Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific

Research & Technology

University of Tunis

École Normale Supérieure

وزارة التعليم العالي والبحت العلمي

والتكنولوجيا

جامعة تونس

دار المعلمين العليا

B.A. PAPER IN ENGLISH

Subject: Recent Evolution of the Concept of Literal Translation and its Implications for

the Translation Process

Supervised by: Pr. Mohamed Mansouri

Submitted by: Azza Chamkhi

Academic Year: 2010-2011

What we tend to think of as ideal translation, one

which is fluent and reads smoothly, is actually one which

fits in the norms established by the Anglo-American

culture. The fact that a translation needs to read smoothly

is not an absolute truth, it is merely the orientation of the

majority of Anglophone translators, critics, and readers.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank my family for their unfaltering support; my dad whom I still consciously

and unconsciously imitate, my mum who always believed in me and who made me believe in

myself, and my little brother, who unwillingly taught me how to work in spite of the noise :).

I am sincerely indebted to all my teachers, but even more so to Ms Hedia Fayadh my first

memorable teacher, Mr Abdessalam Hamzawi, without whom I wouldn't be writing this today, Ms

Soumaya Mestiri whom I had for three years but whom I could happily have had for thirty, Ms

Salima Lejri who was responsible for my “reformation”, Mr Oussama Ayara who made me discover

Dostoyevsky, Mr Lazhar Bouazzi who made me question and rediscover most of what I knew, and

Pr Mohammed Mansouri, who supported me against the deadlines, and relieved me of unnecessary

stress.

I also want to thank all my friends for lighting up my life.

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Table of Contents

General Introduction 6

Part One: 19th Century

1. Frederich Schleiermacher: Contradiction and Contribution 7

2. Francis Newman: Literalness and Archaism 11

3. Conclusion 12

Part Two: Early 20th Century

1. Walter Benjamin: “The Task of the Translator” 14

2. Vladimir Nabokov: “The Art of Translation” 16

3. Conclusion 18

Part Three: Late 20th Century

1. Wolfram Wilss: Übersetzungswissenschaft or the Science of Translation 19

2. Antoine Berman: The Trials of the Foreign: The Essence of Translation 20

3. Conclusion 21

Part Four: Implications of Literal Translation for the Translation Process

1. Schleiermacher 24

2. Newman 25

3. Benjamin 25

4. Nabokov 26

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5. Wilss 27

6. Berman 28

Conclusion 29

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5

General Introduction

Literal translation is one of the oldest methods of translation. It was used as early as the Greek

and Latin traditions. Because it puts a particular emphasis on the primacy of the author and the

original text, as well as the idea of sacredness of the original, it was often the most preferred

method to translate sacred texts. These, however, were not the only texts that were translated

literally. Indeed, literal translation included various texts such as literature and philosophy,

especially–though not only–in Modernity.

During medieval times, with the evolution of norms and translation ethics, literal translation

ceased to represent an ideal of faithfulness and was highly decried and disclaimed as unfaithful and

distorting to the original. Thus, it went underground for almost three centuries, only to re-emerge

first, but in disguise, during the 19th century in the works of German Romantics, chief among

whom Friedrich Schleiermacher, and then with more modern authors belonging to different literary

traditions such as the British Francis Newman, the German Walter Benjamin and, more recently,

Wolfram Wilss, the Russian-American Vladimir Nabokov, and the French Antoine Berman.

This paper will be focusing on the modern turn taken by literal translation. In other words, it

will not be focusing on the word-for-word method used by literalists in Classical times, but on

something more elaborated, more sophisticated and, from a certain point of view, even more

faithful. It is a chronological study of the most prominent figures of literal translation in Germany,

the United States, England, and France over the last two centuries. Thus, starting as early as the 19 th

century, it will briefly study Schleiermacher and Newman, then, moving to the 20th century, I will

study Benjamin, Nabokov, as well as very recent literalists such as Wilss, and Berman. The paper

will also move slightly away from the realm of abstract, theoretical study of the evolution of literal

translation, following its recent revival, to consider the implications for the translation process in an

attempt to illustrate theory with practice.

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PART ONE: The 19th Century

1.1 Frederich Schleiermacher: Contradiction and Contribution

Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is a key figure in German Romantic tradition as well as Modern

translation theory. His writings and translations have strongly influenced the theory and practice of

translation not only in Germany but also in Europe and the USA, and many theoreticians, such as

George Steiner and Walter Benjamin, have built upon the basis he had laid. This might seem

surprising when one becomes aware of the heavy political dimension that is present in his writings

and which is specific to his context, as well as the contradiction upon which his theory is built or

even his idea that literal translation is destined for an elite and would, thus, “enable the German

culture to realise its historical destiny of global domination.”1 But before getting into more detail, it

would be useful to try to understand his theory first.

Schleiermacher distinguishes between two types of translators: the translator of commercial

texts, or Dolmestscher, and the translator of literary texts, or Übersetzer. As one might expect, he

favours the second type because they are more likely to be creative and innovative as far as the

language is concerned.2 Literary translation itself, however, varies in quality according to whether

“the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him.

Or [whether] he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards

him.”3 On this famous statement by Schleiermacher, Katharina Barbe comments as follows:

In the First Case, if the TL reader knew as much of the Source Language as the

translator knows about the Source Language then he/ she would have translated [sic]

1 Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation (London and New York: Routledge, 1995) 99.

2 Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 27.

3 Famous statement by Schleiermacher, quoted in André Lefevere (ed.), Translation/ History/ Culture: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1992) 149.

7

the text just as the translator did. The second case is achieved either by Paraphrase

('paraphrase') or Nachbildung ('imitation'), hence, the foreign author, were he/ she not

foreign, would have written the work in the Target Language just as the translator

translated it.4

In other words, the task of the literary translator is to transport the feelings and impressions created

by the original text to the target language. Thus, the duty of a German translator of an English text,

for instance, is NOT to make German readers of the translated version feel as the English ones felt

while reading the original, or what he calls 'naturalization', but rather as a native German would feel

while reading the English version, or what he calls 'foreignization'. Readers have to experience the

text as if they were reading–and understanding it in the foreign language and not as natives of the

language of the original text (Munday 2001: 27-8). What literal translation actually means, is not,

therefore, a word-for-word as much as it is an impression-for-impression translation rendering, if

one may call it so. Still in the same essay, Barbe argues that “Schleiermacher considers only

[foreignizing translation] to be translation per se, where nuances of the foreign appear, because a

translator attempts to convey the foreign as he/ she as a foreigner perceives it.” (331)

What Schleiermacher calls 'true translation' is this attempt to bring the reader and the writer

together, either by taking the latter to the former or, preferably, and as argued above, the other way

round:

Should he decide to bring two people —two people who are so fully separated

from each other as the author himself and the man who speaks his own language but

not the author’s— together into a relationship as immediate as that which exists

between the author and his original reader? Or does he merely want to unlock for his

readers the same understanding and the same pleasure he himself enjoys, with the

4 Katharina Barbe, “The Dichotomy Free and Literal Translation”, Meta, XLI, 3, (1996) 331.

8

traces of hardship it carries and the feeling of strangeness that remains mixed into it?

How can he achieve the second goal with the means at his disposal, let alone the

first? (Schleiermacher5, 1813)

He, thus, goes beyond notions such as literal, word-for-word, and sense-for-sense translations and

aspires to a higher version, where all that matters is, again, impressions and feelings (Munday 2001:

28). The issue that may arise from this vision, however, is twofold: first, that the feelings provoked

by the text depend on things such as the level of education or the background of the readers; and

second, that even in the same more or less “homogeneous” group, one text can arouse at least as

many impressions as there are readers. While Schleiermacher seems to be unaware of the latter, he

sustains that the former is at the very basis of his theory. Indeed, some of his contemporaries as well

as himself “were very much aware that they were translating for a relatively narrow audience, even

a coterie, and like Schleiermacher, they saw this social fact as a value that improved their literature

and endowed it with cultural authority.” (Venuti 1995: 104-105). Still in the same spirit, Friedrich

Schlegel goes as far as to declare:

People are always complaining that German authors write for such a small

circle, and even sometimes just for themselves. That's how it should be. This is how

German literature will gain more and more spirit and character. And perhaps in the

meantime an audience will spring into being.6

Accordingly, the translation that Schleiermacher defends as “true” is actually an elitist text.

Since literal translations are generally not very accessible, they require a close reading as well as

more time and attention to be understood because of all the “unnatural” structures that constitute

them. For all this it is a text destined more for the scholarly scrutiny of an educated elite than the

good entertainment of common people. Surprisingly, however, this idea of elite seems to be quite

5 Quoted in André Lefevere (ed.), Translation/ History/ Culture: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1992) 147.6 Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde and the Fragments, trans. Peter Firchow (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

1971) 201.

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acceptable for Schleiermacher. He even seems to see it as positive and argues that literal translation

will not only be destined for an elite but will also shape one and that this very elite would “enable

the German culture to realize its historical destiny of global domination.” (Venuti 1955: 99) Indeed,

–since nothing exists outside language7–thanks to the language they create, and the authority they

are likely to exert, and despite the fact that the audience of this type of translation is very limited,

the educated elite will nonetheless fashion a German national culture. (102)

One might wonder how the foreign can shape a national culture. To this, Schleiermacher avers

that German, which he describes as a partial mother tongue (103), lacks the rigidity that would

make foreignization awkward. It is still more of a process than a linguistic whole and thus needs

foreign intervention to be enlarged and enriched. He further contends that such ossification

characterises languages which are endowed with a heavy scholarly and literary background such as

French, Greek, or Latin. German, according to him, is still at a stage where it can be modelled with

a certain amount of freedom.8

Furthermore, Schleiermacher's theory of translation is characterised by a contradiction. On the

one hand, it presupposes that German culture is superior to others, which is why it has the right to

dominate other cultures, while on the other hand, it presupposes that German culture is inferior to

others and thus has to be enriched by the foreign. (Venuti 1995: 99) If one looks closer, however,

the contradiction might turn out to be only superficial. As discussed above, German lacks the

sophistication of some other languages. It needs therefore to be constantly fashioned and

refashioned until it emerges as a full-fledged language. Needless to say that it is the role of the

educated elite to develop their language thanks to “foreignizing” translation. Surprisingly, however,

and because of the very fact of its shaky foundations, it becomes the closest thing to a language

worthy of universal cultural domination since it would be built by an educated elite.

7 Friedrich Schleiermacher, “On the Different Methods of Translating”, in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, trans. Susan Bernofsy (USA and Canada: Routledge, 2nd ed. 2004) 50.

8 Schleiermacher, same essay, page 51. For a full reference, see note 7.

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In spite of the colossal proportions Schleiermacher's theory took in German tradition, his

essays were not translated into English until 1977. This “dismissive treatment”, as Venuti describes

it, of such an important theory can only prove the authoritarianism with which the Anglo-American

culture and tradition deal with language in particular, and challenging or new ideas in general

(1995: 118). To avoid such coercive positions, however, it might be useful to always bear in mind

that “what is unidiomatic in one cultural formation can be aesthetically effective in another” (ibid);

and thus, any value judgements, especially as far as translation traditions are concerned, ought not

to be made.

1.2 Francis Newman:

Francis Newman (1805-1897)9 was one of the rare Anglophone scholars in favour of

foreignization as a method of translation. He translated a number of Classical epic poems, but his

most famous literal translation was The Odes of Horace.10 He was acquainted with the German

tradition of translation and referred to it favourably (Newman, 1851: 371). Being both liberal and

politically engaged11, however, he advocated a more democratic vision of translation than

Schleiermacher's, and disclaimed, accordingly, the notion of an intellectual elite:

It would be no honor to the venerable productions of antiquity, to imagine that

all their excellencies vanish with translation, and only a mean exclusiveness of spirit

could grudge to impart as much as possible of their instruction to the unlearned.

(Venuti, 1995: 121)

In other words, on the one hand, the authors of the original text, unlike the German Romantics

for instance12, would not want their works to be only read by a small intellectual minority. One

could only imagine them to have meant their works to be universal and widely read, and, thus, the

9 For more biographic details, see Venuti, 1995, p. 119.10 Francis Newman, ed. and trans. The Odes of Horace (London: John Chapman, 1853).11 For more information about Newman's political engagement, see Venuti, 1995, p. 119.

12 See Schlegel's quote in the section immediately above.

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translator wouldn't do them or their works justice in narrowing down their audience. On the other

hand, and even if the author was indifferent to his13 potential audience, only a snobbish, selfish

intellectual elite14 would want such great works to be exclusive to their circles and wouldn't want to

share their knowledge with common people, or even more, to instruct them and acquaint them with

what is widely considered as fine literature.

Faithful to his preachings, Newman only produced what would be described in The Routledge

Encyclopedia of Translation Studies as “populist” translations for various social groups of different

academic levels (Baker, 1998: 243). In his own words, as reported by Venuti, he translated for “the

unlearned English reader”, “those who seek solely for amusement”, including “men of business,”

“commercial England,” but also the socially diverse audience of “Dickens and Thackeray”.15

Due to the Classical nature of the texts he translated, Newman adopted archaism as a method

of translation to achieve foreignness. Indeed, he mainly translated Classical epic poetry into English

prose, giving an impression of archaism without necessarily being historically accurate in such a

way that, to borrow from Venuti, once again, his translations were “a rich stew drawn from various

periods of English” (1995: 123). Mainly because of this, he was very much criticised by such

scholars as Matthew Arnold in his book On Translating Homer16 as well as the majority of the

English intellectuals and reviewers of the time17.

1.3 Conclusion:

Unlike the 19thcentury German intelligentsia, chief among whom Schleiermacher, who

believed that the German language was still in the making and, therefore, in need of the foreign18,

13 Newman only translated from male Classical authors, for which reason, I have only used the masculine pronoun.

14 It must be noted, however, that this notion of the elite is far from Schleiermacher's. Indeed, while the latter considers the elite as a responsible, creative group whose major concern is to promote German culture, the former sees it as a selfish, or at least not fit to monopolise the literary scene. For further details, see section above.

15 From The Odes of Horace, quoted in Venuti (1995), p.119.

16 Matthew Arnold, On Translating Homer (London: AMS Press, 1861/1978).

17 The London Quarterly Review, and National Review to state but a few. For further details, see Venuti (1995), Chapter 3, Section II.

18 See Schleiermacher's section above.

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English mainstream intellectuals of the time relished in “the strength of [their] poetical language”19,

making it harder for those translators who advocate foreignizing methods to accomplish their task

freely. Such an orthodox environment makes the few dissidents' attempts to challenge the dominant

tradition all the more prominent, and scholars such as Newman worth remembering.

19 From London Quarterly Review quoted in Venuti (1995), p. 126.

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PART TWO: Early 20th century

Thus, with some 20thcentury thinkers and translators, we move from “literalness” as cultural to

“literalness” as linguistic.

1. Walter Benjamin:

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was very much influenced by Schleiermacher's theory of

translation. He, however, only built upon its aesthetic, linguistic aspect, overlooking–whether

intentionally or not–the heavy political and nationalistic dimension. He takes the aesthetic part to an

extreme, arguing that a translation should be absolutely literal, and by literal he means that the

vocabulary of the target language should be married to the surface structure of the source language.

In “The Task of the Translator”, his quite influential essay, Walter Benjamin admits that literal

translation and meaning cannot coexist. He goes as far as to say that literal rendition distorts

meaning and makes understandability impossible. He argues, nonetheless, that when translating,

one should not care about meaning. Indeed, the task of the translator is not to create or reproduce

meaning. It is to reproduce linguistic elements in the exact way they were first created in the text

being translated so as to be as much faithful as possible to its origin.20

For him, even though the original, which consists only of fragments, is meaningful, the

translation should not be an attempt at relocating in the new language that same meaning through

creating new fragments or paraphrasing. It should be a faithful, exact rendition of those very

fragments that constitute the original text. Indeed, just as

fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the

smallest details, although they need not be like one another[,] . . . a translation,

instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail

incorporate the original's mode of signification, thus making both the original and the

20 This idea was later taken up by Berman as we shall see in Section 2, Part III.

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translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part

of a vessel.21 (my italics)

It is the reader's task to extract or create meaning out of those fragments.

Benjamin pushes the argument further, still in “The Task of the Translator”, and talks about the

transparency of translation. As might be expected, he defends the idea that a translation should be

absolutely transparent, meaning that it should not blur or modify the original text but keep it as it is

although in a different system of signifiers. Thus the translator has to be “visible”, to use Venuti's

terminology, and the translation absolutely literal:

A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not black its

light, but allows the pure language22, as though reinforced by its own medium to

shine upon the original all the more fully. This may be achieved, above all, by a

literal rendering of the syntax which proves words rather than sentences to be the

primary element of the translator. For if the sentence is the wall before the language

of the original, literalness is the arcade.23

This idea of literal translation is one that has been pushed to its very limits. It is most similar to

the Classical method of early literalists, if not more extreme. Taking this fact into account, the major

impact made by Benjamin's essay might seem surprising. One thing must be noted, however:

Benjamin's notions were mostly conceived within a merely theoretical framework and remained as

such. One cannot confidently claim, for instance, that either himself or any of his followers have

managed to extract pure language, which was one of the motives behind his theory. In other words,

Benjamin elaborated a theory that remained too abstract to be of any use to the practice of

translation, but a fascinating theory nonetheless.

21 Walter Benjamin. “The Task of the Translator”, The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 21.

22 Pure language is that which results from the harmonious encounter between the original text and the translation, or between the source and target language. For the pure language to emerge, however, one has to translate literally, word by single word. (My statement, inspired from Benjamin's theory)

23 From W. Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator” trans. Zohan, in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 21.

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2. Vladimir Nabokov:

Modern literal translation, especially with Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), is not word-for-

word translation anymore. That would, indeed, be too easy and the result, it goes without saying,

almost unintelligible. Literal translation is rather one that attempts to reproduce the original text in a

new language without altering anything of the culture of the original, the style, or genius, of the

author, or, in the case of a poem, the relationships between the sounds and their meanings and effect

on the receivers. It is a purely linguistic rendering of the linguistic composition of the original text,

without any cultural transformations. The meaning of the text is thus supposed to be brought to the

readers as it was first written and intended by the author and not assimilated by and thus adapted to

the culture of the target language just as a “regular” or a more orthodox translation would do.

Thus, when translating literally, one takes the reader and immerses them into the foreign

culture with all its specificities instead of bringing to them the foreign text in a modified, almost

disfigured version that suits their cultural habits and horizons of expectation.24 The translator has,

therefore, to be both faithful to the author and her or his culture. Indeed, by literally reproducing the

original text into the target language, the translator makes sure that the very images and cultural

specificities used by the author are kept and, thus, the translation is as close as possible to the

original.

The question that presents itself is that of the text's purpose and the ways in which it should be

understood. It is obvious that imagery and symbolism vary from one culture to another and from

one era to another. Therefore, a literal translation would confuse the readers as well as give rise to

misunderstandings and thus the message would be blurred, if not totally distorted. To avoid such an

effect on the reader, the translator has to be, to use Venuti's term, visible.25 Visibility is achieved

when the translator is manifest in her or his translation, or, in other words, when the reader is

24 Term borrowed from H. R. Jauss meaning the norms by which readers understand and judge a given literary work. For a more elaborated definition, see Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3rd ed. (Kentucky: The UP of Kentucky, 1993) 52-5.

25 Concept coined by Venuti and discussed above. For a more detailed account, see Venuti (1995).

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implicitly or explicitly informed that the text she or he is reading is a translation. One of the ways

for the translator to make her/himself visible is to introduce foot or endnotes providing

explanations, giving the cultural equivalents if necessary and, thus, explaining what would be

ambiguous to the foreign reader while keeping the original “flavour” and preserving, to borrow

from Nabokov, the genius of the original text (Nabokov, 1941: 161).

This being said, if we were to consider the issue from a deconstructive point of view, most of

the arguments presented above would tend to become unfounded. Indeed, for a deconstructivist,

meaning cannot be located in the text. It is brought to the text by the reader. Thus, for a given text,

there are at least as many meanings as there are readers. It is absurd, according to this theory, to

claim that one translation, i.e. one reading, is the exact rendering or the equivalent of a particular

text, since such a rendering does not exist in the first place.

From this perspective, it might be interesting now to consider visibility again. Indeed, being

visible for a translator is like saying on every page and with every note that a given text is but a

translation. It is therefore a sort of testimony of the translator that her or his product is but an

understanding among others. Thus, the frequent references to the source text and culture never

allow for taking the translation for granted as an equivalent, or worse, an origin.

In a way, and thanks to the translator's visibility, literal translation becomes somewhat self-

deconstructive since it constantly reminds the readers that they are not dealing with an original text

but with only an interpretation of it. This sort of mistrust regarding the validity of the translation can

only urge them to investigate even further and both to question the translation and, if possible, to try

to look into the original, the latter being subject, thanks to visibility, to an infinity of interpretations.

Since literal translation is always conscious of its nature, that is to say of its being but a translation,

it becomes the closest thing to what might be a “good” translation, i.e. a faithful one.

Examples:

17

The straw that broke the camel's back would be la paille qui brisa le dos du chameau and not

la goutte qui fit déborder le vase.

Similarly, it's raining cats and dogs would better translate as il pleut des chats et des chiens

than il pleut à cordes, for instance.

The images used in the original text have to be kept. They represent a choice made by the author

and it would be inappropriate for the translator to change them. On the other hand, as I have

explained above, they may convey cultural specificities that have to remain in the text lest it should

be disfigured or, at least, altered.

3. Conclusion:

Probably due to his German cultural background, which was in favour of literal translation,

Benjamin was much more radical in his ideas than Nabokov. The latter, although an advocate of

literal translation as well, was mainly concerned about the beauty (or genius) of the translated

version and how it should remain equal to that of the original. Visibility, transparency and

deconstruction are Nabokov's key contribution to the “literalness” of translation.

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PART THREE: Late 20th century

1. Wolfram Wilss:

The second half of the twentieth century was marked, with Wolfram Wilss, by a new

orientation in Translation Studies whereby a scientific approach was adopted to describe meaning

(Munday, 2001: 9). Indeed, influenced by the works of Eugene Nida, Wills developed the idea of a

science of translation, or Übersetzungswissenschaft26, and introduced it to the German academic

scene.

Wilss joined, in a way, the general modern tendencies or attempts to redefine concepts–which

were a great source of controversy over the past centuries and as far as translation theory was

concerned–such as free and literal translation (Munday, 2001: 29). He, however, took them from a

different approach, i.e. the scientific one, and which was, for the first time, being applied to such

areas commonly considered as non-scientific fields.

In one of his books27, and influenced by Chomsky's concept of deep structure, Wilss describes

translation as “a mental activity, in which occur [among other things] internalized, 'elementary'

translation procedures, such as literal translation.” In other words, and unlike Antoine Berman's

idea, which we are going to discuss later28, literal translation occurs at the very first levels of what

George Steiner calls the “hermeneutic motion”29. Thus, for Wilss, literal translation is, in a way,

natural to the human mind. It follows from there that it is both suitable or accessible to the reader of

the translated version as well as faithful to the original text and loyal to its author.30

26 The German equivalent used by Wilss for Nida's 'science of translation'.

27 Wolfram Wilss, Knowledge and Skill in Translator Behaviour (Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1996) 37.

28 See next section.

29 Process of understanding that takes place into the human mind but which we are not going to discuss in this paper. For details, see George Steiner, “The Hermeneutic Motion.” In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 186-91.

30 My own understanding of the quote and of Wilss's theory.

19

Wilss was one of the first scholars that tried to give a scientific justification to the necessity of

a literal translation as a faithful rendering of any given text, i.e. both literary and non-literary, which

is very important for at least two reasons. First, it strengthens a marginalised theory, that of literal

translation, by supporting it with scientific evidence. Second, it mixes two areas, namely sciences

and arts, which seem to be totally independent, but which are, in fact, tightly linked. This two-level-

questioning makes readers and scholars reconsider what they tend to see as absolute truth when it

comes to theories of translation or, simply, how a translation should be.

2. Antoine Berman:

Antoine Berman (1942-1991), French translator and theoretician, was much influenced by the

German tradition. In his essay “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign”, translated by Venuti, he

describes Hölderlin's literal translation of Sophocles as “one of the great moments of Western

translation” (Berman 1985/2000: 284). He further contends that such a translation, being literal to

the extreme, “reveals the veiled essence of every translation” (ibid). The idea of essence that can

only be released through a literal rendering of a given text is reminiscent of that of Benjamin's “pure

language”, which emerges from the harmonious encounter of languages, i.e. literal translation.

In the same essay, Berman makes what he calls a “negative analytic”31 of translation,

identifying, thus, twelve “deforming tendencies” that are related to the act of translation and which

tend to disfigure the translated text, or in Berman's words, “that cause translation to deviate from its

essential aim”32 (Berman 1985/2000: 286). These “tendencies” are rationalisation, clarification,

expansion, ennoblement, both qualitative and quantitative impoverishment, the destruction of

rhythms, the destruction of underlying networks of signification, the destruction of linguistic

31 “Negative analytic” is a method of analysis that is “primarily concerned with ethnocentric, annexationist translations and hypertextual translations (pastiche, imitation, adaptation, free writing), where the play of deforming forces is freely exercised” (Berman 1985/2000: 286), and which analyses those factors whose effect on the translated text are considered to be negative by literalists.

32 It must be noted that the essential aim of translation according to Berman is not merely to convey meaning but to “restore the particular signifying process of works” (297). In other words, it is to respect and reproduce the mode of signification of the work and not replace it by another that is proper to the target culture. For further details, see Berman's article mentioned in this paper.

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patternings, the destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization, the destruction of

expressions and idioms, and finally the effacement of the superimposition of languages.33

Berman, however, does not stop at this level. He goes further to suggest a solution, or at least a

counterbalance to the negative analytic he has made. Thus, making a positive analytic, he declares

in the conclusion of his essay:

The analytic of translation, insofar as the analysis of properly deforming tendencies

bears on the translator, does in fact presuppose another figure of translating, which

must necessarily be literal translation. Here literal means attached to the letter (of

works). (297)

In other words, Berman contends that the very analysis of the deforming influences that act upon

the translator presupposes the existence of a method of translation that is clear from them. This

method, he suggests, is literal translation.

For Berman, as for Benjamin before him, translation should not care about the mere

transmission of meaning from one language to another if it aims at fashioning and refashioning a

language. It should only care about the word and not the sentence, creating, thus, a new way of

signification as well as a new translating language, or at least one that is constantly being modified;

i.e. never fixed. Still in the same train of thought, Berman goes as far as to declare that “translation

simulated the fashioning and refashioning of the great western languages only because it labored on

the letter and profoundly modified the translating language. As simple restitution of meaning,

translation could never have played this formative role” (297).

3. Conclusion:

Wilss' contribution, although not as important as that of Berman, for instance, is worth

mentioning since it was one of the first and probably only attempts at giving a scientific (not the

usual religious, ethical, or political) basis to literal translation. Berman, however, is very important

33 For further details, see (Munday: 2001) pp. 150-51. For a full account, see (Venuti: 2000) pp. 288-97.

21

because he not only drew on the German Romantics as well as Benjamin, but put into practice, if

one may say so, a decent part of the latter's abstract ideas. Indeed, Benjamin's notions were

criticised, especially by Bakhtin34, for having been too abstract and also for not having had a direct

impact on the translation process since Benjamin himself did not put his notion into practice. Thus,

by putting into practice Benjamin's notions, Berman made some sort of answer to Bakhtin's

criticism and did what Benjamin was not able or did not care to achieve.

34 Michail Bakhtin, Toward a Philosophy of the Act, trans. Vadim Liapunov (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993) 31.

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PART FOUR: Implications of Literal Translation for the

Translation Process

Literal translation gave a paramount importance to the culture and style of the source text. This

sounds natural, since translation is supposed to be more of a rendering of an original text into

another language than a personal and full-fledged artistic production. Little by little, it evolved from

a practice restricted to the narrow circles of the elite, then thanks to Newman, to a less selective and

a more general readership. At the same time, but on a different level, it evolved from a linguistic

inquiry to a more philosophical and in some cases even scientific one.

Throughout its history, literal translation has been useful one way or another. In classical times,

it used to be the preferred way of rendering religious texts, and then, being widely acclaimed for its

faithful character, it was applied to more secular or even literary texts. It is true that whatever the

translator does, it is impossible for a translation to be exactly like the original. The early translators,

however, held that, from a utilitarian point of view, it was most practical and could carry over

substance or content.

Literal translation was also useful in other ways. Indeed, it is, for instance, the underlying

principle of machine translation. The usefulness of machine translation will not be discussed in

depth in this paper as it needs a paper of its own. It would be interesting to note, however, that

machine translation is a useful and efficient way to produce at least the first draft of any translation

in a matter of seconds, which saves time and, thus, permits the translator not only to increase the

quantity of translated material, but also, and more importantly, to improve the quality of her or his

translations, as more time would be devoted to work on other aspects in the translated text. Thus,

machine translation is getting more and more popular and relied upon. As a consequence, it is being

constantly refined.

Thus the importance of literal translation does not lie in the fact that it is faithful as much as in

23

the fact that it is useful and efficient. As far as the professional circles are concerned, literal

translation, mainly through machine translation, is very likely to become the future of the field. One

would perhaps find it difficult to accept that the future of translation should be so mechanical and

not artistic, but it would be more useful to see the translation process as a precise endeavour more

than an artistic production. This does not mean that a translated text is not or should not be artistic.

It can be, but only when the original text is, and not necessarily because the translator is an artist,

but because the author of the original text is. In other words, it is not the task of the translator to

produce art when it is not in the original. It is her or his role, however, to re-produce it when it is.

Thus, and as a culmination to all that has been argued so far in this paper, I think that literal

translation is still vital to the human thought, not only as a product but also, and mainly, as a

philosophical process that has various cultural and ideological implications. It would be useful to

consider, in this context, some of these implications in the works of recent literalists.

1.1 Schleiermacher:

Schleiermacher's translations were very much acclaimed and are still widely read by the

German public. His most famous translation was that of Plato's works. Thus, and although a

literalist, his methods were moderate and easily applicable to a translation that would aspire, in spite

of everything, to be read by a wide audience. By advocating literal translation, Schleiermacher has

put a great emphasis on the necessity of preserving the cultural aspects of the original text.

It follows from there that literal translation is like a double edged weapon. Indeed, on the one

hand, it values or, at least, seems to value the source culture by preserving it as it is and not altering

its specificities. On the other hand, the very act of preserving the source culture is a way of avoiding

what Steiner calls “infection”35 by the foreign, this subtle invasion of the foreign through

translation. In this perspective, literal, transparent translation becomes a defence against foreign

cultural invasion. It becomes a shield since it labels the foreign as such and contains a warning

35 George Steiner, “The Hermeneutic Motion”, in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) 187.

24

against it so that it will not be assimilated by the target culture. Thus, and from two seemingly

opposed perspectives, literal translation is the answer, whether the aim is to protect the target

culture, to pay respect to the original, or both.

1.2 Newman:

Literal and popular at the same time, his translations were hardly scholarly and the vocabulary

he used was historically unreliable. His versions of some Greek epics, which were inherently

populist, appealed to a wide public but were much criticised by scholars, as discussed above,

because of their historical inaccuracy. But since he appealed to a wide public, he somehow

contributed to immortalising the pieces he translated and making them not only accessible, but also

enjoyable to a wide range of readers. If his enterprise had an aim, it was that of making common

people read old literature and enjoy it and, in a way, immortalise its authors.

One could easily argue that he has succeeded in his task, and by doing so, he has maintained

some Greek authors and aspects of Greek culture alive. And I think such achievements matter

greatly, especially when it comes to the author of the original piece, without whom the very issue of

how to translate would not even be debated.

1.3 Benjamin:

As discussed above, Benjamin's notions remained very abstract and his theory did not have a

strong impact–if any–on the process of translation as such. He mainly influenced translation theory

and continues even today to fascinate scholars. Yet, his theory and his idea of “pure language” in

particular, also gave rise to much criticism, especially on the part of Bakhtin36 who thinks that

language is much more adapted to giving utterance precisely to that truth, and not to the

abstract moment of the logical in its purity. That which is abstract, in its purity, is indeed

unutterable: any expression is much too concrete for pure meaning – it distorts and dulls

the purity and validity-in-itself of meaning. That is why in abstract thinking we never

36 Michail Bakhtin, Toward a Philosophy of the Act, trans. Vadim Liapunov (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993) 31.

25

understand an expression in its full sense.

Bakhtin was probably not the only one to criticise Benjamin's theory. The fact that the latter did not

put his theory into practice made of it an easy target to the attacks of scholars. This being said,

Bejamin's concepts are quite defendable and continue, even today, to inspire translators as well as

thinkers belonging to other disciplines. In any case, the fact that no one has so far succeeded in

uttering a pure, abstract idea does not necessarily mean that is is not possible to do so. And if ever

pure language exists, literal translation, more than any other type, even if it does not extract it

easily, leads towards it.

1.4 Nabokov:

In his essay “The Art of Translation”, Nabokov identified three “grades of evil” (160) as far as

translation is concerned: unintentional mistranslations due to error, the non translation of certain

passages due to their difficulty, and intentional mistranslations so as to “conform to the notions and

prejudices of a certain public.” (160)

Still in the same essay, and in order to illustrate his point about the grades of evil, Nabokov

gave various examples of both mistranslations and bad translations, turning to ridicule many

aborted attempts of English, French, and Russian translators, at rendering texts non literally. This

was to further support the idea that a translator should not paraphrase lest she or he should create a

piece of their own and not render what the author had written.

In 1964, Nabokov attempted to put his own theory into practice and translated Eugene Onegin,

a Russian Novel in verse by the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin into English prose. He was

dissatisfied with earlier versions and claimed that he would make a literal, i.e. faithful rendition of

the piece. Nabokov speaks of this difficult enterprise in his essay “Problems of Translation: ̀Onegin ́

in English”. He discussed specific details related to the original Russian text and how it would

affect the English translation.37

37 For a full account of these difficulties, see Vladimir Nabokov, “Problems of Translation: 'Onegin' in English”, in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti (USA and Canada: Routledge, 2nd ed. 2004) 71-83.

26

His attempt aroused much controversy amongst scholars and translators. Some have judged it

favourably, such as Harrison E. Salisbury, who states, in The New York Times , that

Mr. Nabokov has not merely rendered the most precious gem of Russia's poetic

heritage into limpid, literal poetic translation. He has given Pushkin's wondrous lines

the glow and sparkle of their Russian original.38

Others such as Edmund Wilson in his article “The Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov”, view it

more negatively, contending that

Mr. Nabokov decided that this [Nabokov's literal rendition of Eugene Onegin] could

not be done with any real fidelity to the meaning and undertook to make a “literal”

translation which maintains an iambic base but quite often simply jolts into prose.

The results of this have been more disastrous than those of Arndt’s heroic effort. It

has produced a bald and awkward language which has nothing in common with

Pushkin or with the usual writing of Nabokov.39

One could easily argue that Nabokov is not supposed to write a translation in his own style.

Had he been writing a piece of his own, one would have expected it to sound like his “usual

writing”, but a translation is by no means supposed to be so. The text sounds awkward, as Wilson

has complained, because it was originally written in a different language. The reader experiences it

almost as if he was experiencing the original foreign text, with the unease one may feel when, say,

tasting a foreign meal for the first time. The food would taste weird, not necessarily because it is

so, but because one is not used to it.

1.5 Wilss:

What Wills has done, among other things, is blurring the traditional clearly cut limits of fields

of study, namely cognitive science and translation or artistic creation, next to defending the often

marginalised theory of literalism and, thus, he questioned our very paradigms of assessment and

38 Harrison E. Salisbury, “End Papers: Eugene Onegin”, The New York Times, July 06, 1964.39 Edmund Wilson, “The Strange Case of Pushkin and Nabokov”, The New York Review of Books, JULY 15 1965.

27

understanding of translation.

1.6 Berman:

When it comes to the idea of essence of translation, Berman's theory was not much different

from Benjamin's pure language. He did, however, translate various texts. His contribution was

valuable for many reasons. First, and in this he does not differ much from his fellow literalists, he

has given a great importance to the source culture and author. Second, he tried to extract the essence

of language–what Benjamin called pure language–and that which transcends surface-level

differences, which is a new linguistic dimension, to say the least. Of course it is arguable whether

he really managed to reach pure language or not, but at least, he has shown the way that might lead

to it, if ever such a dimension of language exists.

28

CONCLUSION

In this research paper, I have tried to show that, as far as translation is concerned, what we tend

to think of as the norm and that which we take for granted is not an absolute truth, but one that is

related to a particular tradition and culture, among many others. One tends to be so culturally

absorbed that one often fails to see the extent to which one's judgements about translation are

subjective. One clings so tightly to one's cultural habits that, very often, one mistakes a certain

approach with fidelity. Indeed, the reason why one would often see a rather free translation as the

best method for rendering a given text into another language is merely the influence of some

cultural habit such as the Anglo-American tradition on one.

Germans, as well as some “dissident” thinkers belonging to other traditions, for instance, have

seen it differently. They preferred literal translation and elaborated many theoretical levels to found

their choice. These go from cultural to scientific reasons, through aesthetic as well as ethical ones.40

Probably the most prominent among these reasons, as far as the Germans were concerned, were the

cultural ones, according to which literal translation was a way of showing deep respect for the

foreign culture, but one that is mingled with a scare of contamination by it. Indeed, literal

translation preserves the source culture and, in doing so, prevents it from mingling with and getting

influenced by the target one. These cultural reasons would, at times, intertwine with aesthetic ones,

and thus would not merely be attempts to protect the culture of the author, but also his personal

style.

This paper is not about literal translation being the best way of translating. It is not even a

comparison of literalism with paraphrase. It is merely a suggestion that many ways exist, and that

they differ according to tradition, and not because one is better than the other. Literal translation is

another way of translating, a way which has been marginalised as far as the Anglo-American culture

is concerned. Ideally, every translator would be free to choose the method they like–as long as it is

40 All of these reasons have been discussed in the previous parts of the paper.

29

said explicitly so that readers are made aware of the type of translation they are reading–and

without being put under cultural pressure.

30

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