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Who wants to hear the voice of the translator? - 1
What the guys said, the way they said it, as best as we can |
It was a PowerPoint presentation, written in English in the U.S. and translated into Portuguese in Brazil. The client had just called to say that the translation was unacceptable and they would not pay for the job. Too literal, the secretary had said.
Now, I don't think literalness in itself is a problem. A translation is unacceptable if it violates the rules of the target language, if it belies the meaning of the original, or if it introduces needless changes in the style of the original. These three capital sins are as common in freer translations as they are in more literal ones.
Once I wrote an article on translating gobbledygook, and I do believe technical translators who often deal with unrevised and carelessly written texts have the right to simplify or clarify a text that would otherwise be tenebrifically befuddling to its intended audience. That specific freedom I call our license to kill.
However a license to kill means you may kill if you must, not that you have to mow down everybody in sight.
In addition, I believe the license applies only to style, not to content: the translation should say what the author said, no more, no less.
This is an ideal, an impossibility, for there is always some element of distortion, but the less distortion, the better the translation. Regrettably, too many people are overeager to interfere with the original in wanton and unwarranted ways.
RESPECT FOR THE AUTHOR'S CHOICES
Let me give you an example. A black dress is um vestido preto in Portuguese. However, I know several translators who would never accept such a pedestrian rendering. They would say something like um vestido de cor preta, for instance.
Now, I firmly believe that any English-language author who wanted um vestido de cor preta in Portuguese would have chosen to write a dress black in color in English, for the choice was there all the time and the two English forms correspond to their Portuguese counterparts both in style and frequency (the de cor / in color is far less frequent). The translation is latent in the original as the statue is latent in the stone, as Signor Buonarroti is said to have claimed on some occasion or the other. So, if the text says a black dress it is up to me to translate it as um vestido preto, thus respecting the stylistic choice made by the author.
However, sometimes the target language offers a choice that was not present in the source language. For instance, black can be translated both as preto and negro in Portuguese and, if you know Portuguese, you will know that there is a world of difference between um vestido preto and um vestido negro, although both translate a black dress. So, here the translator has to make a choice and that is dictated by context, not by whim or a concern with a hypothetical need to prettify the text.
In short, a black dress can be either um vestido preto or um vestido negro¸ but not um vestido de cor preta or um vestido de cor negra.
The same goes for word order. I saw a movie yesterday is vi um filme ontem or eu vi um filme ontem since both formal and colloquial Portuguese allow me the choice of using a pronoun or leaving it out, a choice that does not exist in English under the same conditions. On the other hand, it cannot be ontem (eu) vi um filme. If the author had wanted the latter, (s)he would certainly have said yesterday I saw a movie, for the choice exists in English. Contrary to what some logicians may say, I saw a movie yesterday and yesterday I saw a movie mean different things and the rhetorical difference should be respected in translation whenever possible. It is a question of emphasis and if the author chooses to emphasize something, who am I to emphasize something else just because, in my opinion, it looks nicer?
The other day, I edited a job by a translator who methodically inverted word order when the original order was perfectly correct in Portuguese. It so happens that there was a short series of sentences that had been carefully planned to place the most important bit of information in the beginning. In addition, the importance of the terms was further emphasized by setting the first few words in bold. A text that carefully integrated form and content, I'd say. Inverting the word order had simply destroyed that integration, and I had to straighten out all sentences. The "straight" translations made perfect sense in Portuguese and were grammatically and stylistically correct. Why change word order then? To make the translator's voice heard?
WHO WANTS TO HEAR THE VOICE OF THE TRANSLATOR, ANYWAY?
After all, people read translations because they cannot read the original, not because they want to know what the translator thinks the original should have said in the first place. Some translators — principally those who would be writers but cannot find publishers and/or readers — insist they must make their voices heard and firmly believe they are entitled to transmogrify perfectly good originals into translations that have no relationship therewith and even expect applause for the carnage perpetrated.
I firmly believe people engage me as a translator because they need help to hear the voice of the original author.
TRANSLATIONS VS. TRASHLATIONS
But I am straying from the original aim of this article, which was to tell you the Case of the Literal Translation. The client service manager showed me the translation and asked for an opinion. Now, some translations are so obviously bad that a cursory look will tell the experienced eye they are mere trashlations.
On the other hand, it is never possible to tell that a translation is good before comparing it against the original. Some translations are so well written that they earn applause from critics too lazy or too ignorant to compare them with the original. Careful comparison, however, will show they are all wrong: the guy who wrote the original simply had not said that. Or not quite that. The French call them belles infidèles: the unfaithful beauties, and a great name it is.
This, contrary to general belief, is more often the case when the translation is done by an expert, meaning someone who works in the area, not a professional translator. For instance, a translation of a medical text done by an MD who feels entitled to tamper with the original just a little bit. In many cases, those experts do not do the translation themselves but nullify other people's efforts in their capacity as consultants or revisors.
Continues ...
By Danilo Nogueira - Professional translator, editor, writer, consultant, trainer - Brazil
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Who wants to hear the voice of the translator? - 1. What the guys said, the way they said it, as best as we can - Translation Articles - Trally.com
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