Source-target

Chesterman defines source-target as ‘the idea that the translation is directional, going from somewhere to somewhere’ (1997:8). We see the twenty-first- century translation of Faust by Constantine (2005) as coming from the eighteenth- century work by Goethe (1972), for example, so that the direction is from Goethe to Constantine, from the earlier text to the later, from ST to TT, which seems to be common sense, as it is difficult to refer to translation in any other way in ordinary usage. The meme may either indicate that source-target relationships resemble others or that people have tended to see a source-target relation as always present in translation.

However, the metaphor of direction implies that the ST moves, which is not the case. As Chesterman (1997:8) notes, a text does not vanish from the source culture when it appears in the target culture. The supermeme also fails to recognise that translation is a cluster concept. There are many English translations of Faust on the market, for example, and Goethe’s Faust itself is part of a cluster. Gledhill (2007:111) describes the numerous portrayals of the Faust legend that exist in various genres, of which Goethe’s work is one. The portrayals exist in a relationship of family resemblance, a relationship that is multidirectional. A child is often said to resemble a parent, for example, but a parent may be described as resembling a child. The supermeme ‘source-target’ has the effect of devaluing the translation by privileging the source. Toury (1995) counters this by his Wittgensteinian descriptive

199

approach, because his analysis begins with the TT. Furthermore, it is possible to approach a text through its translation, something that second language learners frequently do, which reverses the direction of this supermeme. Parks (2007), for example, uses translations to show aspects of the style of literary works, in a translation approach to literature.

The source-target supermeme implies there is an essential relation between source and target, rather than one constructed for the sake of convenience. The relation is furthermore implicitly directional, because of the semantics of ‘source’ and ‘target’: something comes from a source and aims at a target. Grammatical investigation prevents the theorist being held captive by a picture and enables him or her to use a term with clarity. I am not suggesting that the terms source and target be abolished – unlike Barnstone (1993:228), who advocates replacing ‘target’ with the less belligerent ‘receptor’ – simply that we become aware that there are consequences in choosing to use them. A grammatical investigation, by taking in the meaning of the words used, can show us what these consequences are.

4.4.1.2 Equivalence

Chesterman defines equivalence as the expectation that ‘a translation is, or must be, equivalent to the source, in some sense at least’ (1997:9). This definition is circular, because it begs the question of what is meant by equivalence, which is a problematic term, as discussed in 3.3. In mathematics, for example, it makes sense to say that (2+2) is equivalent to 4, because the two expressions can be interchanged. In language, however, even a single word may have its own form of life, which means that an equivalent may not be found automatically. Raymond van den Broeck (1978:36) argues that if ‘we take into account the fact that expressions in context not only have conceptual meanings but also convey connotative, stylistic, affective, reflected and collocative meanings, it will in fact be difficult to discover any pair of expressions in actual speech which are really equivalent’. The point applies within a language and, by extension, across languages, and is both Wittgensteinian and in line with contemporary linguistics (Malmkjaer, 2005:24). The same is true when viewing things at the level of whole works. It would be misleading to assert that, say, Constantine’s Faust (2005) is the English equivalent of Goethe’s Faust (1972), in virtue of being its translation, or that Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus (1986) is the English equivalent, in virtue of being an English dramatisation of the

200

Faust legend. Constantine cannot be equivalent because, as Parks (2007:244) notes, even the best translation ‘is a total transformation’. Marlowe cannot be equivalent because the two poets treat the legend in very different ways, Marlowe linking it to a Renaissance form of life and Goethe to an Enlightenment form of life.

Does this mean that the concept of equivalence should be banned from translation studies? Not necessarily, as long as care is taken with what is meant when using the term, following Wittgenstein’s notion that meaning is use (PI 43). As Wittgenstein notes in PI 79, meaning is not fixed, as quoted in (122).

(122)

And this can be expressed as follows: I use the name ‘N’ without a fixed meaning. (But that impairs its use as little as the use of a table is impaired by the fact that it stands on four legs instead of three and so sometimes wobbles.)

Chesterman (1997:9) uses Wittgenstein’s family resemblance to see equivalence in terms of similarity, following Toury (1980:9). The two sentences ‘Il pleut’ (French, ‘it rains’) and ‘It is raining’ can be said to be similar, and therefore equivalent because they can often be used to the same purpose. There are important differences, however: the English is present continuous, a tense that does not exist in French; there are more syllables in the English etc. To speak of similarity does not rule out difference. If I say that Anna is similar to Chris, this makes sense, even if it is pointed out that Anna is female and Chris is male, because it can be presumed that I am referring to one particular aspect of their character or of their appearance. Constantine’s Faust can be said to be similar to Goethe’s, even though the former is written in English and the latter in German, whereas Marlowe’s Dr Faustus is, I think, a very different work from Goethe’s Faust, despite both being part of the cluster of creative work around the Faust legend. There are things that you will not say, as Wittgenstein notes (PI 79). Barnstone uses the notion of similarity within constraints as a description of the activity of translation: ‘creating related difference’ (1993:18).

Tymoczko (2007:41), following Wittgenstein, asserts that equivalence is best seen as ‘a relation constructed by the translator … a similarity relationship – involving both likeness and difference – and as such … contingent on many cultural