Diploma Thesis Fuzekova

8/2/2019 Diploma Thesis Fuzekova

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Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of Englishand American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Anik Fzkov

An Analysis of Creativity andNormalization in the Czech and Slovak

Translations of Arundhati RoysThe God of Small Things

Masters Diploma Thesis

Mgr. Renata Kamenick, Ph.D.

2009


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I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

..

Authors signature


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Acknowledgement

I wish to express my thanks to my supervisor Mgr. Renata Kamenick, Ph.D.,

Mgr. Zn Vernyik, Ing. Peter Fzk and Ian Wienert, B.A. for their technological help.


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Contents

Contents ................................................................................................................................. 4Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 51. The God of Small Things ........................................................................................... 91.1. The Translations ....................................................................................................... 13

2. Theory ...................................................................................................................... 213. Analysis .................................................................................................................... 303.1. Names....................................................................................................................... 313.2. Sounds ...................................................................................................................... 363.3. Metaphor .................................................................................................................. 423.4. Compounds .............................................................................................................. 483.5. Creative translation .................................................................................................. 533.6. Repetition ................................................................................................................. 573.7. Compensation........................................................................................................... 62Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 67Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 72


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Introduction

Translation is an art: it requires a certain experience, a certain education and a

substantial amount of talent. Despite all these requirements, translators are undervalued,

underpaid and their status in society is a rather complicated one. They receive minimal

credit and almost no attention from readers and from critics as well. Their work is viewed

as being of second order, and it is considered as a reproduction of the creative original.

Nevertheless, translators must invest a considerable amount of time and skill to create a

good and valuable translation. First of all, they have to read the source text. The next step is

to understand the source text perfectly. The final stage is to express the message of the

source text by means of the target text. In some cases this is not such a difficult task,

nevertheless in cases of literary translation which employ a vast array of poetic devices,

verbal and sound games, the translator faces a serious challenge. In order to transfer all the

functions and meanings of the text, the translator must not only have perfect skills in

his/her mother tongue, but s/he must understand and feel the small nuances between

different words and the different meanings of the same word. If the translator

misunderstands the source text or s/he creates a fuzzy sentence, s/he can alter the meaning

of the whole sentence. This change is the central topic of this analysis.

This work presents an analysis of the strategies of creativity and normalizations in

two different translations of Arundhati Roys novel The God of Small Things. The Czech

translation was done by Michaela Lauschmannov and published in 2001. The Slovak

translation was created by Veronika Redererov and it appeared in 1998. The two

translations were published within a few years of each other, nevertheless they are very


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different, employing different strategies to achieve the same means and transferring certain

phenomena to a varying degree. Their experience with translation differs considerably,

however the translations show that the less experienced translator has a better command of

her mother tongue than the experienced one.

The study of creativity is possible only if the translations are creative to a certain

degree, but the creativity of translations depends on that of the source text. The God of

Small Things is a creative work full of unusual phrases, rhymes, metaphors, alliteration and

other verbal games. Arundhati Roy created an original work adjusting and mending English

according to her needs. All these devices form a part of the message and help to direct the

readers attention and to force them to read carefully, not to miss anything that the text

says. The difficulty the translators had to face lies partly in the language of the source text

and partly in choosing the proper devices to express the message and the style of the

original by means of another language.

The work starts with a chapter introducing Arundhati Roy and her novel The God of

Small Things. It talks about Roys life, her style, the book, its characteristic features and its

content as well. The next part of this chapter provides a short introduction to the two

translations presenting their general tendencies along with their shortcomings. At this point,

it talks about the problems of the translations, because their creativity will be studied in a

greater detail in chapter 3.

The next chapter presents the theoretical background of the analysis introducing and

describing the concepts employed during the study of these translations. The most

important concepts used in this work are: Ji Levs dichotomy between faithful and

beautiful translations, Peter Newmarks approach to metaphors, Friedrich Daniel Ernst


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Schleiermachers dichotomy of domesticating versus foreignizing methods of

translation, some of the concepts introduced by Geoffrey Leech and the notion of

translation universals primarily as introduced in theRoutledge Encyclopaedia of

Translation Studies.

The third chapter contains the analysis proper. It is based on the study of creative

passages of the book. During the compilation of this analysis we used the following

secondary sources:British National Corpus, esk nrodn korpus,Elektronick lexikn

slovenskho jazyka, Prun mluvnice etiny and kolsk slovnk spisovnej sloveniny.

They proved especially useful when looking at the common uses of words or phrases,

definitions of words and when comparing the structures of the translations with

grammatical rules. The passages included in this work were chosen on the basis of their

originality or because they presented the translators with particular difficulties. The

examples are taken from different parts of the book representing various kinds of narratives

and situations. To avoid confusion when locating the citations in the translations, they are

located with the help of the following two abbreviations: Roy CZ and Roy SK. These refer

to the page numbers of the Czech and Slovak translations, respectively.

This chapter is divided into seven parts, each concentrating on one phenomenon. It

always starts with an introduction of the context from which the studied sentence or

sentences come. This part will explain the situation described in the book, the means the

author uses to achieve the desired effects, and the influence of these effects on the sentence

and on the text as a whole. Then we look at the sentence as written by Roy followed by the

Czech and the Slovak translations, respectively. The relevant parts of the source text and

the relevant parts of the version using the creative approach are set in bold type. Then we


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continue with the analysis of the two translations introducing their advantages and

disadvantages. Finally, we look at the solutions of the two translators, how they coped with

certain phenomenon and compare their strategies and the success and appropriateness of

these strategies.

In general, we concentrate on the means used by the author of the source text, explain

their consequences and their implications for the sentence and the text as a whole. We

analyze creative phenomena found in the text, look at their structure, how creativity is

achieved, why it is employed and how it influences the text. Then we look at the solutions

presented by the two translators, first explaining whether they use creative or normalizing

strategies. Then we explain what the strategy is based on, how it corresponds to the

message of the source text. What are the functions and meanings of the translation and how

these meanings and functions correspond to those of the source text. Finally, we look at the

changes and influences present in the translation. We talk about the changes present in the

target text when compared to the source text; we look at the degree of their influence on the

translation and the consequences for the reader. It is important to us what the readers are

able to understand and what they cannot understand or deduct from the text. Sometimes, it

is possible to omit or imply certain features without greater loss, at other times there is no

other possibility than to circumscribe the phenomenon in the text, but these normalizing

strategies can influence the message, and in some cases the quality of the text to various

degrees. We will talk about the degree to which the translations differ from the original and

about their consequences for their readers.


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1. The God of Small ThingsFirst of all, let us take a look at some basic information about the author of this book,

namely Arundhati Roy. Ganapathi Reddy in his article describes her as a Polemicist,

gamine, political figure, essayist, coming of the age of feminism, icon of the voiceless

(Reddy). What is more, she was the first Indian woman to receive the prestigious Booker

Prize award. Arundhati Roy was born on November 24, 1961 in Bengal. Her father was a

tea planter (just as the father of Estha and Rahel) and her mother taught in her own school.

Her mother divorced her father, which made her an outcast in her village of Ayemenem

(Flynn). In one of her interviews, Roy explained that it was very difficult for her to grow up

without a father, because the lineage of a person is derived from his or her fathers family

(Barsamian). Nevertheless, she emphasized how much she admired her mother to have

gotten a divorce in such a country and to raise Arundhati on her own. She further enjoyed

living without a dominant male authority which is usually rather cruel in Kerala

(Tikkanen). Her mother was a social activist as well. She challenged the inheritance law of

the Syrian Christian Church, which granted women an unequal share of their fathers

inheritance (Barsamian). Arundhati Roy started to attend school when she was ten. She was

the first student of her mothers school, which later became very successful. This school

was very informal and it led children to think independently. This influence can still be

seen on Roy as well as on her writing, which is unconventional and free. One of the results

of this independence was that Arundhati left home at the age of sixteen and lived in a small

hut. She earned her living by selling empty beer bottles (Flynn). Then she started attending

a boarding school in southern India. She earned her degree at the Delhi's School of


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Planning and Architecture, where she met her first husband. Together they moved to the

seaside and lived an ordinary life selling cakes to the tourists, but their marriage ended after

four years. After returning to New Delhi she met her second husband, the film director

Pradeep Krishen (Flynn). Together they started to write screenplays for television series.

The first series was discontinued after the first episodes were shot. Nevertheless, the other

screenplays brought success to the couple including films such as:In Which Annie Gives It

To Those Ones andElectric Moon (Tikkanen). Roys popularity was rising, until she was

imprisoned symbolically for one day for lowering the courts dignity. After the trial she

retreated to work on The God of Small Things which was a great and overwhelming

success. After this success she decided to use her popularity to publicise controversial

issues of politics, environment and war.

Arundhati Roys first bookThe God of Small Things was an immediate success. More

than 350,000 copies were sold within the first three months after publication. It has been

distributed in thirty countries and translated into twenty-four languages (Tikkanen). The

reactions to this novel were mostly positive throughout the world. Nevertheless, in India it

received widespread criticism. One of the main criticisms was its topic. The novel talks,

among other things, about politics, religion and caste, topics that people normally do not

talk about. The second major criticism was her description of the love between Velutha and

Ammu. Roy was accused of obscenity and faced a trial in India. It is quite interesting that

even though the affair between Velutha and Ammu were not the only scene that talked

about illegal love (there is also child abuse and incest), these scenes infuriated the public

most. It was probably not so much because of sex, but because Velutha was from a lower

caste than Ammu (Tikkanen).


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The novel has a non-linear plot which jumps back and forth between the past and the

present. This strategy helped to create a very interesting and gripping story. Almost from

the first lines, the readers are being prepared that something bad has happened in the

family, but receive only small pieces of information at a time and they have to read

carefully to be able to put the story together (Truax). Roy uses many different techniques to

underline the rising tension and to show the readers what is important. For some of her

techniques she was compared to Salman Rushdie, certainly a strong influence in India, in

the British press (Nishant). Her approach to English is very free, a consequence of her

mothers informal education, and her use of language is exquisite. She shapes, adjusts and

mends English according to her needs (Flynn). Arundhati Roy uses italics and capital

letters in the middle of the sentence to show what is important or to show that a character

said something with a particular intonation or in a special way. The next strategy Roy

employs to show emphasis, or to create a certain mood is the use of compounds. She

creates compounds by joining two words together or by inserting a hyphen. An important

part of the meaning is also conveyed through sounds: Roy makes extensive use of

alliteration, repetition and rhymes. These features create or support the mood of the

passage, they also show emphasis and they often convey small hints and underlying

meanings directing the readers attention into the desired direction. Not even the narrator in

The God of Small Things is conventional. The story is mainly told from the perspective of

the twins, and sometime involves a third omniscient narrator. Seeing the events from the

perspective of a seven years old child explains why some events and attitudes are only

implied in the text while others are described imperfectly. The novel is partly

autobiographical and Rahel can be seen as the representation of Arundhati Roy herself.


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The God of Small Things talks about the history of a ruined middle-class family. The

book starts with the introduction of the first incident that started a chain of tragic events:

the funeral of Sophie Mol, the cousin of the main heroes Estha (Esthappen) and Rahel.

They were fraternal twins of a divorced mother, Ammu, who after leaving her husband

came to live with her parents and her brother Chacko. The book provides its readers with

many examples of the local customs, religion, political scene, the oppression of women and

the difficulties connected to the caste system. The most active character is Velutha, an

Untouchable worker in the familys pickle factory. He belongs to the lowest caste, which

means that his life is full of restrictions and without possibilities of advancement. The

Kochamma family admires his skills, yet he is still subordinate to them. Velutha tries to

break the laws: he has a better job than is suitable for his caste and he is a member of the

Communist Party as well. These are small things for ordinary people, but not for an

Untouchable, that is why Velutha is The God of Small Things.

The first part of the book contains many descriptions and sidetracks and the story

evolves slowly, introducing the characters, the settings, the past and the present. Suddenly,

the story starts to gain speed and the events follow in short succession. As the narrator puts

it: [t]hings can change in a day (Roy 202). Sophie Mol joins the twins during an attempt

to run away from home, but she drowns in the river. Veluthas father tells Ammus mother,

Mammachi, about their childrens relationship, consequently Velutha has to hide. His

hiding coincides with Sophie Mols death and he is accused of killing her and kidnapping

the twins. The twins and Velutha hide in the same house, where the police beat him almost

to death. Mammachi forces Estha to lie that Velutha kidnapped them. Estha makes the false

accusation at the police station, but never speaks again. Velutha dies in prison, Ammu has


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to leave Ayemenem sending Estha to his father and leaving Rahel with the family. The

book ends as it started with the meeting of the estranged twins Estha and Rahel trying to

find their way back to each other.

1.1. The TranslationsThe two translations are completely different. Their difference lies primarily in the

contradicting approaches they took. The Czech translator chose a foreignizing method

transferring all idiosyncrasies of the original, while the Slovak translator employed a

domesticating method adjusting the text to Slovak traditions (for further detail see chapter

2). The next difference is due to the disparities in the linguistic abilities of the translators.

The Czech translator tried to transfer as many features of the original as possible, not to

omit a rhyme, metaphor or an instance of alliteration. In comparison, the Slovak translator

often omits these features, frequently translating them with common phrases or by

paraphrasing.

Nowadays, translators are undervalued; their work is thought of as unimaginative and

secondary. That is why there is almost no information about the translators. The only

available information is the list of books they have translated until the year when their

translation ofThe God of Small Things appeared. The Czech translation was done by

Michaela Lauschmannov and it was published in 2001. Roys book was her first published

translation, which is amazing if we consider how skilfully she worked with the Czech

language. It was a very courageous decision to choose Roy as her first translation;

nevertheless, her linguistic skills and her creativity exceeded all expectations.


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The translation of Michaela Lauschmannov is very creative and original. She was

able to mend and adjust the Czech language to a similar degree as Roy mends the English

language, even though she was using the means and the possibilities of the Czech language.

Lauschmannov managed to transfer most metaphors, similes, rhymes, alliterations and

other creative features of the original. Her text contains many translations of Roys unusual

descriptions and compounds. The examples of her creativity can be found in Chapter 3, so

we will not talk about them now. Now we will introduce some tendencies that are not

included in the analysis. They are omitted mainly because these tendencies are specific for

Lauschmannov and they do not occur in the Slovak translation. There is, however, one

exception, and that is omitting information. This phenomenon can be found in both

translations. Nevertheless, its occurrence in this translation is very low in number. The

second reason for not including this common feature in the analysis is that we cannot

compare creativity in connection with a phenomenon involving only normalizing strategies.

As we have already said, only very little information is omitted from this translation and

these are only details, not influencing the message of the sentence. For example:

In those early amorphous years when memory had only just begun, when life was

full of Beginnings and no Ends, and Everything was Forever, Esthappen and Rahel

thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or

Us (Roy 2).

V tch ranch letech, kdy vechno nejasn splvalo a pam teprve ponala, kdy

ivot byl sam zatek a dn konec a vechno bylo navdy, vnmali se

Esutappan a Rhel spolen jako j, a oddleni, kad zvl jako my (Roy CZ

14).


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Even though the translation omitted the last part of the sentence, the readers would

certainly understand the main message of the text. What they would miss is the emphasis

added to the fact of the twins joint identities. Nevertheless, this information has no

decisive influence on the message of the sentence or the book now, since it is clearly visible

throughout the book.

There are also a few instances when whole sentences were omitted, but it looks as if

they were omitted by accident. They do not contain any passages that would be difficult to

translate. The next recurrent shortcoming of this translation was its language. Even though

the verbal and sounds games were mostly transferred, some sentences of this translation

were strange. They either contained something unusual (a phrase or just a word) or the

sentence itself sounded strange. Let us look at an example:

There was lemon soda in thick bottles with blue marble stoppers to keep the fizz

in (Roy 62).

Byla tam citronov sodovka v tlustch lahvch s modrmi mramorovanmi

ztkami, aby nevyprchaly bublinky (Roy CZ 71).

The initial phrases are the same in both sentences, but it sounds strange in the

translation and shows a strong influence of the source text. There are some more examples

in the book, but this is one of the most characteristic mistakes showing the influence of the

source text. It is interesting to see that some of these sentences occurred at places where the

source text was not difficult to translate. This phenomenon might be the consequence of the

translators effort to translate as many features of the original as possible, staying close to

the source text, and at some cases the translation was probably too close.


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Cultural references present the next problem of this translation. There are some cases

where culture-specific issues were not translated or were translated improperly. For the

name of the rubber band holding Rahels ponytail, Love-in-Tokyo (Roy 106), the

translator supplied a word-for-word translation. This did not tell the Czech readers what it

exactly was, yet it was understandable, because the author explained that it was holding

Rahels hair. Unfortunately, the readers of the Czech translation could not imagine what

exactly it was and how it looked, and it would have been useful for them to imagine it,

because it was Rahels symbol just as the puff was Esthas.

The last disadvantage of the Czech translation is the few cases of misunderstanding.

Lauschmannovs translation contains a few examples where the translation differs from

the original, to a greater or lesser degree. These cases look as if Lauschmannov

misunderstood the source text. Some shifts in meaning might be caused by the difficult

structure of the sentence, while others were simply caused by misunderstanding. For

example, the English question Did he gobble? (Roy 106) was translated as Vydval

krocan zvuky?(Roy CZ 111). The shift of meaning lies in the use of a different meaning

of the word gobble. The original talks about behaving improperly during eating, while the

translation asks whether he made sounds similar to those that turkeys make. The message

of the original was to ask whether he behaved properly when he ate, but the Czech

translation does not talk about eating, it talks about making strange sounds. The meaning is

more general and does not explain what the word refers to. Despite all the shortcomings

listed above, the translation is creative, its language is original, reflecting the point of view

of the young narrators and creating a similar effect on the readers as the source text.


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The Slovak translator, Veronika Redererov, had considerable experience with

translation before she published her translation of Roys book. Nevertheless, they were

mainly popular literature, such as Robin Cook, John Grisham and Dick Frances. These

books usually do not involve such a degree of originality of language and they do not use

poetic devices to such an extent as Roy. Consequently, even if Redererov had some

experience with translating, she certainly did not have to face such a challenge as she had

when translating The God of Small Things and her translation reflects this. In comparison to

the Czech translation, the Slovak translation is much freer; it does not try to transfer every

play on words, rhyme or metaphor. Veronika Redererov opted for the domesticating

strategy, consequently, her translation looks like a beautiful Slovak text with not too many

linguistic signs of its foreign origin. While the language of this translation is beautiful, it is

by far less creative than the original. Redererov blurs the characteristics of Roys style

presenting the readers a beautiful and readable text omitting many manifestations of Roys

attitude to language. Redererov uses different strategies to transfer the creativity of the

original. Some of these strategies will be introduced in Chapter 3.

Now we look at the general tendencies present in this translation that are not included

in the analysis, because they are unique strategies used only by the Redererov, not

comparable to the other translation in terms of creativity. As we have already seen,

omitting information and sentences is a common phenomenon found in both translations;

however, they are employed differently by the two translators. The Slovak translator, when

omitting information, sometimes leaves out some unimportant detail of the story, but there

are also some cases when she drops phrases that are difficult to translate, e.g.

wormridden (Roy 1) or She smiled and coaxed (Roy 323). She employs a similar


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strategy when she omits whole sentences; most sentences omitted are difficult to translate

without long circumscriptions, e.g. Did he? (Roy 106). Omitting in the translation of

Redererov is a quite often occurring tendency, nevertheless the omitted sentences usually

do not play an important role from the point of view of the book and readers would not

miss anything important. We can regard this strategy as the sign of a lesser linguistic skill

than the authors. Even though we think that translation is undervalued and translators are

not regarded as creating anything new, in this case we think there is a possibility for the

translators insufficient command of her mother tongue. Not transferring all the metaphors

and plays on words can be seen as the result of the domesticating strategy, but omitting

difficult passages is certainly not part of this strategy.

Redererov has her own specific attitude towards poetic devices, verbal and sound

games in the original: she translated almost all similes (e.g. Heads twisted around like

bottle caps (Roy 100). Hlavy sa obracali ako vrchniky flia (Roy SK 89)), she did not

translate all the metaphors (e.g. The slow ceiling fan sliced the thick, frightened air into an

unending spiral that spun slowly to the floor like the peeled skin of an endless potato (Roy

132). Stropn ventiltor sa pomaly krtil a presekval hust, strachom nabit

atmosfru, o sa v nekonenej pirle pomaly spala na zem ako donekonena

obkrajovan zemiakov upka (Roy SK 114)), she translated a part of the wordplays and

omitted most of the alliteration (e.g. Black-haired backs of heads became faces with

mouths and moustaches (Roy 100). ierne vlasat temen sa menili na tvre s stami a

fzmi (Roy SK 89)) and other plays on sounds. Omitting at least a part of all these

creative tools may be another sign of her lesser linguistic skill, compared to Arundhati Roy.

In some cases it is not known if she has seen and understood the role these phenomena play


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in the text, but at least they certainly belong to the authors style. One of the possible

reasons for transferring only part of the metaphors is connected to the next tendency found

in this translation: explicitation (for further details see Chapter 2). There are a lot of cases

when the translation is more explicit than the original. This tendency seems to have three

main reasons: additional emphasis, additional information and explaining. Redererov uses

explicitation to emphasize certain events or facts; sometimes emphasis is achieved by using

diminutives, by adding an adjective, an adverb to the emphasized noun, e.g. Unfurnished

(Roy 1) Nikde nijak nbytok (Roy SK 9). The Slovak sentence emphasizes that there

was no furniture at the verandah, even though there is no obvious reason for it.

Explicitation is one of the most visible tendencies in this translation probably stemming

from the effort to make the text understandable. The following two uses of explicitation

reflect this effort more visibly. The translator sometimes added new words to the text to

make it easier to understand. These words sometimes convey information retrievable from

the context, but in some cases the information is irretrievable and not obvious from the

context.

A boy played with the wooden Doctor is IN-Doctor is OUT sign on the wall,

sliding the brass panel up and down (Roy 132).

Chlapec pri dverch sa hral s drevenou tabukou s npismi: Doktor JE prtomn

a: Doktor NIE JE prtomn tak, e posval mosadzn okienko z jednho na druh

(Roy SK 114).

We know that the sign was on the wall, yet it does not necessarily have to be near the

door. This is a completely new piece of information irretrievable from the context.


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Explaining is employed in cases where the original is not clear or the sentence

structure is too complicated, e.g.

Past floating yellow limes in brine that needed prodding from time to time (or

else islands of black fungus formed like frilled mushrooms in a clear soup) (Roy

193).

Nevenoval pozornos ltm limetkm v slanom nleve (ktor treba z asu na as

premiea, lebo in sa okolo nich zan tvori ostrovy iernej plesne ako ksky

nariasench hb v rej polievke) (Roy 165).

The Slovak translation explains that he did not look at the limes, while the source text

only says he went past them, taking no notice of them. The original puts the emphasis on

the persons state of mind: walking mindlessly, thinking about recent events, whereas the

translation draws the readers attention to the fruits and vegetables in the factory.

We would not like to say which translation is better or more precise. Both are

completely different, mainly because the two translators took different stances on the

source text transferring its singularities to different degrees. The translators had previously

different experience with both their mother tongue and the language of the original and

with translation itself, which formed their skills and attitudes differently.


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2. TheoryThe discipline of translation has always been a rather intriguing issue. Ji Lev

identified the main problem of translation as its hybrid nature: the source text comes from a

particular culture using its own language, and the translation has to convey its meaning

through the target language. So the translation is under a double constraint: the message has

to be the same, but it must be conveyed by different means (95). Creating a translation is

not an easy task, especially if the culture and the language of the source text are not only

geographically but also conceptually distant from the target language and the target culture.

Translators have to make choices all the time as to what is important for the author, what

effect should it have on the readers and so on. These decisions can sometimes influence the

whole text and the readers as well. This is one of the reasons why translators try to transfer

as much of the original as possible. But what if something simply cannot be transferred?

Another series of difficult questions arise such as: what must be transferred and what

features can be omitted? There are many possible answers to these questions depending on

the purpose of the translation, the possibilities of the target language and on the abilities of

the translator as well. Passages containing some strange or unusual phrases force translators

to employ their creativity and create something original too.

During the history of translation studies, a large number of different theories,

approaches and schools emerged, all trying to understand, define and influence this

discipline. Some of them are general rules of how a good translation should look like and

what relationship it should have to the source text, others question the translatability of

texts in general, and so forth. Bearing in mind this works needs and objectives, the most


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useful will be the ones offering strategies for the translation of concrete problems. Many

theorists have come up with dichotomies or even trichotomies to solve the dilemma of

faithful versus beautiful translation. There is no need to introduce all of them; however, to

illustrate our point, we would like to introduce the four approaches which proved useful

during the study, assessment and analysis of the above introduced translations.

The first approach was the contribution of Ji Lev. He created a dichotomy with

two opposing translation strategies founded on the basic opposition between faithful and

beautiful translation. Lev argues that a translation must meet both the criterion of

faithfulness and that of beauty. According to their adherence to one of these criteria he

introduced two types of translations: faithful and free1 translation (88). The first type

concentrates on the faithful reproduction of the message of the original, while the second

type is an attempt to create an aesthetically valuable piece of art conforming to Czech

literary traditions. Please note that Lev emphasizes that his faithful translation procedure

does not mean word-for-word translation, it is rather a transfer of all important and

characteristic qualities of the original. The important criterion is that the translation should

have a similar impact on the readers of the target text as it had on the reader of the source

text (89). The beauty of a translation is judged on the basis of the conventions and

traditions of Czech literature. He also talks about the translators conscious or unconscious

tendency to make the text more beautiful2by adding some features to the text or by

correcting it at certain places (92).

Our translations of Levs book originally written in Czech.1 vrn a voln (Lev 89).2 Pekladatel maj pirozenou snahu originl opravovat a pikralovat (Lev 92).


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Lawrence Venuti approaches the problem from a different perspective: by

introducing the concept of the invisibility of the translator. He describes invisibility as

the term we will use to describe the translators situation and activity in contemporary

Anglo-American culture (1). He argues that translation is an art and that a translator must

have some talent. Unfortunately, this kind of art is undervalued and translators are given

almost no recognition (Venuti 1). Susan Bassnett supports this claim stating that

Translation has been perceived as a secondary activity, as a mechanical rather than a

creative process, within the competence of anyone with a basic grounding in a language

other than their own (2). In contrast, Ji Lev in his book entitled Umn pekladu argues

that a translator is usually less of an artist than the author of the original3 (92) further

undermining translators complicated situation in society. By invisibility Venuti refers to

the difficulties and the secondary status of the translators. The author presents many issues

and situations in which the translators are invisible, e.g. legal status, financial aspects, etc.,

but the area relevant for this work is the translators invisibility in the translation proper.

According to Venuti, a translation is successful and good if it is fluent, because fluency is

one of the basic requirements for a good translation, and the absence of the characteristic

features of the author of the original creates an appearance that the work was written

originally in the target language. Nevertheless, Venuti points to the contradiction that The

more fluent the translation, the more invisible the translator (2). By which he means that

the more the translator adjusts the text to domestic standards and conventions (i.e. the more

s/he changes or domesticates the text), the less visible s/he is. Venuti claims that this

3 ...pekladatel tak bv zpravidla men umlec ne autor pedlohy (Lev 92)


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paradox might be a consequence of the widely accepted belief that only the original work is

a piece of art and the translation is only a transfer of the authors creative imagination (6).

These two concepts would be highly useful in understanding the intentions and

decisions of the translators during the process of translation. The God of Small Things is not

an easy work to translate. It is full of interesting, unusual and creative phrases and

descriptions. When translating these passages, the translators had to decide whether to

transfer all the meanings and functions of the original and thus create a faithful, but not

really Czech or Slovak text, or to omit some allusions or connotations of the original, but

create a nice and fluent domestic text. As we will see, the Slovak translator decided to

create a Slovak text which is readable and beautiful as the term is understood by Lev

(88) by omitting certain features and information that is not so important for the overall

message of the text, so it can still be understood and appreciated. On the other hand, she

has changed the text to a noticeable degree and weakened Roys characteristic style and

other features. So here we can see Venutis paradox: although the translator visibly

normalized Roys text, she stays invisible in the translation.

The Czech translator, in comparison, decided to create a faithful translation by trying

not to omit any detail of the meaning of the original, creating a text that is at certain places

difficult to understand and sometimes even sounds strange, yet it reflects the

characteristics, attitudes and techniques of the source text. We think that she has fulfilled

Levs requirement that a text should have a similar impact on the reader of the translation

to what it had on the reader of the original (89). The Czech translation is faithful in the

categories of Lev and visible in those of Venuti.


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The last approach we will look at forms one of the basis of Venutis theory about

invisibility, namely the dichotomy distinguishing between a domesticating and a

foreignizing method4 of translation introduced in 1813 by the German philosopher

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher. He described these methods as bringing the author

back home and sending the reader abroad (qtd. in Venuti 20). The first method means

that the translator adjusts the text to the domestic cultural and literary traditions producing a

nice and readable target language text. In comparison, a translator employing the second

strategy adheres to the original, transfers the foreign elements of the text and keeps the

readers aware that they are reading a translation. This text may not be so fluent and easy to

understand, but it will certainly enrich the readers.

If we take a look at the translations from this point of view, we will see that the

Slovak translator used the domesticating method, adjusting the text to the domestic literary

tradition: the translation resembles a work of art originally written in Slovak, it is fluent,

sounds good, uses conventional Slovak phrases, includes few unusual constructions, many

explanations and various devices for greater readability and easier understanding. In

contrast, the Czech translator employed the foreignizing method introducing many

foreignizing elements reminding the readers that what they are reading is a translation. As

Lev said, Even a small detail is enough for the reader to notice that the work is

transferred from a different land5 (97). The Czech translator has decided to show the

readers as much of Indias culture and traditions as possible. This translation is probably

4 Concepts that run parallel with those of Lev.

5 I mal detail sta, aby tene upozornil, e te dlo pesazen na ciz pdu.


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not so fluent and easy to understand, but [t]he important thing that is created is new

knowledge. Readers come away from a novel or a poem feeling that they have been given

some knowledge which they did not possess before, or, very often, that they have

experienced a new insight into some familiar problem or theme (Fowler 21). The

translation shows, from the beginning, that it was written in a foreign country by a foreign

writer, not attempting to conform to the domestic traditions. This widening of the readers

knowledge is also part of the translators creativity, as we will see later.

Before getting to the analysis, we will look at the basic concepts according to which

the analysis was carried out. As explained above, the main objective of this work is to study

creativity and normalization in translation. Let us, then, start with a tentative definition of

creativity. Pisarska defines creativity as the capacity of all speakers of a language to

produce and understand sentences that have never been uttered before (84). Geoffrey

Leech divides creativity into two categories: the first means using available linguistic

devices to create something new, and the second category includes instances creating new

figures, devices and features not yet existing in a language (A Linguistic Guide to English

Poetry 24). Roger Fowler defines creativity as something new in a special way, the most

important criterion according to which he judges creativity is that the text should create

new knowledge(21). In his view, the readers should feel that they have gained new

knowledge from the book. This is the case of the Czech translation of Roys book.

Michaela Lauschmannov decided to foreignize the text, i.e. to send the readers straight to

India showing them the local culture, traditions and everyday life. So the readers of this

translation may really feel enriched by new wisdom. Creativity in my analysis is, however,

a much wider term based partly on creating new or unusual phrases, partly on presenting an


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old item or event in a new light, partly on individual instances of creative transfer and

partly on the translators ability to transfer the creativity of the author.

The most visible passages where the translators creativity can be seen are metaphors.

They rely on visual images as well as on culture which makes them hard to translate. Since

different cultures see the world differently, serious problems of equivalence arise not only

at the lexical, but also at the conceptual level. From the linguistic point of view, metaphor

is the representation of one idea in a perspective normally associated with another

(Fowler 213). Dagut defines metaphor from the literary perspective as an individual flash

of imaginative insight ... which transcends the existing semantic limits of the language and

thereby enlarges the hearers or readers emotional and intellectual awareness (qtd. in

Pisarska 46). The God of Small Things contains a lot of creative and unusual metaphors,

which force the translators first to decide how important it is to the general message of the

book, then to the overall meaning of the sentence, and finally they decide whether to

transfer or omit the metaphor. This is a difficult process and there are very few cases when

the same metaphor exists in both languages. There are many approaches to translating

metaphors, but we have decided to introduce only the one according to which we will

assess the strategies employed by the translators. We have decided to compare these

strategies with the categorization proposed by Peter Newmark. He introduced seven

methods for translating metaphors, and these are: transfer of the same image, replacement

for a domestic image, translation by simile where the image is retained, simile plus sense

(stress on the meaning), paraphrase, deletion of metaphor and metaphor plus image (87-91).

Later on we will look at some metaphors and analyze them according to these strategies to

see if they work, and if they do, we will look at how they work.


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The last phenomenon in connection with creativity is compensation. Briefly, it

means that one may either omit or play down a feature such as idiomaticity at the point

where it occurs in the source text and introduce it elsewhere in the target text (Baker 78).

There are two kinds of compensation: one is compensation within a sentence or a phrase,

and the second is compensation within a text as a whole. We will see compensations of

both kinds, but the second type is more frequent. This practice stems from the translators

attempt to transfer as many of the characteristic features of the original as possible.

Translators employ omission or paraphrase only as the last resort, and if something is lost,

they try to introduce the special or unusual technique elsewhere in the text. Compensation

is a creative strategy for two reasons. First, because it produces something new and

original, and second, because the translator is able to introduce a creative element at places

where there is nothing creative in the original. Nevertheless, Lev warns us that

compensation should not be a tool for translators to display their linguistic ability at the

expense of distorting the overall message or the style of the original (133). Later on we will

look at some instances of compensation in more detail.

The next, fourth, useful approach is that of translation universals. They are described

as linguistic features that typically occur in translated texts rather than original utterances

and which are not the result of interference from specific linguistic systems (Universals

of Translation 288). The issue of translation universals is a rather problematic one because

it is not easy to define them. The categories are clumsy, there are no absolute rules of their

use or emergence, and they are subjective. That is why we use them mainly as secondary

tools.


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Sara Laviosa-Braithwaite defined three basic universals: explicitation, simplification

and normalization. Vinay and Darbelnet define explicitation as the process of introducing

information into the target language which is present only implicitly in the source language,

but which can be derived from the context or the situation. (Klaudy 80) This universal

involves mainly addition of cohesive elements, addition of emphasizers,

explanations, etc (Klaudy 83). We have used explicitation to identify the instances where

the translator explained the meaning of the sentences or introduced additional emphasizers.

The second universal we will work with is normalization. Laviosa-Braithwaite uses

normalization to refer to the translators sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious

rendering of idiosyncratic text features in such a way as to make them conform to the

typical textual characteristics of the target language (Corpus-based Translation Studies

54). This is the widest and most common category including a great variety of devices, e.g.

unusual punctuation is standardized, text is ordered more logically, spoken language is

represented as the language of written prose, old-fashioned expressions are replaced by

modern ones, etc. We will use this term to account for all the instances where something

from the style or other characteristics of the original is omitted or weakened (Universals of

Translation 288-289).


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3. AnalysisCreativity is a subjective term involving many aspects, such as aesthetic value,

faithfulness, the translators linguistic abilities, the objective of the translation, the

translators attitudes towards the original, the characteristics of the original text itself, the

possibilities of the target language, and so on. Arundhati Roy took a very free approach

since she twists and reshapes language to create an arresting, startling sort of precision

(Halder). As said before, it is not always possible to transfer every feature of the original,

and there we can think about some kind of loss. The technique of normalization is,

unfortunately, very widely used in the Slovak translation. Nevertheless, the example

sentences are organized to show the creative and the normalizing techniques of both

translators.

This chapter, carrying out the analysis of the Czech and Slovak translations of

Arundhati Roys The God of Small Things, is divided into seven sub-chapters, each

presenting an unusual and creative phenomenon used in the book illustrated by two

examples representing different approaches and translation strategies. The analysis will

always start with brief information about the passage the sentence comes from, followed by

a short summary of the functions and objectives of the phenomenon in the source text and

supplemented by an explanation of how creativity is achieved in the sentence or sentences.

The next part of the analysis will introduce creative translation. Most examples present one

creative Slovak and one creative Czech translation to see the different strategies of the two

translators to achieve creativity. The analysis of creative translation will include

information on how creativity was achieved, how it precisely conveys all the meanings and


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functions of the original and how it works in the target language. We will discuss the

advantages and disadvantages of the strategies, too. The third part will analyze the

normalized translation described in a similar way to the creative one, even though it will

contain more disadvantages and more criticism. The last paragraph of each sub-chapter will

elaborate on the meaning and the consequences of the creative translation and

normalization of the studied phenomenon looking at these strategies in the context of the

whole book.

The examples will always include the original sentence or sentences and the Czech

and Slovak translations respectively. The creativity in the source text and the relevant parts

of the creative translation will be in bold type.

3.1. NamesThis category includes the creative translation of names of people and places. The

author keeps the readers aware that the book, even though written in English, talks about

people for whom English is still a second language. The author mends and adjusts the

language to her needs: direct speech is often informal, there are many compounds, and the

children especially use English in a particularly creative way. It is this attitude that makes

the translation of the text so difficult. The target languages have freer word order, but on

the other hand they have inflections, affixes and other devices which complicate the process

of translation.

The first example is the title of the first chapter of the book: Paradise Pickles &

Preserves. The word paradise in the title of the chapter plays an important role in the

text. The chapter starts with an idyllic description of the country and the old house in


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Ayemenem. The first lines introduce the setting as a part of paradise on earth with ripening

fruits, clear nights and a relaxed atmosphere. The weather is hot and everything seems

slow, but even here we can see some minute allusions that something bad is going to

happen. This setting introduces Ayemenem as paradise; however, we will shortly realize

that it is far from being such a nice and peaceful place.

Let us now look at the sentence:

Paradise Pickles & Preserves (Roy 1)

Konzervrna Zavaen Rj (Roy CZ 13)

Raj Demov & alamd (Roy SK 9)

As we can see, the Czech name of the factory is creative and explicit at the same

time. Zavaen Rj explicitly talks about the place, i.e. the factory and its close

surroundings, as of a paradise. In addition, it explicitates that the title of this chapter is also

the name of a factory, a piece of information that is not yet said in the original. On the other

hand, the two other languages describe the factory from a different perspective. The source

text emphasizes that the preserves are as good as if they came from paradise (a good

advertising slogan), but the description of the place as paradise is only of secondary

importance. Creativity in this sentence lies mainly in the name Zavaen Rj which

underlines the mood of the introductory passage and creates a pleasant image for the

readers. The translator created a beautiful, original, readable and understandable Czech

name.

In spite of all these qualities, it must be noted that everything comes at a certain cost.

Here the disadvantage is the explicitation of the fact that this is the name of a factory and

the explicit association of Ayemenem with paradise. The translator leads the readers into a


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different direction than the source text by emphasizing the positive features of the setting.

The second and more serious handicap of this translation is omitting alliteration. Even if the

translation sounds good it surely misses a part of the meaning. Paradise Pickles and

Preserve is certainly an outstanding name for a factory with implications mentioned above.

Roy used alliteration to draw attention to this place, to show that it is important and not just

part of the overall description of the country. This factory is important throughout the story

connecting people from different castes (owners and workers), it is also the sight of events

which have serious effects on the story (here Estha decides to run away), and so on. By

alliterating the name of the factory the text makes the readers notice the importance of the

factory and to follow the people connected to it. This is a strategy quite often employed by

Roy as we will see later in the analysis.

The Slovak translation succeeded in transferring most of the meanings of the original

in that it describes the place as paradise for the preserves, while only indirectly suggesting

that Ayemenem itself is a paradise. The translator also managed to introduce the setting

without explicitly stating that it is a factory. As in most parts of the text, she created a

beautiful and easily comprehensible Slovak text. The only criticism might be about the use

of the words alamda which is the result of the translators domesticating strategy. It is

not probable that they were producing what a Slovak reader would call alamda. These

are preserved vegetables as well, but not the same ones that the word refers to. There are

many instances in the book where the translator explains the text to a greater degree than is

necessary to make sure the readers will understand. This shift is probably one of these

instances. The translator presumably wanted to use a term that is known to Slovak readers

so that they can imagine the factory more easily.


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The second example in this sub-chapter is the mock name of Rahel which Estha uses

to infuriate her. This name allured to the fact that as children they were thin and resembled

a stick insect with a thin body and long thin hands and legs. It is a common practice for

children to give each other mock names which are usually not very kind most often

emphasizing a negative feature of the person and thus are especially shaming, but at the

same time they are creative as well. Rahels mock name is the more infuriating since it was

made up by her brother who knows her very well.

When they fought, Estha called Rahel a Refugee Stick Insect (Roy 62).

Kdy se hdali, Esuta nazval Rhel uprchlou napchnutou mouchou (Roy CZ

70).

Pri vzjomnch kriepkach Estha nazval sestru posmene Sahovav Sarana

(Roy SK 58).

In this example it is the Slovak translation that is creative. The basic message is

transferred: sarana is an insect anyone can imagine, so the allusion to her thin body is

clear. The next quality of this translation can be seen when we say the name aloud. The

translator employs alliteration, even though this poetic device is no longer used in Slovak

or only rarely. This translation uses the technique of compensation as well: the translator

introduced this poetic device at a place where it is not present in the source language. The

translation also refers to the fact that children often create mock names which rhyme or

contain similar sounds, even if the Slovak convention would probably create a mock name

including Rahels name.

Although this translation is creative, it involves normalization to some extent. The

word refugee is translated too, creating an original, interesting, and surely infuriating


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mock name. The disadvantage of this change of meaning lies in the connotations attached

to these two words. The English word refugee describes people in a difficult situation

who must flee from their homes, often involuntarily, into a different country. These people

usually get to camps where they are safe, but the standard of these camps is rather low and

problems with basic supplies often arise. They are seen by the recipient country as

undesirable, being poor and often uneducated. The Slovak word sahovav refers to

people who are restless, always moving, always travelling. The main difference is that

these people move voluntarily at their own expense. They are usually not so poor and they

represent freedom and adventure. The word refugee in this sentence talks about the

children and their mother, Ammu, being refugees. As Ammu left her husband she had

nowhere to go and so returned to her parents house. She lives there at their mercy and

from their money submitting to their rules and decisions in exchange. The children have

always felt that they do not belong to the Ayemenem house, nevertheless, this feeling

deepened considerably by the arrival of their cousin Sophie Mol. She was valued, loved,

adored and spoilt by all adults, and the twins started to realize more and more their difficult

position in the family: being unwanted refugees tolerated by the family. The Slovak

translation omitted this aspect of the mock name. Roy often indirectly points to things that

were already explained or shown in the text forcing the readers to read the book carefully to

understand all allusions and implications.

As we can see, the Czech translation employs circumscription. It transferred the main

message of the phrase with most of its connotations; nevertheless, it does not reflect the

originality of the source text. The words are translated, the message as well, but it still does

not have the same effect on the readers as the original. It is extremely difficult to translate a


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name which includes words that have different connotations and different use in the target

language, so the translator had to decide how to cope with this problem. The translator

managed to transfer the conceptual meaning (Semantics 9) of the sentence by explaining

that Estha created a mock name for his sister, nevertheless it failed to transfer its

connotative meaning defined by Leech as the communicative value an expression has by

virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content (Semantics 9). So

the Czech readers would not feel that this mock name refers also to the twins status in the

family. The last drawback of this translation is connected to the image it creates in the

readers. The original talks about stick insect with thin body and long thin legs. In

contrast, the translation calls Rahel a fly, which has different connotations: it has a larger

body with thin legs, so it does not correspond to Rahels looks. Nevertheless, it also implies

annoyance and undesirability.

From the perspective of the whole story, the name does not constitute an important

part of the message, even though it helps the reader to imagine the childrens relationship.

It is, of course, better to transfer form as well, but the translator knows that this is a

translation, so it must behave like one, i.e. it must subordinate everything to the transfer of

the message. If we are to chose, it is a smaller loss if we transfer only the meaning, than if

we transfer only the form.

3.2. SoundsSounds play an important role in the book of Arundhati Roy. The author uses clusters

of similar sounds to stress the mood of a situation or an event or to stress an interesting or

important event. Sounds are used also for creating short rhymes as well. Translating


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sounds, rhymes and alliteration is a difficult task, especially if we try to transfer both

meaning and form. Alliteration is an interesting issue, because this technique is no longer

used in Czech and Slovak literature. Nevertheless, it is quite easy to recognize and the

readers are able to appreciate it. The main problem is that in most cases a word-for-word

translation does not contain similar sounds. Once again, the translators are faced with a

dilemma: whether to transfer alliteration or not. As we have seen before, decision making is

a long procedure including several stages, all underlying the rule that the main objective of

the translation is to transfer meaning. Unfortunately, this sub-chapter will show only the

creativity of the Czech translator, because the alliterations, rhymes and other games with

sounds are in many cases normalized throughout the Slovak translation.

The first example of the creative use of sounds is from the very beginning of the

book. It is part of the description of Ayemenem already introduced above. To sum up, the

description presents the country as a nice and peaceful place where nature and the elements

in particular, have a strong influence on the lives of the characters. Our example talks about

Rahel coming back to Ayemenem after a long time to meet her brother Estha. The image

of a person coming home after a long time in the rain is commonly used in movies as well,

usually implying repentance and tension created by the fear of the reaction of the family.

The dominant sound used in our example is the sound [s]. It refers to the hissing of a snake,

as well as to the sound that heavy rain makes when it touches the ground. Here, alliteration

is used to foreshadow the difficult past of the family, the allusion to hissing prepares the

reader that something bad is going to happen, and it is also one of the small hints at the

beginning of the description that indicate that Ayemenem is not such an idyllic place as it


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might seem at first glance. The translators have chosen different strategies to cope with this

occurrence of alliteration:

Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire (Roy

1).

ikm stbit provazce det bily do uvolnn pdy, rozrejce ji jako palba z

kulometu (Roy CZ 13).

Strieborn povrzky daa ikmo ahali mkk zem a vybuchovali ako drobn

rapnely (Roy SK 9).

In this case it was not such a complicated task to transfer alliteration, since the target

language equivalents of the words do contain similar sounds. The question is whether to

transfer it or not. From the point of view of the whole message it would not change the

meaning if it was translated by a paraphrase, but the small hints should not be omitted.

The Czech translation is creative, and it even manages to create a similar sound at the

beginning of the words. The translation stays close to the original using the same device

while transferring the meaning as well. The creativity in this example is based on the

successful use of the same device with a similar aesthetic effect on the reader. What is

more, the translator has managed to describe the slanting character and thus specify the

image of the rain. The slanting of the ropes adds emphasis to the heavy rain which stays

in ropes even in the wind. We can consider the Czech word det as part of the

alliteration, although the similar sound is not at the beginning of the word. The last point

we should consider is the sound proper. The Czech alliteration uses a [] sound which does

not refer to snakes, but it nevertheless conveys a meaning similar to that of the original,

only using different concepts. It certainly fulfils Levs requirement that the translation


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should have a similar affect on the reader as the original (89). This sound in Czech refers to

whisper and the sound of the wind. The sound of the wind is often an indicator of tension

and creates an impression that something bad will come. It works similarly to the hissing

sound in the original, i.e. it helps to describe an atmosphere where the reader feels that this

place is not really a paradise and gives rise to an expectation of something bad that is to

come. The reference to whisper further underlines the notion of a secret, of something

hidden under the surface. People usually whisper when they talk about a secret or about

things which are hidden from others. This translation is a good example where the message,

as well as the form, of the source text was transferred, while using the same device to create

the same effect on the readers.

In contrast, the Slovak translation omitted alliteration. The message is transferred and

the form does not have such a crucial influence on the sentence at first sight. Nevertheless,

if we take a closer look at the sentence we will see that something is missing. What we miss

is the small hint preparing the readers for the rather sad story to come. The readers of this

translation will not see that there is stress and sorrow in Rahels heart. It looks so simple: it

is raining heavily, yet the message of the sentence is more complicated than that. All in all,

the omission does not change the meaning of the sentence, so the translator becomes

invisible by omitting a small feature characteristic of Roy. She creates a beautiful, readable

and understandable text at the expense of weakening the authors intentions.

The second example of alliteration comes from the description of the railway station

as seen by Estha, sitting on the train and holding Ammus hand through the window. He is

being sent to his father, and his mother and sister came to say good bye. The readers can

see the setting through his eyes. It is a dirty place full of desperate people. The despair and


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helplessness of people at the station is emphasized by Esthas own despair. We can see

homeless and sick people, poor children, and various vendors. The description of the

railway station reflects Esthas feelings and state of mind. He is sad, afraid and desperate

that he has to leave his family, yet he is helpless to do anything about it. Roy used

alliteration to introduce the sad atmosphere of the station and to emphasize that the

atmosphere of this place is similar to Esthas feelings: everything is dark and filthy, and

everyone is helpless, desperate and in a difficult situation.

Hollow people.Homeless. Hungry (Roy 300).

Lid bez ceny. Bez domova. Bez jdla (Roy CZ 72).

Przdni udia. Bezdomovci. Vychudnut (Roy SK 59).

These phrases, if translated, do not contain the same sounds. That is why small

changes needed to be made during the process of translation. Once again, the Czech

translator tried to transfer the form and the meaning, too. In the first sentence we can see a

shift of the repeated sound from the beginning to the middle of the phrase, although in the

following sentences it returns to the first syllables. Another shift we can notice is the

character of the words containing similar sounds. As we have explained before, these words

normally would not alliterate, so they needed adjustment. The translator has decided to use

the same preposition to include the same sound into the phrases, creating alliteration by the

repetition of the same preposition. This technique is slightly different from that in the

original, yet it is very creative and original conveying form and message at the same time.

The sentence sounds good, and the alliteration is visible. The translator succeeded even in

creating a similar mood as in the original. The description shows sorrow, problems, pain


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and despair in both languages. The Czech repetition of the preposition highlights the mood

at the railway station and in Esthas mind.

The Slovak translation in this example represents one of Redererovs strategies of

normalization. The meaning is transferred, but the form is normalized. The translator

paraphrased the alliteration, i.e. the meaning is explained, but the alliteration is omitted.

The sentence is only a word-for-word translation of the original without any poetic device

or anything special or unusual in the text. The readers of the Slovak translation will not feel

the correspondence between the overall mood at the station and Esthas feelings. By

omitting the repetition the readers will not see the emphasis put on these features further

deepening Esthas sorrow. This target text also involves explicitation: it presents the third

category as thin not as hungry. By this choice the translator shifts the readers attention

from their needs to their exterior. She talks about how they look, while Estha is more

concerned with their interior and their needs. The source text is talking about the difficult

situation of these people. In comparison, the Slovak translator starts with the interior of the

people (hollow), followed by an implication of their homelessness (probably visible) and

ends with an explicit statement about their exterior features. On the other hand, the Slovak

text is perfectly understandable, readable and natural according to the domestic tradition.

But at the same time it blurs Roys characteristic style and the devices she uses to achieve a

particular effect. In Venutis terms, the translator is invisible, but the truth is that the author

of the original is becoming more and more invisible as well.

In both examples, sound plays an important role constituting a part of the overall

meaning. Its main function is the transfer of implicit concepts and meanings. They are used

to prepare the reader for the things that will come, to imply that things are not what they


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seem at first glance and to highlight the despair and difficult situations of the people. In the

first example we saw that sounds worked similarly in both languages, even if they referred

to slightly different concepts, they had a similar effect on the readers. The most important

feature that enabled such a creative translation was that the image on which it was based is

understood in both cultures. Rain and wind with their sounds are known in India as well as

in the Czech Republic, even though we do not have monsoons. The creativity in the second

example was based mainly on the small changes introduced by the translator, i.e.

introducing the preposition.

3.3. MetaphorThe transfer of metaphors is an extremely difficult task, because metaphors are

culture-specific, and cultures organize reality differently: the relationship between

language and culture is that the structure of a language determines the way in which

speakers of that language view the world (Wardhaugh 218). The primary difficulty lies in

the image itself, since it may not be understood in two different cultures in the same way,

or it may have different connotations. The first question that arises during translation is the

question of: Can the metaphor be transferred by the same image? If not, what are the

similar metaphors available in the target language? Some metaphors are shared by more

cultures, but most of them involve slight shifts.

There are a lot of theories connected to metaphors, their classification and the

strategies for their translation. The most important theorists working with metaphors

include: Raymond Van den Broeck, M. B. Dagut and Peter Newmark. We have decided to

work with the already introduced translation strategies proposed by Newmark. In this


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chapter we will take a closer look at two examples of metaphor translation and try to

analyze how much the solutions correspond to Newmarks strategies.

The first example describes the meeting of Rahel and Estha after several years from

the point of view of the third-person narrator. The twins have not seen each other for a long

time and completely lost touch with each other, even though as children they were very

close and mentally connected. The meeting was not a happy event. The twins realized that

they do not know each other and do not have too much to say, so they only enjoyed the

others presence. The atmosphere was full of expectation, hope, love as well as

disappointment and sorrow. It is described from the narrators perspective seeing the twins

from the outside talking about their feelings only later, towards the end of the book. They

have not seen each other for twenty-three years, and by then they were thirty-one, the age

when their mother died. Roy described the first impressions the twins had by explaining

that they are considerably older than the last time they saw each other using a metaphor.

This metaphor refers to the dark circles under their eyes, which are normal, but at the same

time, they are the first visible sign of people growing older. Roy has decided to draw

attention to the circles by a metaphor, thus emphasizing the time they have not seen each

other. It is natural, that if someone sees a person after a long time the first thing s/he notices

are the changes on the persons exterior. After introducing the setting of the scene let us

now look how the translators cope with the translation of this metaphor:

Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu

was when she died (Roy 2).

Pod oima jim narostly nn plmsce a te je jim tolik let jako Ammu, kdy

zemela (Roy CZ 15).


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Pod oami maj dnesjemn tmav kruhy a vek ako Ammu, ke zomrela (Roy

SK 11).

Once again, the Czech translator took an approach that is creative in the Leechian

sense and transferred the metaphor. In accordance with Newmarks strategies this example

would belong to the first category: reproduction of the same image as in the TL (88). The

creativity lies in the image of the moon, which looks the same all over the world. So if a

speaker says half-moons, the addressee can easily understand what form s/he is referring

to. The use of metaphor in the original has a further effect of weakening or only implying

the fact that they are ageing, not telling it the way it is. It is not so important for the story,

because everyone knows that they are thirty-one years old, and everyone can imagine how

a person of that age can look like. The intention of the author probably was to mention that

they are no longer children, but at the same time she did not wish to emphasize their

exterior features. The Czech translation succeeded in transferring the metaphor and its

meaning, while keeping the wrinkles implied. The fact that they have wrinkles is further

softened by the use of gentle, which is also transferred to the Czech translation.

The Slovak translator, in contrast, employed a different strategy which would belong

to Newmarks fifth category, i.e. converting metaphor to sense (90). This translation also

involves explicitation, because it explicitly says that the twins had circles under their eyes.

It not only omitted the metaphor, but it used the conventional phrase referring to circles

under the eyes. The message of the sentence is transferred, but the form is different. The

results of this omission are manifold. Firstly, the translator is deleting the characteristic

features of the author even if this metaphor does not collide with the Slovak literary

traditions and there is no apparent reason for doing so. The second consequence is that the


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target text explicitates what was only implied in the source text. Now we come to the

domain of translation universals, which proved useful in identifying the translation

strategies employed. The Slovak translation explicitly states that the twins were ageing and

that they had circles under their eyes. This explicitation does not influence the message of

the sentence or the book as a whole. The biggest difficulty with this translation arises if we

take a look at the book as a whole. Then we can see that it starts with the present, the

meeting of the twins, continues in the past, their lives, then returns back to the present

again, giving further details of the meeting, and, finally, ends with the reference to the

forbidden love of their mother Ammu and Velutha. This means that if the translator starts

to give details of their meeting at the beginning of the book, she disturbs the sequencing. If

she shows or explains something that the readers would not yet be sure of, she disturbs the

flow of events in the book by explicitly saying more about the twins than necessary.

Fortunately, this is only a small detail and does not influence the readers or the text

considerably, yet it does introduce a slight shift of attention.

The second example comes from the description of Ayemenem mentioned above.

The metaphor is based on the metaphorical use of the adjective usually referring to people,

but in this novel it refers to the intensity of the colour. This metaphor perfectly fits into

Roger Fowlers definition of metaphor as the representation of one idea in a perspective

normally associated with another (213). It is original, because it casts new light on the

meaning of the word immodest by enlarging its meaning to collocate with an inanimate

subject, such as a colour. The colour green is a metonymical representation of the trees in

the countryside referring to the banana trees and jackfruits described earlier in the text (see

below). The metaphor is used to stress that the monsoon brings life to the country, with the


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rain supporting vegetation and via it animals as well. The trees are full of life, leaves and

vitality and their colour is visible from a distance. The main question for the translators

probably was: can the colour be referred to as immodest in the target language as well?

The countryside turns an immodest green (Roy 1).

Krajina pekypuje zelen (Roy CZ 13).

Krajina sa necudne zazelen (Roy SK 9).

The answer, according to the Slovak translator, is: Yes, it can. Her translation is

interesting and at the same time creative. If we try to categorize this solution in terms of the

strategies proposed by Newmark, this translation would be an example of the first category:

reproduction of the same image (88). The translator used the possibilities given by the

language to produce a metaphor that is simple and powerful at the same time. The Slovak

equivalent for the English word immodest is fairly close to the meaning of the original,

sharing its reference to peoples pride and also its sexual undertone. This metaphor was not

difficult to translate since the word immodest as well as its translation share common

meanings and connotations, so an almost word for word translation proved creative. The

only minor change was the transfer of the noun green into a verb zazelen. The

translator introduced personification into this sentence when she created a verb and

ascribed an active role to an inanimate subject. This shift of roles involves explicitation as

well, because an active subject draws more attention than a passive one. Nevertheless, the

form and the message of the text were transferred, the translation is fluent and natural, and

so it might be judged as creative. Please note that we call creative only this example, not

the whole translation. Even though this translation is successful and the only available


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translation in Slovak so far, there are many reasons (introduced in the first chapter) that

may give rise to some doubt about the success of this translation.

As we have seen in the examples already analysed, one of the translations usually

employs normalization strategies while the other is creative. This pattern corresponds to the

general tendencies occurring in these two translations ofThe God of Small Things. As

mentioned above, it is usually the Slovak translator who resolves to employ normalization,

but the examples are organized to show the creativity of both translators where possible. In

consequence, most phenomena presented in this analysis present a creative and a

normalizing approach from each translator.

If we return to the Czech translation and to Newmarks categories, this instance might

be classified as an example of the second st

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