Lingua e traduzione Inglese III

Definition of translation (from macmillandictionary.com)

By translation we mean:

1. spoken or written words that have been changed into a different language
Considering translation as “spoken or written words that have been changed into a different language”, this
means that we are dealing with text that could be either spoken or written and these texts have been turned
into another language from one language system to another( when we speak of language we speak of
language system). The field of translation studies consider interpretation as the simultaneous translation of
a spoken text.

1a the activity of changing spoken or written words into a different language

Whereas definition 1 is about a text, either spoken or written, translated in another language (so a
product=the translated text), definition 1a is about the activity of changing spoken or written words into a
different language that is translating a process. So translation could be seen:

o as product and process

on one hand, if we consider translation as a product, we point our attention in a text that is fixed so in its
final version, it is published, but at the same time is not the only possible version of that translation. So even
if it is a product is important to remember that it is only temperately fixed, this depends of course by the fact
that the translation has several choices that can be made. The several versions of a translated text is useful
for a diachronic point of view, for instance when we analyse the several translations that have been made of
a same single text, if we think about translation as a product that is not fixed, which can change, translation
or analyse translation is also a way to analyse the way languages changes over time, we can see in addition
the way in which a receiving cultural context is changed. There is also the case in which a text is not translated
in a given language, this is because of the cultural choices made outside of the translating process. The several
versions of a translated text are quite telling when it comes to the cultural system receiving those
translations. So instead of translation as a product we should talk about translation as the plurality of
products because as said before there are possible different versions.

On the other hand, Definition 1a leads us to the idea of translation as a process (activity). Focusing on the
translation as a process, we have to consider all the strategies that can be adapted by a translator.

When we study translation, we can focus on the way in which a text is translated so on the way translators
made their own choices and why those choices instead of others.

According to some theoretical perspectives, a choice can be accepted or refused. It is very difficult although
to state if a choice is bad or good.

1b a word or phrase that means the same thing as a word or phrase in a different language
In this definition we have to focus on:

o meaning and sameness

when we talk about translation in fact, we talk about meaning and sameness. Meaning is always related to
interpretation, on one hand it could be a very simple interpretation, on the other hand in more complex text
like a literary one interpretation is much more complex. Whenever we translate, we need to interpret the

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text by reading it (the translator is first of all a reader, and then being a reader is also an interpreter of a text).
Interpretating a text we try to understand the meaning, and after doing so we translate.

The important element is that when we translate, we look forward a meaning in the receiving language that
has to be the same in the source language.

In translation we have to consider:

Source language—source text

Target language – target text

Interpretation and meaning is possible because there is a shared system of signs that is codified in the same
way by a speaker of a language. We all agree on the meaning because of this shared system of signs.

When we speak of meaning and shared system of signs, this leads us to semiotics.

By a semiotic point of view the sign is a combination of a signifier and signified (according to Saussure). By
signifier we consider the combination of sounds and letters, whereas the signified is the meaning of the
word.

As a community of speakers (we share a code=signs system), we know that a given combination of
sounds(signifier) leads us to a shared meaning (signified). When we translate we transfer that signified into
a different language system (or sign system). Ideally in translation, the signified does not change, what
changes is the signifier.

Activity: Dogs and bread

Google the words dog, cane, perro, Hund, and chien and compare the pictures provided by the search
engine. Now do the same with the words bread, pane, pan, Brot, and pain and compare the pictures.
What are differences? Here is what I found:

pane

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bread

Brot

pan

pain

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The words dog, cane, perro, Hund, and chien they have different signifiers but they refer to the same signified
(meaning). Five different signifiers but the same meaning.

This leads us to the concept of sameness, one of the biggest issue in translation studies. It is true that the the
translated word means the same, it is always possible to have sameness. We are talking about equivalence,
that is the fact that a word has an equivalent word in another language, but it is not always possible.

When it comes to perfect equivalence(sameness) usually languages as systems differ. Sometimes is very
difficult to achieve sameness: from a linguistic level and for cultural reasons. Paradoxically it is easier to
translate an abstract concept than a concrete one (something we experience in everyday life). The term is
bread (in some languages we don’t even have a word for that). Looking at the images above, bread is similar
but not the same thing of pane, brot is again also quite different, pain is actually la baguette that is bread
and pane for French. Of course, we are talking about something that share ingredients, qualities and features
but at the very same time we can say that bread, pane and so on they apparently mean the same thing but
the have different shades of meaning. Sometimes the ingredients are also different so actually it is not even
the same product.

We are talking about food that is one of the most specific element in a culture. We don’t have the same
meaning from a language into another even if it seem so, because actually bread or the concept of bread
varies from cultures to cultures. Also in Italia, bread is very different in the various regions, the difference
here is cultural, because it varies from cultures to cultures.

In the case of brot, of course the word in Italian is pane but at the very same time we must be aware that is
not exactly the same thing or meaning. Umberto Eco says “dire quasi la stessa cosa”, it is the title of one of
his book on translation. Translation is dire quasi la stessa cosa and it is also about meaning.

The fact that the concept or meaning of bread varies, in the definitions from he macmillandictionary.com we
have something that is missing actually. It is always about language

1. spoken or written words that have been changed into a different language
1a the activity of changing spoken or written words into a different language
1b a word or phrase that means the same thing as a word or phrase in a different language
Actually, it is not just about languages but also cultures. We translate into a different culture, and in the
definition above, in order to be more precise, we should add this concept. It is about interpreting a test not
only in a linguistic point of view but also in the relation of a language and a culture. F.e. English has a number
of varieties, and words have a different meaning according to the context so culture and country in which
these words are used. Subway in British English è sottopassaggio in American English is metropolitana.

We have the same term in the same language which has different meaning for the two varieties, and the
difference here is cultural.

Another example can be:

- Butter – burro

From a cultural point of view we have a different way to use that product in a given specific cultural context.

Il burro in italia è usato per cucinare. In a sociocultural point of view the term butter is different, because it
is not used for cooking, it is used on the bread when you drink tea, it is related to the upper middle class, the
product that is used to cook is margarine.

This shows us how sameness, first of all is almost impossible to achieve and equivalence is also cultural.
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It is very important to translator that there are two perspectives which have to be taken into account:

1. language

2. culture

Sameness→ it is related to the concept of equivalence that is not always possible

Meaning→ it is related to the concept of interpretation

Translation is not only about language, but also it is moving from one cultural system to another.

This is something pointed out also by Jacobson in On Linguistic aspect of translation.

Essay on Linguistic aspect of translation by Jacobson

This text is one of the milestones of translation studies. Here we are in 1959, in which the author distinguishes
three types of translation:

1. Intralingual translation→within the same language (rewording). It is an interpretation of the verbal

signs by means of other signs in the same language (when we say the same thing using different
terms, so synonyms. But he says that synonyms are not completely equivalent, there are like
different nuances of a meaning)
2. Interlingual translation→ between languages. That what we usually define as translation.
3. Intersemiotic translation→ transmutation which is the interpretation of verbal signs by means of
nonverbal sign system (when we move from a novel to a film, painting ecc.) or viceversa.

Discussing on the concept of meaning, sameness, equivalence, both from a linguistic point of view and a
cultural point of view. He also starts from a semiotic perspective, as we can see by the third kind of
translation, by considering a language as a system of signs.

In all the three types of translation equivalence is not possible.

Intralingual translation→ synonyms as not complete equivalent

Interlingual translation→ in the case of bread. Jacobson made the example of cheese.

Intersemiotic translation→ the novel is not the same as the film.

We may find equivalence in different linguistic structures and different cultural elements. Translation so it
is possible through some strategies.

Bachelor and celibate are also false friend, bachelor is scapolo in Italian, so a man who has not married yet
meanwhile for celibate in Italian we may think of celibe, that is an unmarried person, but it does not
correspond to the English sense, because the English term refers to someone who abstains from sex. So we
would translate it with persona casta. So they are apparently synonyms, but they have different meaning.
They are not completely equivalent.

In addition, he made the example of a Russian cheese, that is not equivalent with the English cheese or the
Italian one. It is similar to the difference between bread and pane, each culture has its own version of this

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food. In English this kind of Russian cheese would be translated with the word cottage cheese. The word
cheese, here would be an approximation, because it is something similar but not the same exact thing.

It is not about language, but there is a social meaning inscribed in language.

Equivalence is possible only in difference.

Speaking of equivalence on a linguistic level, Jacobson points out that in some cases there is a lack of
grammatical structures. He makes the example of English and Samoyed languages, spoken in northern
Eurasia. In the Samoyed languages there is no such conjunction as ‘and’, ‘or’.

There was an expression Federal prose, the language used by the government in Washington Dc, very
different from literature.

In Federal Prose, ‘and/or’ was very common. And/or is also used in other contexts now. And/or is used when
we want to express ‘both or one of them’. To sum up, in English we have three possibility:

1. The use of the conjunction and → ex: John and Peter will come
2. The use of or → ex: John or Peter will come
3. The use of and /or → ex: John and/or Peter will come (both or one of them will
come)

in Italian the problem to translate this conjunction does not exist because we could say ‘John e Peter’, ‘John
o Peter’ and ‘John e/o Peter’. However, in languages different from the European or Indo-European ones, we
don’t have the same possibility.

In Samoyed languages:

John and peter will come= John and/or Peter both will come

John or peter= John and/or Peter one of them will come

In this case, we don’t have sameness because we have to alter the linguistic structure, but meaning is
transferred.

Translation is possible even though there is a lack of grammatical category.

Sometimes, there are consequences at the cultural level or at the literary level.

The words for ‘moon’, ‘sun’, ‘death’ and ‘life’ in English are neutral, even though they are semantically
identified with a gender. In German, the moon is accompanied with a masculine article meanwhile the sun
with a feminine one. From a cultural point of view, when we use for example these terms in poetry and
personify them, we have a problem in translation. There is no perfect linguistic equivalence, we need a
strategy to compensate.

Even thought, linguistic structures and grammatical categories work on a cognitive level, so the way we
experience a language, nevertheless we need to reinterpret them in order to translate them into a target
language. Jacobson says whenever we are faced with a challenge of any possible equivalence, for example in
poetry, we need to apply the transposition. We need to go beyond equivalence, and focusing on translation
as a creative act not as something mechanical as the computer translation.

Transposition activates a sort of metalinguistic awareness; we need to be aware on how language signify in
different context. In order to overcome the linguistic and cultural gap that sometimes exist between
languages and cultures, we need to work from a creative point of view and this allows also to redefine the

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vocabulary of a language. Since everything can be translated, when there is a gap between linguistic an
cultural system we can introduce for example semantic shifts and neologisms. By doing so, the receiving
culture becomes richer because new words are introduced, but at the very same time new cultural
experiences are introduced in that language or that culture. This takes places in complex literary texts, or in
a simpler level that is simple sentences.

All terms related to ethic food in Italy were introduced in Italian language because equivalence in not
possible. This phenomenon is known as Borrowing.

The term brioche in French is a kind of bread. In Italian vocabulary, because brioche is adapted and became
the pan brioche, so with the original meaning, or adapted in what we call cornetto ecc., in the last case there
is a semantic shift.

Speaking of equivalence, it is useful to refers to Eugene Nida who stated two main types of equivalence:

1. Formal equivalence→it is more about the form, it focuses its attention on the message itself. It is
source text oriented. The aim is to match as close as possible different elements in the source
language. It is a word for word translation. The most important aspect is the overlapping of the two
linguistic forms. → it is related to literal translation.
2. Dynamic equivalence → Nida defines this equivalence as functional equivalence as well. This is based
on the principle of equivalent effect. The focus is on the function of a text and so to speak a message
must be perceived in the same way in the target text as it is in the source text. So it is target text
oriented. Here the expression must sound natural in the target language, we have to have an
equivalent effect on function and we need to go beyond the form, the word to word overlapping and
we need to adapt the source text in the lexical and grammar features of the target language and
culture. in doing so, the equivalent effect is achieved. The same function in the source text is
transferred. → it is related to free translation.

Newmark, another scholar in translation studies, he adapts these two categories and he speaks of:

1. Semantic translation, instead of literal translation or formal equivalence.

2. Communicative translation, instead of free translation or dynamic equivalence.

Nida and his concept of dynamic equivalence have been highly criticised by scholars also because the
equivalent effect is quite subjective. There is no universal rule to define something as perfectly equivalent or
with the same equivalent effect, that is why it can be easily adapted and changed according to the text that
is translated and to the aim of the translator. With Nida criticism was about the fact that he developed this
theory using the Bible as the reference book, used to provide example of formal and dynamic equivalence.
The equivalent effect was that of to adapt the Christian message within the bible to other cultures and
languages. So he had a sort of missionary element in that, and that is why is criticised by scholars who
favourited an approach to translation that focus or highlighted the elements in a source text that were an
expression of cultural and linguistic difference. In other word, of the unicity of the source text.

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Nida’s system of translation (in Bassnett’s book )
Whenever we translate, we interpret the meaning and we transfer it.

He theorises a model that can be applied to every translating act that is:

1. Analysis →Analise the text

2. Transfer → transfer the meaning
3. Restructuring→Restructure that meaning into the receiving language

Moving from one language to another we need to go through these phases. This idea of interpretation applies
to every text.

Example:

Hello → intonation would play an important role as well

Ciao

There is no context so we have to make one that is informal. We meet someone we know. We have to
analyse the communicative act, we transfer the function and that meaning into the other language and we
restructure the word into the receiving language so:

Hello = Ciao

‘Ciao’ in Italian can be used both when we meet someone, or leave him/her. So, we need to analyse it within
its communicative situation, function and context. It could be ‘ciao’ as ‘hello’, or ‘ciao’ as ‘bye bye’.

However, this is not the only possibility. ‘Hello’ could be ‘pronto’ in a telephone call, so we need the context
to interpret the message, to analyse it in order to transfer it.

This system of translation applies to simple text, just like ‘hello’, but also to more complex text like literary
text.

In some literary texts, that have a sort of plurality of meaning within themselves, this may lead to different
interpretation and translation as well. This enrich a culture and translation is of course part of a system of
cultural production as well.

There could be different translation of a text and different interpretations but what is important is to focus
of the invariant meaning of a text related also to its function.
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Two main attitudes toward translation
(The translator’s invisibility→ 1st chapter)

According to Venuti, the condition of the translator especially in England, Anglo Saxon culture the translator
has to be invisible within the text so a translated text it has not to be perceived as a translation at all. We
don’t see the hand of the translator. There is a kind of illusion. Venuti labels this approach as the regime of
fluency. The language in the translated text must to be fluid, natural sounding then we could have this kind
of illusion, as the text is written in its original language.

What makes a good translation:

- If it is natural and brilliant;

- Elegant style, lovely prose;
- Pleasantly fluent;
- If it is crisp;
- Accent

In opposition to fluency and natural sounding translation, venuti points out the concept of transatese. If a
translation is not fluid we can talk about non-natural sounding, a woodden language that would have been
defined as ‘translates’, ‘translationese’ or ‘translatorese’. Like a target language that somehow is influenced
too much by the source language. A language that the reader easily identifies as a translated language, a
language that is not used in everyday language. This language by the Times Literary Supplement in 1967 is
considered as a variant of Pidgin English.

By focusing on the juxtaposition between good translation as fluent and natural sounding, and a translation
written in translates, Venuti also focuses on the approach can be adopted for a good translation and a bad
one. Part of translation studies reflect on what makes a good translation, and how it should be. It depends
not only on the language but also on the perspective we want to adapt on our idea of translation and the
role of it within a broader discourse like the cultural production in the receiving cultural system. It depends
on what translation is for us as a translator.

In the regime of fluency, typical of the English world, according to Venuti a good translation is a fluent one
and it is a translation where the translator should be invisible.

There is a kind of paradox. On one hand, translation enrich the target culture meanwhile on the other hand,
translation has to maintain the translator invisible.

What Venuti means when he says that the translator should be invisible, is the fact that by reading the
translated text even if there is a style that could be identified with a given translator but since a good
translation should be fluent and natural we don’t immediately identify that language in that text as a
translation. The style is based on the concept of fluency and natural language of a receiving culture. Venuti
links the concept of the invisibility of a translation to another concept of translation studies that is discussed
a lot: as the dichotomy between the origin and copy. If the translator should be invisible it’s because
translation is considered as a derivative work, a copy of an original written in a source language. The
translator role here is reduced to reproduce something and by doing so it is considered a copy and inferior.
But translation is a creative process, a creative effort by the translator. So instead of making opposition
between a source text and a target one, as one that is superior and the other is inferior, Venuti suggests that
we have to consider them at the same level. So translation is conceived ad am original product of a creative
act. The translated text is somehow linked to the source text, the one could not exist without the other but
at the very same time they are separated things that should be considered on the row.

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Only the foreign text is considered as an original meanwhile the translation is a copy, and a bad translation
is not even this. Translation is always derivative and a translator is considered inferior, it is not considered
with the same importance of a writer. When it comes equivalence, creativity plays a fundamental role to
solve some issues on untranslatability. So we need to know both languages and cultural system and to be
creative somehow. So it is a kind of misconception to think that a translator is inferior to a writer, part of
translation studies works towards rebalancing the relation between author and translator of a text, source
text and translated text, so to avoid the opposition between copy and original.

In the past, the name of the translator was not even mentioned: we had the title of the work, the name of
the writer. In some cases, the name of the author was even translated. The translator was considered as a
sort of mediator. Nowadays, the name of the translator is immediately written after that of the author. In
Italy we find the name of the translator usually in the first pages but not in the cover of the book. The
presence of the name of a translator is a step forward the visibility of this figure.

A translation in order to efface its second-order status, to prove to be a good translation, this can be achieved
by means of the effect of transparency. When we read a translated text, it seems like it is the original one.

(Pag 7 – The translator’s invisibility- Capitolo 1)

The violence of translation

The idea of translation as a violent act. He states that both translated text and original one are derivative
(pag.18). the text is open, the reader makes his/her own interpretations. If the text is open to several
interpretations, it means that the writer actually does not have direct control on the factor of interpretations,
the writer does not originate the text, not because it does not write but the meaning of that text is partly out
of the control of the other, so the author can’t consider the way in which a text can be interpretate. Especially
when it comes to the texts that have several interpretations over the centuries. The network of meaning
within the text is destabilised also thought translation. Meaning is plural and in a text we have several
protentional meanings that can be discovered by the reader or interpreter, and it is not an ‘unchanging
unified essence’, so there is not one meaning only in a text. That why translation cannot be evaluated, in fact
there is not a one-to-one correspondence. The plurality of meaning depends on the source text, but also on
the reader so on the perspective that has been adapted. This idea of meaning that is always plural can be
carried by translation.

Each translation could be a different interpretation because it is influenced by the cultural context where a
translation is produced. Nowadays, we are more aware of the power relation between women and men so
we can read a text in the past with different lens. Where this awareness is well established it’s natural to
read a text from this perspective which is not possible in a cultural in which this element is not present.

The relationship established between source and target cultural system points to the ‘violence that resides
in the very purpose and activity of translation’. Whenever we adapt a text into a receiving culture according
to values, beliefs etc., this is considered as a violent act or as an ethno-centric process because the ethnic
reality of a receiving culture is in the centre. The violent effect is about changing text in a translation,
adapting it according to the principles of a receiving culture. this effect impact both the source text/culture
and the target one, because though translation the source culture is represented reconstructed in a new
way. We create a new image of a foreign culture that works in the receiving culture. Venuti notices the
enormous power of translation in the construction of an identities for foreign cultures. F. e. how the British
empire translated and represented for a British audience the exotic others colonised by the empire. So
translation is a powerful mean to represent and reconstruct foreign identities. This can be achieved also
thought stereotypes. By doing this, translation could represent identities in ethnic discrimination, we
translate the exotic other according stereotypes of a receiving culture, here the violent effect of translation

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has an impact in the other culture. They play an important role in addition in the receiving cultural system.
In the receiving culture, we add other cultural products that are not part of our cultural system by translation.

If translation could be violent or ethnocentric, that means that it is never neutral. Translation cannot be
neutral with cultural text, as it is maybe for others kind of texts, and that is also why it is needful to identify
an approach to translation (the questions are: how do I translate? How do I interpret a text?). in fact, there
are choices that are not linguistic. Venuti refers to a lecture made by Schleiermacher in 1813, that was on
the two methods of translation (pag. 19-20):

1. The translator leaves the author in peace and moves the reader towards the author→ it means that
the language is not changed, the elements said by the author too and we move the reader of a
translated text towards the author. The translation is source oriented. It is important to not change
too much like languages, images etc.
2. The translator leaves the reader of the translated text in peace and moves the author of the source
text towards him→ the source text has to move toward the target text. So, it is a target oriented
translation.

Venuti on this dichotomy builds a further discussion on what translation is and what translator should do. He
defines the two approaches as:

1. Domestication or domesticating translation→ when it is target oriented, so the author goes towards
the reader of the translated text. The translated text is a domestication of the source text that is
adapted to the language and culture of the reader (regime of fluency, the translated text seems like
it is written in the target language. The reader should not deal with expressions that don’t exist in his
system of values and that are related to the source text, or elements that might sound odd).
2. Foreignization or foreignizing translation→ the reader here goes toward the source text. In that case,
the translator favours somehow foreign elements of the source text and tries to transfer them in the
target one, and the reader experiences these elements. The source text is not domesticated.

A domesticating translation results in an ethnocentric translation. Venuti speaks of an ethnocentric reduction

to the receiving cultural values whereas a foreignization is an ethnodeviant translation, the translation is
foreignizing actually, by doing so we highlight the linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text→
Venuti says that in so doing we send the reader abroad. For example, some culture thinks in meter meanwhile
others in feet: what the translator should do in this case? He could adapt the system of measure in the
source text or maybe leave how it is in the source text. The effect on the reader is different: in the first case,
there is not problem because there is an adaptation to the receiving cultural values, in the second case the
reader is somehow approaching with something different, like if he is sent abroad.

Venuti considers foreignization translation as a way of allowing the foreign to emerge and to speak in
translation, but for Venuti the foreign is not a transparent representation of an essence that reside in the
foreign text. But it is a strategic construction. We don’t opt for foreignization to reproduce an essence, but
because it is a strategic. We want to allow the other to speak in the translation because then the receiving
system could be changed by this foreignness. We want the reader to experiment a certain foreign language.
By doing so we disrupt the cultural codes that prevail in the translating language. In other words, we don’t
adapt the source text to the cultural values of the receiving culture, but I want my cultural values to open up
to something that is different. Translation is a powerful means to do it. The language must adapt to the
receiving culture to maintain the purpose of readability but at the very same time we should be aware of the
fact that these to approaches theorised by Venuti are also two ethical attitudes toward translation as a
practice and discourse that affect the receiving culture and source culture. sometimes, it is not a thing that
translator could decide and it is the publishing house that imposes the direction for the translator.

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Translating the other
When it comes to Translation and Otherness we mean in particular cultural otherness or cultural diversity.
The fact that whenever we translate we move from one cultural system to another by a linguistic code or
system and by doing that we have 2 or more cultures together in contact: , it’s like a cultural exchange that
takes place whenever we translate and this cultural exchange is based on languages, so we have cultural
hybridization that takes place through linguistic hybridization. So, the other (other culture, other identity,
other community) can be visible or can communicate to other communities, to other cultures also through
translation. Translation nevertheless could be an othering process thought which the other is defined as such.
By translation the works of another culture I want to mark the otherness, the diversity of those communities.
And this could also have a negative meaning, of course this is what took place in colonial context, where
translation was used as a means to impose that cultural language of the empire on the colonies but is also a
way to mark the otherness, in that case, for the imperial point of view, it was inferiority of the colonized, , of
the other. The othering process could be ambiguous because I could mark the difference, the diversity of the
other.

Domestication and Foreignization

Two approaches to translation. With Foreignization means the approach that tries to maintain the foreign,
the other elements of the Source text, Source Language within Receiving language, Receiving cultures by
means of borrowings, calques, the linguistic strategies or structures that mark that original and foreign,
otherness that is part of the Source text. Whereas Domestication is a sort of simplification, is the opposite.

Whenever we translate we always translate the other, the outside, the foreignness and through translation
that other outside becomes the other inside of us. We are also another, someone else, that foreign who lives
in us. It is temporarily hosted. There is a beautiful metaphor by Paul Ricoeur, who speaks of translation as
hospitality. In English there are 2 words to express that idea: the host and the guest. The host is the one who
invites someone and the guest is the person who is invited. In Italian we don’t have this difference, abbiamo
“ospite” inteso sia come colui che accoglie qualcuno che come colui che viene accolto. Ospite deriva dal latino
ostis che sta per nemico. Quindi la pratica di accogliere il nemico e di renderlo parte di se è un’immagine
molto potente, proprio per rappresentare il dialogo che avviene tra noi e l’altro, e questo scambio è una
forma di traduzione. Da cui appunto l’idea di traduzione come ospitalità dell’altro, dove l’altro viene accolto
da colui che ospita. Essendo accolto viene trasformato da questo atto di accoglienza, ma anche colui che
ospita (nel nostro caso l’inglese) viene trasformato. È sempre uno scambio reciproco. Lo scambio linguistico
è sempre stato bidirezionale, mai univoco. Lo scambio influenza e cambia sia il guest che l’host. La traduzione
è un’altra immagine.

Antoine Berman
TRANSLATION AND THE TRIALS OF
THE FOREIGN
It is an Essay published in 1985 by Antoine Berman originally in French. We analyze the English version
translated by Lawrence Venuti.

A trial is like a sort of test (prova). It is a trial for the foreign through translation. Berman talks about
translation as a trial of the foreign using the expression, used by Heidegger, talking about Hördelin, a German
poet. It is an expression to talk about the poetic work, poetic experience. His experience in translating from
the Greek tragic Word.

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For Berman, Translation of the foreign works on a double level:

On the one hand, translation is the trial of the foreign by establishing a relationship between Self-
Same (that is the identity) and the Foreign (the connection between the two is established). The
identity A codified through a language A is changed by the contact with the Foreign. By doing that,
the receiving self (identity), so the foreign work, through translation is opened up in its utter
foreignness. We can see through translation the foreignness that is the otherness of the Source text.
So, the otherness in that source text is aloud to immerge, to stand out, to become one of the most
visible and recognizable element of the text in translation, through translation. In that case,
Translation is the trial of the Foreign, because then the foreign is aloud to be invisible, to speak.
On the other hand, translation is the trial of the foreign, as the foreign work is uprooted from its
own language-ground. The other is not speaking in the source language, in the source culture
anymore but is uprooted and has to be as powerful, as meaningful, as in the source culture also in
the target culture and in the target language. By combining this, you have the most singular power
of translation that is that of revealing the foreign work’s most original kernel (original kernel: core,
function and meaning of a text. It is the discourse codified in that text)

This original kernel is the identity, the Self-Same of that original, of the source text but at the very same
time is like a sort of mirror you flip the image, so the speaker, it is the most identical Self-same but at the
same time the most distant, related to otherness. The invariant core is about discourse, the functions,
the identity of the Source text because it is translated, it is transferred and it is also the identity of the
Target text. In this process that identity is transformed into otherness. And that’s why Translation is a
trial of the foreign and for the Foreign.

Translation means liberating the violence impressed in the work through a serious intensification in the
translating language. In other words, accentuating its strangeness. There is this idea of violence in the
Source text by replacing something like the energy of the source text or the meaning of a source text
which has to be liberate, to free emerge in the target text.

I have this idea that one can always translate a poet—English, Latin, or Greek—exactly word for word,
without adding anything, preserving the very order of the words, until at last you find the meter, even the
rhymes. I have rarely pushed the experiment that far; it takes time, I mean, a few months, plus uncommon
patience. The first draft resembles a mosaic of barbarisms; the bits are badly joined; they are cemented
together, but not in harmony. A forcefulness, a flash, a certain violence remains, no doubt more than
necessary. It’s more English than the English text, more Greek than the Greek, more Latin than the Latin
[…]

(Alain 1934:56–7)

This is a good example of what happens when we adopt this approach, it is not just reproducing freely
the syntax of the Source text maintaining every single structure or word. It is not a full word-for-word
translation. The translation has to be reworded, rearranged and this is what we see in the quote. It is
expressed the idea of a translation word for word as a kind of first step but then the first draft resembles
a mosaic of barbarism like words written down and a sort of a chaotic ensemble of words (especially with
poetry), but then you need to work again on it. The first draft is not enough and you can still maintain
the foreignness of the text, so this forcefulness, this flesh, this violence and at the very same time it does
mean that the translated language doesn’t sound English, Italian or French. Here, we see that on the end
it’s more English than the English text, so it’s is even richer.

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Berman speaks of analytic translation as a way of analyzing existent translation from this perspective.

THE PROPERLY ETHICAL AIM OF THE TRANSLATING ACT US THAT OF RECEIVING THE FOREIGN AS
FOREIGN

For Berman, a similarity with Venuti, the ethical aim of translation consists into welcoming the other
without imposing anything, without expecting that Foreign to become something else because it is a
guest in our cultural and linguistic house.

Henry James said that Literature is like a building with several windows and through the windows of the
text you can see the world from different perspectives and you have several views. Of course the more
windows you have the more visions and perspectives you have.

Translation is something like that. It is not just about having several windows but a welcome with several
identities in us.

BERMAN’S ANALYTIC OF TRANSLATION AND THE SYSTEM OF TEXTUAL DEFORMATION

In order to see the other has been aloud to speak in the translated text and in the translating language,
Berman theorises an approach which he calls the analytic of translation through which the scholars can
actually see if translation as a trial of the foreign and identify the system of the textual deformation
through which the translated text modifies the Source text. So, whenever we translate and this works at
a psychological level, we deform the text through a series of forces that cause a sort of deviation; instead
of maintaining the core, the kernel, the structures, the meanings, all the elements that define the Source
text by transforming into the other language and culture we tend to deform the text through this system
of textual deformation and the more the text is deformed is subjected to this deforming tendencies the
more it is distant from the Source text, the more the foreign in the source text disappears (it is not
allowed to emerge).

Berman labels this approach as negative analytic whenever we focus on the deforming tendencies, on
the system of textual deformation that changed the Source text and then is the negative analytic
nevertheless the same perspective or the same aim can be used in a positive way and it is what he calls
positive analytic. In that case, instead of focusing on the deformation, the scholar focuses on all those
strategies that have been used to avoid the deformation of the Source text, it is a positive analysis of the
best practices that have been adopted to avoid these deformations.

When we speak of deforming tendencies we are not talking about strategies, it doesn’t mean those
tendencies are used by the translator as a strategy. Strategy is something that I consciously decided to
adopt, whereas tendency is something unconscious that we do without realising it. A tendency is not a
strategy but, of course, I can adopt a strategy to avoid a deformation and that is the focus of a positive
analytic. The negative analytic and the positive analytic form a critic of translations, so a way to analyse
translations. The way the kernel of the Source text has been transferred into a target text. For Berman,
the negative analytic is also about ethnocentric translations and ethnocentric is something we also have
found in Venuti where the culture of the receiving culture is at the centre. During the period of Nazi-
fascist period, a country was forced to become part of another country that is what happen with
annexation, and through annexationist translation incorporates a foreign element or text.

In order to define an analytic translation, Berman gave us some example from prose, rarely from poetry
or drama. Because according to Berman, prose is the genre that collects and reassembles the polilingual
space of a community.

In a poem or in a play also from a linguistic point of view, there is more homogeneity because of its
length, its style and nature. Whereas a novel and think about Balzac, Proust, Joyce, so novels are actually
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 the space where the polilingual spaces of a community are incapsulated, are written next which other.
This is because you have several characters and settings, so the prose in general is a polilingual work
where we have several registers according to the specific setting and the characters.

Prose, according to Berman, has some heterogeneous character, a sort of shapelessness. Because of this,
the translator tends to deform the text more freely because we have such an extention of varieties of
polylingual space that is almost natural for the translator to deform that. This is also typical of the writer,
think about the Nineteen century novels that where published in newspapers. In that case, over 2 years,
the language used within that novel would obviously change, would be more heterogeneous and that
element leads the translator to unconsciously deform the text, more than with a poem. A poem is so to
speak, more consistent.

Tendencies that deform the babelian proliferation of languages in novels in particular

I. RATIONALIZATION

It is about the syntactical structure of the original starting with the most meaningful and unchangeable
element in a prose text, that is punctuation. It is about syntax and punctuation. The translated text sounds
more natural and more fluent, we changed and recomposed sentences and the sequence of sentences. We
arranged that according to our idea of discursive order (what sounds natural and fluent). Rationalization work
on a syntactic level. We build syntax also through punctuation. By rearranging the syntax we modify, we
rationalise the same text in punctuation of the source text with this idea that in our target languages and our
target culture that sounds better, it’s more natural, it follows the discursive order that is a part of culture.

Another problem that we have with rationalization is that it destroys or modifies one of the most important
features of prose, that is its concreteness. A novel is more concrete than a poem and rationalization is all
about abstraction because we rationalize a language, the text. Rationalization means the passage from
concrete to abstract, not only by reordering the sentence structures but also by translating verbs into
substantives, into nouns or by choosing the more general between 2 options. By doing this, rationalization
actually deforms the original by reversing the basic tendencies of the prose text.

II. CLARIFICATION

It’s like a consequence of rationalization. Whenever we rationalize we tend also to clarify, to explain.
Clarification can be part of what we do with translation. Berman says that sometimes we clarify what
shouldn’t be clarified in the text at all or we clarify what in the source text doesn’t want to be clarified. This
clarification could be the manifestation of something that is not apparent but it is concealed or repressed in
the source text. Usually, the problem with clarification is that it makes clear what doesn’t need or want to be
clear in the original. Sometimes this leads to a movement from polysemy to monosemy, because of instead
of maintaining the plurality of meanings, the several meaning that can be found in a term or in a text
(polysemy) we decide to clarify, to make one choice and this leads to monosemy as a consequence of
clarification.

III. EXPANSION

Whenever we rationalize and we clarify, the text tends to be longer so it is expanded. Berman defines that
as a sort of unfolding of what in the original is folded, by explaining and rationalising we unfold the text and
add nothing. This is the conclusion of Berman. This expansion adds nothing to the text. It was already in the
folded source text.

This three first tendencies are the most frequent one. We tend to rationalise even if it is not required.
Sometimes we have to change the syntax but in other cases it is not necessary, it is a stylistic choice that has
to be maintained. So, these tendencies are more easily detected and detectable
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 IV. ENNOBLEMENT AND POPULARIZATION

Ennoblement is a form of poetization, when we speak of poetry, or rhetorization, when we speak of prose.
It’s when we rephrase a sentence, a text in a more elegant way. It means that the source text is like a sort of
row material like a draft. This is not what we have in the source text. It’s like a sort of stylistic exercise,
another text or rewriting. In a given culture that could sound more beautiful, more natural, more fluent
because that’s the way that prose is in that culture. The elements of a prose of a culture are different from
those of other cultures. There are some elements that are cultural bound and are difficult to maintain from
one cultural system to the other.

The opposite of ennoblement is popularization. When you tone down the language of the source text and
you produce a target text where you have like popular expressions or spoken language that is used to make
the text more colloquial or more popular or more fluent or more natural.

V. QUALITATIVE IMPOVERISHMENT

It is usually associated with quantitative impoverishment. It refers to the replacement of the terms,
expressions in the original with terms, expressions that lack the sonorous richness or the signifying or iconic
richness. We lose the quality, especially when he comes to the iconic and sound richness of the word. Think
about of the fact that with some words create some images that’s the iconic richness. The image stands for
several meanings and nuances. This is also part of iconicity of language and the metaphoric use of it. In
qualitative impoverishment you lose that because the translated word lacks that richness, that image.

VI. QUANTITATIVE IMPOVERISHMENT

It is about lexicon loss. In some languages there is the proliferation of signifiers and signified changes. The
fact that there are several signifiers that refer to the same signified with slightly different changes in meaning.
Think of Italian and English: we have faccia, volto, viso whereas in English we have face only. When we move
from one language to another we might tend towards a quantitative impoverishment. Here of course, we
lose something.

VII. THE DESTRUCTION OF RHYTHMS

It is not only about poetry because prose has its own rhythm, and of all these tendencies the inner rhythm
of a text maybe changed or destroyed. This is important for those prose poems or poetic texts that have the
shape of a prose text.

VIII. THE DESTRUCTION OF UNDERLYING NETWORKS OF SIGNIFICATION

It is very interesting. There some utter that are known of creating a sort of net or network within that text by
using some words or some structures and by repeating them. This repetition, this network means something.
It is part of meaning construction within the text, it is also part of the interpretation of the text. If we are not
aware of that and we tend to destroy that networks of signification, we lose something in the text and as a
consequence we remain able to reinterpret the same way in the text because of that destruction. It could be
repetition of the same term but it could also be a sort of chain of terms that linked together gave us a picture
that can be used to interpret that text.

IX. THE DESTRUCTION OF LINGUISTIC PATTERNINGS

Something that goes beyond the level of metaphors and signifiers. Something that is extended to the types
of sentences and sentence constructions employed. It is not just the word or a phrase or an expression that
is used to create a web of meaning but it is also about linguistic patternings that are created through syntactic
structures employed in the text and that become also part of the style of the other. Something that helps us

16
to recognize a text as something belonging to that other. This due to rationalization, clarification and
expansion.

X. THE DESTRUCTION OF VERNACUKAR NETWORKS OR THEIR EXOTICIZATION

We are talking about dialect or varieties of a language or vernacular networks that may be employed in the
text to create contrast, to define characters, to create meaning through this juxtaposition of vernacular
networks. If a translator does not maintain that contrast he/she destroys the network but at the very same
time the meaning created by the juxtaposition is also destroyed. Or, a translator could create an exotic
version of that vernacular network and by exoticization of those dialects I mean something that has no
equivalent in the target language and as a consequence is translated as something exotic, something unreal,
something that does not exist and something that turns a character in a stereotype. An example of this could
be the way of characters who speak in an African-American vernacular English in American novels or
American films and the way in which they are translated into Italian. Sometimes there is exoticization, so
speaking in a funny way, for example “Io mangiare e andare tutti i giorni a lavoro”. This way is a form of
exocitization because nobody would speak like that in Italian, there is no equivalent in the receiving language,
so I make up an exotic language, an exotic speech to translate them.

XI. THE DESTRUCTION OF EXPRESSIONS AND IDIOMS

Sometimes those idiomatic expressions are part of that source text. If I translate some idiomatic expressions
they have no sense anymore because those idiomatic expressions don’t belong in the receiving culture and
in the recieving language. The problem is that you may destroy those elements or the web of meaning
created by the use of those expression.

XII. THE EFFACEMENT OF THE SUPERIMPOSITION OF LANGUAGES

It is related to both idiomatic expressions that work on the level of register and also to vernacular networks.
The superimposition of languages is about the juxtaposition of dialect and common language, the
coexistence of more than one variety. If we destroy that superimposition and coexistence because we flatter
not only the single dialect but the contrast between them then we miss something into the translation.

On the one hand, when we read and analyse a translation we can focus on these tendencies and see if they
are in the target text and when we translate we should be aware of these unconscious tendencies that
operate also within us as translators and try to avoid them because of the idea of translation as a trial of
foreign. Where the foreign is aloud to speak, where translation becomes house of hospitality, the place
where other languages and other cultures can coexist, can improve and enrich each other.

This is an ethical aim of translation that you as translator may decide to adopt or not.

Berman’s theory is linked to the concept of invisibility theorised by Venuti. Berman theorised a method to
analyse existing translation. When we talk about the deforming tendencies (they are not strategies), some
of them can be used by a strategy but THEY ARE NOT, Berman conceived them only as tendencies and they
are unconscious→ we should be aware of this to avoid them whenever we translate if we want the other to
speak thought our translation. Sometimes it is impossible to avoid them and in fact we have to compensate,
to find a sort of balance. In some cases, actually it is necessary to deform the text to one way or another
through RATIONALISATION, CLARIFICATION etc.

Vinay and Darbelnet—Taxonomy

Speaking of strategies and techniques that can be adopted whenever we translate we have to consider
TAXONOMY from Vinay and Darbelnet when it comes to choices that can we make when we speak of
translation (in introduction of transation studies by Munday, pages 86-88). This taxonomy was first theorised

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in 1958 in a seminar work by Vinay and Darbelnet, comparative stylistic of French and English, a study where
the two scholars compare French and English translation and through by means of this translation they made
a list of strategies and procedures that can be adopted in translation and that have been adopted in
translated and existing text. This can be extended to other languages as well. It is a book published in 1958
and it was revised and there is a new edition in 1995. It is considered a sort of milestone in translation studies.
If we want to focus on translation studies from a draconical and historical perspective, their method is a
milestone. They distinguish between two strategies and several procedures and in particular the two
strategies for Vinay ad Darbelnet are direct translation and oblique translation. So two main types of
translation or strategies that can be adopted direct and oblique. We should first adopt the direct strategy
and if it is not possible then we can refer to oblique translation. Direct translation include three procedures
whereas oblique translation includes four procedures.

Direct translation
Talking about direct translation the three procedures are:

1. Borrowing
2. Calque
3. Literal translation.

We can use a Borrowing whenever we have a gap and it can be cultural or linguistic gap. Vinay and Darbelnet
use the term LACUNA from latin to refer to these two kinds of gap. It is easy to adopt: we can simply borrow
the term from the source language so it is a translation that is not exactly a translation → we are not shifting
from a language to another but we are borrowing the source language in the target language. It can create
stylistic effect because sometimes leave the word untranslated also when we have an equivalent of that term
in the target language. By using a borrowing, so by leaving the word untranslated, we can us a sort of
flavour/colour/ nuance of the source text in the target text. This can be achieved also intralinguistically, so
within the same language when we speak about varieties, when in a British context we decide to use the
American equivalent of the same concept. And interlingustically, when we use borrowed terms into our
linguistic system. Muday make us the example of Tequila, Sushi, etc. in English text. We have quite a lot of
borrowing especially in ESP (English for Specific Purposes), so a language that refers to a specific domain, so
business English, legal English what in Italian is labelled as linguaggi specialistici. Here we have a lot of
borrowed terms and in some cases some words became very popular also in the receiving culture or the
receiving language and Lockdown is an example of that. Especially in the last decade we tend to use a lot of
English term also when they are not necessary because we have and Italian equivalent but we do that
because it sounds cooler. In some cases also we make up terms in English that are misborrowings because
they don’t exist in English like the term beauty case. Also in translation we can leave the word of the source
text untranslated because there is not an equivalent in the target text especially in the case of the cultural
bounds terms. An example is coroner, in Italian is medico legale, and whenever we find that term we are
talking about a linguistic and cultural system and context that is the British one. So a coroner is a professional
figure that we find in the British system. If we want to translate a text where that term is used, taking into
account that it is used in a British context so we would leave it in another british context but we wouldn’t
translate it in another language, we would leave it just it is like f.e. il coroner stabilì che… Se traduciamo
coroner con medico legale infatti si perderebbe sicuramente quell’elemento linguistico culturale che
caratterizza il termine. Some of these borrowings according to Vinay and Darbelnet became part of the target
language system and vocabulary, so we may find it in dictionaries. Here it is important to make a further
distinction between cultural bound terms and borrowings. Borrowings at first it is always a cultural bound
term. A cultural bound term is a term culturally bound so it is linked to another language that comes from
another context as well and because it is cultural bound it is unique and specific to that culture and it has no
equivalent in other languages. So when it comes to translation, there is a gap and for this reason it is

18
untranslatable because there is no such term to refers to tequila for example. So, we leave it as it is and it’s
what Vinay and Darbelnet define as borrowing as the first procedure within a direct translation strategy.
From a terminological perspective a borrowing is actually part of the receiving language whereas technically
speaking a cultural bound term isn’t or is not yet. Whenever we have language contact and we need to
transfer a concept to one language to another sometimes we have these cultural bound terms that they are
untranslatable because there is no equivalent so we use the term as it is. Then, when that term is likely to be
used more and more often by the speakers of the receiving language and the target language that term might
become a part of a vocabulary of the target language and in that case it actually become a borrowing. So we
would find it in dictionaries of that languages. That is the main distinction between the two: we would not
have a cultural bound terms in a dictionary, only when it becomes established → well used and attested in
the target language then it can be considered as a borrowing and enlisted in the vocabulary of a language. In
translation there are terms left untranslated, some of them are cultural bounds terms and borrowings
because attested in the target language. This procedure is also a way to expand a language so by adding
these terms a vocabulary of a language is enriched and we see that constantly especially in languages with
specific purposes so technical language so when terms from other languages are taken and transferred in
others and it became the only word to use to refer to a specific concept. Some of these terms are used for a
certain amount of time, some of these cultural bound terms, because it is just a temporary and they may
disappear, nobody would use them anymore and others became part of the vocabulary of a language so they
are actually borrowings. Some of them may undergo semantic changes and the meaning becomes something
else, they became false friends which is by the way an example of this.

The second procedure is related to borrowing and that is that of calque. According to Vinay and Darbelnet,
it is a special kind of borrowing because the source language/structure is literally translated. It not just taking
a word from a linguistic system to the new linguistic system but we transfer so to speak the whole structure,
so in that case we talk about calque. We have to distinguish between lexical and structural calques. The
lexical calque is a calque that respects the syntactic structure of the target language. Vinay and Darbelnet
make us the example of compliments of the season that is an English expression used whenever we wish
something, so greetings at Christmas and New Year. This expression translated literary in French compliment
de la saison, and it is a calque. Some of these structures are transferred as calques in another language, and
some others are not. It depends on the way languages tends to include terms and structures and expression
from other languages. The second type of calques theorised by Vinay and Darbelnet is structural calque. Here
we have a new construction and it could be also a noun phrase. So a new construction introduced in a target
language, we don’t have a one word only but a complex unity and that structure is transferred in the target
language. So it is not just a word for word literally translation like in the case of compliments of the season,
but we transfer the whole construction. They make the example of science fiction, an English unit and a noun
phrase, used as it is in French but also in Italian. Governor general is a calque because in English we have first
the adjective and then the noun, but it is not this way in this case. Also in the case of calques we may have
semantic changes due to that calques became an example of false friend.

Within direct translation, the third type is literal translation which is a word for word translation so the direct
transfer of a source language text into a target language text which sticks to syntactic structure of the source
text. We can observe that from a morphosyntactic point of view we have the same syntactic order. This type
of translation is easier with languages that belong to the same family, it is easier between French and Italian
rather than French to German.

Oblique translation
When a direct translation is not possible we should opt to an oblique translation for several reason:

maybe a calque, borrowing or literal translation would give another meaning

maybe because it has no meaning in the target language
19
 it is structurally impossible to have the same morphosyntactic structure
maybe because there is not a corresponding expression within the target language, so that
expression would not mean anything in the target language
that expression is used for another register so used in another context with a slightly different
function

in the case of bon appetit, is translated with enjoy your meal that is not a literal translation. If we translate it
as good appetite the meaning will be completely different because it has a different function. In some cases,
and it depends by the context, in English we will use bon appetit but it is related to class. The four procedures
are:

1. Transposition
2. Modulation
3. Equivalence or idiomatic translation
4. Adaptation

With transposition we replace one word class with another without changing the meaning of the message
so we operate at the level of WORD CLASSES. So, we use a verb instead of a noun or viceversa. It can also
take place at the intralingual level, within the same language we can rephrase the same concept using
another word class. There are also two types of transposition:

I. Obligatory
II. Optional

In the case of the Obligatory one, we are forced. In the case of the Optional one, it is not obligatory and we
can chose either one option or another option, in this case we are free to use the option that we suitable for
that specific text and in some cases what is obligatory can be optional and the other way round.

Modulation is a variation of the form, of the message obtained by a change in the point of view. We
remodulate from one language to another changing also the point of view. This takes place when something
is grammatically correct but somehow it does not sound right in the target language. So, when it unsuitable
or idiomatic, when it sounds a little bit awkward in the target language. Even in this case we can have
obligatory and optional modulation, just as for transposition. Here we change the form of the message, so
the whole structure by changing THE POINT OF VIEW. It is due to the fact that in the target language is more
natural to use the ‘other option’. One option is marked because it deviates from what is naturally used and
the other one is unmarked because that is how the speakers would normally phrase or rephrase that concept.
From a modulation point of view, a literal translation of a sentence would be grammatically correct in a target
language but somehow it would be a marked choice. So, we would opt for modulation using the unmarked
option. This is the way it should be because it depends on the function within a given specific context of that
expression in the source text. In other words, if that sentence in the source text wants to be natural sounding
and so on, we should try to maintain the same function also in the target text. Modulation allows us to use
the unmarked option. Here it is important to maintain function, maybe fluency or naturalness in the source
text also in the target one instead of opting for a literal translation that would be grammatically fine but with
a different function. When it comes to literary text like novels the translator should be aware of the fact that
a given expression in the source text is the unmarked choice. If a writer opt for an marked choice in the
source text, so a choice that for whatever reason deviates from what would normally be used in a
conversation, in that case the translator should recognise the markedness of that option in the source
language and transfer it in the target language as well using a marked expression/ structure. The changes
caused by modulation can follow specific lines. It could be a modulation:

❖ from abstract to concrete or vice versa

❖ from particular to general or vice versa
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 ❖ explicative modulation
❖ from the whole to a part or vice versa
❖ a part for another part
❖ reversal of terms
❖ negation of opposite
❖ from active to passive or vice versa
❖ rethinking of intervals and limits in space and time→ when we describe something in space and time
from a different point of view in terms of the limits that actually define that element in that time and
space.
❖ Change of symbols → this opens up to metaphors as well. This is very close to the third procedure in
oblique translation that is idiomatic translation or equivalence.

In the case of Idiomatic translation or équivalence languages describe the same situation but using different
structures because the most important thing, the core of that utterance is the FUNCTION. With idiomatic
expression this is always the case because the most important thing is not the words that are used but these
words in contexts, so the function (the book of Susan Bassnet gives us example of that). The same can be
said by onomatopoeic sounds, different language translate the sounds make by animals in different ways.

The last procedure is adaptation. We need it when the TYPE OF SITUATION in the source language is unknown
in the target language. So when a new situation has to be created so that can be considered as equivalent in
the target language. So it is also called situational equivalence. Adaptation should not be confused with
adaptation as a form of intersemiotic translation. Here we are talking of a procedure theorised by Vinay and
Darbelnet where a new situation is created because the very same situation in the source language has none
equivalent situation in the target language. This is due to cultural elements, examples of this could be titles
of films where a situation has to be modified in order to be adapted on the receiving cultural system. This
occurs also in national sports, the two scholars refers to cricket and all the references and expression to it
that have a national symbolic function in the British context but in others would be meaningless. So, they
need to be adapted using another sport or activity. To kiss a daughter in English is a normal situation that is
not acceptable in French, a literal translation is not possible because that situation is not codified culturally
and it does not exist so we have to create a new situation though adaptation.

These are procedures, so we are conscious about them, on the contrary Berman talks about tendencies so
something that are unconscious. Sometimes we can have a combination of these procedures.

There are other supplementary translation procedures. Some of them are Berman’s deforming tendencies
especially when it comes to generalisation, esplicitation and so on.

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