Memes of Translation

Neslihan Kansu-YetkinerETI 301

Survival Machines for Memes

A meme is] a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. (1976: 206; p. 192 in the 1989 edition)

Memes, then, are everything you have learned by imitating other people — habits, jokes, ideas, songs... Memes spread like genes, they replicate, often with mutation. Examples are languages, religions, ideologies, scientific theories.

In Memes of Translation (1997) Chesterman suggests that there are also supermemes in this meme-pool — these are particularly dominant memes that keep coming up allover the place, often in slightly different forms. They are extremely persistent: in fact, they just won’t go away!

The source-target meme The equivalence meme The unranslatability meme The free vs. literal meme The all-writing-is-translating meme

The source-target meme This supermeme is the idea that

translation is directional going from somewhere to somewhere.

-Cognitive linguistics talks about a ‘path schema’ mentioning translation moving along this path.

When an object moves from A to B, it is no longer at A. However, translation does not eliminate the presence of A. Texts in a (source lang.) do not move, they spread, they replicate.

A —> B (transfer) But: A —> A + A’ (additive)

Equivalence

A = A’ (equative)

The notion of equivalence states that two different entities are identical in some respect.

Sl and TL are “the same”.

Sameness???

Various subtypes of equivalence Nida (1964) -Dynamic equivalence (aiming at

the same effect) Formal equivalence (aiming at

same form and meaning)

Still waters run deep

He jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks

All that glitters isn't gold

Functional, sylistic, semantic, formal or grammatical and textual equivalence (Koller 1979, Retsker 1993).

The word sameness is replaced by “matching (Holmes 1988) and “family resemnlance (Wittgenstein 1953, Toury 1980).

Is equivalence pragmatically attainable?

Some cultural terms, culture-bound connotations, (magic, unlucky, kısmet, inşallah etc) are slippery ground for equivalence.

Untranslability Equivalence by definition is perfect.

But perfection in practice is unattainable.

Translation is an utopian task (Ortega y Gasset 1937).

Poetry by definition is untranslatable (Jakonbson)

Poetry is what gets lost in translation by Robert Frost

Nem varsa şu mahzende, Yatağım, Yastığım Nem varsa şu mahzende Nem varsa Nemli filan değil, düpedüz ıslak. Can Yücel (1993:79)

All my worldly goods are in this cell my bed my pillow all my belongings are in this cell all my posessions they' re not just damp Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan

Fergar(1993:78)

Translation of holly books?

Katz’s effability principle?

Any proposition can be expressed by some sentence in any language.-Propositional meaning

What about utterance meaning?

Langue (Lang.as system)----------Parole (Language use)

Translation can be achieved to some extent not entirely.

Culture, context, background information? “Kaynanamla kaynatamı akşam

yemeğe çağırdım”.-”Dickenson’un şiirlerini beğeniyor

musun?-Bazılarını”.-”Nereden çıktı bu kara kargalar?Mustafa kovalamamış mıydı?”

Free vs. Literal

Literal: word for word translation, so ungrammatical; the closest possible grammatical translation.

Barhudarov (1993) “the smaller the unit of translation the more literal the result, and the larger the unit, the freer the result.

Alice who is waiting for me in the front garden with a letter in her hand is my student.

Alice ki bekliyor benim için ön bahçede bir mektupla elinde benim öğrencimdir.

Ön bahçede elinde bir mektupla beni bekleyen Alice öğrencimdir.

All writing is translating

Translation is a form of writing that happens to be rewriting.

Learning to speak means learning to translate meanings into words.

So no texts are original, they are the derivative of other texts. (i.e. Writers do not create their own texts but borrow and combine elements).

Meaning is negotiated during communication process. Hence the notion of appropriateness is repleced by an objective truth.

Equivalence and Equivalence Effect by J. Munday semiotic approach to language ('there is no signatum without

signum' (1959:232) - three kinds of translation: Intralingual (within one language, i.e. rewording or paraphrase) 

  Interlingual (between two languages)  

  Intersemiotic (between sign systems)

interlingual translation (use of synonyms in order to get the ST message across):

i.e.: in interlingual translations there is no full equivalence between code units

“There is ordinarily no full equivalence between the code/units.

Consider the word cheese in Turkish , in German and in French. 

'translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes'

from a grammatical point of view languages may differ from one another to a greater or lesser degree, but this does not mean that a translation cannot be possible, in other words, that the translator may face the problem of not finding a translation equivalent

'whenever there is deficiency, terminology may be qualified and amplified by: loanwords or loan-translations, neologisms or semantic shifts, and circumlocutions'

Nida and “the science of translating” Why is this book/attempt important? 

The nature of meaning (The influence of semantics)

---Linguistic meaning --Referential meaning (denotative meaning)) --Emotive meaning (connotative meaning)

Chomsky (Influence of syntax) Nida’s three-stage system of

translation

Formal vs. Dynamic Equivalence Dynamic equivalence (also known as

functional equivalence) attempts to convey the thought expressed in a source text (if necessary, at the expense of literalness, original word order, the source text's grammatical voice, etc.), while formal equivalence attempts to render the text word-for-word (if necessary, at the expense of natural expression in the target language). The two approaches represent emphasis, respectively, on readability and on literal fidelity to the source text.

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Newmark’s Semantic vs. Communicative Translation Nida's 'receptor'-oriented approach is 'illusory': The gap between SLT and TLT will always remain a permanent problem

in both TR theory and practice How can the gap be narrowed?:

COMMUNICATIVE vs SEMANTIC translation ... attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as

possible to that obtained on the readers of the original. (cf. Nida's dynamic eq.)

... attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original.

See table 3.1

Koller’s diachotomy Correspondence: ('langue', 'competence':

within CA of two language systems formal similarities and differences PROBLEMS: false friends, signs of lexical, morphological & syntactic interference

Equivalence: ('parole', 'performance': equivalent items in specific ST-TT pairs and contexts Competence in the foreign language: Knowledge of (formal) correspondences Competence in transaltion: knowledge / ability in equivalences

However: ? What exactly has to be EQUIVALENT?!!  

 

Koller (1979) . DENOTATIVE

- extralinguistic content, 'content invariance' CONNOTATIVE

lexical choices (e.g. in near synonyms), 'stylistic equivalence'

TEXT-FORMATIVE related to text types, (cf. K. Reiss)

PRAGMATIC 'communicative equivalence' oriented to the receiver of the text message Nida's 'dynamic equivalence'

FORMAL related to the form and aesthetics of the text stylistic features 'expressive equivalence'

 

Koller - Checklist language function content characteristics language-stylistic characteristics formal aesthetic characteristics pragmatic characteristics (see Text Linguistics, Types of texts – Koller,

Reiss, Nord)

 

Case studies…