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A Model for the Evaluation of Translations: With an Emphasis on the Stylistic Features
Mostafa Sedaghat Rostami Dept. of Foreign Languages, Kharazmi (Tarbiat Moallem) University Tehran, Iran
Abstract
This study is an attempt to provide a framework for the stylistic analysis of the translations.
To achieve this, this paper focused on a model proposed by Hasan Ghazalah (1987) for the stylistic analysis of the original text. Based on his model, I tried to come to a model for the evaluations of the translations in terms of the stylistic features. To make my study more objective and to provide evidence for the proposed model, I focused on the story “The Catcher in the Rye” written by J. D. Salinger (1951) in which the stylistic features have prime importance. It is hoped this model of translation evaluation in terms of stylistic features will be useful for the translators and evaluators of the translations.
Keywords: Translation Evaluation, Stylistic features, The Catcher in the Rye, Evaluator,
1. Introduction
According to Enkvist (1973:11), the style is "as common as it is elusive. Most of us speak about it even lovingly, though few of us are willing to say precisely what it means." Many attempts have been made to define it, ranging from viewing it as the moulding of the message, to identifying it with the author, to rejecting it in part and in toto, to regarding it as a choice and a substantial determiner and component of meaning (Ghazalah 1987:35). However, there is a connection between the stylistics and traditional rhetoric. To provide evidence for this connection we can mention a statement quoted by Graham Hough (1969:1 - 4):“The modern study of style, i.e. stylistics, has its roots in classical rhetoric: the ancient art of persuasive speech, which has always had a close affinity with literature, probably because it was regarded as a persuasive discourse….
Classical rhetoric was prescriptive in that it provided guidance as to how to be persuasive, whereas modern stylistics is descriptive in that it seeks to point out the linguistic features that can be associated with particular effects.” Isidore Chukwuma Nnadi (2010:33) believes that style is the manner of expressing one’s thoughts. Just as there are various ways of doing things, there are stylistic variations in language use. Style is also distinctive in the sense that the language used in some way is significant for the thematic design of any genre. This distinctive aspect of style is predicated upon the fact that from a variety of items of language, the writer chooses and arranges them, depending on the genre, form, theme, author’s general disposition, etc. A style can be good or bad, plain or unmarked. A style is said to be unmarked when the writing is of zero degree – “ zero degree” being a term first used by Rolland Barthes (1967) to denote “absence of style” in the classical French writing by Camus. The appropriateness of the term has come under attack by scholars (notably Wales 1991:484) since no writing can exhibit “zero style” or “neutral style” or “transparent style”. In fact, the very “absence” of a marked style can itself be seen to be syntactically significant. Therefore, each text, either literary or non-literary text, has a style and a translator should pay a great attention to the style of the text because as C.H. Holman (1980:432) puts it, “The style is the arrangement of words in a manner which at once best expresses the individuality of the author and the idea and the intent in the author’s mind. The best style, for any given purpose, is that which most clearly approximates a perfect adaptation of one’s language to one’s ideas. Style is a combination of two elements: the idea to be expressed and the individuality of the author.” Therefore, it should be said that the style of a text not only shows the linguistic features of the text, but also shows the intent of the writer, that is what he intends to mention in the text. In other words, the style of a text is not just the means by which the author can express himself, but the style can also be the content in itself because it reveals some facts to us. As far as The Catcher in the Rye is concerned, the protagonist of the story, Holden Caulfield, uses the statements which are grammatically wrong. According to Costello (1995), Holden is a typical enough teenager to violate the grammar rules, even though he knows of their social importance. Therefore, the translator should convey these grammatical features to tell the readers that the protagonist is a typical enough teenager violating the grammatical rules, even though he knows their social importance. Furthermore, this shows that the teenager is against the adult worlds in which the adults believed that everything should be followed based on a rule. Peter Verdonk (2002:6) in the analysis of the headline found that style does not arise out of a vacuum but that its production, purpose, and effect are deeply embedded in the particular context in which both the writer and the reader of the headline play their distinctive roles. He also says that we should distinguish between two types of context: linguistic and non-linguistic context. Linguistic context refers to the surrounding features of language inside a text, like the typography, sounds, words, phrases, and sentences, which are relevant to the interpretation of other such linguistic elements. Furthermore, he believes that the non-linguistic context is a much more complex notion since it may include any number of text-external features influencing the language and style of a text. Analysis in stylistics therefore involves a range of general language qualities, which include diction, sentence patterns, structure and variety, paragraph structure, imagery, repetition, emphasis, arrangement of ideas and other cohesive devices. Stylistics, Literary Criticism and Practical Criticism have certain things in common. Stylistics studies and describes the formal features of the text, that is, the levels of expression vis-à-vis the content, thus bringing out their functional significance for the interpretation of the work. The stylistician may rely on his intuition and interpretative skills just as the literary critic, but the former tries to keep at bay, vague and impressionistic judgment (Chukwuma Nnadi2010: 35).According to what is mentioned above, it can be concluded that both subjective and objective evidences are used by the stylistician. Subjective evidence relates to the stylistician’s intuitions and interpretive skills( in this aspect, as mentioned above, there is a similarity between a literary critic and stylistician).Objective evidence comes from investigating the form of the language in a text and here there is no room for intuition and this objective evidence can be considered a basis which prevents from vague and incorrect interpretations .Here, the confusion between the terms linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics should be removed. A definition of these terms provided by Chukwuma Nnadi (2010:36) can remove this confusion: “Stylistics is the scientific study of style. Any such study that leans heavily on external correlates with none or just a smattering of attention to the ‘rules guiding the operation of the language’ can be regarded as literary stylistics. The converse of this premise (i.e. a study that relies heavily on the rules guiding the operation of the language in the explication of a literary text) is what we regard here as linguistic stylistics.” Therefore, we have two types of stylistics: literary and linguistic stylistics. To make a judgment about something, we need different evidences. As far as a literary text is concerned, two evidence, internal and external evidence, can help us to come to an appropriate interpretation of a text. Therefore, to interpret a text stylistically both external and internal evidence are needed. According to the definition provided above by Chukwuma Nnadi, the literary stylistics can take the form of external evidence and the linguistics study can take the form of internal evidence .In sum, both literary and linguistic stylistics should be considered for the process of stylistic analysis to come to a stylistically appropriate interpretation. Furthermore, Enkvist (1973: 92) observes that linguistic stylistics differs from literary criticism where brilliant intuitions and elegant, often metaphoric, verbalizations of subjective responses are at a premium.
Stanley E. Fish’s article “What is Stylistics and why are they Saying such Terrible Things about it?” in Essays in Modern Stylistics (1981) says: “Stylistics was born of a reaction to the subjectivity and imprecision of literary studies. For the appreciative raptures of the impressionistic critic, stylisticians purport to substitute
precise and rigorous linguistic descriptions, and to proceed from those descriptions to interpretations for which they claim a measure of objectivity. Stylistics, in short, is an attempt to put criticism on a scientific basis. (33)” Generally speaking, both linguistic stylistics and literary criticism are concerned with the quest for matter and manner in a literary work of art. Like literary criticism, stylistics is interested in the message of the work, and how effectively it is delivered. Both linguistic stylistics and literary criticism rigorously analyze and synthesize a work of art with a common aim of presenting both the merits and the demerits of the work, and in so doing, elucidate the work. In spite of such common factor existing between linguistic stylistics and literary criticism, one finds that there lies a difference in their modus operandi, and consequently a difference in their evaluations. Whereas linguistic stylistics begins and concludes its analysis and synthesis from the literary text itself, rigorously examining how a special configuration of language has been used in the realization of a particular subject matter, quantifying all the linguistic means (including imagery) that coalesced to achieve a special aesthetic purpose; literary criticism does not suffer that restriction to the work of art under analysis. In its own analysis, it intermittently works on the text, but occasionally wanders off and brings in extra-linguistic, extra-textual material (may be from philosophy, psychology, biography, social history, etc.) to bear on the work. The result is that, whereas linguistic stylistics comes up with a somewhat objective evaluation, based on realistic criteria;literary criticism comes up with that which is generally imaginative, speculative, subjective, and impressionistic ( Chukwuma Nnadi 2010:30).
Finally, here lies the major difference between linguistic stylistics and literary criticism – a point more lucidly corroborated by Leech and Short (1995:46-47) while discussing “Style, Text and Frequency”. “Aesthetic terms used in the discussion of style (urbane, curt, exuberant, florid, lucid, plain, vigorous, etc.) are not directly referable to any observable linguistic features of texts, and one of the long-term aims of stylistics must be to see how far such descriptions can be justified in terms of descriptions of a more linguistic kind. The more a critic wishes to substantiate what he says about style, the more he will need to point to the linguistic evidence of texts; and linguistic evidence, to be firm, must be couched in terms of numerical frequency…. So, quantitative stylistics on the one hand… may provide confirmation for the ‘hunches’ or insights we have about style. On the other, it may bring to light significant features of style which would otherwise have been overloaded, and so lead to further insights; but only in a limited sense does it provide an objective measurement of style. Moreover, the role of quantification depends on how necessary it is to prove one’s point… intuition has a respectable place both in linguistics and criticism ”
2. A Model for the Stylistic Analysis of the Original Text In this study I focused on a model proposed by Hasan Ghazalah (1987). His main focus was on the stylistic analysis of the literary texts: The Sisters by James Joyce, and Enough by Samuel Beckett. He didn’t focus on the translations of these literary texts, but he just made an attempt to show the stylistic features of these literary texts. His model has two major components: Intuitions about the Text as a whole and Stylistic analysis.
2.1 Intuitions about the Text
To clarify the meaning of the intuition, Ghazalah (1987:58) provided the following
statements: “The Italian Philosopher, Benedetto Croce describes intuition in general terms as "... fashioned out of a generalized human experience" (printed in Wellek, 1982). The kind of intuition I mean is not to be understood in the sense of the uncultivated animal instinct, or as some telepathic status on behalf of the readers/students (see Hutchison, 1984), for such intuition is of a little help and "Intuitions without concepts are blind", as Immanuel Kant says (quoted in Wellek, 1982).
Many writers and critics consider the meaning of intuitions as axiomatic and, therefore, there is no need to articulate what it precisely means. Guillen (1971), for instance, regards it as a mystery, an object beyond the reach of man of science; while Blackmur describes it as something everywhere and nowhere in a poem. Young (1980), on the other hand, defines it as the special ability by which we discover the theme of literary texts. Clearly these descriptions of intuitions are so general and unfold little about it.” He (1987:59) continues in saying that “Culler (1975) defines some of its components by introducing the idea of Literary Competence which is the knowledge of the norms and conventions of reading literary texts. Leech and Short (1981) introduce the term Stylistic Competence (see also 6.2.3 later) by analogy to Chomsky's Linguistic Competence (ie. The knowledge of language system shared by all native speakers of a language): it is "... the capacity we possess and exercise unconsciously and intuitively" and ". .. the speaker's responsiveness to style" (p. 49). All these suggestions express roughly one concept, that is, the prior experience and knowledge of language system and how to read literary texts. And that is the main ingredient of what I suggest to call Stylistic Intuition which also subsumes culture and personal ideology (or ideologies). It is different from Leech and Short's stylistic competence in that the latter is only one of its constituents, for by it I mean to encompass all those factors which form the reader's ability to discern stylistic devices and effects and the degree of their importance in a text, and the reasons behind interpreting the way he does.” Therefore, based on the ideas mentioned above, it can be concluded that the human being’s intuition is different from uncultivated animal instinct; the intuition relates to our prior experience, our knowledge of language system, the way of reading the literary texts. Furthermore, as mentioned above the intuition subsumes culture and personal identity. Generally speaking, the intuition relates to our senses and this is subjectively oriented.
2.2 Stylistic Analysis
The second component of Ghazalah’s model, stylistic analysis, has two parts: Structuring of the layout and lexis. When it came to the structuring layout, Ghazalah (1987:87) provided the following statements. “Like many stylisticians (e.g. Fowler, 1977, 1981; Leech and Short, 1981; Dillon, 1980; Verma, 1980; Gleason, 1965 and others ), I understand style as choice in the first place. So the model of literary stylistic analysis focuses, first, on the structuring of the layout of theliterary text, including the ways clausing, sentencing, paragraphing and cohesion are set out: why they are chosen to be structured in the way they are; what functions are being issued; how they affect, guide, orient and contribute to the text's interpretation; how they delimit its interpretive context; and what sort of relationship is being established among these structural units: is it one of conglomeration, contradiction, complementation, etc.? Do they compose a convergent or a divergent whole, What does this mean in terms of stylistic functions? All these points are to be observed intuitively. Then, and only then, can they be claimed to give the support needed for our interpretive intuitions about the text analyzed.” As far as the lexical choice is concerned, he (1987:88) mentioned that “The other proportion of focus will be on the lexical choice made by the individual writer in his text. My concern will be questions like: What are the significant lexical choices picked up from the vocabulary of English? Why are these and not others made in the text? What is the frequency of the recurrence of some of them? How do they fit in one particular context? What lexical fields do they establish? To what extent do lexical items and clusterings combine together both microand macro-contextually? And finally, how does this help to shape our
interpretive intuitions.” Generally speaking, the figure of his model, the process of stylistic interpretation, is as follows: The process of stylistic interpretation Figure 1. The process of stylistic interpretation To confirm the intelligibility and usefulness of his model, he quotes a statement by Paula Sunderman(1974): Intuitions about the “An interpretation based upon a close analysis of the interrelationship of syntax and semantics promises to be the most fruitful approach to the meaning ... for it brings together the disciplinary contributions of both linguistic and literary analysis ... " When it comes to the aim of this model he (1987:89) says, “The aim of this model is, very briefly, to provide an optimal stylistic interpretation of literary texts, short texts in particular. The tools to achieve it are our intuitions about them and the literary stylistic analysis of the
significant features of the structuring of their layout and lexis and the stylistic functions and effects produced.” Hasan believes that this model will be a detailed analysis for pedagogical as well as interpretive purposes. Furthermore, he mentions that the ultimate aim of this analysis, together with that of lexis, is to provide a literary stylistic interpretation for the text which concretizes the theoretical argument put forward about the proceedings of literary stylistic analysis to confirm its usefulness and legitimacy overseas in particular. He also provides another figure for the analysis of the two texts(The Sisters, by James Joyce, and Enough, by Samuel Beckett) in the step of stylistic analysis ,which can be applied for the evaluation of translation. Stylistic Analysis (Layout. Structuring. Clausing. Sentencing. Paragraphing. Cohesion. Lexis. Lexical.Fielding. Subfielding. Abstraction of Gravitation. Vocabulary Coreness. Specification. Generalization).
Discussion and Conclusion
To evaluate a translation, we should focus on a specific aspect and it is wrong to make general judgments about a translation. In this study, it is tried to focus just on the stylistic aspect of a translation. Therefore, to provide a framework for the evaluators of the translation a model is proposed, which can be used by both the evaluators and translators. Bringing the first and second stages of the proposed model together, an appropriate stylistic interpretation of the text come into existence .The translator should bring these two stages together, if he is going to translate a text .The evaluator of the translation should also consider these two steps together, if he is going to evaluate a translated text. The process of stylistic interpretation will help the evaluator and translator to come to the correct linguistic and functional aspects of the text .It should be mentioned that the interpretation that an evaluator or translator can get from the stylistic analysis is not the final and sole interpretation that can be get from the literary text. As Brumfit and Burke (1986) puts it, "... a full and final reading of literature will never be achieved, but the more we read and the more we experience of life outside reading, of course, the more our reading and, re-reading is enriched. But it is enriched not merely at the level of language, but also at the level of form, structure of story, paragraphing, concept, and so on." Furthermore, putting these two stages together a friendly relationship will develop between the evaluator and theory. The first stage, intuitive response, is the realm of the evaluator and the second stage, the objective analysis, which is called the stylistic analysis stage in this study, is the realm of theory which is developed by the linguistic scholars. Generally Speaking, considering the concept of intertexulaity we come to the conclusion that howness is much more important than whatness. It means that through conveying the howness by which a literary text is reported, we convey the ability of the writer in using the language of his own system of language. It doesn’t mean that the content of the text is not important, but according to Katherina Reiss(2000) in literary texts the form has much more importance than the content of the source text .Finally, It should be mentioned that we shouldn’t sacrifice the content for the form of the source text or vice versa.
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Source: (Mostafa Sedaghat Rostami Dept. of Foreign Languages, Kharazmi (Tarbiat Moallem) University.
Tehran, Iran Translator International Journal of Linguistics, ISSN 1948-5425, 2012, Vol. 4, No. 2 www.56 macrothink.org/ijl)
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