Translation & Rainfall
By Alireza Yazdunpanuh,
Allameh Tabataba-ee University, Iran
yazdunpanuh_alireza@yahoo.com
http://www.accurapid.com/journal/33metaphor.htm
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Consider an ocean, deep and blue. The
sun shines bright. The water in the ocean evaporates
up into the sky. Gradually, clouds are formed and
winds take them away, far into another territory.
Once the vapor is cold and dense, it falls down in
the form of rain. Some of the droplets fall over the
salty rocks. Some go deep into the earth. Some fall
directly into the sea. Among those that flow on the
ground, some-raindrops unite to form streams; streams
unite to form rivers, and rivers finally join another
ocean with different characteristics, but the same
essence.
The first ocean is analogous to the
whole knowledge of the source-text nation (or linguistic
territory/language). The limited amount of water evaporated
is the source text; the process of evaporation is
the process of comprehension of the ST by the translator,
the clouds are what the source text creates in the
translator's mind; the geographical movement of the
clouds is the shift from one linguistic territory
into another (again, within the translator's mind);
the rainfall is the process of putting abstract meaning
into words of the target language.
Conclusions:
- There is no "bad translation" if it
is genuine. There can be, however, poor ones.
- There can never be machine-translators
in the sense that there are, for example, machine
chess players.
- There can be no definition of good translation
unless the user and the total circumstance under
which he/she is using the translated text are specified.
- Instead of arguing over priority of form over
content, etc. translator training courses should
focus on developing comprehension skills in the
source language and writing/speaking skills in the
target one. These courses should be much more flexible
and include flexibility as an intrinsic part of
the course material. I dare say, a single method
cannot be specified as the "best" not
only for a single literary genre, but even for a
single literary work or even a single page of that
work! Didn't you see that every snowflake has its
own unique shape, all of them beautiful?
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