Translating, Adapting, Transposing

8/4/2019 Translating, Adapting, Transposing

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Translating, Adapting, Transposing

Nicola Dusi1

1. Semiotics

1.1. Semiotics of Texts, Semiotics of Cultures

In contemporary semiotics, much debate revolves around translation. It appears to be

a natural development of the constant focus on texts, whether examined singularly or in

relationship to one another. If semiotics is the study of signs, or rather, of systems of

signification, then we can immediately declare that a sign is first of all a reference to

something else, and that no system of signs or signification, and therefore no text, can ever

stand on its own. In other words, as one can easily observe in the production of culture, all

texts are supported by something else; they are produced, distributed, and absorbed,circulating in a culture always alongside other products, other texts that receive them,

associate with them, use them, cite them, and contaminate them. We agree with the

anthropologist James Clifford, who claims that the pure products go crazy (Clifford, 1998).

A swarm of texts, or rather, a web of references in endless translation with one another. As

Yuri Lotman (1984) would argue,translation constructs and at the same time dynamizes

cultural universes.

Studying texts, therefore, does not mean forgetting the contexts in which they produce

meanings that are socially shared. There is no contradiction: it is a question of thinking, for

example, of a film or a TV show drawn from literature not as a separate object, but as the

point of arrival in a process. On the one hand, this process has strong connections with the

sources, that is, with the texts from which the cinematographic (or television) product draws

themes, images, structures, and methods of storytelling. On the other hand, what is set in

motion is a negotiationand a comparison with the target culture, which is often radically

different from the source text it receives and decodes. It is thus important to examine not only

how the source text was adapted, but also the choices determined by the means utilized, as

well as the choices linked to the logistics of production and audience captivation, which

directly depend on the producers and the receivers in the target cultural system.

This kind of translation always entails ties and limitations, but it also allows for new

interpretative challenges.

If we explore the way in which the key moments of a novel are illustrated, or how a

novel becomes a film for the cinema or television, the main issue for semioticians is to try andaccount not only for the way in which every text produces meaning individually, but also for

the way in which it triggers a process of reciprocal translation that opens up interpretative

problems, and how all of this interacts with the addressees of the message.

1.2. Translation, Adaptation, Transposition: a Semiotic Challenge

We are especially concerned with a specific issue, the discussion of which requires a

brief summary of the current debate among Italian semioticians. In his recent book,Dire

quasi la stessa cosa (Saying Almost the Same Thing), Umberto Eco argues that every

translation is first of all a form of interpretation. According to Eco, when the expressivesubstance of a text is transformed, as when turning a novel into a film, it is incorrect to call
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that a translation as if it were an English poem being presented in Italian. In fact, the source

text is being bent to the demands of the target text, to its limitations or to its new expressive

potential. Furthermore, a film makes it necessary to show things left unsaid, that is, to make

audiovisually explicit that which the literary text could afford to merely hint at by making it

implicit or partially omitting it.

One of the examples used by Eco is drawn from Alessandro ManzonisThe Betrothed.In Chapter 10, when telling the story of the Nun of Monza, at a certain point Manzoni appears

reticent: it is up to the reader to imagine how the nun falls into perdition the moment in which

she begins her affair with Egidio, because the narration remains suspended at the famous

sentence: The poor wretch answered. It is the readers task to cooperate with the text, Eco

explains, it is he or she who must give a voice to that reticence, make hypotheses, and draw

proper (or improper) conclusions.

If in writing this is allowed, or rather, strategically constructed, what happens in acinematographic or television version of the written text? According to Eco, that answer

must manifest itself through some actions, whether they are suggested by a gesture, a smile, a

gleam in the eye, a tremor. The director and the screenwriter must therefore make certainchoices, decide what to reveal and how to reveal it, open up the implications of a story told

through physically different means. A film based on will then be, in each of its

manifestations (from the actors faces to their clothes, from the light on the set to the framing

of each picture), a question of challenges and decisions, that is, a series of interpretations, at

every level, of the literary text.

It is not, then, a mere translation, but more precisely, an adaptation, argues Eco,

because in moving from the literary to its representation, the interpretation is mediated by the

adapter, and is not left at the mercy of the addressee. While in literary translation the

translators point of view tends to remain hidden (except in footnotes), in adaptions, according

to Eco, the critical perspective becomes predominant.Eco is certainly correct in insisting on the interpretative stage of every transposition,

but it is possible to explore other aspects as well and, as some scholars have done, propose a

reflection that still refers to the relationship between a novel and a film in terms oftranslation. Following Lotman, Paolo Fabbri argues that every system of signs can be

translated into another system of signs. For example, novelistic writing can be translated into

a film for the television or cinema, and when instances of untranslatability occur, it is a

question of changing strategy, in order to allow every fundamental element of the source text

to come through. A translation from a novel, Fabbri explains, is always

an intersensitiveprocess, and therefore one must take into account all the meanings of the

work in order to understand and appreciate the film. For example, an emotion (which

constitutes a central problem in the relationship between literature and audiovisual fiction)can be translated by using music, color, a soft or blinding light, or a combination of these

various languages.

Mid-way between Eco and Fabbri is Omar Calabrese, who defines translation as a

textual and individual phenomenon, tied each time to the choices and goals of a single

product. According to Calabrese, translating means not only interpreting, but above

all transferring the meaning of a text into another, with inevitable transformations. This

means regarding translation not as something closed and permanent, but as a process that

operates on the style of the target text to reformulate some levels of equivalence or similarity

with the source text. Such process always takes into account the meaning effects

(communication objectives) that the novel wanted to create in relation to those which the newtext (film or other) intends to maintain, eliminate, transform, or reformulate.
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Accordingly, Calabrese suggests an innovative translation of the source text: a

method of translating that looks for unique traits in the original text; for example, in a novel, it

will seek those characteristics that constitute its aesthetic and peculiar nature, its originality. A

translation of this kind challenges the text from which it proceeds, it reopens it and wagers

that even the target text can take on the dignity of the source text, and add to it its own

uniqueness, as well. For this reason, Calabrese explains, we love certain translations that arenot at all accurate, but infinitely better than others that slavishly follow the model but fail to

grasp its essence. And for the same reason, the cinematographic translation of a literary work

(ex. Werner HerzogsNosferatu, based on Bram StokersDracula) may enthral us more than aliterary translation. Instead of adaptation, then, we shall refer to it more properly

as transposition.

In the etymology of the word, the use of the prefix /tras/ (which is analogous to /trans/)entails both trespassing (as in transgressing) and transferring (as in transfusing),

drawing attention on the act of going beyondthe source text by passing through it or by

multiplying its potential. Already in the dictionary, transpositionis a modification in the

position of specific elements within a precise order that had been previously constituted

(Devoto-Oli, ad vocem). While the term adaptation calls to mind an inevitable form ofreduction, speaking oftransposition carries with it the idea of something that survives the

passage from one text to the other respecting differences and elements of continuity.

However, in order to make this textual transformation successful, it is still necessary to keep

in mind its objectives, among which that of addressing a specific target culture.

1.3. Spirit of the Novel or Literal Meaning? A Moot Issue

Most recent translation theories distinguish between a strict (almost mathematical)equivalence and a loose, more flexible equivalence between texts. It is the latter we have in

mind when we speak of degree equivalence, one where different degrees of equivalence are

applied to the various translations. Semiotics proposes to think of texts as layered objects,

formed by mutually dependent levels: the textual layers one chooses to consider will

determine whether or not it is worth discussing fidelity in the case of a transposition of a

novel into a film.

Transposing means taking into account, for example, the main motifs and figures of

the novel, the plot, the narrators who lead us or mislead us, and the literary forms with which

all of this is communicated. In short, it means considering the whole style of the source text.

The challenge, then, becomes translating the styleof the novel into a film, if by style we

mean the combination of the texts expression form and content form, logically molded bythe enunciative strategies (as Christian Metz would argue).

Furthermore, when we speak of equivalence, we consider it not only in relation to the

source text, but always as a dynamic, flexible and contractualequivalence, aimed at retracing

the forms of communication that the novel had constructed for its readers, and rethinking

them for its new addressee, the audience.

In a translation or a transposition, a true communicative actis performed between

different cultures and semiotics. If a comparison or a conflictual relationship can and must be

set in motion between the source novel and the target film, it is the work of the translators,

from the screenwriter to the director, that becomes necessary to adjust the text to be translated

to ones own objectives and at the same time build a comparison among values, conventions,

and norms dictated by the respective cultural systems to which the texts belong.


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A transposition (or transmutation, according to Jakobson, 1959: 261) clearly

aims at emphasizing the implicit features. It suffices to think of the inevitable imposition of

choices and semantic variations, of the connotative spheres that are culturally marked, and the

unavoidable variations in discursive strategies. In analyzing a transposition, one is faced with

textual choices that gradually enhance potential or actual techniques of similarity, strategies

that privilege certain levels of relevance in the translational relation between the two texts.Indeed, translating an enunciation is not merely a question of seeking ways to

transpose the same points of view on the story by means of focalization or

ocularization. It means instead keeping in mind a global relation that connects the

dynamics of expression to the enunciative and enunciational processes, informing all levels of

the text.

In this sense we can refer to it as a textual strategy of transposition thatcan choose (or

reject) equivalence or similarity in relation to the source text, a global enunciative strategy

that activates the interpretative phase. A strategy that organizes the syncretization methods of

the various languages of audiovisual semiotics, for example, is also a constantly new

interpretative choice as to which plastic contrasts to trigger or defuse within the text, and

which connections or fractures among the various languages to actualize or virtualize. In fact,even on a plastic level, a film, just like any other visual medium, already carries

acommunicative intention that can be identified through textual analysis.

2. Aesthetic Text, Syncretic Text: Levels of Relevance in the Analysis

A syncretic text such as film contains multiple languages, and a transposition entails

changes in matter, substance, and form of the level of expression in contrast to a literary text.

For these reasons it is necessary to remember that every film must always be considered

an aesthetic text, in which the level of expression and the level of content both determine theoverall construction of meaning.

The translations-interpretations that the new text proposes by staging them explicitly

or constructing them implicitly will therefore include all levels of the text.

For this reason, when analyzing an adaptation, or rather, a transposition, it is necessary

first of all to clarify which level of relevance will be followed. One might choose to limit the

analysis to a comparison of narrative structures and, along that line, retrace the elements that

were deleted, added, expanded, or condensed in the film. Alternatively, one might opt to

consider the series of enunciative strategies and the overall construction of the story. Such

construction can be regarded as a mediation toward the production of discourse (whether

actorial, spatial, or temporal) activated by the enunciation inscribed in the texts. Thanks to this

mediation, the themes and abstract values which make up the universe of meaning in theliterary work are converted into concrete and recognizable values, themes, and icons, that is,

into discoursive configurations that, in a literary or audiovisual text, are always presented

through specific points of view.

The target text is thus transformed according to the strategies and translation

techniques one chooses to adopt, and more so when translating from single-medium texts to

syncretic texts, which are inevitably different from the source text even in the construction of

meaning effects. However, what I would like to emphasize is how the source text, a novel or

short story, or even a comic book, a painting, or another film (in the case of a remake)

occasionally offers interpretative paths that can become, as I argued earlier, actual re-

semantizations (Lotman, 1993).
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If in our analysis we accept the notion that a translation is always an interpretation,

founded on polemical and contractual relations between an Addresser (who enunciates or

stages a narration) and an Addressee (who is expected to listen, read, or watch), then the

process of translation/transposition can follow at least two possible directions: it can lead the

audience to comprehend the universe of meaning of the source text (source-

orientedapproach); or it can serve the need to transform the target text in view of the targetcultural system (target orientedapproach).

In my opinion, a hypothesis of equivalence between texts related by translation can be

found in a coherent reformulation of meaning effects that are analogous, though not

necessarily identical, to those in the source text, but only if the film aims at maintaining this

type of connection with the novel. Such a method may be less refined than others which play

with subtle references and intertextual (and deconstructive) allusions, but it is perhaps more

respectful of the intentions expressed by the source text.

As I argued earlier, the challenge of a comparative analysis that takes into account the

phenomena of intersemiotic translation applies not only to the strategies deployed by the

target text (i.e. the movie) on the level of content, but also to the necessity to confront its

choices on the level of expression. It is precisely by pursuing an esthesis of the level ofexpression that a cinematographic transposition constructs internal systems of resonance and

signification that can be regarded as answers to the lyricism of the literary text. This is

particularly true for semiotic relations occurring under the explicit level of signs(Greimas,

ANO: 36), that is, in semiotic terms, on the plastic and iconic levels, since the iconic

succumbs as an invariable to the figurative level in the relationship between the expression

form and the content form. This is achieved through enunciative strategies that can be

made explicit thanks to textual analysis. Such strategies aim at promoting a sort of

intersubstantial equivalence of expression through the plastic codes of the target text.

3. Levels of Equivalence and Local Tactics

It is therefore possible to highlight some active levels of equivalence even between

source texts and target texts which, at first sight, appear to be very different, as for example a

novel and a film. The latter may in fact represent a coherent reformulation of the former, and

share with it the construction of space or the emotional transformations of the subjects of the

narrative.

A semiotic analysis can retrace the itinerary of translation starting from the target text

and working its way back from the film to the novel, in the belief that, as Andr Bazin (ANO)

argued, a good translation opens up and multiplies the source text, and as we argued, it can

re-semanticize it, making us rediscover it through its new interpretation. One can examine,for example, the value, narrative, and discourse not only of the two texts in translation, but

also of the pragmatic and cooperative strategies inherent in proposing a privileged way of

reading, and therefore a model reader and viewer.

Thus, a transposition can also adopt a global strategy of differentiation with regards

to the literary text from which it originates, while maintaining at the same time some textual

levels of equivalence, some areas of actual intersemiotic translation.

These are the local tactics (to be distinguished from a broader textual strategy) that

make it possible to speak of translatability among different semiotic systems such as a book or

a film.

Translated from the Italian by Dr. Marella Feltrin-Morris


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References

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Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Yuri M. Lotman. O semiosfere.Trudy po znakovym sistemam 17: 5-23. 1984.Yuri Lotman.Kultura i Vzryv. Moskow: Gnosis, 1993, 113-14.

Christian Metz,Lenunciazione impersonale o il luogo del film. Naples: Ed. Scientifiche

Italiane, 1995. (First edition: 1991), 115 n.10.

Umberto Eco,Dire quasi la stessa cosa. Esperienze di traduzione. Milan: Bompiani, 2003.

Umberto Eco,Experiences in Translation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.

Paolo Fabbri, Due parole sul trasporre.Versus 85-86-87 (2000) 271-84. The monograph

title is Sulla traduzione intersemiotica. Eds. Nicola Dusi and Siri Nergaard.

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traduzione intersemiotica).Versus 85-86-87 (2000) 101-20. The monograph title is Sulla

traduzione intersemiotica.

Giacomo Devoto and Giancarlo Oli,Dizionario della lingua italiana. Florence: Le Monnier,

1990.

Roman Jakobson. On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.On Translation. Ed. Reuben A.

Brower. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959.

Franois Jost,Lil-camra. Entre film et roman. Lyon: PUL, 1987. 77-78.

Algirdas J. Greimas, Smiotique figurative et smiotique plastique.Actes smiotiques,

Documents 60: 36.

Algirdas J. Greimas and Joseph Courts. Smiotique. Dictionnaire raisonn de la thorie du

language. Paris: Hachette, 1979.

Andr Bazin, Journal dun cur de campagne et la stilistique de Robert Bresson.Cahiers

du Cinma 3: 12.Umberto Eco. The Role of the Reader: Exploration in the Semiotics of Texts . Bloomington,

IN: Indiana University Press, 1979, 7.

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