. Where do the conversations lie?

Michael Wetzel wrote:
You grasped every significance of every statement in the book.


Yes, because this is what you're supposed to be good at when you're claiming to be a translator.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
miraculously found a way to re-express them inside a completely different linguistic and cultural context in such a way that they reappeared in all competent readers' minds with no significant loss?


No miracles are included nor needed in the work of a competent translator. Since we are all humans from the same source, each of our languages and cultures has the ability to provide a target vessel for the source material. In no way should a translator be responsible for anything reappearing, or not, in all competent readers' minds. A translator is a messenger, not a teacher.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
A translation begins as a faulty interpretation of something someone else wrote.


Maybe your translation, but not mine.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
This interpretation is then imperfectly reconstructed using building blocks and guidelines poorly suited for the task. For all that, it usually works surprisingly well if everyone involved is competent and does their best.


Really? imperfectly, blocks, poorly and surprisingly? Wow, you must be so proud of yourself as a translator, tell me more.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
Nonetheless, we should not get carried away by optimism about what exactly it is that we are doing.


I can tell you 1 thing for sure. You shouldn't!

Michael Wetzel wrote:
On the other hand, it is also important not to put too much thought into all of this.


Again, you shouldn't.

Michael Wetzel wrote:
if you can't avoid that, then to avoid acting on the logical conclusions of those thoughts as much as possible. It is easy to get carried away and end up lost in the unreasonable results of rational theories, and the advantages of overthinking are usually greatly outweighed by the disadvantages.


Is this the definite course for the nearest blackhole? My God, you did it! ... Seriously, what's that mean? And, how does it relate to the topic at hand?

Michael Wetzel wrote:
An example from my work is that German artworks "entstehen," that is they "emerge" or "come about" and they do so in passive sentneces. However, those same works are almost always "created" or "painted" (or whatever) in my translations. I believe that is a fundamental ideological difference of perspective masquerading as a linguistic quirk, but I'm not sure, and fortunately there is no reasonable way around it, so I don't care.


You've completely lost me. Seriously, I'm now in the wild "conversing" with that author.

Don't take it personal, Michael Wetzel, you tried to rip me a new one (for no known reason, may I add!), but ended up being ripped a new one yourself. This is how a fair fight works, you alone, me alone, I didn't summon help so I expect you not to summon help either.

I hope this post doesn't get removed over me having been able to fight back! ProZ, since you allowed his post in the first place, it's only decent for you to keep my response to him along with his original, unedited post.
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Brainstorming: opinions on transferring ideology from source text to target text; CDA







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