Saturday, February 09, 2008
Lectionary Readings
Hi People, Over on Blogum Nemo Legit I am trying to start regular translations of the lectionary for our new Wednesday night church group. Right now the notes and introductions to the passages are very limited, but over time I hope to expand them based on the comments I receive. Tell me what you would like to know about the passages and translations. The translations may not be perfect either, I am only spending short blocks of time on it so, ask if you think something might be questionable, or if you see a real difference from what you're used to. I'll probably spend the most time on Psalms because they have some special concerns related to their poetic and illocutionary content (see no. 4 in Lefevere's factors in translation below).
Book review: Andre Lefevere's _Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context_.
Watch out if you are offended by coarse language and sexual situations. Lefevere handles these issues well, but he does include translations of passages concerning things like ancient pubic depilatory practices and Cattulus' use of the F-word. His point seems to be, if you are going to pursue translation, you'd better be prepared to approach texts that offend you. When you do, you should have already considered your responsibilities and commitments in these situations before they arrive and become insurmountable.
The offence and embarrassment factor aside, Lefevere presents a clear and systematic introduction to literary translation, and insight into the reasons virtually all translators who produce significant volume will violate their stated goals and rules.
According to Lefevere, there are four factors in translation:
1. Ideology (the guidelines by which you live; personal worldview)
2. Poetics (how to render poetic devices: rhyme, off-rhyme, meter, etc in culturally appropriate ways)
3. Universe of Discourse (cultural differences between source and target cultures/ Author and modern society etc.)
4. Illocutionary Language (language used primarily for effect, like the use of formal and informal dialogue)
They actually come in this order of priority, regardless of translators expressed intent. Translators tend to find it imposable to move on to poetological considerations if they have to break their own ideological commitments to do so. They will, should the conflict of ideologies be dealt with, minor or absent, be unable to reflect the historical considerations before making (expressly or not) decisions on how to render any poetry/ form/ genre in the text under consideration. Should they fail to make a decision (again, this is seldom done consciously) about if or how to reflect the source culture's context (such as the literary parallels in the minds of the author and readers) in the text, translators will be unable to deal with the problems caused by the fact that language has connotations and implications that go beyond the unit of the word. Rather than giving pat, easy, and, therefore, wrong solutions to these problems, Lefevere tries to help the reader consider what types of things might cause issues and gives open ended options to the reader.
His advise is basically, decide what your ideological and poeticological commitments are and let them guide you through the problems of different worldview and the gap between languages.
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