History and Theory of Translation in the West

History of Translation in the West (Lefevere)

• The Septuagint, the first major translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, highlights key aspects of translation: expertise, commission, trust, and image.
• Before the 1800s, translations were primarily about cultural appropriation or pedagogical exercises.
• After the 1800s, translation approaches diversified to address diverse audiences, emphasizing accessibility.
• The rise of publishers in the 1700s shifted translation priorities towards profit. Later, philologists reserved scholarly translations for experts, leading to specialization.

Translation Theorizing (Anthony Pym)

• Translators constantly make theoretical decisions regarding literal terms, explanations, footnotes, and cultural equivalents.
• Key terminology includes: source text/target text, source language/target language, and source culture/target culture.
• Traditionally translation is viewed as content transfer between cultures or languages; however, translation can also be seen as an act of updating and reinterpreting over time.
• Translation theories help translators by providing solutions for difficult problems, offering questions and answers to improve translation quality, and supporting the defense of their choices.

Translation Models (Bassnett & Lefevere)

• The Jerome Model emphasizes faithfulness through literal word-for-word translation. Over time, faithfulness has evolved beyond strict word matching to strategic choices based on context.
• The Horace Model focuses on negotiation rather than strict faithfulness, meeting the needs of clients and languages. Translations tend to favor the dominant language, historically Latin, currently often English.
• The Textual Grid Concept proposes that cultures may share underlying structures that shape text organization, influencing translation strategies across different languages and time periods.

Discussion Points (Lefevere)

• Translation Studies emerged as an interdisciplinary field in the 1980s, combining linguistics, history, psychology, and other disciplines.
• Translators are considered "rewriters" who shape how literary works are received by the public, influencing their cultural impact as much as or more than the original authors.

Roman Jakobson's Contributions

• Jakobson examined linguistic and semiotic aspects of translation, emphasizing message equivalence across languages.
• He identified three types of translation: intralingual (within the same language), interlingual (between languages), and intersemiotic (transformation across communication modes).
• While Jakobson believed all messages are translatable across languages, poetry's unique form and sense often require creative reimagining.

Eugene Nida's Approach

• Nida, influenced by Chomsky's generative-transformational grammar, focused on the relationship between the deep (intended meaning) and surface structures (literal expression) of a sentence.
• Nida introduced two types of equivalence in translation: Formal Equivalence, prioritizing accuracy and matching the source text's form and content; Dynamic equivalence, aiming for the same response in the target language (TL) as intended in the source language (SL).
• For Nida, successful translations make sense, capture the original's spirit and style, feel natural, and evoke a similar response.

Peter Newmark's Perspective on Translation

• Newmark challenged Nida's receptor-oriented approach, arguing that equivalent effect is an illusory concept, especially when texts are separated from the target language's cultural context.
• He introduced two main types of translation: Communicative Translation, aiming for an effect on the target audience similar to the original audience's experience (akin to Nida's Dynamic equivalence), and Semantic Translation, focusing on capturing the exact meaning of the source text (akin to Nida's Formal equivalence).

Newmark's Preference for Literal Translation

• Newmark favored literal translation wherever possible, believing it is often the most practical and valid method if equivalent effect can be maintained.
• He believed literal translation maximizes efficiency by focusing cognitive energy on the most challenging parts of the text.
• However, when literal or semantic translation leads to awkward or confusing results, communicative translation should be prioritized.

Vinay & Darbelnet's Translation Procedures

• Modulation: Changing the semantics or perspective of the source language, like from "it is easy to show" to the French equivalent "il est facile de démontrer."
• Équivalence (Idiomatic Translation): Using stylistic or structural means to convey the same idea idiomatically, especially when languages express concepts differently.
• Adaptation: Modifying cultural references for the target audience, like replacing a cricket reference with a Tour de France reference for French readers.
• Amplification: Using more words in the target language (TL) than in the source language (SL), often due to syntactic expansion.
• False Friends: Recognizing deceptive cognates, where similar-looking words in the source and target languages have different meanings (e.g., French "librarie" is a bookstore, not a library).
• Loss, Gain, and Compensation: Acknowledging unavoidable nuance loss, which can be balanced by compensatory gains elsewhere in the target text.
• Explicitation: Making implicit details explicit in the TL, especially for culturally or contextually specific items.
• Generalization: Using a more general term when the specific term doesn't translate neatly (e.g., translating "computer" simply as "machine").

Vinay and Darbelnet's Translation Levels

• Their procedures operate on three levels: the lexicon (word choice), syntactic structures (sentence structure), and the message (overall meaning and context).

Key Periods and Figures in Turkish Translation History

• The Translation Bureau (Tercüme Bürosu), founded in early years of the Turkish Republic, played a pivotal role in Turkey's Westernization process by promoting Renaissance-inspired humanism.
• The Bureau's translation of Western classics aimed to foster a "Turkish Renaissance," a cultural shift toward Western-oriented humanism and enlightenment. This shift, they hoped, would create a "humanist spirit" and "social enlightenment" within Turkish society.
• Vedat Günyol (1911-2004) believed the Bureau was central to Turkey's Westernization and cultural awakening.
• Azra Erhat (1915-1982) advocated for the Bureau's role in leading Turkey towards enlightenment, emphasizing its impact on cultural development.
• Nurullah Ataç (1898-1957) saw his era as an "age of translation" marked by a shift in Turkish identity and language away from Perso-Arabic influences towards Western classical languages, facilitated by the 1928 Alphabet Reform.
• Ataç believed that understanding Western texts required transforming the Turkish language, arguing that Turkey's Islamic past inhibited creativity and shifting towards Western models was necessary for modernization.

Historical Developments in Turkish Translation

• During the Seljuk period (1075-1318), Persian was the dominant language, with translators known as dragomans facilitating communication among diverse groups in Anatolia.
• Under the Ottomans, especially during Mehmed II's reign, translation expanded into scientific and literary fields, integrating Persian and Arabic works to enhance knowledge in areas like mathematics, geography, medicine, and art.
• The Tanzimat Edict of 1839 marked a shift in cultural orientation from Eastern to Western influences, leading to translations of European literary and philosophical works, introducing new themes and ideas into Turkish literature and thought.