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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 336 948 FL 019 387 Oittinen, Riita AUTHOR Teaching Translation of Fiction: A Dialogic Point of TITLE View. PUB DATE 91 13p.; Paper presented at the First Language NOTE International Conference on Teaching, Translating, and Interpreting (Elsinore, Denmark, May 31-June 2, 1991). Reports - Evaluative/Feasibility (142) -- Viewpoints PUB TYPE (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120) Speeches/Conference Papers (150) MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Class Activities; Classroom Techniques; Course DESCRIPTORS Descriptions; Educational Strategies; *Fiction; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Holistic Approach; *Interpretive Skills; *Language Processing; *Translation *University of Tampere (Finland) IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT Some principles and challenges of translati,n are discussed, and three courses in translation of fiction offered at the University of Tampere (Finland) are described. "Dialogic" principles of translation include: acknowledging that messages are changed in the process of translation, creating a new text; pinpointing the intended purpose of the text in the target language; considering and incorporating literary traditions of each culture; understanding that just as every reading experience constitutes a dialogue between author and reader, the translator is engaged in transmitting his reading experience to others; and creating the new text as a believable whole. The first course is introductory and addresses various issues of genre, purpose, relationship with the author and other involved parties, adaptation versus translation, and dialogic approach. The focus on the second course is translation for publishers. Teaching is individualized, and the course draws on working relationships with publishers of books for children and Looks by women authors. The third course is a seminar, team-taught, on shorter texts. In all courses, students write about their own translation process, the original author, and their ideas about the story to be translated, and review other studentV work. A 19-item bibliography is included. (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *************************************t********************************* OF FICTION TEACHING TRANSLATION POINT OF VIEW A DIALOGIC Riitta Oittinen Finland University of Tampere, Author: Riitta Oittinen Karajdtörmä 8 A 5 33310 Tampere Finland vs perm' Tweter ofhc, of foucArotv OF taw...haw 140fterch EDUCATiONAL Ofv1 Impfoveinom RESOURCES THIS INFORMATION OENTE f+ "26 REPRODUCE (ERIC) BY TO PI is clocurnonl GRANTED nil, been received i -PERMiSSION reor °Owed rOre the HASBEEN Is arKonafing Dit`1011 Or _ Orpeetiefion ,t MNIERiAt- [7 "AN), roauchoft chaning hay. tkm, mod. Quailfy to mviove po,,,,r of --------0-1"'In crop.,------,, men! coo nor Iteceseerrty ftTs------INY represent dOt cr 0£ 4 f 1504thOn offic,a: or Dot,cv RESOUFICES EDUCATtONAL (ERIC1" TO Nt4E CENTER INFORMATION COPY4MAILABLE BEST Riitta Oittinen, University of Tampere, Finland TEACHING TRANSLATION OF FICTION A DIALOGIC POINT OF VIEW of the University of Tampere. In I am a senior lecturer in the translation department concentrating on translation of fiction. To describe what I my teaching, I am mainly of translation of fiction, and then, with do, I deal first with the "dialogic principles" Here, please, notice that teaching translation of fiction according to these principles. both sexes. every time I say he, I am referring to language by giving it life in In translation, we pay homage to a text in one from English into Finnish, for another. We do not transfer unchanged messages something new. instance. We recognize and welcome that we are creating in the target First and foremost, a translation has to function for its purpose is a poor translation language. A translation which is unable to accomplish its function in a certain however "equivalent" it may be. A translation always has a purpose the original author, the situation. Participants in this situation include not only critics as well as time illustrator, and the translator, but also the readers, publishers, and place, and culture in particular. literary In literary translation we must also take into consideration the how we read and traditions of each culture. These traditions have an effect on kind of literature people translate, what kind of literature we choose to translate, what choose to read, and what kind of books they choose to buy. 1 3 interprets his readings as an individual. Apart from this, the translator also have the same even if all the students This shows up very clearly in my teaching for example, every translation is different. assignment, translating a picture book, reach their goals. The translator's Students always find their own, individual ways to culture, and language. He comes from point of view is influenced by his background, for a certain profession and he from a certain region; he has studied a certain family, belongs the translator, like everybody else, reads certain newspapers. In other words, influence communities, and all these communities to a variety of different interpretive linguistic signs. the way he interprets the world and its living thing is part of a greater whole, So in the scheme of things, every well in some kind of a situation. All verbal as and every individual person is always situation. The situation takes place within a context, within a as other communication and how we understand them, and has an effect on what we mean by our messages inevitably, how we read and translate these messages. Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of dialogism, the This is the Russian philosopher and the world (time, place, culture). idea of a living dialogue between people, texts into being and exist in a dialogue, where Both the written and the spoken word come reading experience is dialogic and different voices meet. According to Bakhtin, every but also of the past, present, and consists not only of writers, readers and contexts, future and the translator, the future of the future: the past and present of the author word is directed towards its reader or readers of the text. Every spoken or written listener. 2 the word of the author Translation, too, is this kind of a dialogic process: different situations, all, in different ways and in reaches out towards its readers who is an active in the process of reading. Reading contribute to the meanings that prise The the responsibility for his reading. experience, and the reader always bears holistically in a dialogic situation. translator is also a reader who reads Rosenblatt describes reading as The American researcher Louise M. Bakhtin's reader. This idea is close to both transaction between the text and the that Hans-Georg Gadamer's idea of horizons dialogism and the German philosopher situation, thus creating new meanings. meet and melt in a reading efferent reading are also very Rosenblatt's ideas about aesthetic and is time between aesthetic and efferent readings interesting. One important difference attached to the reading, the reader's whole attention is and experience. In aesthetic will other hand, in efferent reading, what experiences he has while reading; on the kind reading" (1978:23) is important. What happen, "what will be the residue after the instance, internalize? What kind of instructions? For of information did the reader studying for an examination, he pays attention when a child is doing his homework or teacher's to be able to answer his them - often by heart to the facts and tries to learn probably reading his books in an efferent, questions. When reading this way he is most material could be read in an aesthetic way, nonaesthetic way. Since the same of texts. kinds of readings, not different types Rosenblatt always speaks of different different kinds of reading may help us to I think this way of describing following example is from my own career as understand how a translator reads. The Fox-Davies's Little Beaver translating Amy MacDonald's and Sarah a translator. When 3 5 totally involved on first reading, I was and the Echo (Pikku majava ja kaiku, 1990), and the beautiful illustrations. Even though in the fascinating world of the little beaver book, for the time being, I forgot my role as I knew that I would be translating this attitude I reread the book and started the translation, my a translator. Later on, when retelling, the story for Finnish changed: I was preparing myself for translating, something that Rosenblatt would children. Here, my first reading certainly resembled readings were certainly closer to what call aesthetic reading, and the several subsequent she would call efferent readings. of reading. A translator in In my teaching, I always stress the importance should be a skillful and experienced general, and the translator of fiction in particular, also be profoundly sensitive to reader: consistent, observant and analytical. He should important: it forms his idea of what he reads, because his reading experience is very is thus a reader who transmits his reading the work to be translated. The translator responsible, his role entails both experience to other readers. But the reader is always teaching translation: a reader in a rights and duties. This is my first principle of situation becomes a translator in a situation. with different texts in Translators come up against different problems in my teaching. Let us take an different situations, and I address this fact of life assignments from English into example and think about two rather different translation for a rubber-tired loader and Finnish: a technical translation of the safety instructions of short stories by the Indian author the translation of Games at nvilight, a collection the safe use of the Anita Desai. The purpose of the safety instructions is to guarantee his own good, the instructions so he loader, that is, to make the operator follow, for 4 6 and the machine. In this case the clarity of the text won't hurt himself or ruin the translation. the most important aspects of accuracy of the facts are problems and Anita Desai, we faced different In translating the collection of occasional use of did Desai want to indicate with her asked different questions: What meandering normally written with long and one-word sentences in a text which was context? of this technique in this particular sentences? What might be the meaning importance interpret this textual feature? The What points of view could we adapt to question of the emphasized here as well; it was now a of the translator as a reader was solid literary cultural signs and distill them into a ability to interpret linguistic and only correct translators produced "the onc.. and entity. Thus none of the student reliable and logical and aesthetically interpretation", but all of them produced a stories, we came up with about ten pleasing text. So, in this collection of short from ten different students . different angles on Desai as a writer when we were translating Desai's Another important consideration came up, world as a whole. One of the goals we set was short stories. We had to consider her and to picture successfully credible: to create a consistent world to make the translation the colorful everyday life of India. learned something very important. In this situation, I think my students the believable whole, i.e., an entity whose parts support They learned how to ,,reate a always have an overall vision and a whole. They found their voice. A translator must unable to do succeed. Without a strategy he will be strategy - otherwise he will not justice to the original author. 5 7 developed some special courses for With these ideas in mind, I have offer these courses on three different teaching translation of fiction. At the moment, we translation of fiction. This course is meant levels: first I give an introductory course on both lectures and discussion. Together we for third year or so students and it includes How can we define it? How about translating ponder questions like: What is fiction? lyrics for a song, a picture book, or drama? fiction in Finland? How about translating rhythm, singability of the translation? What is What are the demands for readability, relationship with the author of the original, the role of the translator? How about his the readers? How does a translator read? the publisher, the illustrator, the composer, What about adaptations? What is the difference How do we create a credible entity? does it mean when we discuss the dialogic between adaptation and translation? What dealt with two very different Finnish situation of translating? In this context, we this spring. Reading other people's translations of William Shakespeare's Hamlet translations is very important, too. level course where our goal Following this basic course, we offer an upper this real tasks inspires our .itudents. In is to translate for publishers. Working on in for the most part, individual. So we do not meet as a group course, teaching is, teaching, and collaboration with publishers, very class very often, which makes relationships with publishers of books for flexible. At the moment we have working of our translation is in these areas. For children and books by women authors, so much and the American children's author Lee instance, we have been translating Anita Desai readers. In both of these cases, we Kingman; these authors are new for Finnish also find books for our publishers. introduced our publishers to these authors, so we 6 relationship with productive and mutually beneficial We have worked on establishing a actively search for good texts for translation. publishers and editors. Our students also find literature that they this stage, to allow students to I think it is very important, at them to learn and students in the process and motivates find appealing. This involves work. translation of fiction is a seminar. In The third course in the sequence on that students colleague, we mainly discuss shorter texts this course, which I give with a tasks. 1...tis is found it a bit harder to work on real have translated, and here we have certain classroom teaching, where we have to meet at partly due to the inflexibility of publishers' deadlines. hours and cannot work according to their own translation process, In all these courses, students write essays on about the stories to be translated, author and his life, on their own ideas on the original They also write reviews of each they come up against, and so on. on the problems translator's translations for publishers, we also write other's work. Along with all the the make our readers more aware of forewords or aftetwords. This is one way to it is my goal All through the different courses, different issues involved in translation. the process and that they feel that they are very much part of to make the students for their learning. share with me the responsibility he may also choose to write Once a student has completed these courses, students translation of fiction, and along the way, we encourage a master's thesis on in other departments. to study literature, per se, have several goals, such as combining In all the stages of my teaching, I If possible, we also with publishers. theory and practice and close collaboration 7 9 with Lee For instance, our correspondence communicate with the authors we translate. reach our readers, rewarding experience. We also try to Kingman has been wonderfully instance. through newspaper articles, for learnt to respect Lhe complexities and I guess in this way my students have that all situations. Most of all I hope they learn basic truths of different translation of passive Neither reading, nor learning is "a state translation, all reading is discussion. different voices meet. reception", but a living situation where our 8