Microsoft Word Tezisler Tercume 2009 2010 2011. doc

«TƏRCÜMƏŞÜNASLIQ VƏ ONUN MÜASİR DÖVRDƏ ROLU»   IV Respublika tələbə elmi-praktik konfransı 
 
 
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The traditional discussion of the problems of literary translation considers finding 
equivalents not just for lexis, syntax or concepts, but also for features like style, genre, 
figurative language, historical stylistic dimensions, polyvalence, connotations as well 
as denotations, cultural items and culture-specific concepts and values. The choices 
made by the translators like the decision whether to retain stylistic features of the 
source language text or whether to retain the historical stylistic dimension of the ori-
ginal become all the more important in the case of literary translation. For instance, 
whether to translate Chaucer into old Marathi or contemporary are very important. 
In the case of translating poetry, it is vital for a translator to decide whether the verse 
should be translated into verse, or into free verse or into prose. Most of the scholars 
and translators like Jakobson (1991:151) believe that in the case of poetry though it 
is "by definition impossible ...only creative transposition is possible...". It is the creative 
dimension of translation that comes to fore in the translation of poetry though nobody 
seems to be sure of what is meant by creativity in the first place. The word is charged 
with theological-Romantic connotations typical of the `corpus' approach to literature. 
The questions around which the deliberations about translation within such a 
conceptual framework are made are rather stereotyped and limited: as the literary 
text, especially a poem is unique, organic whole and original is the translation possible 
at all? Should translation be `literal' or `free'? Should it emphasize the content or the 
form? Can a faithful translation be beautiful? The answers to the question range from 
one extreme to the other and usually end in some sort of a compromise. The great 
writers and translators gave their well-known dictums about translations, which ref-
lected these traditional beliefs about it. For Dante (1265-1321) all poetry is untrans-
latable (cited by Brower 1966: 271) and for Frost (1974-1963) poetry is `that which 
is lost out of both prose and verse in translation '(cited by Webb 203) while Yves 
Bonnefoy says `You can translate by simply declaring one poem the translation of 
another" (1991:186-192). On the other hand theorists like Pound (1929, 1950), 
Fitzgerald (1878) say" ...the live Dog is better than the dead Lion", believe in freedom 
in translation. The others like Nabokov (1955) believe "The clumsiest of literal trans-
lation is a thousand times more useful than prettiest of paraphrase". Walter Benjamin, 
Longfellow (1807-81), Schleriermacher, Martindale (1984), seem to favour much 
more faithful translation or believe in foreignizing the native language. While most 
of the translators like Dryden are on the side of some sort of compromise between the 
two extremes. 
Lefevere has pointed out that most of the writings done on the basis of the concept 
of literature as a corpus attempt to provide translators with certain guidelines, do's and 
don'ts and that these writings are essentially normative even if they don't state their 
norms explicitly. These norms, according to Lefevere, are not far removed from the 
poetics of a specific literary period or even run behind the poetics of the period 
(1988:173). Even the approaches based on the `objective' and `scientific' foundations 
of linguistics are not entirely neutral in their preferences and implicit value judgements. 
Some writings on translation based on this approach are obsessed with the translation 

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process and coming up with some model for description of the process. As Theo 
Hermans (1985:9-10) correctly observes that in spite of some impressive semiotic 
terminology, complex schemes and diagrams illustrating the mental process of de-
coding messages in one medium and encoding them in another, they could hardly 
describe the actual conversion that takes place within the human mind, `that blackest 
of black boxes'. Lefevere notes, the descriptive approach was not very useful when 
it came to decide what good translation is and what is bad. 
Most of recent developments in translation theory look for alternatives to these 
essentializing approaches. Instead of considering literature as an autonomous and 
independent domain, it sees it in much broader social and cultural framework. It sees 
literature as a social institution and related to other social institutions. It examines the 
complex interconnections between poetics, politics, metaphysics, and history. It 
borrows its analytical tools from various social sciences like linguistics, semiotics, 
anthropology, history, economics, and psychoanalysis. It is closely allied to the discip-
line of cultural studies, as discussed by Jenks (1993:187) in using culture as a des-
criptive rather than normative category as well as working within an expanded concept 
of culture, which rejects the `high' versus low stratification. It is keenly interested in 
the historical and political dimension of literature. 
`Paradigm shift' to use Theo Hermans' phrase or the `Cultural turn' in the discip-
line of translation theory has made a significant impact in the way we look at trans-
lation. Translation is as a form of intercultural communication raising the problems 
that are not merely at the verbal level or at the linguistic level. As Talgeri and Verma 
(1988:3) rightly point out, a word is,' essentially a cultural memory in which the his-
torical experience of the society is embedded. H.C.Trivedi (1971: 3) observes that 
while translating from an Indian language into English one is faced with two main 
problems: first one has to deal with concepts which require an understanding of 
Indian culture and secondly, one has to arrive at TL meaning equivalents of references 
to certain objects in SL, which includes features absent from TL culture. The awareness 
that one does not look for merely verbal equivalents but also for cultural equivalents, 
if there are any, goes a long way in helping the translator to decide the strategies he 
or she has to use. Translation then is no longer a problem of merely finding verbal 
equivalents but also of interpreting a text encoded in one semiotic system with the 
help of another. The notion of `intertextuality' as formulated by the semiotician Julia 
Kristeva is extremely significant in this regard. She points out that any signifying 
system or practice already consists of other modes of cultural signification (1988:59-
60). A literary text would implicate not only other verbal texts but also other modes 
of signification like food, fashion, local medicinal systems, metaphysical systems, 
traditional and conventional narratives like myths, literary texts, legends as well as 
literary conventions like genres, literary devices, and other symbolic structures. It 
would be almost tautological to state that the elements of the text, which are specific 
to the culture and the language, would be untranslatable. The whole enterprise of fin-
ding cultural equivalents raises awareness of the difference and similarities between 

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