The greatest challenge that both native and non-native translators face in translating a sassy newspaper column, whose sole raison d’être is to be read to the end by as many target readers as possible, is finding efficacious (consumable) equivalents to slang and idiomatic expressions or inventing some linguistically and culturally fitting “events” appealing to the target readers. This happens above and beyond the realm of objective description of facts and information and thus requires keen linguistic and cultural sensitivity and skills. All learned adjustment strategies, such as transposition, modulation, inversion, explicative paraphrasing, naturalization etc. are of little help when it comes to translating snappy catchwords or culturally-charged episodes. Translation itself is the main trap ready to engulf “translating” translators with its mouth wide open. Linguistic adaptation and cultural re-creation are the art to be mastered here.
My recent confrontation with such a text, the occasion for this blog article, occurred within the framework of my distance learning at the University of Portsmouth (MA Translation Studies, the best available course for translators). As a weekly exercise, we translated a medium-length column (Zwischen Stahl und Schwabbel) written for a German newspaper by its columnist living in London. The resulting model translation was a very attractive fruit of brainstorming of the cohort (20 native and non-native students) and our ever-brilliant lecturer Paul Joyce. In addition to many effective petty expressions, such as out and about (unterwegs), yet, if anything (jedenfalls), at a rough estimate (grob geschätzt) and as quick as a flash (blitzschnell), some examples of ingenious outputs are: On my right, a shopping centre towered over me (Rechts erhob sich ein Einkaufszentrum); I let myself be conned into buying a sofa with a biro mark on it (Ich ließ ich mir ein Sofa mit Kulifleck andrehen); midway on the road from steel to blubber (auf halbem Wege zwischen Stahl und Schwabbel). One of the cohort members had a brilliant idea of expressing a man beginning to get fat for lack of exercise with “from Iron Man into Michelin Man,” which is a lot more sassy and snappy than the original (von einem Mann aus Stahl zu einem Mann aus Schwabbel).
The following is my excerpts from Paul’s group feedback, which may be effectively applied to such adaptive translation:
The implied cultural coordinates should be made explicit for target readers. For example, the name of a German football player or a TV programme can be inserted as intertextual translation as metaphors of something else and the reader must be able to understand at least the connotative value in order to read efficiently.
- The primary aim of feuilletons such as this is to lure the reader into reading further, using the old journalistic trick of an intriguing headline and strapline which both conceal more than they reveal. The title should ideally be as alliterative as the source text. Some solved this ‘From Fab to Flab’, ‘From Fit to Flabby’, ‘Between Steely and Flabby, ‘From Steel to Suet’. In all of these cases, translation loss of some form is inevitable, it merely becomes a question of which area of translation loss we are prepared to sanction here – formal loss or loss of meaning?
- Without broaching the vexed question of whether an ‘objective’ translation is possible, it is the ‘tone of voice’ that is pivotal here. Readers of such essays need to be able to connect with the author, which means the style adopted in your source text must be engaging – and written in idiomatic English.
My recent confrontation with such a text, the occasion for this blog article, occurred within the framework of my distance learning at the University of Portsmouth (MA Translation Studies, the best available course for translators). As a weekly exercise, we translated a medium-length column (Zwischen Stahl und Schwabbel) written for a German newspaper by its columnist living in London. The resulting model translation was a very attractive fruit of brainstorming of the cohort (20 native and non-native students) and our ever-brilliant lecturer Paul Joyce. In addition to many effective petty expressions, such as out and about (unterwegs), yet, if anything (jedenfalls), at a rough estimate (grob geschätzt) and as quick as a flash (blitzschnell), some examples of ingenious outputs are: On my right, a shopping centre towered over me (Rechts erhob sich ein Einkaufszentrum); I let myself be conned into buying a sofa with a biro mark on it (Ich ließ ich mir ein Sofa mit Kulifleck andrehen); midway on the road from steel to blubber (auf halbem Wege zwischen Stahl und Schwabbel). One of the cohort members had a brilliant idea of expressing a man beginning to get fat for lack of exercise with “from Iron Man into Michelin Man,” which is a lot more sassy and snappy than the original (von einem Mann aus Stahl zu einem Mann aus Schwabbel).
The following is my excerpts from Paul’s group feedback, which may be effectively applied to such adaptive translation:
The implied cultural coordinates should be made explicit for target readers. For example, the name of a German football player or a TV programme can be inserted as intertextual translation as metaphors of something else and the reader must be able to understand at least the connotative value in order to read efficiently.
- The primary aim of feuilletons such as this is to lure the reader into reading further, using the old journalistic trick of an intriguing headline and strapline which both conceal more than they reveal. The title should ideally be as alliterative as the source text. Some solved this ‘From Fab to Flab’, ‘From Fit to Flabby’, ‘Between Steely and Flabby, ‘From Steel to Suet’. In all of these cases, translation loss of some form is inevitable, it merely becomes a question of which area of translation loss we are prepared to sanction here – formal loss or loss of meaning?
- Without broaching the vexed question of whether an ‘objective’ translation is possible, it is the ‘tone of voice’ that is pivotal here. Readers of such essays need to be able to connect with the author, which means the style adopted in your source text must be engaging – and written in idiomatic English.
