To what extent can translation quality be measured or judged?
I contributed to a discussion on proz.com where a question was raised about stylistic preferences in translation. The original poster had received corrections from a client that caused him to believe the client was seeking not just translation, but copy editing, too.
Although the general consensus is that translation is a subjective endeavor, we have all edited or read translations that contain what appear to be objectively factual errors or stylistic problems.
And when our own translation reads awkwardly, we may claim, “that’s what it said in the original,” which would seem to mean we had no choice in the wording of the translation. But the source text normally leaves us with some amount of freedom — however small — in how we word the translation; otherwise we would be automatons.
To what extent can these choices be measured as objectively better or worse? How much constraint or freedom does the translator have? What types of source documents (law, patents, advertising, literature) afford the translator the most creativity?
4 responses so far ↓
1 The GITS Blog » Translation is a craft // Jun 7, 2008 at 8:33 pm
[...] yndigo blog asks whether translation is an art or a science. I say it’s neither: it’s a craft. But this has been discussed [...]
2 Ramalama // Jun 8, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I’d say that of all the fields I’ve done translations in literature has offered me the most room for creativity. I don’t personally find much room to stretch my creative wings with law or patents or medical texts or financial documents, etc. Or it’s a very subtle creativity. Because the translation has to say what the source says. With literature I find it more flexible. Sometimes with a passage in a literary translation it’s more important for the translation to FEEL the way the source FEELS and you have to come up with a whole different thing that captures the same feeling. Which is time consuming but can be fun. Of course, patents can be fun too, but in a more even-keeled sort of way. I refuse to translate advertising/marketing if the purpose is to use it in another country. I would translate it for people to get the idea of what it says. But the cultural differences of how things are marketed are just too big. I actually think it’s unprofessional to translate advertising. It risks misleading the client into thinking they can use the material and that it will help them sell their thing. This is very often NOT the case.
3 Zak // Jun 9, 2008 at 10:38 am
This question is sometimes distilled into “Should translation involve creativity and if so, how much?” A few ideas can be found here:
http://transubstantiation.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/creative-translation/
Zak
4 Glenn // Jun 9, 2008 at 11:07 am
Ramalama,
Thanks for your comment. With regard to advertising translation, I agree with you that it’s a tricky area and cients need to be educated about what service the translator is actually performing. Some translation services get heavily involved in cultural adaptation and provide a full review to tell the client what won’t work in another country. As far as what will work, that’s harder to achieve in my opinion. If you’ve hired an ad agency and copy editors to create your original message, I think you need the same effort in the foreign country to make your message work abroad.
As for literary translation — having done only a little myself — I think beyond meaning, there are the additional constraints of imitating tone, rhythm, metaphor, etc.; as you’ve mentioned, however, there’s more creativity because you’re worrying less about literal meaning than about feeling, and to achieve that you have to invent.
But perhaps I’m erroneously comparing freedom and creativity.
Thanks again for the comment!
Leave a Comment