Reading while translating (and not before!)

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:


It is not a matter of translating quickly at all. In fact, preserving the foreignness in a source text and translating in a more "Saussurean" way (i.e. sticking more to the source text and its rhythm, sound, and minute effects) both take a terribly long time and requires quite a mental effort.

Jack Slep wrote:

I've been R>E translating scientific/technical journals on 70 different subjects on a daily basis for 65 years (I'm 85) and have never pre-read thousands of articles, or 10 or so books. I start with the first word and just keep going, adjusting the syntax/active-passive as needed, and researching my very large R, R>E., RE, ER library on a multitude of subjects as required. Perhaps if you do literary translations a "panoramic view" of what lies ahead and a preliminary skim (or in-depth) perusal is needed. But for the most part sci/tech is straight forward, succinct, to the point (except for authors who like to hear themselves) and can be translated from the start, from the git-go. But I guess after 6+ decades, since the Korean and Cold Wars, I've gained some knowledge about the different styles of authors and publishers and can proceed "from the start." The "thing" with sci/tech, though, is vocabulary. I'd wager that better than half those such words didn't exist when I began as a full-time freelance translator in 1966, or even the very sci/tech fields: magnetohydrodynamics, molecular genetics, solar power engineering, robotic surgery, etc. If you're comfortable pre-reading, do so. If you have competent knowledge of the subject, go straight to it and save time and money. Or select the options that makes you the best translator with the best product. Nothing is cut-and-dried in this profession, but use the greatest machine ever conceived--your brain--not some alphabet---CAT, MT, TM, TRADOS, etc., crap in, crap out; quantity in, bovine excreta out, forgetting quality; client's original product in, required product out before you got the original; $$$/??? it's in the mail, paid in Zambia currency, zebra zeroes. Being a professional (I hope!) translator all these decades, at least in my R>E combo, with literally millions of words translated, I've seen this honorable profession deteriorate from human to subhuman alphabets to demands to use various "machine products" developed by electrons, protons, neutrons, and morons. I'll give them a recent article I did on "Periglacial Geomorphlogy." Shove that through MT etc. and I'll probably get "Martini, go lightly on the ice around the G-spot rim" Of course, that's more erotic than my translation and will garner more readers. Don't blame them. Well, obviously, I'm the Ancient Translator, so I'll sign off. Probably didn't answer the original question, but do what is best for you--you don't need opinions, you only need yourself.

SNEH SHARMA wrote:
A good translator can translate in a naturalized way, staying true to the original.

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:


I don't quite agree. Domestication/naturalisation completely alters the taste of a source text and makes it much more prone to unwanted alterations of rhythm, tone, register, semantic richness...

In the opinion of numerous scholars, the translation should not limit itself to conveying the meaning as the one and only value in a text: it should also preserve as much as possible of the 'foreignness' of a text, thus making it not only more interesting and nourishing to the reader, but also closer to the experiences and effects the author seeked with the exact way in which the text was written.

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

I entirely agree with the idea of NOT reading the entire book before translating.

We are very obsessed indeed with naturalising/domesticating translations as if it was the only valid approach. At the request of publishers, we (I mean the vast majority of the translation community) very much produce a pre-digested target text, instead of preserving the foreign traits of works as a potential source of delight and knowledge for readers. If I am allowed the analogy, we as translators swallow up works and regurgitate the ideas back onto the paper, thus feeding readers not only with something that has completely lost its flavour, but also with a lot of our digestive juices (or prejudice, our whims and habits, our personal perception of the source culture and of the nature of our own culture, the mental artifacts imposed upon us by our age...).

We are so obsessed with naturalised translations that many translators even think that Venuti was in favour of naturalisation/domestication! As Berman(1) put it, "The properly ethical aim of the translating act is receiving the foreign as foreign". By NOT reading the full book before translation, we stay closer to the foreign nature of the text and its mechanisms of strangement, fully experience its twists and can convey them better, and are better prepared to produce similar effects in areas that are often neglected, like rhythm, syntax, and even the sound of the source text.

(1) Berman, A. (1985/2004) “La traduction comme épreuve de l’étranger”, Texte 4 (1985): 67-81, translated by L. Venuti as “Translation and the trials of the foreign”, in L. Venuti (ed.) (2004), pp. 276-89.