نقاش في ندوة عن الترجمة الأمينة

الآراء والسخرية والموقف

1. b) Whether a translation should stay close to the original or read smoothlyتسأل Naomi عمّا إذا كان ينبغي أن تكون الترجمة أمينة أم مقروءة.
2. c) That Naomi is right and he is eager to speakيمزح بأنه سيتريث لوقت قصير فقط، مما يعني أنه متلهف لأن يبدأ أولًا.
3. a) She finds it charming but mocks it for ignoring the readerتصفها بأنها ساحرة، لكن تعليقها الساخر عن البيت غير المريح يبيّن أنها ترى أنها تهمل القارئ.
4. d) Pleases himself rather than the readerيقول إن مترجمًا كهذا لم يساعد القارئ بل تملّق نفسه.
5. c) Every translation is shaped by two people, so it is never untouchedتعني أن الأصل يتغيّر دائمًا على يد المترجم، فالاسمان كلاهما في محلّه.
6. b) Spoken dialogue in novelsيسلّم بأن الحوار يجب أن يبدو طبيعيًا، وأن الترجمة الحرفية ستبدو كوثيقة قانونية.
7. d) That she replaced a local word with a plain English oneاستبدلت الكلمة المحلية الدالة على الضباب بكلمة fog العادية وترى أن القرّاء خسروا شيئًا.
8. a) He is joking about protecting his image as stubbornإنها دعابة: فهو يعتز بسمعته في العناد، والموافقة ستضر بها.

التفاصيل الرئيسية

1. twenty / 20تقدّمه Naomi على أنه قضى عشرين سنة في العمل على الشعر القروسطي.
2. footnoteتقول إن النكتة التي تحتاج إلى حاشية لم تعد نكتة.
3. footnotesيقول إن الناس في الرواية لا يتكلمون مثل الحواشي.
4. braveيقول إنهم يصفونها، بلطف، بأنها شجاعة.
5. fogكانت الكلمة المحلية تدل على نوع واحد من الضباب.
6. Frenchتريد أن يضحك القارئ الإنجليزي في اللحظة التي يضحك فيها القارئ الفرنسي.

Naomi: Welcome to Word for Word. Tonight we ask a question that translators have argued about, politely and otherwise, for centuries: should a translation be faithful, or should it be readable? With me are Doctor Fabian Roux, who has spent twenty years translating medieval poetry, and Tola Adeyemi, who translates contemporary novels. Fabian, I suspect you'll want to go first.

Fabian: I shall resist the suspicion, though only for a sentence. My view is that a translator is a guest in someone else's house, and one does not rearrange the furniture. If the poet chose an awkward word, the awkwardness is part of the poem, and a translator who smooths it away has not helped the reader but flattered himself.

Tola: What a charming picture, and how convenient that the guest never has to explain to anyone why the house is so uncomfortable. I'd say the reader is the one who matters. If a joke needs a footnote, it has stopped being a joke. My job is to make an English reader laugh at the same moment a French reader would, even if I have to build a different joke to do it.

Fabian: Build a different joke, and you have written a different book. Whose name goes on the cover?

Tola: Both of ours, which is rather the point. Nobody pretends the novel reached you untouched. The only question is whether the touching was done with skill.

Naomi: Let me press you on that, Tola. Isn't there a danger that a fluent translation persuades readers that the foreign author was simply an English writer in disguise?

Tola: A real danger, and a flattering one for English. I try to leave a little strangeness in, a rhythm or an image that an English writer wouldn't quite choose, so that the reader senses a different mind at work.

Naomi: Fabian, is there any case in which you'd concede?

Fabian: Several, and I'm irritated to say so. Dialogue, for one. People in a novel do not speak like footnotes. If a character in the original swears, hesitates or sulks, the English must do likewise, and a literal rendering would make her sound like a legal document. I'd also concede that my own early translations, which I regarded as models of loyalty, are now unreadable. My students describe them, kindly, as brave.

Tola: I'll make a concession in return. When I worked on a novel set in a fishing village, I replaced a local word for one particular kind of fog with plain English fog. It was neat, it was fluent, and I have regretted it ever since. The reader lost something they would have enjoyed learning.

Naomi: So you've both moved towards the middle.

Fabian: Please don't say that in public. It would ruin my reputation for obstinacy.

Tola: Mine is already ruined, so I'm happy to be quoted. The truth is that the best translations feel faithful in spirit and free in detail, and nobody has ever agreed on which is which.

Naomi: On that note of cheerful disagreement, we'll take a short break.