Lost in Translation: A Plea for “Ouch!” Level Referential Accuracy

My basic beef with FE (formal equivalence) translations: they fool people into thinking they have the real McCoy, when they often have little more than a code that still must be deciphered. My basic beef with DE (dynamic equivalence) translations: they aim too low. Why not strive for dynamic equivalence at the rhetorical, stylistic, and metaphorical levels? Why should we be satisfied when, where the original language text has something like “Ouch!” - GNB has something like “It hurts me” instead?

“Ouch” level referential accuracy: can we agree on that as a minimum goal? To my mind, that means it becomes risky to replace a metaphor in the original language text with an abstraction or mere proposition in translation. Find a DE metaphor, please.

I'm an artsy fart at heart, so a piece I read today entitled "Lost in Translation," speaks to me directly (go here):

This is how Richard Pevear, a master translator of Russian lit who consciously sets the bar higher than his predecessors, puts it:

"You could tell people what is portrayed in Rembrandt's 'Return of the Prodigal Son' and move them deeply. But the telling would have little to do with the experience of looking at the unique disposition of color, light, space, scale, line, texture, and brushwork in Rembrandt's painting, which also happens to depict the return of the prodigal son. It is the same with a work in words. Words have color, shade, tone, texture, rhythm, pacing, disposition, structure; they can quote, echo, parody other words; they can be unexpected, infinitely suggestive, mercurial; they can also beat and repeat like a drum. That is the nature of Tolstoy's artistic medium; his 'story' comes clothed in all these elements of style as he alone used them, and which alone create the impression he wanted to make. Of course he used them 'instinctively,' and not for the sake of effect (though he was a far more conscious and even experimental stylist than is sometimes thought). The translator, on the other hand, has to do consciously what the author did instinctively. And yet it must seem instinctive—that's the final test."

My translation ideals shine through this quotation, and illustrate well where I differ in approach from both FE and DE translation techniques as usually understood.

We were discussing Matthew 23. Did I mention that Jesus has a sword for a mouth? Come to think of it, I’m not the first one to point that out.

Comments

[Bob MacDonald]

It's a great quote - and for me, if I get the wrong colour, let it be a real boner. If I am going to be 'wrong', let me be really wrong. 'authority' simply won't do for 'seat'. If English lacked the seat metaphor, it would soon acquire it.

[Peter Kirk]

Maybe your "basic beef" here needs a bit more roasting as well as that red wine ;-)

[JohnFH]

Check out my Jonah 1 post. See if you like the smell of things.

[Wayne Leman]

Why not strive for dynamic equivalence at the rhetorical, stylistic, and metaphorical levels?

Amen!! That's where I'm at, also, John. Many DE translations are too wimpy. They do not do justice to the gutsy rhetoric of the biblical language texts. It takes hard work to create translations which are crisp with real English idiomatic language such as your "talk the talk and walk the walk" as well as reflecting the genre and co-textual relationships of the texts. It *is* possible to have our rhetorical cake and eat it, too, but it has seldom been done, partly out of lack of understanding, but also because it takes so much more effort.

[ElShaddai Edwards]

Excellent! I wish I had written your first sentence...

Thank you also for the link to the Newsweek article - there are a few gaps on my "classic lit" bookshelf and I'll definitely be looking at translations by Pevear and Volokhonsky.