TRANSLATOR IS A READER OR CRITIC; CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ORIENTATION

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TRANSLATOR IS A READER OR CRITIC;

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ORIENTATION

Prof. Panchanan Mohanty,

Hyderabad University, Department of Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies.

Ahmad Ayar Afshord,

Ph.D. Scholar, Hyderabad University, Department of Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies.

ABSTRACT

The translators and professional and nonprofessional readers have their own special style and

tactics for reading but the job for translator especially literary translators is a kind of great task.

It requires knowledge and understanding of different cultures. In short, an overall knowledge of

ideology, cultural elements and universal discourse as well as of literary, institutional, academic

discourses for which is used in cultural communities. Furthermore, the critical discourse

analysis is a fundamental tool for reading a text which contributes to the understanding and

revealing the different aspect of a text (power, dominance, inequality and bias) and converts the

translator into a critic.

Therefore translator’s analytical reading represents a kind of critical role directed towards the translation, which denotes a different task between translator and reader. The translator’s

critical reading will contribute the understanding and examining the scopes of the ST, cultural,

ideological and discourse implications and crystallizing those aspects for target audiences and

also interpretive practices of audiences. Therefore critical reading would be seen as a creative

interpretation for the translator as reader and critic.

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During 1980s the interest in the discipline of Translation Studies was expanded globally. The evidence of the interest in translation studies could be seen throughout the world. The many books, journals have been published and new courses on translation and related topics in universities have been established.

Therefore, translation nowadays plays a crucial role in contributing and shaping our knowledge and understanding of the world. Today translation is either just the transfer of linguistics elements from one language into another or dealing with the issue of equivalence; it is now seen as a process of negotiation between different cultures. Although this negotiations were in the hands of translators but the role of translator has a secondary importance i.e. they are invisible. In the 1990s two contrasting roles of the translator emerged. The translator is considered as a force for good, a creative artist who ensures the survival of writing across time and space, an intercultural mediator and interpreter, a figure whose importance to the continuity and diffusion of culture was immeasurable. Translator has the responsibility to work out implied meanings in translation in order to get the ST message across. The role of the translator is to recreate the author's intention in another culture as close as possible in order to create the TT reader same sensation as ST reader.

The critical reading of ST is a crucial responsibility of translator as Susan Bassnett (2007: 81) points: “the translator is […] first a reader and then a writer, and in the process s/he must take a position”. Therefore reader of the text is in the centre of the process.

Regarding the creative role of the reader in the literary process there would be the categorization of the term “reader” itself, which Selden (2005:53) divides it into implied reader and actual reader. “The first is the reader whom the text creates for itself and amounts to a network of response-inviting structures, which predispose us to read in certain ways,” while the other is defined as the reader who “receives certain mental images in the process of reading,” and these images “will inevitably be colored by the reader’s existing stock of experience”.

Eco, dealing with the same issue, makes a slightly different distinction between readers i.e.

“model reader” and “empirical reader”. According to him “every act of reading is a difficult

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competence that a given text postulates in order to be read in an economic way”. Thus, when defining the first i.e. model reader, he says: “A text is a device conceived in order to produce its model reader”. In contrast, the empirical reader can be anyone and read in many different ways. Empirical readers “often use the text as a container for their own passions, which may come from outside the text, or which the text may arouse by chance” (qt. in Basbanes, 2001: 227). It seems necessary to see the re-reading or critical reading as a fundamental process in the translation process because different reading would result in different interpretations of a text and texts build up different readers. It means that there are unlimited numbers of type of reading i.e. joy or studying. There are different levels of reading as Solomo (2012) categories:

1. first reading;

2. re-reading or critical reading, and

3. translator’s reading, that is, the re-reading by the cultural mediator.

First reading is determined primarily by the expectation of pleasure and by the reader’s personal impressions and appreciation, while re-reading is already a kind of critical reading denoting a more structured pleasure of intellectual experience in the broader contexts of the reader‘s culture. In Walden (2009), H. D. Thoreau says that the best reading “requires a training […] books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written”.

Different readings led to different interpretations and may also different translations. There are different meanings and connotations of the term “interpretation”, and the term interpretation by a literary translator is more complex than any definitions that dictionaries might suggest. Here some connotations of the term interpretation as defined in dictionaries:

a. an explanation of the meaning or importance of something;

b. a way of performing a piece of music, a part in a play etc. that shows how you understand it and feel about it;

c. the oral translation of what is said in one language into another, so that speakers of different languages can communicate, and

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The online version of Collins English Dictionary–Complete and Unabridged Harper Collins Publishers 2003 defines interpretation as:

1. the act or process of interpreting or explaining; elucidation; 2. the result of interpreting; an explanation;

3. a particular view of an artistic work, especially as expressed by stylistic individuality in its performance;

4. explanation, as of the environment, a historical site, etc., provided by the use of original objects, personal experience, visual display material, etc.

5. (Philosophy/Logic) Logic an allocation of significance to the terms of a purely formal system, by specifying ranges for the variables, denotations for the individual constants, etc.; a function from the formal language to such elements of a possible world.

It seems that the new millennium is the era of readership as the poststructulist Barthes (1977: 148) writes that reader, in any case, constructs authors. They perform a kind of amateur archeology, reconstructing them from textual shards whilst at the same time feeling able to say about anyone whose writings they have read, 'I know her (or him)'. The reader's 'Roland Barthes' (for example) never existed.

Regarding that the reader construct author, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1973) declared that: 'I don't have the feeling that I write my books, I have the feeling that my books get written through me... I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to myself as the place where something is going on, but there is no "I", no "me"' (cited in Wiseman & Groves, 2000: 173).

Translators are mind-readers and can produce a perfect translation without having to consult the author of the original text, irrespective of whether it is ambiguous, vague or poorly written the end reader must be able to understand the content of the original and for the translation to contain an accurate reflection of the facts and figures it contains.

II. Critical Discourse Analysis and the Reader/Critic

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dominance, inequality and bias. It examines how these discursive sources are maintained and reproduced within specific social, political and historical contexts.

So, it is clear that studying part of CDA is directly related to the issue of readership. Over the years Comparative Linguistics (CL) and what recently is more frequently referred to as CDA has been further developed and broadened. Recent work has raised some concerns with the earlier work in comparative linguistic. Among the concerns was, first, taking into consideration the role of audiences (readers) and their interpretations of discourse possibly differ from that of the discourse analyst. The second concern has called for broadening the scope of analysis beyond the textual, extending it to the intertextual analysis.

Fairclough (1995b) has raised both issues. He claims that the earliest work in comparative linguistics did not adequately focus on the "interpretive practices of audiences." In other words, he claims that comparative linguistics has, for the most part, assumed that the audiences interpret texts the same way. The various levels of description which meant not only the grammatical, phonological, morphological and semantic level but also "higher level properties" such as coherence, overall themes and topics of news stories and the whole schematic forms and rhetorical dimensions of texts. This structural analysis claimed, will not suffice, for Discourse is not simply an isolated textual or dialogic structure. Rather it is a complex communicative event that also embodies a social context, featuring participants (and their properties) as well as production and reception processes (qt. from van Dijk, 1988: 2)

The different levels of the text and discourse are discussed but conditions to interpret a text as reader or translator are different issues. Janks (1997:2) believes that looking at a text critically is not very difficult when we disagree with it - when the positions that it offers to us as readers are far removed from what we think and believe and value. The reader may even be at the receiving end of the consequences entailed and might have little difficulty in questioning the text. Where the naturalizations in a text are not natural for us as readers or listeners, we are at an advantage in that this teaches us that what texts construct are only versions of reality.

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readers who do share the text’s codes to read against the grain. Often these readers are the very people who are labeled as disadvantaged or lacking the cultural capital for dominant literacy that is for producing dominant readings of a text from the position of the ideal reader. This labeling implies an as simulations model of literacy, where readers are expected to identify with the textual positioning, rather than a critical model, which requires them to both engage with and question these positions (Ibid).

In a similar vein, commenting on Fowler (1991), Boyd-Barrett (1994: 31) asserts that there is "a tendency towards the classic fallacy of attributing particular 'readings' to readers, or media 'effects,' solely on the basis of textual analysis". The analysts, including CDA practitioners, agree that different audiences may interpret texts differently. This, however, is one of the strongest arguments that critics of CDA have brought forward against discourse analysts who base their conclusions on their own interpretations, regarding the impact of media discourse on audiences (Fairclough, 1996; Widdowson, 1995). So what a reader construes as the meaning of the text is not fixed and stable but it depends on where s/he comes from. We cannot read Hamlet in the same way as a reader in the nineteenth century did. The French do not read Hamlet in the same way as the Russians, and even the English text is not stable.

The CDA practitioners are the first to acknowledge that different readers might read similar texts differently (Van Dijk, 1993: 242 qt. by Fairclough, 1995b: 15-6). van Dijk (1993) also states that "media recipients [are] active, and up to a point independent, information users" and they may form interpretations and opinions of news reports different from those the newspaper projected or implied.

This seems to indicate that it is not possible to say how people read and interpret a news report for instance. However, CDA practitioners have reasons to believe otherwise. There are at least two reasons:

 readers usually are not trained to be critical readers of texts (Fowler, 1991:11; van Dijk, 1991) and

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Ironically, according to van Dijk, "for specific types of social and political events . . . the news media are the main source of information and beliefs used to form the interpretation framework for such events . . .”. It follows that describing and analyzing the media discourse could help in making assumptions about the impact of the media on audiences (ibid: 242-3).

Fairclough (1995b: 16) defuses the idea that texts have no meanings on their own, without the interpretations of readers. He states, it strikes me as self-evident that although readings may vary, any reading is a product of an interface between the properties of the text and the interpretative I think it is safe to say that all resources and practices which the interpreter brings to bear upon the text. The range of potential interpretations will be constrained and delimited according to the nature of the text.

He, however, believes that reception studies (for example, asking the audiences about their actual interpretations of texts) could help discourse analysis in identifying meanings and effects of texts. Nonetheless, he believes that text analysis should be the central element in media analysis provided that it is accompanied by analysis of text production and consumption. Texts acquire their meanings by the dialectical relationship between texts and the social subjects: writers and the readers, who always operate with various degrees of choice and access to texts and means of interpretation. The analysis of a text in the source language must not be limited to a study of syntactic relationships between linguistic units or to the denotative meaning of words and should treat the connotative values of the formal structure of the communication (idem).

III. Translation and Translator as Reader/Critic

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The purpose of the target text and not the linguistic surface structure of the source text is the starting point of any translation. Therefore, the translator as a reader returns to a text focusing on some special aspects, passages or details, tracing patterns and developing ideas, asking questions and perhaps even collecting some additional information about socio-cultural, ideological and historical contents and contexts. This critical reading and interpretation is the realm of translators, critics and analysts of literary texts (Nord, 1997: 62).

Schaffner (2004:118) mentions that through translation as a bridge between various discourses information is made available to addressees beyond national borders; it is very frequently the case that reactions in one country to statements that were made in another country are actually reactions to the information as it was provided in translation. The linguistic behavior which is related to political behavior may well reflect evidence of behavior mediated by translation. The Post-colonialism is one of the most thriving points of contact between Cultural Studies and Translation Studies. Before Post-colonialism one of the main assumptions was that translation is always controlled by the target culture. Postcolonialists believe that primary control of the translation process was clearly in the hands of the source culture. According to this approach, there is a more tendency to translate from a hegemonic culture to a dominated culture and when the translator of a hegemonic culture translates a text produced by the dominated culture, his work will be perceived as difficult and inscrutable (Robinson, 1997: 32).

A translator must come to recognize the ideological devices which are typical of a special discourse and period in order to use them in restructuring the semantic relations in the target text. The recognition of interdiscursivity is also crucial to the translator specially to define ambiguous meanings. Any text contains a mix of homologous and contiguous discourses which interact reciprocally. The translator should know that fundamental regulate principles interact and influence each other in political discourse (Hatim& Munday, 2004: 219).

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Javanese and English cultures. There are some differences between the two, but they are so minute.

Accordingly, “a translator’s goal is to produce a text in the TL which, in the right context, will enable the reader to construct a mental representation that resembles the one constructed by the reader of the ST” (Salkie, 2001: 439)

Different readers will construct different meanings from a text, and this must be assumed to be the case with translators as readers as well. Chesterman (1997: 64) proposes the existence of two kinds of norms in translation, product norms and process norms, also called expectancy norms and professional norms. Expectancy norms as product norms are “established by the expectations of readers of a translation concerning what a translation (of this type) should be like”.

Translation then, is not just a process that happens in the translator’s head. Readers decide to accept or reject translations. Different types of reader will require different types of translation. A translation should therefore sound “foreign” enough to its reader for that reader to discern the workings of the original language that expresses the language game, the culture of which the original was a part, shining through the words on the translated page.

In modern translation studies there has been a shift of attention from language to human activity in cultural contexts. A translator must be aware of the characteristics which define the discourse in which a text is located if any sense of historical or semantic identity is to be maintained. The translator should know the relation between discourse and text is one of emergence; discourse is embodied in texts and texts make up discourse. Discourse goes beyond the aggregate of texts, i.e. the abstract structures are related to the material conditions which are at the basis of the articulation of meaning (Bruce, 1994: 76).

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The translator should transmit the sense of the more readily explicable referential network to the culturally, temporally or spatially distanced reader.

Drawing on Lotman’s theory, this tension between different cultures can be expressed by the basic Critical study of language use in texts should be connected both to the historically changing social conditions, which affect the reception and production processes of texts, and to the cognitive accounts of the role of the writer in producing texts, and of the reader in comprehending, reacting and interpreting them. opposition between “we” and “them” (Vilikovský, 1982: 131).

The translator, as both reader and producer of a text has “the double duty of perceiving the meaning potential of particular choices within the cultural and linguistic community of the ST and relaying that same potential, by suitable linguistic means, to a target readership” (ibid). Soring (1986) made a distinction between persuasion that attempts to convince the reader and seduction. Trusting in the truth or credibility of arguments, the reader may be convinced and change his or her mind consciously or deliberately. While seduction is when external factors instigate people do thing as if of their own impulse. Ideologically biased political beliefs of a translator can change conviction to seduction and exploits the outward appearance and seeming trustworthiness of himself as the persuader (qt. in Wodak, 1989: 93)

Regarding the issue of culture and ideology in translation it would be useful to refer a Persian translation of a text. In Washington Post (10 November, 2004) the result of the talks between Iran and Europe was metaphorically called a diplomatic fig leaf. An Iranian translator translates it as ‘tekekâqaz’ (i.e. a piece of paper) and another one translates it as ‘tavafoqnâmeyesuri’ (i.e. a formal agreement); both try to persuade their readers while they are transmitting their own ideological belief.

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can endanger reliability, or fidelity of translation. In this way, a chain of ideas that “emerges in the reader’s mind is the means by which the text is translated into the imagination”.

Reception theory as a model has managed to explain how a text (still in strictly monolingual exchange) can mean different things to different people by throwing light on the artistic and aesthetic faculty of a literary work; the former refers to the text created by the author and the latter “to the realization accomplished by the reader, the interaction of which unfolds the work’s potential” (ibid: 68).

IV. Conclusion

The different readers interpret similar texts differently and it is not possible to say how people read and interpret a text due to the different purposes. The purpose of the target text is the starting point of any translation. If we accept that the more accurate depiction of the author-translator-reader relationship might be a simple linear one:

Author___________ Translator __________ Reader

The linear relation has the advantage of placing the translator more realistically in an intermediate position between SL author and TL reader, for without the intervention of translator the author would be unable to reach the TL audience. The linear relation simplifies more the role of the translation and ignores the other essential roles.

Through critical reading, the reader is able to recognize the different genre and style which are typical of any literary work and also to return to a text focusing on some special aspects, passages or details, tracing patterns and developing ideas, asking questions and perhaps even collecting some additional information about socio-cultural, ideological and historical contents and contexts which the other readers hardly or never do.

The role of translator from the beginning of translation process to delivery of TT to target reader, as a reader, critic, analyst and author could be shown as an example in the figure below:

The Original Reader

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The Translator Critic Analyst TT Author

A critical reading makes the translator able to act as a critic and come to recognize the ideological devices which are typical of a special discourse because discourse is embodied in texts and texts make up discourse. The translator, as both reader and producer of a text might be able to perceive the meaning of particular choices within the cultural and linguistic community of the ST and relaying that same potential, by suitable linguistic means, to a target readership. He could also shift his attention from language to human activity in cultural contexts and also be aware of the characteristics which define the discourse in which a text is located. This critical reading and interpretation is the realm of translators as author, reader, critic and analysts.

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