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A survey on Translating Philosophical Terms,

Comparing Two Translations of

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

By Darioush Ashouri and Masoud Ansari

By: Siavash Bakhtshirin

Islamic Azad University of Quchan

English Language Department

2013

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CONTENTS

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………….4

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the Problem........................................................................................5

1.2 Purpose of the Study...............................................................................................5

1.3 Research Question..................................................................................................5

1.4 Research Hypotheses..............................................................................................5

2. REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Historical Overview and Related Studies.................................................................6

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Participants...............................................................................................................8

3.2 Materials...................................................................................................................8

3.3 Procedure..................................................................................................................9

4. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

4.1 Section A…………………………………………………....................................10

4.2 Section B……………………………………….……………………………...…11

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4.3 Section C……………………………………….………………………………...11

5. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………...12

References..........………………………….………………........................................13

Bibliography……………………………….………………………………………..14

Appendix A (Questionnaire)………………..……………………………………….15

Appendix B (Answer Sheet)…………………………………………………….…...17

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Abstract

Translation theorists and researchers have so far devoted scant attention to the

translation of philosophical texts. This paper aims to make a modest contribution to

the discussion, opening up a few issues with comparing two translations of a book,

translated from English to Persian. The researcher has compared two translations of

the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, written by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, to identify

which translator has presented a better book in Persian language.

The Two translators mentioned above are Darioush Ashouri and Masoud Ansari.

In order to identify the better translated book, researcher has asked twenty university

professors to read the book in both source and target language and afterwards fill a

questionnaire included three sections focused on philosophic and literary terms,

philosophic conceptions and language style of the translators. The results indicated

that Ashouri has presented a better translation.

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1. Introduction

1.1 Statement of the problem

“Translators have to prove to themselves as to others that they are in control of

what they do not just translate well because they have a flair for translation,

but rather because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort

to understand various aspects of their work.” (Mona Baker)

As you know, the number of translated books is numerous whole over the world. A

large number of translators are always seeking for a book. At first, this could consider

as prosperity in transmission of literature, culture, language, etc.On the other hand,

large numbers of unqualified texts are publishing every year.

1.2 Purpose of the study

The translation of philosophical texts has received relatively little attention in the

literature on translation theory, although there are some classic statements by

Renaissance writers and a few scattered articles or remarks in more recent theorists.

This paper aims to make a modest contribution to the discussion, opening up a few

issues with comparing two translations of a book, translated from English to Persian.

Although this research is not going to neither solve nor scrutinize this problem, it

could be a persuasion in order to inform readers to be more accurate in choosing the

books they are going to read.

1.3 Research question:

Which one of the two translators -Darioush Ashoori or Masoud Ansari- has written

and presented a better translation for the book; Thus Spoke Zarathustra?

1.4 Research Hypotheses:

The researcher has chosen the null hypotheses, to control the interference of positive

or negative opinions in results of the study.

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2. Review of the related literature

2.1 Historical overview and related studies

Translation theorists have so far devoted scant attention to the translation of

philosophical texts. There are some difficulties identified: the use of technical terms,

often of the philosopher's own invention, which may be almost untranslatable, and the

difficulties inherent in the use of a literary, metaphorical language, with all the

consequent ambiguity and stylistic questions involved.

Philosophers frequently invent their own terms, or assign new meanings to old terms,

or use ordinary words in a new, technical sense, etc. All of this means that the

translator has to pay very close attention to the author's words, comparing and

contrasting the different uses of one and the same word in different contexts.

Philosophers also use many literary devices, and indeed some philosophical works

have attained the status of great literature (the dialogues of Plato, for example, or

some other literary philosophers like Sartre and Camus).

Friedrich Nietzsche has commented in his quotations thus:

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one

must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately

one must have one’s experiences in common.

The translator must therefore also be prepared to face literary and rhetorical

passages when they occur. The upshot is that the translator has to deal

adequately with a text that may be partly technical (as in essays on formal

logic) and sometimes literary or even poetical (the most notable example is

Lucretius' De Rerum Natura).

The translator of Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric begins his introduction with these words:

The translation of Aristotle must be reckoned amongst the greatest, but also

amongst the driest, of the pleasures that the study of the classics affords the

scholar. There is hardly a paragraph that he wrote which does not contain

some stimulating or arresting thought, some consideration of a familiar

problem from a new perspective, or some fruitful discovery of a new problem

where all previously seemed to be blandly clear. The freshness of the

intellectual content is unvarying; for all that its relevance to the contemporary

debate may constantly change. (Lawson-Tancred 1991)

One of the controversies among the translators of philosophical texts is the question

of how to translate technical terms. Leonardo Bruni, called Aretino, in his little

treatise De interpretation recta (1420), discusses all the basic issues of translation and

pays particular attention to the problems inherent in translating Aristotle’s Ethics and

Politics. He specially objects to the use of borrowings from Greek in the Latin

translations. Though theoretically it is true, as Bruni says, that anything that can be

said in Greek can also be said in Latin (English, French or any other language), still

there are terms in Aristotle’s works that seem hardly translatable without a long

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paraphrase or explanation, or without simply giving the modern term a new meaning

to bring it as close as possible to the original meaning of Aristotle’s expression.

The Greek term phronesis is usually translated as “practical wisdom”, and Sophia as

“theoretical wisdom”, though Joachim (1915: 13) also uses the terms “practical

science” and “practical knowledge” for phronesis. Later on, he comments:

“Wisdom” will serve as a translation for phronesis, but there is no English equivalent

for Sophia. “Philosophy” represents rather the science of the philosopher than his

eixis or state of mind. (Joachim 1951: 189)

He then proposes the curious translations “speculative genius” for sophia and

“practical (political, moral) genius” for phronesis (techne being “creative or

productive genius”) (Joachim 1951:189-190), but none of these translations is

reproduced in his Greek-English index.

From a strictly linguistic point of view, knowledge (sapere) and wisdom (saggezza,

sapienza) are very closely related in the Italian language, as all these words derive

from the same Latin root. The fact that Italian has two words for “wisdom” has caused

a further complication, however, Natali always uses saggezza to translate phronesis

and sapienza to mean sophia. Where the context made the meaning clear, the English

version has only “wisdom”, but wherever necessary the appropriate adjective

(“practical” or “theoretical”) has been added. Occasionally the Greek term has been

added to the text, always in the interests of clarity.

The Italian philosopher Abbagnano (1971: 762) has commented thus:

To contemporary philosophers the word saggezza, like “sapienza”, seems too

solemn a concept for them to stop to clarify it. Nonetheless, wisdom

(saggezza) remains connected, for them as for the ancients, to the sphere of

human affairs and can be said to consist of the old or new techniques that man

has at his disposal for better conducting his life. (Original translation)

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3. Methodology

3.1 Participants

Twenty Ph.D. university lecturers participated in this study. All of them were male

and upper 30 years old. They were all Persian natives and their English knowledge,

according to proficiency test, was on intermediate level or higher. They had read the

English version of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and also both translations of the book, by

Darioush Ashouri and Masoud Ansari.

The above mentioned limitations in choosing participants have been done because

they should have been able to read and understand the English version of the book

and also the Persian ones. Thus, the researcher’s investigations indicated that all of

the limitations were quite essential.

3.2 Materials

A) Three versions of the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra have been used in this

research:

1) English version, translated by Thomas Common

2) Persian version, translated by Darioush Ashouri

3) Persian version, translated by Masoud Ansari

Below is a brief introduction to the book:

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German: Also sprach

Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen) is a philosophical novel by German

philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885.

Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the

parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Overman, which were first

introduced in The Gay Science.

Described by Nietzsche himself as "the deepest ever written," the book is a dense and

esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized

prophet descending from his recluse to mankind, Zarathustra. A central irony of the

text is that Nietzsche mimics the style of the Bible in order to present ideas which

fundamentally oppose Christian and Jewish morality and tradition.

B) The questionnaire that has been used in this study divided into three sections;

1) Correct translation of terms

2) Correct understanding from Nietzsche's thoughts & conceptions

3) Language style, literary terms and structural features

The first section included twenty items, which were the most notable words and

phrases from the book. It is considerable that each of the two mentioned translators

has presented a different translation for these terms.

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The second part included ten items, contained Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts and

philosophical conceptions.

The last section included ten items about the style of translation, literary terms, and

structural features.

For noticing the complete version of the questionnaire, see Appendix A.

3.3 Procedure:

Participants must have had background knowledge about Nietzsche’s thoughts. Thus

the researcher attempted to find people possessing these characteristics. Some of them

have had read just one or two of the books mentioned in the materials section. So,

they were asked to read them, in order to gain the acquired knowledge.

After that, they were asked to fill the questionnaires. As the items were philosophical

and conceptional, it was necessary to have enough time for concentration. So, each

participant had enough time for filling the answer sheet. The questionnaire included

three sections and forty items.

The next stage was gathering and investigating the answer sheets, in order to identify

which translator has got the higher score. Analyzing the results and circumstances

will be discussed in the following section.

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4. Analysis and Results

As mentioned before, there were three sections in the questionnaire, each of them

investigating one aspect of the translated books. The results of each section have been

shown in separated tables. (Table 1, Table 2 & Table 3)

The final scores of each translator have been shown in the last table. (Table 4)

(No = Number of participants), (T = Final total score of the translator)

Correct translation of terms :Section A4.1

There were 20 items in this section. The average scores of each translator, marked by

participants, has been shown in the total score column (Table 1). As you see, there is a

considerable difference between the total scores of the two translators. This means

that Darioush Ashouri has presented better equivalences in translating the terms.

Table 1 (Section A Total Scores) Table 2 (Section B Total Scores)

No Masoud Ansari

Total Score

Darioush Ashoori

Total Score

1 52.05 84

2 35.05 86

3 78 51.05

4 27 91

5 50 70

6 74 88

7 38.05 61

8 81 70.05

9 52 84

10 12.05 76

11 71 92

12 41 75

13 31.05 77

14 25 100

15 75.05 90

16 13 80

17 43.05 94.05

18 32 100

19 55 25

20 69 86.05

T 48 79

No Masoud Ansari

Total Score

Darioush Ashoori

Total Score

1 63 88.05

2 40 82

3 84.05 46.05

4 15 98.05

5 45 70

6 32.05 88

7 55 75

8 72 64

9 23.05 90.05

10 34.05 74

11 67 79.05

12 60 52.05

13 20 80

14 40.05 80

15 80 86.05

16 39.05 62

17 53 90

18 38.05 100

19 63 45.05

20 55.05 70

T 49 76

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Nietzsche's thoughts & conceptionsCorrect understanding about :Section B4.2

This section included 10 items. The average scores of each translator, given by the

participants from 100 has been shown in the total score column. (Table 2)

A noticeable distinction has been identified between two translated texts.

Language style, literary terms and structural features C: Section4.3

The last section contained 10 items. The average scores of each translator, given by

the participants from 100 has been shown in the total score column. (Table 3)

As in previous sections, Darioush Ashouri has been considered as the premier

translator.

The last table (Table 4) is showing the final scores of the two translators, which are

the overall average of the whole sections of questionnaire.

Table 3 (Section C Total Scores) Table 4 (Final Scores of translators)

No Masoud Ansari

Total Score

Darioush Ashoori

Total Score

1 77 63.05

2 29.05 91.05

3 55 40

4 25 90

5 34 80.05

6 61 86

7 18.05 70

8 92.05 68

9 30 95

10 10 75.05

11 63.05 97

12 23.05 89.05

13 30 85

14 25 90

15 37.05 84

16 10 80

17 67 94.05

18 29.05 100

19 60 40

20 51 77.05

T 41.05 80

No Masoud Ansari

Total Score

Darioush Ashoori

Total Score

1 64 79

2 35 86.05

3 72.05 46

4 22.05 93

5 43 73.05

6 55.05 87.05

7 37.05 68.05

8 81.05 67.05

9 35 89.05

10 19 75

11 67 89.05

12 41.05 72.05

13 27 80.05

14 30 90

15 64 86.05

16 20.05 74

17 54.05 93

18 33.05 100

19 60 37

20 58.05 77.05

T 46 78.05

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5. Conclusion

As you identified from the results of the study, there were considerable distinctions

between the scores of the two translators. This significant difference in scores

obviously indicates dissatisfaction of readers from Masoud Ansari’s translation.

As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of

understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward

experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.”

Being a translator or having a PhD is not the required elements for translating a

philosophical text. Unfortunately the number of unspecialized translators is

uncountable in our country. In some cases they cannot even specify the context of the

book. This study was just an academic comparison between two translated books.

Thus the researcher does not want to scrutinize the reasons of these differences in

translation quality.

Both of these books have been published the same as many other books. Also in

future, publishers will continue their jobs. The question arise in the mind of every

reader is which book to read? The answer is; for choosing a book, knowing the author

is not merely sufficient. Sometimes the translator plays a more important role.

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References

Aristotle. (Ed.). (1991). The Art of Rhetoric. trans. Lawson, H. London: Penguin

Books.

Hankins, J. (1997). A critical guide to the writings of Leonardo Bruni. Rome: Istituto

Storico Italiano.

Joachim, H. H. (1901). A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Joachim, H.H. (1920). The Meaning of Meaning. Mind. Vol. 29, pp. 385-414.

Joachim, H.H. (1951). Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Kaufmann, W. (1974). Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Wicks, R. (2004). Friedrich Nietzsche. In E. N. Zalta. The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. (Fall 2004 Edition)

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Bibliography

Allison, D. (2000). Reading the New Nietzsche. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield

Publishing.

Benson, B.E. (2007). Pious Nietzsche: Decadence and Dionysian Faith. Indiana:

Indiana University Press.

Hollingdale, R.J. (1973). Nietzsche. London and New York: Routledge and

Kegan Paul.

Lampert, L. (1986). Nietzsche’s Teaching: An Interpretation of “Thus Spoke

Zarathustra”. New Heaven: Yale University Press.

Nietzsche, F. (1968). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Kaufmann, W., in The Portable

Nietzsche. New York: Viking Press.

Seung, T. K. (2005). Nietzsche’s Epic of the soul: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Lanham:

Lexington Books.

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Appendix A

Questionnaire

Date:

-------------------------------------------------------------- This questionnaire has been made in order to identify the better translation of the

book; Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The two translators who are going to be compared,

are; Darioush Ashoori and Masoud Ansari.

The questionnaire includes forty items divided into three parts. Please write your

answers on the answer sheet. Your meticulosity will be appreciated.

Correct translation of terms:A)

Below are some words, phrases from the book. By considering the translations of

each conceptions existing in Ashoori and Ansari books, mark the most appropriate

choice on the answer sheet and also write the number you give to the each of

translations as a score.

1) The despisers of the body

2) Joys and passions

3) Neighbor love

4) The three metamorphoses

5) Backworldsmen

6) The academic chairs of virtue

7) Voluntary death

8) Self surpassing

9) The ass festival

10) The honey sacrifice

11) The second dance song

12) The apostates

13) The vision and the enigma

14) The grave song

15) The stillest hour

16) Immaculate perception

17) The soothsayer

18) The pale criminal

19) The pitiful

20) The sublime ones

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Nietzsche's thoughts & conceptions:Correct understanding about B)

After thinking deeply about the below conceptions, denote the translators ability in

indicating each of them appropriately.

21) Overman

22) Eternal recurrence of the same events

23) Zarathustra personality

24) Zoroastrinism

25) Dithyrambs

26) Downgoing

27) Zarathustra's transfiguration

8) Didactic features 2

29) Overgoing

30) Perpetuate legacy

Language style, literary terms and structural features:C)

Below are some language features that play important roles in translating

philosophical texts, specially the books written by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Indicate which translator was more successful in the below subjects, by marking the

answer sheet.

31) Style

33) Connotations

32) Introduction to the book (written by translator)

33) Denouements

34) Figurative language

35) Genre

36) Ironies

37) Metaphors

38) Mythological features

39) Roundelays

40) Pedagogical features

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for participating in this study, Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions; Contact info: s.bakhtshirin@yahoo.com s.bakhtshirin@gmail.com

Siavash Bakhtshirin

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Appendix B

sheetAnswer

Write your marks on specified columns. For example, if your answer is 44, you should write it in

Average column.

Darioush Ashoori Masoud Ansari Excellent

(81-100)

Good

(61-80)

Average

(41-60)

Weak

(21-40)

Very

Weak

(1-20)

No Excellent

(81-100)

Good

(61-80)

Average

(41-60)

Weak

(21-40)

Very

Weak

(1-20)

No

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 5

6 6

7 7

8 8

9 9

11 11

11 11

12 12

13 13

14 14

15 15

16 16

17 17

18 18

19 19

21 21

21 21

22 22

23 23

24 24

25 25

26 26

27 27

28 28

29 29

31 31

31 31

32 32

33 33

34 34

35 35

36 36

37 37

38 38

39 39

41 41