38 PRINCIPLES

or philosophical text written in innovatory or obscure or difficult or ancientlanguage.

(2) the text evidently requires some interpretation, which should be indicated inthe translator's preface.

(3) the text requires additional explanation in the form of brief footnotes.

I think translation 'qualifies' as research if:

(1) it requires substantial academic research.(2) it requires a preface of considerable length, giving evidence of this research and

stating the translator's approach to his original. (Bear in mind that alltranslated books should have translators' prefaces.)

(3) the translated text is accompanied by an apparatus of notes, a glossary and abibliography.

Translation is most clearly art, when a poem is sensitively translated into apoem. But any deft 'transfusion' of an imaginative piece of writing is artistic, whenit conveys the meaning through a happy balance or resolution of some of thetensions in the process.

CHAPTER 4

Language Functions, Text-categories andText-types

I suggest that all translations are based implicitly on a theory of language(Jakobson, Firth and Wandruzska put it the other way round - they said a theory oflanguage is based on a theory of translation). Thus in some respects (only) anytranslation is an exercise in applied linguistics. I am taking Biihler's functionaltheory of language as adapted by Jakobson as the one that is most usefully appliedto translating.

According to Biihler, the three main functions of language are the expressive,the informative - he called it 'representation' - and the vocative ('appeal')functions: these are the main purposes of using language.

THE EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION

The core of the expressive function is the mind of the speaker, the writer, theoriginator of the utterance. He uses the utterance to express his feelings irrespect-ive of any response. For the purposes of translation, I think the characteristic'expressive' text-types are:

(1) Serious imaginative literature. Of the four principal types - lyrical poetry, shortstories, novels, plays - lyrical poetry is the most intimate expression, whileplays are more evidently addressed to a large audience, which, in the trans-lation, is entitled to some assistance with cultural expressions.

(2) Authoritative statements. These are texts of any nature which derive theirauthority from the high status or the reliability and linguistic competence oftheir authors. Such texts have the personal 'stamp' of their authors, althoughthey are denotative, not connotative. Typical authoritative statements arepolitical speeches, documents etc., by ministers or party leaders; statutes andlegal documents; scientific, philosophical and 'academic' works written byacknowledged authorities.

(3) Autobiography, essays, personal correspondence. These are expressive when theyare personal effusions, when the readers are a remote background.

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40 PRINCIPLES

It is essential that you, as translator, should be able to distinguish thepersonal components of these texts: i.e. unusual ('infrequent') collocations;original metaphors; 'untranslatable' words, particularly adjectives of'quality' thathave to be translated one-to-two or -three; unconventional syntax; neologisms;strange words (archaisms, dialect, odd technical terms) - all that is often character-ised as 'idiolect' or 'personal dialect' - as opposed to 'ordinary language', i.e. stockidioms and metaphors, common collocations, normal syntax, colloquial expres-sions and 'phaticisms' - the usual tramlines of language. The personal componentsconstitute the 'expressive' element (they are only a part) of an expressive text, andyou should not normalise them in a translation. (See Part II, text no. 3 for a text withexpressive passages.)

THE INFORMATIVE FUNCTION

The core of the informative function of language is external situation, the facts of atopic, reality outside language, including reported ideas or theories. For thepurposes of translation, typical 'informative' texts are concerned with any topic ofknowledge, but texts about literary subjects, as they often express value-judgments,are apt to lean towards 'expressiveness'. The format of an informative text is oftenstandard: a textbook, a technical report, an article in a newspaper or a periodical, ascientific paper, a thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting.

One normally assumes a modern, non-regional, non-class, non-idiolectalstyle, with perhaps four points on a scale of language varieties: (1) a formal,non-emotive, technical style for academic papers, characterised in English bypassives, present and perfect tenses, literal language, latinised vocabulary, jargon,multi-noun compounds with 'empty' verbs, no metaphors; (2) a neutral or informalstyle with denned technical terms for textbooks characterised by first person

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS, TEXT-CATEGORIES AND TEXT-TYPES 41

plurals, present tenses, dynamic active verbs, and basic conceptual metaphors; (3)an informal, warm style for popular science or art books (e.g., coffee-table books),characterised by simple grammatical structures, a wide range of vocabulary toaccommodate definitions and numerous illustrations, and stock metaphors and asimple vocabulary; (4) a familiar, racy, non-technical style for popular journalism,characterised by surprising metaphors, short sentences, Americanese, unconven-tional punctuation, adjectives before proper names and colloquialisms. (Note howmetaphors can be a yardstick for the formality of a text.) In my experience, Englishis likely to have a greater variety and distinct!veness in these styles, because it islexically the product of several language groups (Saxon, Norse, French, Classical),and has been in intimate contact with a wide variety of other languages; being'carried' over most of the world, it has become the main carrier for technology andhas had little authoritative pressure exercised on its growth, apart from a shortperiod in the eighteenth century.

However, note two points: 'informative' texts constitute the vast majority ofthe staff translator's work in international organisations, multi-nationals, privatecompanies and translation agencies. Secondly, a high proportion of such texts arepoorly written and sometimes inaccurate, and it is usually the translator's job to'correct' their facts and their style (see Chapter 18). Thus, in spite of the hoaryadages ('translation is impossible', etc.), the majority of translations nowadays arebetter than their originals - or at least ought to be so.

THE VOCATIVE FUNCTION

The core of the vocative function of language is the readership, the addressee. I usethe term 'vocative' in the sense of'calling upon' the readership to act, think or feel,in fact to 'react' in the way intended by the text (the vocative is the case used foraddressing your reader in some inflected languages). This function of language hasbeen given many other names, including 'conative' (denoting effort), 'instru-mental', 'operative' and 'pragmatic' (in the sense of used to produce a certain effecton the readership). Note that nowadays vocative texts are more often addressed to areadership than a reader. For the purposes of translation, I take notices, instruc-tions, publicity, propaganda, persuasive writing (requests, cases, theses) andpossibly popular fiction, whose purpose is to sell the book/entertain the reader, asthe typical 'vocative' text.

The first factor in all vocative texts is the relationship between the writer andthe readership, which is realised in various types of socially or personally deter-mined grammatical relations or forms of address: T (tu, du) and V (vous, Sie, usted)and other variant forms; infinitives, imperatives, subjunctives, indicatives, im-personal, passives; first and/or family names, titles, hypocoristic names; tags, suchas 'please', all play their part in determining asymmetrical or symmetrical relation-ships, relationships of power or equality, command, request or persuasion.

The second factor is that these texts must be written in a language that is

Function

Core

Author's status

Expressive

Writer

'Sacred'

Informative

Truth'

'Anonymous'

Vocative

Readership

'Anonymous'

TypeSerious imaginative

literatureAuthoritative statementsAutobiographyPersonal correspondence

TopicScientificTechnologicalCommercialIndustrialEconomic

Other areas ofknowledgeor events

FormatTextbookReportPaperArticleMemorandumMinutes

NoticesInstructionsPropagandaPublicityPopular fiction

FigureS. Language functions, text-categories and text-types

42 PRINCIPLES

immediately comprehensible to the readership. Thus for translation, the linguisticand cultural level of the SL text has to be reviewed before it is given a pragmaticimpact. Crudely, Gardez-vous d'une blessure narcissique, 'Take pride in yourappearance'.

Few texts are purely expressive, informative or vocative: most include allthree functions, with an emphasis on one of the three. However, strictly, theexpressive function has no place in a vocative or informative text - it is there onlyunconsciously, as 'underlife'. Most informative texts will either have a vocativethread running through them (it is essential that the translator pick this up), or thevocative function is restricted to a separate section of recommendation, opinion, orvalue-judgment; a text can hardly be purely informative, i.e. objective. An expres-sive text will usually carry information; the degree of its vocative component willvary and is a matter of argument among critics and translators, depending partly, atleast, on its proportion of 'universal' and 'cultural' components. The epithets'expressive', 'informative' and 'vocative' are used only to show the emphasis or'thrust' (Schwerpunki) of a text.

I have proposed three main types of texts, and in the next chapter I shallpropose methods of translating them. Consider now Jakobson's three otherfunctions of language: the aesthetic (called hy Jakobson the 'poetic'), the phaticand the metalingual.

THE AESTHETIC FUNCTION

This is language designed to please the senses, firstly through its actual or imaginedsound, and secondly through its metaphors. The rhythm, balance and contrasts ofsentences, clauses and words also play their part. The sound-effects consist ofonomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, metre, intonation, stress - some ofthese play a part in most types of texts: in poetry, nonsense and children's verse andsome types of publicity (jingles, TV commercials) they are essential. In many casesit is not possible to 'translate' sound-effects unless one transfers the relevantlanguage units: compensation of some kind is usually possible. In translatingexpressive texts - in particular, poetry - there is often a conflict between theexpressive and the aesthetic function ('truth' and 'beauty') - the poles of ugly literaltranslation and beautiful free translation.

Descriptive verbs of movement and action, since they describe a manner, arerich in sound effect; e.g. 'race', 'rush', 'scatter', 'mumble', 'gasp', 'grunt', etc., butnot hard to translate, unless the word is simply 'missing' in the other language(lexical gap), as this is a universal feature of languages.

In nonsense poetry, the sound-effect is more important than the sense: EinWiesel soft auf einem Kiesel Inmitten Bachgeriesel. 'A ferret nibbling a carrot in agarret.' 'A weasel perched on an easel within a patch of teasel.' In children's poetryand in the art-for-art literature of the end of the nineteenth century (Gautier,Swinburne, Verlaine, Dowson, etc.) (see Levy, 1969) euphonious 'beauty'

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS, TEXT-CATEGORIES AND TEXT-TYPES 43

precedes 'truth'. In other expressive texts, the expressive precedes the aestheticfunction, but if the translation is 'ugly' (cacophony), the purpose of the text isdefeated.

Metaphor is the link between the expressive and the aesthetic function.Through images, it is also language's only link with four of the five senses; byproducing tokens of smell ('rose', 'fish'), taste ('food'), touch ('fur', 'skin'), sight(all images), as well as the sound ('bird', 'bell') that language consists of, metaphorconnects the extra-linguistic reality with the world of the mind through language.Thus original metaphor, being both an expressive and an aesthetic component, hasto be preserved intact in translation.

Whilst the preceding four functions may operate throughout a text, thephatic and the metalingual are normally involved in only part of a text.

THE PHATIC FUNCTION

The phatic function of language is used for maintaining friendly contact with theaddressee rather than for imparting foreign information. Apart from tone of voice,it usually occurs in the form of standard phrases, or 'phaticisms', e.g. in spokenlanguage, therefore, in dialogue, 'How are you?', 'You know', 'Are you well?','Have a good week-end', 'See you tomorrow', 'Lovely to see you', 'Did you have agood Christmas?' and, in English, 'Nasty weather we're having', 'What an awfulday', 'Isn't it hot today?' (See Newmark, 1981.) Some phaticisms are 'universal',others (e.g. references to the weather) cultural, and they should be rendered bystandard equivalents, which are not literal translations. (References to the weathercan be modified by translating with a TL phaticism - Tu sais, il a fait vilain toute lasemaine.)

In written language, phaticisms attempt to win the confidence and thecredulity of the reader: 'of course', 'naturally', 'undoubtedly', 'it is interesting/important to note that', often flattering the reader: 'it is well known that'. . . Addto these the German modal particles (ja, eben, doch, etc.) and old-fashionedopenings and closings of official correspondence (retained in French). The onlytranslation problem I know is whether to delete or over-translate the modalparticles, or to tone down phaticisms that verge on obsequiousness (illustrissimoSignore Rossi, 'Mr Rossi', etc.)

THE METALINGUAL FUNCTION

Lastly, the metalingual function of language indicates a language's ability toexplain, name, and criticise its own features. When these are more or less universal(e.g. 'sentence', 'grammar', 'verb', etc.) - though they may not yet exist inlanguages which are only spoken or have had little contact with others - there is notranslation problem. However, if these items are language-specific, e.g. 'supine',

44 PRINCIPLES

'ablative', 'illative', 'optative', they have to be translated in accordance with thevarious relevant contextual factors (nature of readership, importance of item in SL,the SL and TL text, likely recurrences in TL etc.) ranging from detailed explana-tions, example and translations down to a culturally-neutral third term.

Note also that SL expressions signalling metalingual words, e.g. 'strictlyspeaking', 'in the true (or full) sense of the word', 'literally', 'so called', 'so tospeak', 'by definition', 'sometimes known as', 'as another generation put it', 'canalso mean', have to be treated cautiously, as the word following them in the SLwould not usually have precisely the same sense if translated one-to-one in the TL.Thus, to get both senses of 'For the last four years, I literally coined money', intoFrench and German: Ces quatre demises annees, j'aifrappe des pieces d'argent etj'aifait des affaires d'or; In den letzten vierjahren habe ich Miinzen geprdgt und auch vielGeldgescheffelt. (Ponderous translations.)

I have adopted and adapted the Biihler-Jakobson functions of languageoperationally as the most convenient way of looking at a text for translation. It isalso useful to divide texts by topic into three broad categories: (a) literary; (b)institutional; and (c) scientific - the latter including all fields of science andtechnology but tending to merge with institutional texts in the area of the socialsciences. Literary texts are distinguished from the rest in being more important intheir mental and imaginative connotations than their factual denotations.

C H A P T E R 5

Translation Methods

INTRODUCTION

The central problem of translating has always been whether to translate literally orfreely. The argument has been going on since at least the first century BC. Up to thebeginning of the nineteenth century, many writers favoured some kind of 'free'translation: the spirit, not the letter; the sense not the words; the message ratherthan the form; the matter not the manner. This was the often revolutionary sloganof writers who wanted the truth to be read and understood - Tyndale and Doletwere burned at the stake, Wvcliff s works were banned. Then at the turn of thenineteenth century, when the study of cultural anthropology suggested that thelinguistic barriers were insuperable and that language was entirely the product ofculture, the view that translation was impossible gained some currency, and with itthat, if attempted at all, it must be as literal as possible. This view culminated in thestatements of the extreme 'literalists' Walter Benjamin and Vladimir Nabokov.

The argument was theoretical: the purpose of the translation, the nature ofthe readership, the type of text, was not discussed. Too often, writer, translatorand reader were implicitly identified with each other. Now the context haschanged, but the basic problem remains.

I put it in the form of a flattened V diagram:

SL emphasisWord-for-word translation

Literal translationFaithful translation

Semantic translation

TL emphasisAdaptation

Free translationIdiomatic translation

Communicative translation

THE METHODS

Word-for-word translation

This is often demonstrated as interlinear translation, with the TL immediatelybelow the SL words. The SL word-order is preserved and the words translated

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