1.2 Definitions of Translation in the West

The domain of translation has always been the site of a curious contradic tion.On the one hand,translation is considered to be a purely intuitive practice—in part technical,in part literary—which,at bottom,does not require any specific theory or form of reflection.On the other hand,there has been—at least since Cicero,Horace,and Saint Jerome—an abundance of writings on translation of a religious,philosophical,liter ary,methodological or,more recently,scientific nature.(Berman 1992: 1)

According to Berman,though numerous translators have written on translation,it is undeniable that most of the definitions are from non-transla tors,from theologians,philosophers,linguists,or critics.And as they are not professional translators,they tend to “assimilate it to something else:(sub-)literature,(sub-)criticism,‘applied linguistics'”(ibid).

Actually,we can not find as many formal definitions of translation as one would imagine,especially in ancient times,from sourcebooks such as Douglas Robinson's Western Translation Theory:from Herodotus to Nietzsche,Lefevere's Translation/History/Culture:A Sourcebook and other dictionaries of Translation Studies.

Lefevere(2004: Introduction; 86)for his purpose specifies the definition of one of the two kinds translations proposed by Petrus Danielus Huetius(1630-1721),French bishop and educator,“a text written in a well-known language which refers to,and represents a text in a language which is not as well known”.He thinks this definition “the most productive” and quotes it at the very beginning of his book.

There are two more definitions in Lefevere's book.One is by Juan Luis Vives(1492-1540),Spanish humanist: “A version is the transfer of words from one language into another in such a way that the sense is preserved”(ibid: 50).The other is from Jacques Pelletier du Mans(1517-1582),French poet and grammarian:“Translation is the truest kind of imitation”(ibid: 52).

In modern times we find more definitions and the following are some of them:

G.R.Gachechiladze regards translation an art,and a special form of artistic creation,observing the general law of art,just like creation in one's mother tongue(Du Jianhui 1998).And to achieve the artistic equivalent,Gachechiladze thinks that the translator has to be creative.

Malcolm Cowley(1898-1989),an American novelist,poet,literary critic,and journalist,defines translation as “an art that involves the re-creation of a work in another language for readers with a different background”(Cowley 1978: 831).The above two definitions can be regarded as the representatives of the artistic or aesthetic view on translation abroad,featured by the use of the terms such as “creation” and“re-creation”.

Leonid Barkhudarov defines translation as “the process of transformation of a speech(or text)produced in one language into a speech(or text)in another language”and “[d]uring this process of transformation the level of content should remain unchanged”(Zlateva & Lefevere 1993: 40).

J.C.Catford(1965: 20)views translation as “the replacement of textual material in one language(SL)by equivalent textual material in another language(TL)” and thinks that the theory of translation is “a branch of Comparative Linguistics”.

Wolfram Wilss(2001: 112)defines translation as “a procedure which leads from a written SLT to an optimally equivalent TLT and requires the syntactic,semantic,stylistic and text-pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text”.

According to Peter Newmark(2001: 7),“[t]ranslation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language”.

Nida and Taber(1969/2004:12)say that: “translation consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message,first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”.

Hatim and Mason(1997:1)consider translation as “an act of communication which attempts to relay,across cultural and linguistic boundaries,another act of communication.”

In Translation Terminology complied by Jean Delisle,Hannelore Lee-Jahnke and Monique C.Cormier(2004: 272-273),translation is defined as “an interlinguistic transfer procedure comprising the <interpretation> of the <sense> of a <source text>and the production of a <target text> with the intention of establishing a relationship of <equivalence> between the two <texts>,while at the same time observing both the inherent communication parameters and the <constrains> imposed on the<translator>”.

The above seven definitions stand for the linguistic view,and indeed,the seemingly ever-lasting appeal of the linguistic view on translation.

The linguistic view on translation is featured by its implicit or explicit sourcetext-orientation and the use of terms such as “equivalence”,“same”,“reproduce” or“relay”.It is usually more prescriptive than descriptive,as it not only tells of what translation or translating is,but also what it normally should be.

There is,besides the artistic and linguistic views,a lingua-artistic or lingualaesthetic view on translation.The Czech translation theorist Jirì Levý says in his The Art of Translation that:“A translation is not a monistic composition,but an interpenetration and conglomerate of two structures.On the one hand there are the semantic content and the formal contour of the original,on the other hand the entire system of aesthetic features bound up with the language of the translation”(Bassnett,2004: 15).He sees literary translation as “both a reproductive and a creative labour with the goal of equivalent aesthetic effect”(Munday 2001: 62).Snell-Horny(2006:22)also comments that “Levý went beyond the role of precursor and proved to be one of the pioneers of modern Translation Studies….For Levý literary translation is a form of art in its own right,and has a position somewhere between creative and‘reproductive' art”.

A lingual-cultural view on translation is to be found in Christiane Nord' definition: “Translation is the production of a functional target text maintaining a relationship with a given source text that is specified according to the intended or demanded function of the target text”(Shuttleworth & Cowie 1997/2004: 182).This definition shows that while translation is a linguistic activity,it is mainly influenced and determined by the system of the target culture.

Different from the above-mentioned views,Gideon Toury(1995/2001: 26)considers translation as “cultural facts” and proposes that a translation is “taken to be any target-language utterance which is presented or regarded as such within the target culture,on whatever grounds”(Shuttleworth & Cowie 1997/2004: 182).

Andrew Chesterman(1997: 59)holds the same view.When talking about what counts as translation,he says that “[i]n brief,a translation is any text that is accepted in the target culture as being a translation”.Alternatively,we might say that a translation is any text which falls within the accepted range of deviance defined by the target-culture product norm “translation”.

Bassnett and Lefevere(2004)in their“general editors'preface”of Translation,Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame claim,“[t]ranslation is,of course,a rewriting of an original text”.According to Lefevere(ibid: 9),translation,historiography,anthologisation,criticism,and editing are all forms of rewriting and“translation is the most obviously recognizable type of rewriting”,and “potentially the most influential because it is able to project the image of an author and/or those works beyond the boundaries of their culture of origin”.

Anthony Pym regards translation a process of generating and selecting between alternative texts.“Translating can be seen as a problem-solving activity in which a source element may be rendered by one or more elements in the target language”(Pym 2007: 44).This definition indicates that translation is not pure linguistic,it involves the selection of the socially or politically correct words,phrases and texts.In other words,a translation is a translation when it is accepted as a translation and only as a translation.

The above four definitions look at translation mainly as socio-cultural activity.They are more descriptive than prescriptive.Scholars viewing translation as mainly socio-cultural activity offer many different loose definitions of translation as“manipulation”,“collusion”,“rewriting” and “palimpsest”,etc.

Still,we have some other different definitions.Jean Sager,for example,gives the following definition: “[t]ranslation is an externally motivated industrial activity,supported by information technology,which is diversified in response to the particular needs of this form of communication”(Shuttleworth & Cowie 2004: 182).This definition,unlike the above-mentioned ones,speaks of translation from the angle of a social profession.

And there are formal or informal definitions and descriptions of translation in a metaphysical manner.Munday(2001:162-174)gives one chapter to the philosophical theories of translation in Introducing Translation Studies:Theories and Applications which introduces “modern philosophical approaches to translation that have sought out the essence of(generally literary)translation”.Among them,one finds George Steiner's “hermeneutic motion”,thinking “real understanding and translation occur at the point where languages diffuse into each other”.Walter Benjamin holds that translation “does not exist to give readers an understanding of the‘meaning' or information content of the original.Translation exists separately but in conjunction with the original,coming after it,emerging from its‘afterlife' but also giving the original‘continued life'”.Translation “both contributes to the growth of its own language(by the appearance in the TL of the new text)and pursues the goal of a‘pure' and higher language.This‘pure language' is released by the co-existence and complementation of the translation with the original”.Jaques Derrida,with his rereading of Walter Benjamin,“interrogates Jakobson's division of interlingual,intralingual and intersemiotic translation,pointing out the illogicality of Jakobson's definition of‘interligual translation or translation proper',with the word translation being used as a translation itself” and his remarks on translating indicate “the impossibility of fully describing and explaining the translation process by language”.Derrida “deconstructs the distinction between source and target texts,seeing not only that the commentary is a translation of a translation,but also that original and translation owe a debt to each other”.

Nord once made her comments on Derrida,saying that for Derrida,“translation somehow extracts and transports something which would then have to be imagined as existing beyond language”(Nord 2001:52).Bassnett also commented on Derrida's rereading of Walter Benjamin and his idea about translation being something that“ensures the survival of a text” and “becomes the after-life of a text,a new‘original' in another language”(Bassnett 2004: 9).

Here,translation as we can see,in the eyes of the above-discussed scholars thinking at the metaphysical level about the essence of translation,is either“understanding” or “after-life of the original” or something that is “beyond language”and has not an independent status.

Undoubtedly,each of these definitions has captured a particular aspect of translation and translating,yet,each of them is,in one way or another,missing some of the essence of translation.