Across Languages and Cultures 11 (1), pp.

29–49 (2010)
DOI: 10.1556/Acr.11.2010.1.2

REPROCESSING TEXTS. THE FINE LINE BETWEEN

RETRANSLATING AND REVISING

OUTI PALOPOSKI1AND KAISA KOSKINEN2

1
Department of Modern Languages, P. O. Box 24,
FI – 00014 University of Helsinki,
Phone: +358-9-191 40068; Fax +358-9-191 23072,
E-mail: outi.paloposki@helsinki.fi
2
School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies,
FI – 33014 University of Tampere,
Phone: +358-3-3551 6119,
E-mail: kaisa.a.koskinen@uta.fi

Abstract: Retranslations are a frequent object of study in Translation Studies. They

can be used as data for a number of research problems, or retranslation can be studied as a
phenomenon on its own. There are no large-scale surveys on retranslation, however, let
alone surveys that would be coupled with in-depth case studies, no doubt due to the labori-
ousness and complexity of the task. Our own interest in the issue started from a small-scale
project testing the so-called Retranslation Hypothesis, but gradually our research expanded
into a wider range of questions. We have addressed three main areas: the extent and propor-
tion of retranslation in Finland; the motives for and reception of retranslations (publishers,
critics); and finally, what happens to a text when it is either retranslated or revised (textual
analysis). For this purpose, we have compiled three different sets of data from the Finnish
context. These sets consist of synchronic data (retranslations and their reviews from the year
2000), diachronic data (charting the retranslation history of classics shortlisted in 1999 and
1887) and case studies (by e.g. Victor Hugo, Nikolai Gogol, Astrid Lindgren and Juan Va-
lera translated into Finnish). This paper presents an overview of the results of our investiga-
tion, argues for a need for a comprehensive treatment of retranslation as a phenomenon, and
discusses the implications of textual analysis for the understanding of the fuzzy area be-
tween retranslation and revision. The cases presented include Hugo’s Les Misérables,
Gogol’s Dead Souls and Lagerlöf's Gösta Berling.

Keywords: retranslation, revision, hybrid texts, categorization, textual scholarship

1. INTRODUCTION
What happens in retranslation seems fairly simple: a text that has previously
been translated is translated again into the same language.1 The reasons for this
retranslating may seem simple. Translations are said to “age”: their language
becomes obsolete or they do not conform to prevailing standards of faithfulness

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30 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

or accuracy; therefore, new translations are needed. The ageing of translations is

one of the most common arguments in reviews and media discourse in favour of
new translations, at least in Finland, whereas within academia, probably the
best-known claim about the nature of retranslation is expressed in what is often
called the Retranslation Hypothesis: the idea that the first translations’ inherent
assimilating qualities create a need for source-oriented translations. If all first
translations indeed were assimilating, “ageing” could also be understood as
their becoming old-fashioned; hence the two explanations could be seen to coa-
lesce into one.
The question of retranslations, however, is far more complex than this.
First, many intuitive assumptions about assimilating first translations and more
accurate second versions do not seem to hold true against empirical data: con-
trary examples abound. This is evident both from our own data and from many
other studies in which second translations are shown to be less source-oriented
than first translations (see below). Our earlier studies have shown that domesti-
cating translations may be a feature of a certain phase in translated literature
rather than a property of all retranslations. Source- or target-orientedness may
also be dependent on the observer’s viewpoint: at some other time in history (or
in the future) or with a different audience there may be a demand for target-
oriented (second) translations. The second crux is methodological: measuring
concepts such as improvement, closeness or accuracy in translations is singu-
larly difficult. It does not come as a surprise then that theoretical writings on re-
translations show a variety of starting points and methods of inquiry, and em-
ploy different units of comparison with which to study texts. This makes it hard
to compare the results of existing studies.
The theoretical body of literature on retranslations includes detailed and in-
sightful studies, but they are often single case studies, or they address other is-
sues than retranslation itself (such as norms, strategies or audience expecta-
tions). Şebnem Susam-Sarajeva who studied texts with several retranslations,
has pointed out:
Currently, there is no detailed or systematic study on retranslations per se.
Although the practice itself is common, theoretical discussions on the sub-
ject are rather rare. Retranslations often serve as case studies illuminating
other aspects of translational research rather than drawing attention onto
themselves as a topic in its own right. (2006:135)

Retranslation as a theoretical issue and as a widespread practice is still far

from being understood and certainly merits more comprehensive treatment than
what it has been given hitherto. Therefore Siobhan Brownlie’s (2006) article on
Narrative Theory and Retranslation was a welcome and timely contribution to a
field of study that has been touched from many angles but not properly mapped

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 REPROCESSING TEXTS 31

out, and in which there exist a number of intuitive assumptions which have not
been thoroughly studied.
Not just presenting a case study but also trying to understand the nature of
the phenomenon in question, Brownlie draws on insights from two sets of theo-
ries: Narrative Theory and Retranslation Theory.2 While showing the usefulness
of an interdisciplinary approach, she also provides a wealth of material for
studying retranslation. Her article charts some of what has been written about
retranslation so far; it also sums up empirical studies, discusses the explanatory
potential of suggested factors behind retranslation, and presents her own study
on the five different English translations of Zola’s Nana. Some of the most im-
portant issues at stake in retranslation surface through the discussion: the com-
plicated relationship between first and subsequent translations and the effect of
time on translations. In the present article, we would like to take issue with
some of the points Brownlie has made and sum up our findings, focusing on
textual analysis. As will be shown, the results of this analysis not only address
the issue of the closeness of first and later translations to their source texts (the
point where we originally started out) but will also raise meta-methodological
questions, which, to our understanding, are central to the study of retranslation.
First, however, we would like to present a short overview of what has been
written on retranslation in Translation Studies.

2. RE:TRANSLATION
The term Retranslation Hypothesis (RH) has often been used to encapsulate An-
toine Berman’s (1990, 1995) ideas: we, too, have used it previously as a short-
cut (Koskinen and Paloposki 2003; Paloposki and Koskinen 2004), following
writers such as Andrew Chesterman (2000:22–23).3 RH may be seen as an in-
terpretive hypothesis as far as it proclaims that only later translations can be
“great” translations, or it may be seen as a descriptive hypothesis, measuring the
distance between source and target texts and describing later translations as
more source-oriented (ibid). That Berman’s ideas (and Goethe’s before him) are
seen as forming a basis for a hypothesis to be tested is evident in writings such
as Vanderschelden (2000:13) and Ballard (2000:19, 20). Recently, the use of
the term Retranslation Hypothesis has increased in TS, judging from various
conference presentations we have listened to recently; it has also often (confus-
ingly) been called “Chesterman’s Retranslation Hypothesis”. This is no doubt
due to Chesterman’s work in defining different hypotheses with the help of RH.
Berman’s idea was that a first translation tends to be more assimilating and
tends to reduce the text’s otherness in the name of cultural or editorial require-
ments, whereas a retranslation would mark a return to the source-text. Contem-
poraneous with Berman’s writings was Yves Gambier’s (1994) article on re-

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32 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

translations, where Gambier suggested several factors that might be at stake in

retranslation, including issues such as the marketing potential of a new transla-
tion. Despite Gambier’s explicit call for research and the many questions he
posed for a potential research programme, it seems that not many scholars (not
even Gambier himself) have been interested in empirical research or even theo-
retical development of the topic before the turn of the century. The “second
wave” of interest in retranslations was pioneered by Isabelle Vanderschelden’s
(2000) article discussing potential reasons behind retranslation and Michel Bal-
lard’s (2000) case study on retranslating Camus’ L’Etranger into English; these
two articles appeared in the same volume. In both cases, the starting point was
the vague but very widespread idea of classics (or “great books”) needing or
calling for retranslation. Vanderschelden (ibid:1) states that “it is just a matter
of time before a literary translation is challenged or replaced by another”; Bal-
lard (ibid:19) cites J. M. Cohen: “Every great book demands to be re-translated
once in a century”.4 Further on, Vanderschelden is inspired by the writings of
Berman, while Ballard draws on those of Goethe and Berman.
Vanderschelden presents a number of remarks and observations made by
translators and researchers on retranslation that point towards a more variegated
understanding of the reasons behind retranslation. Among other things, she dis-
cusses the difference between “hot” and “cold” translations (terms coined by
Claude Demanuelli; see Vanderschelden 2000:9): translations are “hot” when
they have to be done on the spot, with the translation appearing right after the
original work and with no research knowledge available yet on the work in
question, and “cold” if enough time has passed for the translator to resort to re-
search and audience responses when preparing her/his translation. The relevant
body of knowledge accessible to the translator would explain the increased “ac-
curacy” which may appear in a later translation. Probably due to a lack of
wholesale empirical studies on the issue, however, Vanderschelden’s observa-
tions mainly focus on improvement and quality, along the lines of Berman’s ar-
guments.
Ballard, for his part, presents a detailed case study focusing on textual
markers and their translation (proper names, titles and designators, units of
measurements) and the structural and stylistic organization of the text. Even if
Ballard evokes the often quoted assumption about the “need” for new transla-
tions, his results show that it is not merely a question of time that differentiates
between translations: stylistic preferences of each translator, for example, can
have a role to play. Isabelle Collombat (2004), who makes an overview of the
“retranslation boom” (in Canada?), also places stress on the translators: she
claims that their increased awareness of their task and of the pertinent circum-
stances around the translation make for new, better translations.
At this point, a “boom” in this issue became evident in Translation Studies.
Cadernos published a special issue on retranslation in 2003 and Palimpsestes in

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 REPROCESSING TEXTS 33

2004 (this journal had been among the first to concentrate on retranslation: its
1990 special issued included Berman’s aforementioned article); more articles
appeared on the topic in Translation Studies journals, and Brownlie (ibid.) made
an overview of retranslation. In this overview, she discusses two published arti-
cles, Du Nour (1995) and Kujamäki (2001), which point towards quite different
reasons behind retranslation than improvement (the articles are among the
many, noted earlier, that have not been written with retranslation hypothesis in
mind but which had other objectives). She also makes the link to Narrative
Theory in explaining the variety of retranslations with the help of the concept of
versions: each translation is but one version that can be made of one single
original. It is obviously useful to make comparisons with other theories and find
similar cases; this observation, however, would seem to arise out of the empiri-
cal data so clearly that a Narrative Theory is probably not even needed to “jus-
tify” it. In Translation Studies literature, there have been other cases where the
borderline between versions/translations has been discussed (see Bassnett 2000
and Pym 1998:68–70).
Brownlie’s own study of Nana also shows that different translations can
exist more or less simultaneously, and explores the contextual factors behind
them. In the case of Nana, different audience expectations and restrictions re-
sulted in two different versions of the text in English. There are many similar
cases, among them the two almost simultaneous translations into Finnish of
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in our own data. Şebnem Susam-
Sarajeva’s work on the translations of French Structuralism into Turkish (2003,
2006) and Tiina Puurtinen’s (1995) results from her study of two Finnish trans-
lations of the American children’s classic The Wizard of Oz in the same year
(1977) are other examples of contextual variation. In all these cases, research
looking at translations that appear close to each other in time is a useful re-
minder of time not being the only affecting factor.
The evidence available from various case studies internationally would suf-
fice by itself to show that the strong version of the retranslation hypothesis, im-
plying that later translations are closer to the original or better than an earlier
translation (and/or substituting earlier translations), is not sufficient alone to
cover the field of retranslations. These studies include, for example, Tymoczko
1999, which shows how Irish epic poetry has been afforded very different
treatment at different periods in time and in the hands of different translators.
The same is true for Lopes 2006 on several translations into Portuguese of Har-
riet Beecher-Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Brownlie’s Nana, and the aforemen-
tioned Kujamäki 2001 on the German translations of the Finnish writer Aleksis
Kivi’s The Seven Brothers. Our own Finnish data abounds with such cases: for
example the two translations into Finnish of Juan Valera’s Pepita Jiménez and
the four translations of Bernardin St. Pierre’s Paul et Virginie underline the im-
portance of paying attention to translatorial styles and to audiences. Time and

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34 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

order of appearance cannot be seen as a single monolithic entity or causal factor

behind retranslations – there are always different tendencies and multiple orien-
tations at work at any one specific time, just as there are different audiences and
translators.

3. RETRANSLATIONS IN FINLAND

We have been working for several years now – as a kind of a side-project along
our other tasks – on retranslation. We started out with a certain feeling of un-
easiness connected with the Retranslation Hypothesis, which, to our mind, did
not seem to sufficiently cover the specific cases we had been working on in our
previous research (the translation of the Vicar of Wakefield into Finnish, the
long history of translations of a Thousand and One Nights, and the literary re-
translation of the Gospel according to Matthew in Finland in the 1970s). These
were just a few single individual cases, but since they so clearly testified against
the Retranslation Hypothesis, we decided to continue with additional data (we
published the results of the first case studies as Paloposki and Koskinen 2004).
We then chose one specific year in Finland, the year 2000, and studied the sta-
tistics of retranslation for that year as well as combining it with a study of re-
prints, which started to attract our attention since they seemed the obvious first
alternative for retranslation. We also contacted publishers to unearth the reasons
behind the retranslations that year, and looked up translation criticism to study
the reception of retranslations (Koskinen and Paloposki 2003).
In the year 2000, the number of retranslations was 9 out of a total produc-
tion of 359 translations (261 of these were new and 89 reprints). Nine retransla-
tions is a fairly large number for a small language like Finnish; however, what
astonished us most was the number of reprints, which can be interpreted, not
negatively as a lack of the will to retranslate, but positively as a desire to keep a
stock of works available for the readers. The actual lists of titles – reprints and
retranslations – seem to indicate, rather unsurprisingly, that in order to be resur-
rected from the past, the work typically needs to have acquired the status of a
“classic”. But why are some classics reprinted while others are retranslated?
Some books such as Alice or Robinson Crusoe existed in a number of previous
versions and yet a retranslation was commissioned (or offered). Nor can one
conclude that the need for retranslation arises when older versions get dated:
even though there is variation, both retranslations and reprints tend to be of
books the previous versions of which date from the same period, the mid-19th
century. Not everything can be retranslated, as that would be too costly; a
choice has to be made regarding what to reprint and what to retranslate, and the
choice at times seems to be random. One possible answer is the different pro-
files of the publishers at different times: while some seem to favour retransla-
tions (especially young publishing houses which naturally do not have the stock

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to recycle), others focus on reprints (and here it is the older publishing compa-
nies that do have the required stock). There is also a potential positive charisma
attached to retranslations and their marketing potential (translation reviews for
the year 2000 indicate that retranslations attract much greater publicity than new
translations and reprints).
One year is a very short period on which to make generalizations. More-
over, in the study of a complex question such as that of retranslations, even syn-
chronic data were not enough: we needed a diachronic view of what had been
retranslated over time. For this purpose, we next turned to a list of 100 classics
that was compiled in Finland at the turn of the millennium, and went through
the statistics of the translated classics included in the list (52 in all, the rest was
Finnish literature and non-fiction) (Koskinen and Paloposki 2005). This study
helped to contextualize the interest in retranslations today and see the impor-
tance and build-up of what is considered worth retranslating today (classics,
mainly, but how are they defined?). In other words, it gave us today’s perspec-
tive. Another angle was offered in the form of the translation programme of the
Finnish Literature Society, which drafted a classics list in 1887. Comparisons
between these two lists show differences and similarities in the understanding of
a classic and also raise a number of forgotten works that, however, were consid-
ered worth retranslating during the early years. A detailed study of some early
retranslations also widened our perspective on the different contextual reasons
why retranslations are made: there may be far more mundane reasons behind re-
translation than “dated” translations or the glory attached to retranslation. For
example, prior to Finland’s signing the Bern agreement in 1928, authorial rights
were not always respected and many translations which were made without the
author’s or his/her publisher’s consent were “collisions”: two or even three ver-
sions of the same book may have appeared more or less simultaneously, due to
a lack of coordination between Finnish translators and publishers.
It also became obvious from our data that classics lists generate retransla-
tion: they keep up the image of a classic. A classic is normally a book that has
been retranslated often, but it also appears to work conversely: a retranslation
becomes a classic more easily than a one-off translation. This is an expectation
that can be put to work to boost the sales of an older book.
In addition to our lists and statistics, we have also looked more closely at a
number of translated classics: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, Dead Souls by
Nikolai Gogol, The Saga of Gösta Berling by the Swedish author Selma Lager-
löf (the 1909 Nobel prize winner), Pepita Jiménez by Juan Valera, and Three
Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. To compare the results with revisions of
translated work, various editions of Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Långstrump, Wal-
ter Scott’s Ivanhoe and L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables have been
examined. It is these case studies that bring out some of the most interesting
findings of our research: first, the huge variety of different textual and editorial

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36 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

practices involved in what is called retranslation; and second, the difficulty of

marking any clear boundaries between retranslations and edited versions (con-
sequently, the whole class of “retranslations” is called into question). It is these
two issues we will turn to now.

4. DEFINITIONS AND CATEGORIES: THE PROBLEM

OF IDENTIFYING AND CLASSIFYING RETRANSLATIONS
The question of retranslation acquires another dimension when we start to pick
out individual translations for closer study. Identifying retranslations itself has,
in the first place, been a complicated process: we all know a fair number of re-
translations and can safely guess which classics are most likely to have been re-
translated, so there is always material to start with. But a systematic study of the
numbers of retranslations and the compilation of a bibliography of retranslated
works is more time-consuming. Retranslations cannot be picked out from bib-
liographical databases the way authors, translators or source languages can, as
there is no search word or bibliographical field for the crucial piece of informa-
tion that a translation is in fact a retranslation. To find a retranslation, one needs
to compare bibliographical entries and look for one source text with at least two
target texts with different translators.5 The work thus needs to be done manually
and needs to be cut down to sectors, say, on certain authors, classics, or source
languages. An all-inclusive list for any one target language is nearly impossible
(exceptions are of course those source languages from which very few transla-
tions are made into the target language in question); even a near approximation
is almost necessarily the result of the combined efforts of several scholars work-
ing together, and it also relies on scholarly literature on specific areas of interest
(on the translation of certain source language classics, for example).6 This is one
of the reasons we decided to base our work partly on lists compiled by other
people: it would widen our perspective, and we would not rely only on our own
intuition and knowledge. Our work was also facilitated by the fact that along-
side our work with retranslations, one of us (OP) was a member of the editorial
team for the history of Finnish translation, a 1,300 page volume that came out in
2007 and that provided a wealth of scattered information on retranslations from
several languages, among others (Riikonen et al. 2007), thus helping us form
the overall picture.
In Finland, literature has been translated for a little less than two hundred
years. The first bibliographies were drafted towards the mid-19th century, and
the predecessor of today’s on-line database, Valfrid Vasenius’ bibliography,
dates from 1878. Bibliographical information today differs from what was con-
sidered important at some other points in history, so that, for example, transla-
tors and writers were often not indicated in the printed books themselves, mak-

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ing it more difficult to classify books. In addition, a number of books are miss-
ing from bibliographical records. In other words, bibliographical standards in
the early decades were not the same as today’s standards, which makes it more
difficult to distinguish between different versions and identify what a retransla-
tion is, and what a reprint is.
When the first problem of compiling a list of retranslations has been over-
come and a body of translations has been identified that, in the bibliographical
references, turns out to be translations of the same source text, it becomes pos-
sible to carry out comparative analyses on individual texts, first translations and
retranslations. It was at this stage of our research that we became aware of the
fact that the actual categorizing of translations into first and subsequent transla-
tions, which has formed the basis for almost all theorizing about retranslations,
is ultimately misleading – unless we accept the claim that retranslation can be
anything, from a slight editing of a previous translation to a completely different
text. What we needed to ask now was: even if two separate translators were
mentioned in bibliographies as having translated the same source text, was it
really a question of two different translations? The actual textual practices and
their study were the key to the next phase of our quest.

5. HYBRID VERSIONS: VICTOR HUGO’S LES MISÉRABLES

IN FINNISH
Les Misérables from 1862 is probably Victor Hugo’s best-known work. It is the
story of an ex-convict, Jean Valjean, whose life is a constant struggle to find
and defend his place under a ruthless, enslaving system. The novel was a cry
against social injustice and misery and has been read as such by many an op-
pressed prisoner. The novel is divided into five parts, which in turn are divided
into books and further into chapters. The epic story has been immensely popu-
lar: it was translated into several languages during the year of its original publi-
cation; later, numerous versions including film adaptations, animations and mu-
sicals have been made all over the world, including Mexico, Turkey and Japan.
The musical was the longest-running show in the history of Broadway; in film
and television, actors such as Gérard Depardieu and Liam Neeson have played
Valjean. The book has been important for soldiers and prisoners, and intertex-
tual links referring to the characters of the story still appear in modern popular
culture.
For all practical purposes, in comparing the Finnish translations of the
work they are referred to here by the name of the translator for the sake of clar-
ity, even if the point of comparison is not to study individual translatorial
strategies or styles. It is our aim to compare the texts to see how they have been
categorized and whether this categorization reflects the textual profiles of the

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38 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

work and also to see whether these textual profiles lend support to Retranslation
Hypothesis.
The book has appeared in a number of versions and under different transla-
tors’ names throughout its Finnish history. The first time Jean Valjean set foot
in Finland was in a Swedish translation, printed in the town of Tampere in
1895, to be followed a year later by a Finnish translation published in the same
town. The textual make-up of these two texts was syntactically and even mor-
phologically very similar, but instead of the Finnish version being based on the
Swedish text printed in Tampere, both texts can be shown to have had an earlier
precedent in Sweden; the second Swedish translation of the work from the year
1888–1889 (this “genealogy” is evident from the translator’s footnotes, which
in the Finnish version are mostly direct translations of the Swedish 1888–1889
version but which have been omitted in the later Swedish version printed in
Tampere). Both translations printed in Finland appeared in parts (periodical
leaflets) of about 50 pages each as was the custom in those days, for if the first
leaflets did not sell well or there was some other mishap, the publication could
easily be called off. As there are no documents left of the publication process, it
is not known what happened, but both the Finnish and the Swedish text printed
in Tampere were ceased abruptly. Of the first Finnish translation, only 442
pages appeared.
A decade later the whole work was commissioned from the young aspiring
translator (later professor of Romance literatures) Vihtori Lehtonen. The pub-
lishing company (Kansa) was also fresh and ambitious, with a prestigious advi-
sory board made up of young literati, the to-be elite of Finland’s literary life.
However, Kansa was not successful with the marketing efforts for any of its
books, and the company went bankrupt soon after the first and second parts of
Les Misérables (Kurjat in Finnish) had appeared in 1908–09.
The third effort at publishing the work in Finnish was made in the 1920s
when WSOY, the largest publishing house in Finland, had acquired the rights to
all of Kansa’s translations. Les Misérables was now designed as part of a new
series of classics called “Valiokirjasto” (“select library”), the title of the series
indicating the serious and select nature of the books to be published. The first of
the five parts appeared in 1927 in Vihtori Lehtonen’s earlier translation, not re-
printed as such, but with extensive language corrections (corrections were ac-
knowledged in the book). This was not uncommon in the 1920s, with the writ-
ten language standardization process still going strong in Finland: several older
translations were “corrected” linguistically to suit the evolving standards. After
the first part, the idea of editing was dropped and the remaining four parts were
translated by one of the most prolific translators of French literature at the time,
Eino Voionmaa. The editor of the first part may have been the translator, now
better known as J. V. Lehtonen, who had meanwhile become a professor of

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Romance literature, but it would seem more likely that the task of editing was
given to Voionmaa, who then continued with translating the second part.
Thus, the first part of the five-part novel had been translated twice (1896
and 1908) and reprinted in an edited version once (1927); the second book had
also been translated twice, but in a different cycle than the first book (1909 and
1928), and the last three books had only been translated once (1929–1931). It is
here that the neat (theoretical) division into first and retranslations becomes dif-
ficult to maintain. The discussions on retranslations thus far have not taken into
account cases where parts of the text have been retranslated, perhaps more than
once, whilst other parts have only been translated once, and some parts have
been edited, reprinted or abridged. Les Misérables in Finnish seems a hybrid
text par excellence. But to see whether there is evidence for the Retranslation
Hypothesis here, we will now turn to the textual profiles of the translations.
Every translator has his own distinguishable style: the first one, J. J.
[Aulén], followed the Swedish translation very closely, and for all practical
purposes it served as his original, as he simply copied the word order and in-
serted foreign loan words where there were no Finnish equivalents. This was
very much in the style of Aulén, whose translations had been criticized for be-
ing too slavishly bound to their source texts. Incidentally, the Swedish transla-
tion was syntactically very close to the original French work. Both Lehtonen
and Voionmaa translated more freely and fluently. Voionmaa shows no traces
of copying Lehtonen: his syntax and lexicon differ considerably from those of
Lehtonen but he does not seem to attempt a closer translation to the original
than what Lehtonen had done. At times, one of them is closer as to the syntax
or, for example, the rendering of units of measurement, but in other places the
roles are reversed. In comparing the two translations, we have only checked
small sections: these random checks reveal that differences exist, but that there
is no discernible pattern of increased closeness in the second one. Since there is
no data on why the decision to retranslate the second part was taken, we can
only suggest some potential factors behind the decision. It may be reasonable to
assume that revision may be problematic because of the translators’ personal
choices and styles, and the revising translator may have felt frustrated working
with an earlier translation (such complaints can be found in translators’ corre-
spondence). The Voionmaa retranslation of the second part of the book may
thus have been borne out of a desire to use his own language and own words,
not merely to polish what Lehtonen had done previously, and the rationale be-
hind the retranslation may thus not have been increased accuracy. It stands to
reason that translators may actually feel much more constrained working with
an earlier translation than when translating anew, and this fact – their personal
involvement – might well have contributed to at least some cases of retransla-
tion.

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40 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

In the 1940s, a reprint was planned, and the first part appeared in 1941 (un-
changed from the 1927 version). The remaining four parts, however, were never
republished – probably due to the war effort, which curbed the purchase of pa-
per, among other things. After the war, plans went ahead again to publish Les
Misérables, but what came out in 1945–1947 were not the four remaining parts
but an abridged version of the whole work in two volumes. The abridging had
been done by Reino Rauanheimo at WSOY, which was acknowledged in the
new edition: his name, together with the two translators’ names, Lehtonen and
Voionmaa, appeared in the book.7 Roughly half of the whole work was cut out.
Basically, there are two ways of abridging: either whole chunks are omitted and
the remaining bits are left as they are, or the work is paraphrased. Such para-
phrasing/abridging takes place, for example, with many children’s classics or
the Readers’ Digest abridged versions of novels. For example, there exist at
least two paraphrased abridged versions of the work in Swedish, by Hugo Gyl-
lander in 1906–07 and by Gemma Funtek in 1947. In the Finnish 1945–47 ver-
sion the abridging was done by cutting out whole chunks of text (sentences,
paragraphs, chapters) without paraphrasing the rest. This was made possible by
the structure of the work itself: full of side-stepping comments, anecdotes and
separate histories, Les Misérables lends itself easily to abridging without overtly
appearing to be bowdlerized and even without the need to paraphrase in order to
maintain the coherence.
This shortened version is the only one published during the last 70 years;
all the reprints are from this version (the latest edition is from 1999; it has sold
out in the bookshops). There is one copy of the full version in the storeroom of
the city library of Helsinki but all shelf copies are of the shortened version. The
latest reprint is unchanged from the 1940s version except for the fact that the
translators’ and the editor’s names have been left out – they do not appear any-
where any more, effectively disguising the complex translation history of the
book.
This history shows that, in the first place, the trajectory of a classic is not
always in line with the Retranslation Hypothesis: with time, readers do not al-
ways get a more accurate or closer-to-the-original version. Rather, the timeline
shows a curve here: from the first, incomplete translation made via a third lan-
guage slowly towards a full-length version and then to a shortened version. The
only full-length volume of Les Misérables in Finland is the one from the 1920s
and is thus eighty years old (obviously, this fact alone does not say anything
about the quality of the translation, nor about its future fate). Completeness
(versus abridging) is one facet of closeness to the original; there are other as-
pects, which are more difficult to gauge. Syntactically the first translation, al-
though made through a mediating version, is the closest and retains the structure
of the text. This closeness, however, entails the fact that it is cumbersome to
read and at points unintelligible, whereas the latter translations avoid problems

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 REPROCESSING TEXTS 41

of incomprehensibility and therefore seem to carry over the meaning better.

Neither accuracy nor completeness follow the schema assumed by the Retrans-
lation Theory here. The reasons behind each translation and revision have var-
ied and include variable factors such as the war effort, international popularity,
publisher’s profiling and the pocket book market. Another lesson learned from
the Finnish Les Misérables is that categorization and labeling may be mislead-
ing: extensive archival work is needed to piece together the history of a transla-
tion.

6. REVISION & RETRANSLATION:

DEAD SOULS, DISAPPEARED TRANSLATORS
In the case of the translation of Les Misérables into Finnish, there has been no
linear progress towards a closer rendering. Rather, the textual history of the
book in Finnish has been a meandering road. With Gogol’s Mertvyje Dusi
(Dead Souls), the situation seems different from the start and is more in line
with what is normally expected of retranslations: three translations with even in-
tervals (1882, 1939, 1970), identifiable by the translator’s names, and with no
discernible differences in the size/completeness of the books. A closer textual
study reveals some interesting facts, however.
The three translations are given in the bibliographies as follows: 1882 (by
Samuli S.), 1939 (by J. K., later reprints in 1945, 1951, 1962, 1968, 1977, 1984
and 1992 with the translator names Jalo Kalima and Juhani Konkka) and 1970
(by Juhani Konkka). The Finnish title is the same throughout, Kuolleet sielut,
Dead Souls. A textual analysis shows that there is extensive usage in the latter
two translations of the first translator’s singular style and expressions. Idiosyn-
cratic lexicon (words such as lallukka, tallukka) remained constant; alliterated
expressions and tender diminutives (pyöreä pönttöseni, pallea papuseni, pullea
pupuseni used to tenderly describe a person) and sayings (viljainen vissi) were
used in all three translations. And it was not just isolated expressions and words
but whole passages and chapters which were kept the same or nearly the same.
The differences between the first two translations are minor; the third transla-
tion is more independent but keeps nevertheless many of the inventive creations
of the first translation.
The first translation by Samuli S. obviously served as the basis on which
several grammatical changes were made in 1939, but the wording in much of
the work is exactly the same as in the 1882 edition. The alias Samuli S. stands
for Samuli Suomalainen, turn-of-the-century journalist, writer, translator and
teacher, well known for his mastery of the Finnish language at a time when the
literary language was not yet fully exploited and when many translations were
word-for-word renderings of their originals (or of Swedish translations of the

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42 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

original, as in the case of Les Misérables). An especially distinctive feature of

Samuli S.’s style was the many descriptive words he picked up from popular
usage and used in his translations (and also in his own writing). The Finnish
language is rich in onomatopoetic and descriptive usages, in alliteration and in
multiple dialectal expressions, and these were the cornerstone of Samuli S.’s
style, rendering it witty and humorous. Samuli S. is also considered to have ex-
erted a considerable influence on one of Finland’s foremost (and first) novelists,
Juhani Aho, who was familiar with Suomalainen’s translations (Sarajas
1968:60; Kalima 1939:82–83).
This first translation of Dead Souls was awarded the Finnish Literature So-
ciety’s prize in 1882; it was widely praised in the newspapers and it was still
remembered and revered at the time when the 1939 translation appeared, more
than fifty years later, awakening reminiscences of the old translation in the
minds of the reviewers of the new one. Suomalainen’s Dead Souls translation
was first republished in 1977, almost a hundred years after its first appearance,
by the publishing house Otava and was praised as recently as 2003 by professor
of Russian literature Pekka Pesonen. In 2008 it was republished again by the
BTJ publishing house in their classics series.
There is a mystery behind the 1939 edition regarding the identity of the
persons in charge of the translation, the solving of which may help in under-
standing the evolution of the different versions. The paratextual information in
the 1939 book gives the translator’s initials, J. K. The identity of this J. K. was
not general knowledge (newspaper reviewers were puzzled by it). Later reprints,
however, were under the names of Jalo Kalima and Juhani Konkka, which are
both abbreviable as J. K. The question is, who did what? A partial answer to
this question can be found in the archives of the Finnish Literature Society,
where Juhani Konkka’s personal archives are stored: his correspondence, trans-
lation contracts, etc. In a letter to his publisher Otava (20.2.1969), where
Konkka consents to do a new translation of Dead Souls (the one that appeared
the following year, 1970), Konkka also mentions that he had “corrected Ka-
lima’s old translation more than thirty years ago”. Both Kalima and Konkka had
worked for the WSOY publishing house in the 1930s, and Kalima had previous
experience of editing old translations. Kalima may have first been given
Suomalainen’s translation to edit, and Konkka may have been asked to go
through this version for some reason. This is intelligent guessing since nowhere
is there any information about why such double revision might have been
needed. Kalima was a renowned Slavist, he enjoyed general esteem and had
done both translating and revising earlier; Konkka, on the other hand, was fairly
young and new on the market at this time. But if this indeed was the case,
Konkka may not have been aware that the version he was working with may not
have been Kalima’s translation but Suomalainen’s edited text (although he must
undoubtedly have been aware of the first translation). It may thus possibly be

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 REPROCESSING TEXTS 43

just a strange mishap or coincidence and not intentional that Suomalainen’s

name does not appear in the 1939 version of the work in Finnish.
The assumption that the original idea behind the 1939 edition was rather to
produce a revised version of the old translation than to publish a whole new
translation thus gains support from three things: first, the person chosen to be in
charge of the new version was Jalo Kalima, whose previous work for the
WSOY publishing house included correcting the language of translations pub-
lished earlier (The Christian and The Eternal City, by Hall Caine) and who thus
was a trusted and experienced person for such work; second, the amount of un-
changed text in the 1939 version is very large, and thirdly, the nature of the
changes calls to mind a retouched older translation rather than a new translation.
These changes, for the most part, consisted of such orthographic and morpho-
logical corrections that had been made during the standardization process of the
Finnish language after the publication of the first translation (and which were
not current at the time Samuli S. was writing his translation). These included,
among others, the orthography of compound nouns, syntactic changes favouring
non-finite clauses instead of subordinate clauses, or inversion.
The third version of the book, Juhani Konkka’s translation of 1970, is syn-
tactically clearly a new translation, but even this version keeps much of Samuli
Suomalainen’s descriptive vocabulary and expressions (lallukka, vonkero, etc.),
and several sentences and paragraphs in the book are either exactly the same or
closely reminiscent of Suomalainen’s version.
Thus, despite the fact that bibliographies claim there are three translations
of the work into Finnish, there is a strong dependency between these transla-
tions. It can be argued that the 1939 translation is in fact a revised version of the
earlier, 1882 translation; even the latest translation owes much to the first one.
Pekka Kujamäki (1998:285) has (drawing on the work done in Göttingen) dis-
cussed the concept of the translators’s source text, not from the point of view of
the original, source-language text but of all the potential mediating texts the
translator may have had at his/her disposal. His data of the German translations
of the Finnish author Aleksis Kivi’s The Seven Brothers lend support to the un-
derstanding that there is a complex interrelationship and dependency between
the different texts at hand, similarly as in our analysis of Dead Souls, captured
by the German expression “Starkes Abhängigkeit” (see the Glossary in Frank,
ed., 1989).

7. THE MANY FACES OF REVISING

From the cases discussed in previous chapters it has become evident that texts
placed in the category of ‘retranslation’ can have a varied and hybridized trans-
lation history. What has also become evident during our research project is that
‘revision’ is an equally − if not more − confused category. In contrast to retrans-

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44 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

lations, revisions have, however, attracted few researchers, and there is not a
wealth of case studies from various linguistic and cultural areas and eras to
build on. In this chapter we will briefly sketch some of our own findings of dif-
ferent revised translations. Vanderschelden (2000:1–2) calls revision “often the
first step towards retranslation”, involving “making changes to an existing TT
whilst retaining the major part, including the overall structure and tone of the
former version”. According to her, revision may be resorted to if the existing
translation contains “a limited number of problems or errors”, but the alterations
may be anything from “simple copy-editing” to extensive rewriting. Distin-
guishing between retranslation and revision thus becomes very difficult. The
problem, of course, is this: how much change can there be in the revision proc-
ess for the translation still to be the same, i.e. under the name of the previous
translator, and where is the line to be drawn to a new translation? And what
about the different kinds of revising? Do “orthographic” corrections go under
the process of revising, while “stylistic” corrections would merit the title of re-
translation? To complicate things further, several Finnish words denote ‘revi-
sion’, all being used to describe revised translations: tarkistaa, tarkastaa, kor-
jata, uudistaa – to check, to revise, to correct, to modernize/update. Both their
usage and the practice they refer to are not straightforward or consistent.
A minimalist revision might only entail few orthographic improvements; at
the other end of the continuum the text is entirely reworked so that it blurs the
dividing line between revision and retranslation. As readers, we might assume
that a ‘checked’ or ‘corrected’ version would also be somehow closer to the
source text, with potential mistranslations and omissions corrected. However, it
seems that revisions can be either passive or active in their relation to the source
text (cf. Pym 1998:82). In some cases revisions can be done without any com-
parison to the source text; in other cases a changed source text may actively call
for a revised translation to accommodate the changes. One case where the
source text was given an entirely passive role is the (‘modernized’ and
‘checked’) revision of the Finnish translation of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of
Avonlea (1909; first trans. Hilja Vesala, 1921) by an anonymous reviser in 1961
(see Karonen 2007). The first translation had been abridged (not mentioned in
the book), and had not been translated from the English original but was based
on a Swedish translation8. One might thus assume that the revised version
would restore the omitted sections and check how the old translation corre-
sponds to the original text. Surprisingly, this is not the case: in fact, the revised
version introduces some new omissions. According to Karonen the source text
for the revised version was the first translation, and the source text of the first
translation was the Swedish translation, and thus the (only) Finnish versions do
not have any direct link to Montgomery’s original text at all (ibid. 68).
An illustrative case of varying reviser styles can be found in looking at the
two revised versions of Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Långstrump. It was first trans-

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 REPROCESSING TEXTS 45

lated into Finnish in 1946 (trans. Laila Järvinen), immediately after its publica-
tion in Sweden. Before a recent retranslation (2007 by Kristiina Rikman), it was
revised twice (1970 by Inka Makkonen and 2005 by Päivö Taubert). A detailed
comparison of both revised versions reveals that the two revisers have ap-
proached their task in totally different ways: Makkonen makes extensive and
liberal revisions, Taubert is extremely conservative. Within the analysed section
of two chapters Makkonen made close to 350 major and smaller revisions,
whereas Taubert only made 21, most of them related to a recurrent need to
avoid the Finnish word ‘neekeri’ (‘negro’) that was in 2005 considered inappro-
priate usage (norms like these are a major explanatory force in retranslations
and revisions alike, but space does not allow us to elaborate on this here). Most
of Makkonen’s revisions are best described as either personal preferences or
stylistic changes to bring the text into line with the aesthetic values of the time.
The characteristics of the translation were so extensively reworked by
Makkonen that it has been argued that the original translator’s voice was lost in
the process (Taubert in Heikkinen 2006:6). Comparing Makkonen’s revision to
the “retranslation” of Dead Souls makes one wonder about the status of differ-
ent genres and different revisers: why is an entirely reprocessed children’s clas-
sic by a female copy editor still a “revision” and why does a revised version of a
world classic by a male copy editor end up being classified as a “retranslation”?
The translation history of Dead Souls already indicated that the categories
may also be historically unstable: “assumed retranslations” (cf. Toury 1995)
may turn out to be revisions and vice versa. The translation history of Selma
Lagerlöf’s Gösta Berling into Finnish provides evidence of another type of revi-
sion than the grammatical and orthographic changes evident in the second ver-
sion of Dead Souls, but it also sheds light on the problem of identifying retrans-
lations. Here again, we seem to have two different translations of the same
source text: according to the bibliographies, there was a translation of this work
in 1902 by Auk. Andberg, a revised version in 1912, and a translation by Joel
Lehtonen as late as 1952. A study of the different versions proves that the first
translation, made in 1902 and reprinted in 1912 (revised by the writer Joel
Lehtonen), is the same translation that later appeared under Joel Lehtonen’s
name only. Since the 1912 edition clearly states on the title page that it is
Andberg’s translation, corrected by Lehtonen, it may again be pure coincidence
or an accident that the original translator’s name disappeared from the book’s
later editions, giving readers (and scholars) the idea that Lehtonen had made a
completely new translation. Lehtonen’s reviser style seems similar to
Makkonen’s: Lehtonen changed the style of the Andberg version, creating a
more lively and descriptive version of the book in the process. This he did by
using words that were either less common or more literary than the ones used
by Andberg, by reducing repetition, and by making the syntax more fluent.
These changes were, however, written down as corrections at the time, and the

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46 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

text was not given the status of a new translation. Later this edited version was
then marked as a new translation.
The Finnish data we compiled revealed various ways of revising earlier
translations, and the revisions have not been uniformly signaled paratextually (if
at all). Case studies reveal that ‘to revise’ often stands for orthographic mod-
ernization and not, for example, comparison with the original with the view of
correcting mistakes or minor errors (even if the verb korjata, “to correct”, is
used), but sometimes it may also encompass comparison. In other cases a work
signaled as retranslation might be better called a revised translation, when it
comes to retaining the style of the previous translation (as in Vanderschelden).
However, revising cannot be seen as “a first step” towards retranslation, as most
revised works have not been retranslated, and retranslation does not often pre-
suppose revising, on the contrary.

8. CONCLUSIONS
Our study as a whole supports Siobhan Brownlie’s findings. She criticizes both
the norms and ideologies approach in the study of retranslation and the assump-
tion that time is the single influential factor in the make-up of retranslations;
both of these critiques are leveled against the assumed monocausality in retrans-
lations. She refers to multiple relations of many kinds and a “rhizomatic” rela-
tion between different factors (Brownlie 2006:155). We fully agree with her
that it is the local context that is often conclusive in the final make-up of the re-
translation and that it is the individual commissioners and actors, i.e. translators
and other agents, who should be given more emphasis in the study of retransla-
tion. Our results also point in the direction of multiple causation. What lies be-
hind a phenomenon as complicated as retranslation necessarily seems to be
caused by a multiplicity of different factors in different combinations: retransla-
tion cannot be encapsulated by a simplistic cause-and-effect formula. Case stud-
ies of existing retranslations and revisions also raise a number of ethical consid-
erations. On the one hand, reprocessed texts that rely heavily on a previous
translator’s work bring to the fore issues of plagiarism and copyright (in par-
ticular, paternity and integrity) − or even “trans-piracy”, to use a term coined by
Ljuba Tarvi (2005:137). On the other hand, publishers may see it as their moral
duty to take care of the “maintenance” of aging translations (see Heikkinen
2006; also Sillman 1996:44).
On a metatheoretical level a central finding of our study is that we cannot
blindly trust the existing categorizations in the study of retranslations. First, bib-
liographies do not give us the basic facts to start with. Two texts may have been
printed at different times, probably by different publishing houses, and there
appear different translators’ names, but are they indeed two different texts, and

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 REPROCESSING TEXTS 47

if so what way? The scale of difference between two translations may vary: an
edited or corrected earlier translation is sometimes passed on as a new transla-
tion; a completely renewed and changed text may still appear under the earlier
translator’s name. You can decide to draw the line between retranslations and
corrected/edited second versions following the previously established metatex-
tual (bibliographical) practices, taking as a retranslation only the ones that the
bibliographies list under different translators, and in this way you can do statis-
tics and say that there were so and so many retranslations of certain texts. How-
ever, you need to be aware that you may be leaving out the real distinctions (or
non-distinctions) – the label of retranslation (likewise that of revising) covers a
great many different kinds of reworkings.
A purported revision may consist of minor linguistic amendments to keep
up with the standardization process of a language without changing the idiosyn-
cratic expressions of the first translator, but this kind of a process may also end
up being called a new translation, as in the case of Dead Souls. Then again, a
reviser may end up enhancing the style of the whole text, as in the case of Gösta
Berling. If we simply look at what has happened to the texts and forget what
they have purportedly been through – revision, modernization or retranslation –
we end up with a multi-layered schema where a previous translation may have
been used by later translators in very different ways: orthographic correction,
stylistic correction, correction against the source text, or, at the other end of the
scale, a completely new translation, not indicating any closeness to the previous
translation (the different translations of Les Misérables into Finnish are all fairly
idiosyncratic and do not seem to depend on each other).
Researchers often want neat categorizations, but our extensive data show
these categorizations do not arise out of reality. Binary categorization into first
and retranslations is not always helpful; neither is the categorization into revi-
sions and retranslations. It is more a question of a continuum where different
versions seamlessly slide together or even coalesce. Even the idea of a contin-
uum might be too simplified, as revision and changes may be brought about at
various levels of the text. To borrow Brownlie’s term, the textual relations be-
tween different versions, whether they are called retranslations or revisions,
seem to form a “rhizomatic” network of influences, ideologies and value judg-
ments. For a researcher they offer a rich and varied field of study, but as this is
still a largely uncharted terrain, we are well advised to walk lightly and to avoid
jumping to hasty conclusions.
Notes
1
Some scholars include simultaneous or near-simultaneous translations in the category of
retranslations (Susam-Sarajeva 2006:138). Anthony Pym (1998:82) calls simultaneous transla-
tions for different markets ‘passive retranslations’, while ‘active retranslations’ are those compet-
ing for the same audiences.

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48 OUTI PALOPOSKI AND KAISA KOSKINEN

2
Brownlie (2006:145, n. 1) calls theoretical discussions and observations concerning the
phenomenon of retranslation by the name of Retranslation Theory. Under this label she discusses
Antoine Berman’s (1990) “theory of retranslation” (Brownlie 2006:147) and several articles,
some of them initially geared towards studying the phenomenon of retranslation itself, others to-
wards studying other topics (such as the changing of translation norms).
3
Brownlie (2006:148) observes that the term ‘hypothesis’ was not there in Berman’s writ-
ings and is actually part of a different theoretical framework than what Berman would have em-
braced. However, Berman’s ideas can be seen to figure behind the Retranslation Hypothesis in the
way hypotheses are understood in Chesterman (2000:22–23).
4
In other sources, this distance in time is often claimed to be 50 years, sometimes 30 or 20
years. See e g. Helin 2005:145 and authors cited in Collombat 2004:4.
5
There are cases where one translator has translated the same text twice with an interval of
time (e.g. some of the Seven Brothers translations into German, see Kujamäki 1998).
6
Obviously, bibliographies may be differently organized and in some national databases
there may well be a relevant field marking some translations as retranslations (this is not done in
Finland), which would greatly facilitate the study of retranslations. However, unless one is pre-
pared to execute a textual comparison of each version, one needs to accept a certain margin of er-
ror in these labels – and the categories are bound to be shifting, as can be seen later.
7
As can be seen, language correction and editing are sometimes attributed to a specific per-
son in the paratexts, sometimes not.
8
Indirect or mediated translations (that are a common phenomenon in translation history)
are also sometimes called ‘retranslations’. As mediated translations merit independent research
(which is currently being carried out, see e.g. Ringmar 2008), we have found it less confusing to
disregard them here.

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Across Languages and Cultures 11 (1) (2010)