Response paper on “The Task of the Translator” by Walter Benjamin

In his essay The Task of the Translator, Walter Benjamin treats translation in an almost romantic sense. For Benjamin, translation seems to be a medium to reach what he calls “pure language”. This language can be realized through the process of translation in which two very different languages get into an interaction, which Benjamin denotes as the ultimate purpose of translation. The languages are naturally related in what they wish to say and according to Benjamin, the kinship of languages comes to be more evident in translation. The languages and thus the literary works change in time, or “slowly ripen” in Benjamin’s terms, and translation, as a communicative mode, is the one that keeps this ever-changing pulse of languages.

Benjamin goes on to argue that individual languages, words and sentences lack the profound meaning which actually gains its significance through translation that harmonizes all meanings in it and results in a universal language. Here, Benjamin totally focuses on the expression and language without content. Translations’, and thus the translator’s, ultimate task is not to transfer meaning but translate as close to the original as possible, via dealing mainly with the syntax and its way of expressing notions in the target language. The ultimate purpose of the translator should not be communicating or rendering the sense but to “redeem universal language from the exile in alien, to free it by translation from the work that enthralls it.” (1968: 94), which is a notion that I find rather mystic and romantic. For Benjamin, “genuine translation is translucid; it does not veil the original text nor shadow it. Rather it allows the radiance of universal language” (1968: 92) It is only in this way that the real meaning of “fidelity” can be achieved through an adherence to the syntax. It’s the syntax that gives the meaning to the words, which are “the translator’s raw material” (1968:92) and “…fidelity to the word, literalness of felt verbal meaning, is the colonnade through which the original can be seen.” (1968:92)

I think it is also remarkable that Benjamin does not take the reader into consideration. He starts his essay with the words, “In the appreciation of a work of art or an art form, consideration of the receiver never proves fruitful. No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener” (1968:77) Disregarding the communicative value of the translator and the receptive end, I believe, seems to set the translator free off his/her bounds. However, I think such an aesthetic approach also carries the risk of producing an opposite result, i.e. an unaesthetical one, due to firm adherence to the syntax of the source language.

References

Benjamin, Walter, “The Task of the Translator” in Delos A Journal on & of Translation, National Translation Center, No:2, Austin, Texas: 1968.

Response Paper on Post-Colonial Writing and Literary Translation by Maria Tymoczko

In Post-colonial Writing and Literary Translation, Maria Tymockzo sets out to explore the commonalities and differences between literary translations and post-colonial writing. The first difference she points out at is that the post-colonial writers are not just transposing a text like the translators are but that they ground their work on an entire culture, which is composed of a language, a cognitive system, a literature, a material culture, a social system, a legal framework , a history and so forth (1999:20). Tymoczko, who defines the translator’s domain, i.e. the source-text, as somewhat limited compared to that of the post-colonial writer, goes on to explain that as far as their tasks are concerned the two “writers” share a similarity in that while the translator deals with a text, the post-colonial writer tackles with a metatext of culture itself. (1999:21)

In the sense of such a “metatext”, Tymoczko argues that the post-colonial writer is fairly free in choosing which cultural elements to reflect in his/her work as opposed to the translator, who is bound by some parameters of constraint since s/he deals with a “fixed text” which includes various cultural and linguistic givens and thus leaving him/her with the problem of “faithfulness” (1999:21) Dealing with a source text which is already dense with cultural elements specific to the source culture, the translator may either end up with an “obscured or muted” (1999:21) text and be less faithful or produce a text that carries the risk of overflowing with information which might be difficult for the receiving audience to digest. Then, the translator is presented with a set of choices as to which elements to preserve (or not) in translation (1999:22) just like the post-colonial writer who makes decisions as to which cultural elements to elevate or assimilate, which I believe is an argument that may be extended as to re-evaluate both the translator’s and the post-colonial writer’s role as decision makers as well as cultural experts. In that sense, I believe that although Tymoczko seems to be constantly drawing attention to the distinctions between the translated and post-colonial writing, she, at the same time, implies that they are actually not that far from each other in that they share the same constraints brought upon by their intercultural nature. Yet again, the fact that both of these types of intercultural writing make use of the paratextual elements, such as footnotes, introductions, critical essays and maps in order to be more explanatory for the receiving end, (1999:22) indicates another similarity in the strategies employed by their writers while also pointing at a need for filling in the gaps that emerge from linguistic and cultural constraints, especially in the case of translations. This brings along the issue of “complete” translation. For Tymoczko, it is impossible to render a source text fully with every bit of its aspects and that the “obligatory shifts”, in Anton Popovic’s terms, are inevitable due to either linguistic aspects or unfamiliar cultural features of the source text that leaves the translator with great information load. (1999:23)

Tymoczko goes on to draw an analogy between the translator’s rewriting of a text and minority-culture writer’s representing the home culture in a metatext, stating that just like translations post-colonial writings cannot transpose everything in the literary format they choose(1999:23). The selection of features of a particular source text by the translator, such as his/her privileging genre or form over those of content or language is just as valid in the case of post-colonial writers, who will tend to simplify their work to be more “clear” via elevating some aspects of the home culture over others. (1999:24) As a result, the source text gets rewritten in various ways in the hands of different translators, just like the source culture gets rewritten by its writers, leading to various different interpretations.

Another strategy adopted by the writers of post-colonial texts, which is addressed by Tymoczko is that customs, beliefs and myths which might be unfamiliar for the prospective target readers from a dominant culture tends to be explained explicitly, like in translations. However, if the work is intended for an audience that shares the same culture, those aspects generally remain implicit. (1999:28) In the former situation, both translators and post-colonial writers end up with texts full of unintelligible material to the international readers, thus necessitating what Andre Lefevere prefers to call “professional readers”, who are equipped with enough knowledge to decode but only make up a small part of the readers’ world. As far as the latter strategy is concerned, there is always the possibility of producing texts with large amounts of explicit information, (1999:29) which always carries the risk of tiring the reader away, thus reaching a small minority again. Finally, I think that Tymoczko rightfully refers to a somewhat neglected fact regarding the reception of post-colonial writings and their translations in the literary world. She deems it ironic that cultural elements preserved and conveyed through linguistically and stylistically inventive ways developed by the post-colonial author receives praise while the same tactic employed by the translators faces rejection. (1999:36). In that respect, I agree with Tymoczko and believe that re-evaluation of translation strategies and their dynamics through an analysis of post-colonial literature can lead to a better understanding of the translator’s role as a decision maker and rewriter, whose rendition of the source text can be just as powerful as the author in shaping or reshaping the image of the culture it belongs to.

References:

Tymoczko, M., “Post-Colonial Writing and Literary Translation” in Post-Colonial Translation Theory and Practice (edited by Bassnett S. and Trivedi H.), Routledge, London and New York:1999.

Response Paper on Part 3 of Douglas Robinson's Translation and Empire.

Translation as Empire: The Theoretical Record

In part three of his book Translation and Empire, Douglas Robinson traces back roots of postcolonial approaches in the history of translation theory in order to get a grasp of the imperial themes that have been pushed into the periphery or kept underground all along. For Robinson, translation’s relation with political issues of domination and submission came to be neglected for so long due to scholar’s great emphasis on treating it solely as a technical and linguistic entity. (1997:50) Then he sets out to draw the rather fuzzy contours of backgrounding of empire through an analysis of Cicero and Horace’s quotes, the tradition of translatio studii the imperii in ancient and medieval world, and the metaphor of ‘taking the original captive’. (1997:50)

Although Cicero and Horace came to be seen as the first theorists of translation, Robinson does not think that this designation is appropriate since Cicero “was only to formulate something that most people today consider the right approach to translation” (1997:47) Robinson goes onto argue that Cicero’s notion of sense-for-sense, coined by Jerome, along with Horace’s warning against word-for-word have almost always been taken out of context and misread as theories. When read between the lines, Robinson thinks that Horace’s writings give the first clues of imperial line of thought, in which he does not actually refer to the translator but to the writer, in other words the translator as a rewriter. Taking Horace’s advice on appropriating the tale of Troy for the Roman culture as an example, Robinson maintains that “Horace is calling upon Roman writers not only to establish their originality vis-à-vis the original text …. but to appropriate Greek culture for Imperial Rome” (1997:51), concluding that the main agenda here was not to achieve an ideal in terms of translation but to “conquer”. The notion of conquest, Robinson argues, also underlines the implicit imperial contexts in the translations of other ancient writers. By drawing largely upon the widespread medieval trope of translato studii et imperii (translation of learning and empire), which entertains the idea that both knowledge and imperial control of the world move in a westerly direction, the Christian idealization of transforming the “pagan” into a “believer of God” could justify the assimilative translations of great classics of prechristian era. Here, Robinson gives the example of Ovid transformed into a Christian author with a concern of “medieval Christian reader’s doctrinal needs” (1997: 53), which also meant that Ovid was now a property of the Christian world.

Robinson also draws attention to the “captivity metaphor” in translation, quoting Jerome , 'like some conqueror, he marched the original text, a captive into his native language’ (1997:55) In a way, the translator turns into a captivator while the original text, thus its author turns into his captive, which puts the translation into the realm of power struggle. Robinson also relates this thinking to the imperialistic tendency to regard the target culture to be superior over the source culture or feeling threatened by the rich cultural hegemony of the source culture. Just like in German Romantics case, where the German resisted to the growing French hegemony and resorted to realizing their, in Robinson’s words, “imperial dreams” (1997: 60) through keeping their texts foreign in order to feed the cultural veins of the German literary field. Robinson’s conclusion shows that as opposed to the assimilative translations, foreignization in literary works, as advocated by German Romantics like Schegel or Scheleimarcher, were not actually elevated for the sake of giving a “taste of the foreign” but conquering/capturing the foreign’s best qualities to create an ideal nation state.

As a final thought, I think that Robinson's quote from Nietzsche makes up the essence of Robinson's main argument in this chapter and throughout the book. Nietzsche says that “Indeed, translation was a form of conquest. Not only did one omit what was historical, one also added allusions to the present and, above all, struck out the name of the poet and replaced with one’s own – not with any sense of theft but with best conscience of the imperium Romanum.”(1997:62). In the light of these words, I think it is relevant to conclude that the idea of “conquest” becomes the leitmotif in the evolution of post colonial approaches, with the language being its most important weapon.

References

Robinson, D., Translation and Empire, St.Jerome, Manchester:1997

Response Paper on Translation and The Trials of the Foreign by Anton Berman

In his article, Translation and The Trials of the Foreign, Antoine Berman is mainly concerned with what he calls “textual deformation” embedded in the nature of translation that results in prevention of the reader from experiencing the foreign, in other words “trial of the foreign”. His departure point for this analytic of translation is mainly the domain of literary prose, the novel and the essay. However, he sets out from a somewhat negative point of view as regards to prose, stating that it had been traditional to deem prose writing “shapeless” in the sense that it “mobilizes and activates the totality of languages that coexist in any language”, thus creating a huge linguistic mass, which leaves the author helpless to control its texture. Though he likens masterworks of prose to examples of “bad writing”, he thinks they are rich in texture due to their polylingual value.

Berman sets out to determine several deforming tendencies in terms of translation of literary works, which are too many to cover in this response paper, so I will refer to four of them, which I think are intermingled with one another. The first tendency that Berman focuses is rationalization, which he explains as “recomposing sentences and the sequence of sentences, rearranging them according to a certain idea of discursive order.” While Berman thinks that rationalization deforms the original and reverses its basic tendency and thus attributes a negative value to the act, Anton Popovic prefers to call such changes in semantic properties of the text as “shifts of expression”. For Popovic the translator resorts or has to resort to making shifts to preserve the norm of the “original” but the result does not always have to be the destruction of the strata, the depths and the polylogism of the text as Berman suggests. As Popovic maintains incorporation of the linguistic impression of the original cannot be accomplished directly but via appropriate shifts.

Another tendency that Berman postulates is clarification which basically involves explicitation, which he either relates to the literary language of the target culture or to the goal of rendering clear what the author wishes to keep ambiguous in the original. Berman connects this tendency to another one; expansion that he thinks stems from rationalization and clarification processes. He uses the term overtranslation and makes a generalization that every translation tends to be longer than the original. For Berman, expansion stretches and impedes with the rhythm of the text.

Ennoblement, as Berman puts it, is another tendency which is a type of “rewriting” , a “stylistic exercise” at the expense of the original. He draws attention to how this procedure of making texts “readable” so as to enhance the meaning is very common in the literary field. I inevitably find this tendency relevant to Andre Lefevere’s notion of rewriting which feeds mainly from the disciplines such as translation, historiography, anthologization, criticism and editing. As Lefevere puts it, the non-professional reader reads literature as written by its rewriters and it has always been that way. Berman calls this act of rewriting as “banalizing” in order to assign those texts a predominant place.

In my opinion, while the presence of the source-text’s linguistic and semantic values in his comparative approach puts Berman in a source-oriented realm, his insistence on the translator’s role in rendering the true meaning as well as preserving the foreignness of the text shows that he actually seeks to emphasize the source-culture elements inherent in the text and to let the reader have a taste of the foreign.

Response Paper on “The Nature and Role of Norms in Literary Translation” by Gideon Toury

In an attempt to develop his idea of translation as a norm-governed activity in “The Nature and Role of Norms in Literary Translation”, Gideon Toury first sets out to draw a picture of the translator as a “social practitioner” and the translational activity s/he carries out as culturally significant. In that respect, the translator who is inevitably bound by cultural constraints, in other words, Norms, acts in accordance with them.

Toury postulates that there are at least two sets of norm-systems, which derive from two sources, that of the source and the target culture. While on one level, occupying a position in a certain culture and language is required for a text to of value, on the other level, constituting a representation in another culture and language is a must. The gap between both levels is often a consequence of great incompatibility but thanks to regulating mission of norms, it is reduced to the lowest possible degree. For Toury, it is up to the translator to determine her/his “initial norm” in pursuit of adequacy or acceptability, comprising two poles of a continuum. While adherence to norms of the source text characterizes an adequate translation, subscribing to the target culture norms determines acceptability. Although still norm-governed, both strategies require shifts from source texts. However, deviation from norms, thus the lack of appropriate shifts, may result in an idiosyncratic product, which is considered to be too unusual to be accepted by the society.

In an overview of translational norms, Toury distinguishes two types of norms, namely preliminary and operational. Preliminary norms firstly concern translation policy whereby human agents govern the choice of text-types, e.g. literary vs. non-literary. In that respect, Itamar Even-Zohar’s postulate regarding the position of translated literature within a literary polysystem of target culture is to be observed. The choices made in accordance with the translation policy is non-random, an idea which he later elaborates on in his article “Translation as a Means of Planning and the Planning of Translation”. What is to be translated and when and how are the questions to be taken into consideration as well as considerations concerning directness of translation, which is mainly about whether translating from languages other than the ultimate source language is permitted.

Operational norms, on the other hand, marks the importance of translation as a decision making process and the translator as a decision maker. Toury divides operational norms into two groups; matricial norms that govern the existence of target language material to serve as a substitute for the source language material as well as its location and segmentation in the target text. The second group, textual linguistic norms, controls the selection of material to replace the original textual and linguistic material.

Toury moves the attention from source-orientedness to target-orientedness while placing the notion of equivalence in a dynamic context. According to Toury, “it is norms that determine the (type and extent of) equivalence manifested by actual translations.” Equivalence, then, turns into a “functional – relational” notion, realized by a thorough study of norms through which Toury expects to reach a conclusion that position of translation in the target culture determines the translational norms. As to be expected, there is a multiplicity of norms that may be abided by the translator while working on a certain text of a certain culture. They are either socio-culturally specific, which means that they do not necessarily apply to the society as a whole but may be relevant to subsystems within a society; and they are also unstable in nature. Toury maintains that norms are not directly observable but the products of norm-governed behavior can shed a light on them. Translational norms have to be reconstructed by the analysis of their effects, textual and extratextual. While target texts compose textual sources, semi-theoretical or critical formulations make up the extratextual materials.

However, in my opinion, Toury’s claim that there are different sets of norms for each individual text within their respective cultures and even their subsystems, makes the identification of translational norms even harder since it requires a diligent work specific to each product as well as an analysis of its diachronic and synchronic study with regards to its assumed position in a literary polysystem. Actually, Toury seems to be aware of this problematic too and suggests resorting to “our intuitions” based on knowledge and experience in dealing with norms but this also makes “the formulation of general laws of translational behavior”, which he aspires to reach, improbable any time soon.

Response Paper on "The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polsystem" by Itamar Even-Zohar

In his essay on “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem” Itamar Even-Zohar dwells upon the reciprocal influences between national literary polysystems via translated literature, which he regards as a long-time neglected realm and aims to raise awareness about the possible functions of translated works without treating them in an isolating manner but seeing them as components of the literary systems just like the original works, i.e. source texts. What Even-Zohar tries to draw attention to is the possibility that the influence of translated literature on a particular national literary system is able to carry an exclusive value to the extent that translated works from a foreign literary polysystem might introduce brand new elements that enrich the target literary polysystem as well as help establish translational norms.

Even-Zohar’s argument that translated works correlate and struggle for dominance in order to obtain central position just like the dynamic tension within the original literary works of a certain national literature, as put by Tynjanov, paints a polysystemic world, where there are no more stark distinctions between what Even-Zohar calls as ‘original’ and ‘translated’ products. The translated works correlate either in the way they are selected by the target literature or in the way they adopt specific norms, behaviours and policies as a result of their relations with the other co-systems.

Acknowledging Tynjanov, Ejchenbaum and Sklovskij as the introducers of what he turned into a more comprehensive theory, Even-Zohar underlines the importance of the polysystem analysis in the sense that it makes historical perspective possible in order to provide explanation for the mechanisms of relations and positions of literary genres within various literary systems. It is not an issue of high or low stratas any more but the conditions that prevail during the process of changes that certain types undergo. There, Even-Zohar chooses to make a distinction of primary activities representing principles of innovation and the secondary ones maintaining the established code. His postulation that translated literature can belong to any of the high, low, innovatory, conservatory, simplified or stereotyped genres that owe their positions to constant correlations within a literary polysystem, marks translated literature as an integral system whose active nature might put it in a situation where it plays a big role in literary history of a nation. For Even-Zohar, translated literature can occupy such a central position when a polsystem such as a ‘young’ literature is on the verge of being established, when a literature is peripheral or weak, or both and when there are turning points resulting in vacuums in literature.

In the instances when translated literature constitutes a secondary or peripheral position within the polysystem, Even-Zohar likens this situation to that of “epigonic” writing, which bears no influence and has to abide by the norms already established rather than set out norms on its own. Moreover, translated literature can be both in that while one part is primary, the other may remain secondary. However, Even-Zohar points out that, according to his and other scholars’ research, the latter tends to be the normal position assumed by translated literature.

The primary or secondary position adopted by translated literature in a literary polysystem also determines the translational strategies employed by the translator. If translated literature maintains a secondary position, the translator will tend to use ready-made target culture norms at the risk of producing “non-adequate” translations. However, if it assumes a primary position, then the translator will not feel obliged to follow the translational norms and policies of the target culture but break the home conventions. Even-Zohar claims that the end product will be closer to the original in terms of “adequacy”, keeping the dominant textual relations of the source text as they are, which I think, echoes Lawrence Venuti’s foreignization strategy. In that sense, Venuti's argument for foreignizing a text as a means of fighting against the global hegemony of languages such as English also aims to show how translated literature can be influential in a broader cultural perspective. I also think that Even-Zohar’s notion of “adequacy” is also in line with Gideon Toury’s, who states that the observation of source-text norms determines a translated text’s “adequacy”. In that sense, I believe Even-Zohar’s approach is closer to being descriptive with its emphasis on cultural interdependency in literary world as well as its treatment of translated literature as a powerful polsystemic entity, which is capable of influencing or even modeling either central or peripheral literary works of any given culture.

Response Paper on “Skopos and Commission in Translational Action” by Hans J Vermeer
“Function plus Loyalty” by Christiane Nord

Skopos Theory & Function plus Loyalty

The Skopos Theory propounded by Hans J Vermeer, foregrounds the translator as an “expert”, rather than one who only serves as a mediator between the source and the target text, while also denoting him/her as a decision maker throughout the translation process. Vermeer re-directs the attention from the source text to the target text, i.e. the translatum, which is determined by the purpose of a text, i.e. the skopos. The skopos theory emphasizes the pragmatic aspects of translation and is far from being restrictive in terms of the liberties it offers to the translator during the translation process contrary to the notion that a commissioner who acts as the main determinative for a “skopos” might look intimidating. Vermeer trusts the “competency” of the translator and expects “the commisioner”, who might as well be the translator himself, to do so too, and adjust the skopos for the target culture if necessary.

Vermeer regards translation as an offer of information which may diverge from the source text considerably, mainly in terms of their respective goals and the reconstruction of the source text elements. For Vermeer, an “intertextual coherence” between the two texts is essential to some degree, though determined by various kinds of “skopos” . To what degree this “intertextual coherence” can be preserved is left ambigious in Vermeer’s attempts to produce legitimate answers for the arguments against his theory. Purposefully or not, though it looks more like the former, his postulate that a translation realizes something “different”, not something “more” or “less” presents a dilemma since determining one possible goal and adherence to it, though it might be for the sake of preserving the breadth of interpretation of the source text, will inevitably result in “losses” or “gains” , in Anton Popovic’s terms, even in situations where the translator sets fidelity to the source-text as his/her primary goal.

The fact that Vermeer regards “fidelity” to the source text as one of the many possible and legitimate purposes but at the same time advocates the “intertextual coherence” no matter what skopos might be assigned to the translation task at hand, puts the skopos theory in an arbitrary realm whereby the legitimacy of the end-product is questioned and brought upon by Christiane Nord from the perspective of the translator’s “moral responsibility”. The main departure point for her objection against Vermeer’s notion of an adjustible fidelity, in other words a fidelity whose existence (or its lack thereof) depending on a certain skopos, consists of her concerns over keeping the purpose in line with communicating the intentions of the original author effectively, which she further develops into meeting the expectations of the target culture as well.

The term Nord introduces as “loyalty”, while dismissing the terms “fidelity” or “faithfulness” on the basis that they only offer a source and target text relationship, echos the “dynamic equivalence” theory that Nida proposes as rendering the mental intention of the author rather than translating the words, thus creating the same impact on the target reader as the source text does on its own reader. Her “function plus loyalty” approach, which she claims to show up Skopostheorie as an anti-universalist model since loyalty forces the translator to be aware of the culture–specific concepts of translation and respect the sender’s own communicative intentions, actually does not seem to clash with Vermeer’s skopos. On the contrary, Skopos denotes the translator as an expert in intercultural action who has the freedom to accept a commission or not, under what circumstances and whether it needs to be modified. In that sense, the example given by Nord as regards with the book called En Cuba, whose German translator produced a text which is nowhere near its original author’s intentions, could as well be a part of Vermeer’s article. The only difference is that where Vermeer does not prefer to denote a separate term, Nord fills the vacancy with her own. In my opinion, Nord’s attempt to clear away any traces of promiscuity in skopos theory through her “function plus loyalty” approach results in a clear-cut definition of the translator, who observes the intentions of the initiator, the target receiver and the author, thus painting an “ideal” translator model.

I think it would be relevant to reach a conclusion via Nord’s other argument concerning the possibility of cases where the loyalty may require the adaptation of certain translation units even against the author’s wishes. Her second example of the German translator’s decision of protecting a well-respected scholar’s reputation on foreign grounds raises the question of “Loyalty to who?”. While “Function plus Loyalty” approach expects a lot from the translator, it also presents him/her with a “moral responsibility”, which, ironically, puts the translator in a position where he/she will be the “scapegoat” no matter which direction he/she follows.

NATURALNESS OF TRANSLATION?

In his article “Principles of Correspondence”, Eugene Nida discusses translation from the perspective of equivalence, formal and dynamic. While formal equivalence means the closest possible match of form and content between source-text and target-text, dynamic equivalence stands for the closest natural equivalent to the source-language message, thus the equivalence of effect on reader of target-text.

Dynamic equivalence translation is based primarily on receptive response, which makes it a communicative oriented approach. Then, the aim of translation is to maintain a relationship of equivalence between the source and the target texts (i.e., both texts communicate the same message) and this brings about various constraints on the translator, such as adherence to the rules of grammar, literary traditions and idioms of the source language. The impact of the original should be re-established in such a style that it must look natural in the receptor language. For Nida, a natural translation requires conformance to the receptor language and culture in which the quality of linguistic appropriateness is only noticeable when it is absent, resulting in a translation that does not carry any trace of foreign. This brings in the mind Lawrence Venuti’s idea of transparency effect as an outcome of the fluent discourse. Venuti holds that the absence of linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes a translated text so transparent as to give the reader illusory impression that it is the “original”. However, Nida postulates the impossibility of both creating such an illusory effect on the lexical level and eliminating the traces of foreign setting, especially when terms that identify cultural specialties come into view. He also asserts that it’s the same way with basic themes and accounts that are immune to naturalization process where two different cultures are concerned. This reminds me of a short story called “Shakespeare in the Bush” in which the anthropologist Laura Bohannan talks of her attempts at telling the story of Hamlet to an African tribe. Since they do not believe in the survival after death of any individuating part of the personality, the members of the tribe give her a hard time in trying to find a semantic equivalence of the word “ghost” in their culture to no avail. Even her oral “footnotes” are not enough to explain this phenomenon, which causes the question of translatability arise once again here. Nida’s answer to this question seems to be the employment of footnotes in such situations though, in my opinion, which might be at the expense of quality of “naturalness” of expression.

Another key to a truly natural translation for Nida is “what it avoids than what it actually states”. If the translator avoids severe anomalies, then the reader feels at home with the context. The exclusion of crude vulgarities, slang, onomatopoeic expressions and anachronisms where they would totally look out of context is what Nida suggests for a natural work. In this sense, I think, Anton Popovic’s idea of presence and absence of shifts in several layers of translation is relevant. As he puts it, “All that appears as new with respect to the original, or fails to appear where it might have been expected may be interpreted as a shift.” For Popovic, the shifts of the basic semantic units of the source text in another linguistic structure moves along the axis of faithfulness / freedom. In that respect, the translator sets out to be “faithful” but is also comparatively free in his treatment of details to achieve the ideal, the faithful reproduction, which forces him to look for corresponding expressions in the recipient language that concerns the resulting impression on reader’s perception. Anton Popovic calls this as “functional faithfulness” which I think is quite similar to Nida’s “dynamic equivalence” theory. In other words, the comparison of the relative responses of both the source-text audience and the target text receptors determines the validity of the translation in terms of both form and content. However, how this evaluation will be carried out is of question since determining the real effects on the target-text audience is not always easy. Therefore, one solution can be the equivalence of the intended message by the original author and the translator, which provides the basis for the principle of “similar response”.

Another factor that enhances the naturalness of translation, for Nida, is the level of experience and the capacity for decoding on the target audience’s part. In that aspect, although this idea somewhat bears resemblance to Schleiermacher’s view of an educated reader, it’s obvious that the reason behind it is not of romantic purposes like creating an “ideal” reader platform but of appropriateness of the message, such as the texts intended for audience’s belonging to scientific world or the ones for more general audiences. This brings us to the conclusion that the level of appropriateness may vary in accordance with not only the prospective readers’ capacity and ability of decoding but also their potential interest.

Schleiermacher's Different Methods of Translating

In his article “On the Different Methods of Translating”, at first, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s idea of a good translation does not seem to clash with Etienne Dolet and Alexander Fraser Tytler, in the sense that a translator has to have a perfect grasp of the meaning of what the author tries to convey and in order to achieve that, the translator must immerse himself in both the target culture and its language. However, in his aricle How to Translate Well From One Language to Another Dolet reflects on the task of the translator as to make the author as clear and intelligible as possible. As for Tytler, who tackles with the same question in his essay on The Proper Task of a Translator , there is no room for obscurity and to imitate the ambiguity of the original is a fault. In my opinion, Schleiermacher’s theory of bringing the reader to author challenges this generalization. He, too, is in favor of a total immersion in the target culture and language as well as thoughts of the original author on the translator’s part but it should not be to the extent of losing the impact of the original texture of the author’s work on the reader. I believe that the idea of making the author explicit where he prefers to be ambiguous goes into the territory of author-to-reader theory, which Schleiermacher does not favor as an option since, for him, it means to distort the unique sense peculiar to an author’s linguistic and conceptual world.

The conceptual worlds of both the reader and the author are products of two different languages which are again products of two different cultures. For Schleiermacher, intercultural dialogue is the essential goal of the translation. He tackles with the issue of translation from a cultural perspective but that of the target one. He bas to find an alternative way of attaining an accurate understanding and enjoyment of the source language author by focusing on the reader mainly, which is the reader-to-author approach. As Lawrence Venuti notes in his essay Strategies of Translation, while "domesticating strategy" (author-to-reader approach) is an "ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target–language cultural values”, "foreignizing strategy" (reader-to-author) is an "ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text”. In that aspect, not only the translator but also the reader has to possess the same hermeneutical sensitivity. The reader is expected to be able to grasp and appreciate the foreign but first of all he/she should be willing to investigate further than what is presented to him/her. I think the main problem here is that this theory cannot be applied to genres like fiction which is regarded as the soul foundation of the author-to-reader approach by Schleiermacher. There, he only offers paraphrasing and imitations as the only strategies to be employed for this kind of work, and dismisses any other potential alternatives. In that sense, I think this theory also carries the risk of elevating the translated works and their readers to a higher status, thus countering the very aim of the theory – which is supposed to be providing an intercultural communication – by making it difficult for the original works to reach beyond their own linguistic/cultural territories. So, to what level can foreignization bring the reader towards the author is not answered in Schleiermacher’s work. On the other hand, his question “How then shall the translator convey to his readers, in their native language, this feeling that the text before them is truly foreign?” is dealt through a translation process that entails stretchment of the boundaries of the target language but in Schleiermacher's words "not every language is amenable to this kind of translation", again dismissing the possibility of the adaptation of this theory for a variety of so-called "inflexible" languages.

To sum up, I think that the two conditions he proposes for the success of the reader-to-author method, firstly the presence of a desire to immerse oneself in foreign works/worlds and secondly the necessity of natural flexibility of the reader's native language can be restrictive on the reader's but liberating on the translator's part . Restrictive for the reader because he/she has to be well-trained and equipped to grasp the idea and liberating for the translator because he is presented with a chance to go beyond the conceptual framework of his own language and be inventive, in other words, visible.