- Creative Translation محاضرة 1 The origin of the word creativity comes from the Latin term creō "to create, make" The word "create" appeared in English as early as the 14th century, notably in Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400, to indicate divine creation you need to be very careful when translating words like: to create, creation, creator as these words still have their own religious In Arabic, خ لق خ ل ق خ ا ل ق : as connotations such you could always use alternatives such as : اخترع أوجد أبدع وغيرها this will depend on the type of text and the context it is used in. The dictionary definition of word creative is inventive and imaginative ; characterized by originality of thought, having or showing imagination, talent, inspiration, productivity, fertility, ingenuity, inventiveness, cleverness Geoffrey Chaucer Michael Mumford indicate divine creation in the Parson s Tale that creativity involves the production of novel, useful products Creativity can also be as the process of producing something that is both original and worthwhile defined refers to the invention or origination of any new thing (a product, solution, artwork, literary work, joke, etc.) that has value. "New" may Creativity refers to refer to the individual creator or the society or domain within which novelty occurs. "Valuable", similarly, may be defined in a variety of ways. 1
is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Linda Naiman Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative. Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Rollo May creativity requires : passion and commitment. Out of the creative act is born symbols and myths. Sternberg & Lubart A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not predictable. The bigger the concept and the more the product stimulate further work and ideas, the more the product is creative. suggests that Exact translation is impossible, implying the Susan Bassnett translatability of untranslatable things but at certain degrees of approximation or sameness. 2
realises that the translator is required to painstakingly reveal E. Gentzler competence as literary citric, historical scholar, linguistic technician, and creative artist. ) This vision seems to limit creativity to the ability of creating new ideas A modern vision According to psychologists creativity is an intellectual capacity for invention. main target to prove that translation: is not an ordinary activity of everyday life, but rather a real field of creativity. is defined as a rewriting process which meets three independent requirements: accuracy, naturalness and communication The first :is bound up with transmitting the overall meaning of the ST accurately. Ideally creative translation the second : with applying suitable natural forms of TL to the ST. the third : with carrying the meaning and emotional force of the ST to the target reader, as much effectively as they are communicated to the ST readers. 3
points out: The text reads well but elegant creativity should Dagmar Knittlova not make. the text sound better, more vivid than its original version, even if the translator is stylistically talented, gifted and inventive. The equivalence theory is followed by an endless list of translators, but not without problems at words and lexical. inventive and imaginative The dictionary definition of word creative which, while being unexceptionable, lacks the very quality that characterises the creative: an amalgamation of surprise, simplicity and utter rightness (leading one to exclaim, Now, why didn t I think of that before?). The question of equivalence Francis Jones gets much more complicated when specific words or structures of a language find no equivalent or even approximate meanings in another language. creativity in translation means generating target text solutions that are both novel and appropriate literary texts such as orations, poetry, drama, short story, novels, are the areas where creativity in translation is most apparent in the special challenge that these literary and classical texts present for the translator. How to convey the dimensions of experience and meaning that may well have no precise counterpart in the target language 4
Problems & Pitfalls in Creative Translation محاضرة 2 Translation is not simply confined to the movement of ideas and information between two distinct languages interpretation it occurs between different historical periods, dialects and registers of one and the same language, between different state of mind. such as dreaming and waking between fictional narrative and critical analysis between literal and figurative between thought and word even. Translation from one language to another is merely a subset, a special case of communication Types of Problems and pitfalls in creative translation : 1. Semantic Shifts Over Time ( silly sooth, simple truth ) ( دع األيام تفعل ما تشاء وطب نفسا إذا حكم القضاء ( liberties.2 Poetic licence or )نفحات االنس ( Meaning 3. Multiple or Compound Multiple 4. Rhyme and Verse ( When he smells the scent of the rose, he wants to see it, When he sees the face of the rose, he wants to pluck it) 5. Cultural Allusion ( the Thousand and one Nights / Open, Sesame! ) 6. Technical Termsb ( love) 7. Concepts that lack a counterpart in the target language ( dhikr) 5
- Methods & Approaches to Creative Translation محاضرة - 3 David Pendlebury According to David Pendlebury : creative translation usually involves two recognisable main stages:a Two-Stage Approach to creative translation : 1. Firstly we produce a draft translation of the original that is as literal and accurate as possible. [we are bound to gaping holes and pitfalls ] [ be noted and left where they are] [throw up a number of gaffes and misconceptions ] 2. Second We then translate this draft, with only minimal reference to the original [This stage of weaning away from the original] Patricia Terry a translator will always be motivated by a vision of language. Where poetry translation =often means a vision of that peculiar force and strength This peculiar force and strength is crucial in justifying those moves poetry translators. Robert Bly one will find the challenges intertwined into one difficulty, something immense, knotted, exasperating, fond of disguises, resistant, confusing, all of a piece 6
Dixon 1- is impossible to find any blueprint that can tackle this complexity without missing something. 2- The holisticness in poetry translation originates in the very essence of poetry, as well as in all forms of literature and art: the unity and dynamism, the shell and the kernel in the work, may prove one. Dixon This organic interrelation of the elements inside a poem is unavoidable highlighted by translation. And in translation, this holisticness, or aesthetic coherence, will need to be regenerated through the system that the translator fabricates Andre Lefevere advances 7 strategies and a blueprint to examine and compare the strengths and weaknesses different approaches may have. They include: 1- adopting different elements of the ST. 2- as well as the phonemic unit. 3- the literal meaning. 4- the metre and the rhythm of the ST. 5- as the basic upon which the TT may develop. 6- and adapting the ST into another genre, such as prose or free verse in the 7
following originally Japanese Poem translated into English and then translated into Arabic prose By Muhammad AlNuaimi (forthcoming) Octavio Paz Octavio Paz looks at translation as both bilingual and a bicultural activity. Octavio Paz looks forward to the translating culture for a general basis on which creative negotiation may occur in translation. Believing parallelism, an aesthetic quality prevalent in Arabic literature, to be of key importance in exploring this realm, Paz devices own translating strategy in his attempt on Arabic poetry: to retain the number of lines of each poem, not to scorn assonances and to respect, as much as possible, the parallelism Paz s approach manifests the significance that translation is not only a bilingual activity but, in fact, also a bicultural one. Substitution approach one of a number of concepts and techniques in the general class of ordered metamorphosis. 8
Substitution can operate in a way that maintains the matter and logic of a theme while altering the expression convention Literary Translation (Lecture 4) Typical features of literature as a super-genre or attributed to literary texts include the following: 1- They have a written base-form, though they may also be spoken. 2- They enjoy canonicity (high social prestige) 3- They fulfill an effective/aesthetic rather transactional or informational function, aiming to provoke emotions and/or entertain rather than influence or inform; 4- They have no real-world value- i.e. they are judged as fictional, whether fact-based or not, 5- They feature words, images, etc.., with ambiguous and/or indeterminable meanings; 6- They are characterized by poetic language use (where language form is important in its own n right, as with word-play or rhyme) and heteroglossia (i.e. they contain more than one voice ) 7- They may draw on minoritized style- styles outside the dominant standard, for example slang or archaism. Literature may also be seen as a cluster of conventionally-agreed component genres. Conventional core literary genres are Drama, Poetry and fictional prose such as novels and short stories 9
peripherally literary genres : where criteria such as written base form, canonicity or functionality are relaxed as in the case of children s literature and sacred texts genres, conventionally : seen as non-literay may have literary features: advertising copy, for example. Thus while understanding and (re) writing literary texts forms part of the literary translator s expertise Traditionally, translation theories derived largely from literary and sacred-text translation Thus the interminable debates over Equivalence, whether framed as a word-for-word vs. sense for sense opposition, are relevant to literary translation but much less so to scientific and technical translation. Literary translation studies have traditionally concentrated on source-target text relations. Theoretical discussions focus on two closely-related issues: 1- equivalence 2- communicative purpose. 1-In terms of equivalence =the question is whether translators can ever replicate the complex web of stylistic features found in many literary texts. 2-In terms of communicative purpose =the question is how far translators should prioritize loyalty to the source writer versus producing a text that works in receptor-genre terms. 11
the translation of style : First = it inadvertently defines the writer s cultural space time. Secondly = writers may deliberately use non-standard styles- archaism. dialect or a style idiosyncratic to the writer. Literary translating may also be seen as a communication process: Two broad translation-studies approaches address this aspect: 1- largely data-driven, 2- one largely theory-driven. The first : data-driven approach treats translation as behaviour for example :Poetry translators,can spend considerable time brainstorming ways of reproducing a source text items mulit-valency (e.g its style-marking, associative meaning, etc.). The second :approach to literary translation as a process is more theory-drive and may be term cognitive-pragmatic These studies attempt to model communication between source writer, translator-as-reader, translator-as-rewriter and target reader. Literary translation is also a form of action in a real-word context This context may be examined in terms of gradually widening networks translation : 1- production teams. 11
2- the communities of interest 3- fields 4- systems with which they operate. Other issues which are central to the real-world context of literary translating are connected with the subject-setting relationship: 1- ideology 2- identity 3- ethics. 12