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Playing with(out) the DictionaryCarol OSullivan

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aUniversity of Portsmouth, UK

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To cite this article:Carol OSullivan (2012) Playing with(out) the Dictionary, The Interpreter andTranslator Trainer, 6:2, 237-263, DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10798838

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The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 6(2), 2012, 237-65

ISSN: 1750-399X St. Jerome Publishing, Manchester

Playing With(out) the DictionaryUsing Constrained Literature in the Development of TransferableSkills for Translators

Carol OSullivan

University of Portsmouth, UK

Abstract.This article argues that translation exercises involvingformally constrained texts offer a fruitful way of releasing studentscreativity and facilitating a shift from source-language-based to

target-language-based decision-making in their approach to themediation of written texts. Given that form is the salient featureof these texts, students must privilege the reconstitution of formalconstraint as the primary criterion of adequate translation. Asa result, they cannot draw on the dictionary for solutions andmust turn to other resources in their target language repertoire.The article begins with a review of literature on constraint andcreativity, exploring their potential contribution to the develop-ment of translation competences in pedagogical settings that have

traditionally favoured semantic approaches to textual mediation.Drawing on the premise that translation and creative writing aretwo aspects of the same activity, a pedagogical proposal for the useof constrained translation tasks in translator training programmesis outlined next. Translation activities used as source material ina workshop-based module on the MA Translation Studies at theUniversity of Portsmouth are used to illustrate the contributionof constrained translation tasks to develop students transla-tion skills. Where appropriate, the discussion draws on studentresponses and explores the problems of teaching constrainedtranslation in a multilingual classroom that includes students whowork with non-alphabetic languages.

Keywords: Constrained translation, Creativity, Materiality of language,Wordplay, OuLiPo, Lipograms.

As argued by Briggs (2006), translation is in itself a form of textual constraintin that the existence of the source text imposes a given structure, content

and other parameters on the translator during the mediation process. This

1I would welcome contact and comments from colleagues who try any of the exercisesoutlined in this article with their students.

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238 Playing With(out) the Dictionary

article argues that extending this notion of constraint to cover materialfeatures of language that are not usually prioritized in translator training

programmes may offer a fruitful way of facilitating the shift from source-language to target-language based decision-making among students. The useof constrained translation tasks aims to help trainee translators move awayfrom translational deliberations framed predominantly in terms of source-textstructures towards decision-making strategies that consider the potential ofa wider range of target-language resources.

This article begins with a review of literature on constraint and creativity,exploring their potential contribution to the development of translationcompetences in pedagogical settings that have traditionally favoured semanticapproaches to textual mediation. Drawing on the premise that translation andcreative writing are two aspects of the same activity, section 1 argues thatexposing students to tasks involving the translation of constrained texts helpsthem gain a better understanding of the nature and scope of the translation

process which is not necessarily limited to the transfer of denotative andconnotative meaning. Section 2 outlines the pedagogical approach presentedhere, examining the role that the concept of priority plays in the translationof constrained texts and illustrating the notion of formal constraint withexamples. Section 3 discusses different options for the incorporation of aseries of workshops on the translation of constrained texts into the curriculumof an MA programme, before outlining in detail a number of suggestedactivities. Finally, section 4 focuses on my own students responses afterworking with these texts over the years and provides a number of examplesof their own translated work. A range of additional suggested activities are

provided at the end of the article in the form of appendices.

1. Constraint and creativity in translation

Although constraint and creativity would appear to be contrasting concepts,they have nevertheless long been linked in both scholarship and translation

practice. Constraint is in one sense the condition of translation, as thisinvolves the production of texts which are written to stand in a particular re-lationship with their source counterparts. Drawing on the notion of constraintadopted by the French literary experimentalists who founded the OuLiPo (theOuvroir de Littrature Potentielleor Workshop of Potential Literature) in1960, constraint can be linked to the schemata that underpin the structure ofall texts and the rules that need to be observed in writing them.2Accordingto Franois Le Lionnais in his first manifesto for the OuLiPo (1998:26-27),inspiration in writing is always balanced by constraint:

2Space precludes an extensive introduction here to the work of the OuLiPo. For a detailedaccount of the principles on which the group worked, see Motte (1998). For a usefulsummary of the history of OuLiPo, see Symes (1999). For examples of Oulipian work,see Queneau et al. (1995) and Mathews and Brotchie (1998).

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ways, more than translation which is of course not the case.4

This article situates itself in a contrasting tradition of recent scholarshipwhich sees translation and creative writing as two aspects of the same activ-ity (Doloughan and Rogers 2006, Bassnett and Bush 2006). This traditionemphasizes the extent to which writers draw on other texts and on genericschemata when composing original, proprietary texts, as well as the extentto which the incommensurability of languages and cultures requires translatorsto reformulate propositions and to reconstitute the tissue of the text as a matterof course. The boundary between the obligatory and the non-obligatorytranslation shift is a very fuzzy one, if indeed it can be said to exist.

2. Translating formally constrained texts: A pedagogical proposal

In my experience, postgraduate translator training courses often need to weanstudents off too close an adherence to the syntactic, lexical and cohesivefeatures of the source text. This will normally involve complicating the rolethat the dictionary, particularly the bilingual one, plays in the translation pro-cess (Bastin 2003:347). Janet Fraser (1999), an experienced translator trainer,contrasts the over-reliance on the dictionary which characterizes studenttranslators with the more sceptical approach to dictionaries taken by experi-enced professional translators. Her point is corroborated by Michael Cronin,

who finds that [p]roblems of linguistic contamination, lexical and syntacticfaux-amis, gallicisms and anglicisms in the French-English/English-French

pair are basically problems [] of the apprentice translators inability tokeep his/her distance from the language of the text to be translated (Cronin1995:232). This is something I have also noticed regularly in my own stu-dents practice and discourse: student translations are routinely marked as

being too close to the structures of the source text, while they are seldommarked as departing unnecessarily from the structures of the source text.

The need to rely less on the dictionary is particularly evident in the transla-

tion of genres and communicative contexts where meaning is located in thematerial characteristics of language. Wherever texts have rhetorical force,material elements of language come into play. These include phonic elementssuch as alliteration, assonance and rhyme, as well as rhythmic elements suchas metrical, syllabic and other forms of patterning. Wherever texts interactwith music, which is increasingly common in the multimodal communicative

4It is worth noting that this attitude is not unique to trainee translators. The Romanticauthor-creator-centred model of literary criticism has also resulted in translation analysiswhich takes the primacy and perfection of the source text for granted, and generates apersistent fantasy of the perfect, non-existent translation which renders everything in thesource text without any additions. Meanwhile, creativity in translation comes under criti-cism when it develops into a tendency to improve on the author (OSullivan 2006:182),therefore situating itself outside translation proper.

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Carol OSullivan 241

encounters we are constantly exposed to, we may encounter rhythmic andmetrical constraint. This is the case, for example, with advertising jingles,songs or quotations from songs (Low 2003). Wherever texts are spatiallyrestricted (e.g. certain journalistic texts, small ads, subtitling, captioning, textmessages or tweets) or temporally restricted (as in news commentaries orsubtitling) we can also speak of constraint. Onomatopoeia is another obviousexample of the materiality of language carrying meaning, with a further rangeof English phrases and expressions relying on combinations of assonance,alliteration and rhyme to achieve specific effects (Hoogstad 2007). Either inisolation or in association with other instances of constraint, material charac-teristics of language are likely to feature in texts with expressive or conativefunctions, including promotional texts and advertising, film and televisionscripts, jokes and many kinds of journalism. Contrary to what is sometimesthought, these textual effects are not confined to the domain of the literary;on the contrary, they constitute potentially commonplace challenges forthe translator. As Roberto Mayoral Asensio acknowledges, arguing againstlong-established divisions in translator training between specialized andnon-specialized texts, we constantly find in specialized communicationthe presence of elements normally considered to belong to non-specializedcommunication (metaphors, variation, aesthetic effects, expressive and voca-tive functions, amongst others) (2007:82).

In order to counteract the students perception of these material effectsas irrelevant to translation practice, the creative writing element of ourcourse curriculum stresses the long tradition not only of writing, but also oftranslating these text forms. This sensitization process also involves providingstudents, where possible, with published translations in their target languageswith which they can compare their own work.

In translator training courses, the object of encouraging students awayfrom excessive source-text orientation is primarily achieved in methodo-logical seminars by introducing them to the notion and scope of translation

shifts, familiarizing them with functionalist and pragmatic approaches totranslation and drawing their attention to contrastive linguistic issues, suchas changing patterns of cohesion. The exercises outlined in section 3 aim tosupport and complement this reorientation. They intend to problematize thedistinction between broadly semantic and creative translation by settingtasks which cannot be accomplished with reference to the denotative andconnotative meaning of words. Here I am not thinking as much of genreswhich are characterized by a general excess of the signifier over the signi-fied, such as poetry, but rather of texts in which specific material features

of language become salient to the extent that the transfer of the materialfeature of language must be the priority for the translator. For pedagogicalpurposes, it is helpful for these features to be in a sense isolated withinthe text in order to reduce the number of contextual factors challenging thestudent translator.

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The assumption underlying the pedagogical approach explored in thisarticle is that constraint, far from rendering translation a less creative act,may in fact enhance creativity. This is strongly advocated by Holman and

Boase-Beier, who subscribe to Valrys claim that rules may [] in somecases have creative qualities, suggesting ideas which would never havearisen in their absence (quoted in Holman & Boase-Beier 1999:6). From thestandpoint of cognitive science, Colin Symes makes a similar point, when heargues that an important component of creativity is a variety of constraintswhich governs its underlying cognitive processes (Symes 1999:87). It is

postulated here that these exercises encourage students to think divergently(Kussmaul 1995:44) and that this divergent thinking is transferable to otherareas of students writing and translation (Symes 1999, Doloughan and

Rogers 2006). In sum, this approach normalizes creativity by consideringit to be part of the act of writing/translation. The approach advocated herealso relies heavily on the notion of translation priorities (Zabalbeascoa2006:95). Used as we are to prioritizing denotative and connotative meaningand pragmatic force in translation, Walter Benjamins (2004) philosophical

positing of content as inessential in translation is still shocking and difficultfor students to grasp. Although Oulipian texts, with their genesis in whatmay at first appear to be arbitrary constraints, are surprising to most students,

they prompt reflection on what should be prioritized in translation and onhow best to achieve it.Mathews (2003) explores the implications of this contention in a pro-

vocative essay, where he proposes four possible English translations of aline from RacinesPhdre: Cest Vnus tout entire sa proie attache(literally: Here is Venus unreservedly fastened to her prey). Each of Math-ews translations prioritizes one element of the source text. The first is a ruleof measure: each word of the translation is replaced by a word having thesame number of letters. The second is homophonic: the text is transposed

into English as save our news, toot, and share as uproar at a shay and thenexpanded into a narrative fragment. The third translation replaces each word

by its dictionary definition (a salutary reminder to students of the dangersof dictionaries). Finally, the fourth translation is a lipogram in E, i.e. a re-writing which avoids any use of the letter E. Mathews argues that [t]hesestrange dislocations of the original may seem cavalier, but they are usefulin drawing attention precisely to elements of language that normally pass us

by, concerned as we naturally are with making sense of what we read. Thus

nominal sense implicitly becomes no more than a part of overall meaning(2003:71). This could be considered the principal learning outcome of theexercises in translation and constraint which I will outline in Section 3 and theappendices. Translation is much more than the conveyance of denotation andconnotation and translators must therefore rehearse and develop a repertoire

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Carol OSullivan 243

sufficient to accommodate other priorities in a translation task.The complex relationships obtaining between denotative meaning and

constraint can be well illustrated with an excerpt from Lawrence Norfolks

historical fantasy novelLemprires Dictionary(1991). In the course of thenovel, Lemprire is informally diagnosed with a disorder brought on byexcessive reading that can only be cured if he takes up writing. His compan-ions go through a comic list of possible genres and formats:

Rejected so far were: an almanac(too late in the year), a breviary(pointless), a cadaster(too bourgeois), an encyclopedia(would taketoo long), a fescennine verse-dialogue(only Lemprire knew whatit was), a glossary(too many already), an homily(no), incunabula

(too late),5

juvenilia (also too late), a kunstlerroman (too early) alog (Lemprire hated boats), a manual (boring), a novel (too vul-gar), an opera(over-ambitious), a pamphlet(too humble), a Quran(already was one), a replevin(too arcane), a story(too simple), atreatise (perhaps, but little enthusiasm), an Upanishad (too fanci-ful), a variorum edition(of what?), a weltanschauung(onanistic),a xenophontean cosmology(out of date) and a year book. (Norfolk1991:156-8, emphasis in the original).

One final suggestion, a zetetic tract, is also rejected as too inquisitive.However, on spying a copy of Samuel JohnsonsA Dictionary of the Eng-lish Languageon the shelf, one of Lemprires companions is seized withinspiration: he must write a dictionary.

The wordplay in the passage is formally and arbitrarily constrained inthat there is no pragmatic reason, apart from Norfolks own playfulness, whythe rejected formats for Lemprires opus should be presented in alphabeti-cal order. The alphabet, however, is the central organizing principle in thisexcerpt as it draws the readers attention to the absence of an item beginning

with D. It is therefore not an option for the translator to simply ignore thecontribution of the alphabet to the overall effect of the text. At the same timethe translation of the passage is constrained by the arbitrary correspondenceof letters and formats in the source text. The alphabetical item missing fromthe list should correspond to the initial D of dictionary: although this willnot be a problem in French (dictionnaire), Spanish (diccionario) or Italian(dizionario), it will represent an important difficulty, for example, in German(Wrterbuch). A potential exercise based on this text could be further com-

plicated, pragmatically speaking, by the fact that a brief, ironic rationale isgiven for the rejection of each format. Similarly ironic or humorous reasons

5The rejected suggestions should be read in the light of the fact that the narrative is setin the seventeenth century.

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must be available for rejecting the formats listed in other language versionsof this excerpt.

Norfolk identifies this passage as a likely challenge for translators: Howwill this work in Greek, whose alphabet does not possess the requisite twenty-six characters? Or Cantonese, which doesnt really have characters [sic] atall? (Norfolk 2000). The translators of the German, French, Italian andSpanish editions all reproduce the game at the centre of the source text by

proposing equivalent formats and suitable reasons for their rejection, whilepreserving the ironically alphabetical structure of the passage. In Germanthe Weltanschauung is (amusingly) not needed, because the Wrterbuch(dictionary) becomes the deferred subject of the passage. When the firstletter of some format types in the target language is not the same as in thesource text, new formats are suggested. Take, for example, the case of Germanand Spanish. In German, for example, the cadasterbecomes a Choralwerk(choral work), which is deemed zu gregorianisch (too Gregorian), whileunder D we find theDamenkonversationslexikonwhich is dismissed as zu

brgerlich (too bourgeois) (Norfolk 1992:210-211). In Italian, on the otherhand, thezetetic tractbecomes a zibaldone(commonplace book) whichis dismissed as troppo incoerente (too incoherent) (Norfolk 1996:154).The Quranmoves around the alphabet depending on the initial letter of itstranscription in the respective target languages and disappears entirelyfrom the German.

Although there are many parameters at work in this passage (register,culturally-specific references, irony and literary in-jokes), the example il-lustrates how arbitrary constraint, as a form of textual play, can take placeoutside the realm of experimental literature proper and may be implicatedin the wider texture of literary discourse.

3. Constrained translation in the classroom: Proposed tasks

A sequence of workshops on translation and constraint can be integrated in apostgraduate course on translation in a number of ways. On the MA in Trans-lation Studies at the University of Portsmouth, for example, these workshopsconstitute a 3-week component within a 12-week course in applied theory.However, they could also form part of a full-length unit on the relationship

between translation and creative writing. Indeed, given that the conceptual-ization of translation as constraint recasts [this activity] as a form of literaryexperimentation (Briggs 2006:44), a series of workshops on translationand constraint could act as the introduction to a unit on literary translation.As part of this module, the sessions on constrained translation proposedhere could then be followed by workshops on the translation of wordplay,the translation of conventional literary genres (film scripts, drama), or thetwo-stage translation practice beloved of many English-language poets and

playwrights involving the production of a literal translation and its elabor-

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Carol OSullivan 245

ation into a final version (Weissbort 1999). In other words, the constraintaround which the first classes in the module revolved could gradually morphinto an opportunity, rather than a burden, for the translator.

The remainder of this section presents a number of constrained transla-tion tasks that can be attempted as part of any of the course units suggestedin the previous paragraph. Each suggested task is examined in terms of itsrationale, aims and methodology. The pedagogical implications of each taskare explored in the reflection section of each task.

Texts where the constraint is limited in location to a single letter of the textrepresent an appropriate introduction to the translation of constrained texts.Livio Macchis novelA met della notte(2000), set in the Baroque period,is a good case in point. The writer includes a typical literary feature of the

period in the form of an acrostic. By writing sequentially the first letter ofeach of the books twenty-one chapters, the reader can spell the name of the

books protagonist: Don Adrian Pulido Pareja. Table 1 outlines the organ-ization of a translation task (Task 1) designed to explore the material featuresof language in this text. The steps covered in the exercise correspond, roughlyspeaking, to Poincars four stages in the process of creative practice: prepar-ation (comprehension and identification of the problem, initial hypotheses),incubation (amassing of possible options), illumination (positing of solutions)and evaluation (assessing of solutions) (Kussmaul 1995:40).

TASK 1: ACROSTICS

To translate the opening lines of chapter 7 of A met della notte. Studentswork into their native language, either directly from Italian, if they read

Italian, or from a literal English translation.6

Imazzi di carte in ordine sui tavoli, i dadi dentro i bussolotti di cuoio,le candele nuove pronte per unaltra serata in cui aspettare la Fortuna.Ma a Carallenos non importava niente di quella Fortuna; si eranodati appuntamento nel casino da gioco solo perch era lunico postoin cui Soto accettava di incontrarlo e, contento lui, per Carallenosl o da unaltra parte era lo stesso (Macchi 2000:85). [The packs of[The packs ofcards laid out tidily on the tables; the dice in their leather boxes, thenew candles ready for another evening of waiting for Dame Fortune.But Carallenos cared nothing for thatFortune; they had merely ar-ranged to meet in the gaming house because it was the only placeSoto would agree to meet him. If he was happy, then for Carallenosone place was as good as the next.]

6Students translating into a language other than Italian or English are effectively re-formulating the English translation. This should not be regarded as a problem, as this isultimately an exercise in reformulation anyway.

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Constraint: The translated paragraph must begin with the correspondingletter or character of the protagonists name:

D O N A D R I A N P U L I D O P A R E J A.

In the case of Chapter 7, the relevant letter for Roman alphabets is I.7

Aim: To introduce students to the concept of constrained translation.

Methodology: Present the students with the text, and a rough literaltranslation if necessary. The students are asked to draft a translation ofthe first lines of chapter 7, without mentioning the existence of the acros-

tic. Group discussion is encouraged. Their attention is then drawn to theacrostic. Students are asked to redraft their translations and discuss theimplications of their choices.

Reflection:The exercise appears to be at first sight a conventional exercisein literary translation. The source text sentences are long, and may needshortening; the historical context may require careful lexical choices; theright tone may be a bit difficult to identify as this is a short excerpt. Oncethe nature and scope of the constraint is revealed, however, students must

revisit their translations from a different standpoint and with a clear priority:creating a similar word-picture to the original while finding a first word forthe chapter beginning with I. This exercise invites students to think beyondobvious lexical choices, moving from the dictionary to the thesaurus.

Table 1. Task 1: Outline of pedagogical rationale and methodology

Another productive translation task involving more complex constraints

may revolve around palindromic pairs of words (Table 2). These are not truepalindromes, i.e. words and phrases which read the same way backwardsas forwards (e.g. Madam, Im Adam or I topi non avevano nipoti).Instead, these are pairs of words which constitute each others mirror im-age (e.g. Roma/amor). A source text in Spanish has been chosen for the

purposes of illustration. The text can be translated into English (wholeclass together) or into the students various target languages (Spanish na-tive speakers excepted).

7Students working with non-Roman alphabets and non-alphabetical languages can alsobe invited to work out how to reproduce the spirit of the acrostic. In Japanese, for in-stance, the transliteration of the protagonists name can be achieved using 13 characters.One student suggested embedding the name in a short sentence about the protagonist topreserve the acrostic.

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Carol OSullivan 247

TASK 2: PALINDROMI OF WORDS

To translate a short passage from Cuban writer Cabrera Infantes novel

Tres tristes tigres.

Bustrofedn tambin hizo listas de palabras que significaban cosasdistintas a travs del espejo: Roma/amor, Azar/raza, Aluda/adula,Otro/orto, Risa/asir.

[Bustrofedn also made a list of words that read differently in the mirror:Rome/love, Destiny/race, Alludes/flatters, Other/Ortho, Laughter/grasp](example and literal translation from Ros Castao 2006: 153).

Constraint:The words which read differently in the mirror must be substitutedwith word pairs in English which are also mirror images of each other.

Aim:To force students away from the dictionary by requiring them tostart their word search from the formal properties of words, rather thantheir meaning.

Methodology:Students are given a copy of the Spanish text, with RosCastaos literal translation for those who do not read Spanish. Studentsare asked to produce an English version of the passage, observing the

palindromic nature of the vocabulary.Reflection:The literal translation is not usable for the pragmatic reason thatthe words in the list do not constitute mirror images of each other. Studentsmust find suitable palindromic pairs in their own language. Cabrera Infan-tes translator, Suzanne Jill Levine, who worked very closely with him onthe translation of Tres tristes tigres, translates the mirror words as follows:Live/evil, part/trap, flow/wolf, diaper/repaid, reward/drawer, drab/bard,Dog/God (quoted in Ros Castao 2006:153). Different semantic fields areactivated, though resonance of lexical items is clearly a criterion for lan-guage choices in the target language. The double entendreof orto (sunriseor arse[hole]) is replaced by the blasphemous implications of live/eviland dog/god. The palindromic resources of the target language becomethe main factor influencing translation choice. In this context, as LadmiralIn this context, as Ladmiral

puts it, Les mots nont pas de sens, ils nont que des emplois ce nestLes mots nont pas de sens, ils nont que des emplois ce nestLes mots nont pas de sens, ils nont que des emplois ce nestpas coups de dictionnaire que [le traducteur] arrive briser la coquille quirenferme le sens des textes quil affronte (quoted in Fraser 1999:29). (quoted in Fraser 1999:29).(quoted in Fraser 1999:29).8


8Words have no meanings, only usages the translator will not break the shell enclosingthe meaning of the texts he [sic] is translating by bashing it with a dictionary (owntranslation).

C PAIRS

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The next constraint in this sequence of tasks is lipograms. Lipograms are along-established, if peripheral, kind of constrained composition in which a textis written without one or more available letters in an alphabet. Most closelyassociated with the OuLiPo, the lipogram tradition stretches back over severalcenturies (Briggs 2006:47). Georges Perecs novelLa disparition (1969), forexample, is written without the letter E the most common one in the Frenchalphabet. There are many translations of this novel, including quite a numberof lipogrammatic ones (leaving out the E in English and German, and withoutA in Spanish). In English there are no less than three competing translations

by Gilbert Adair, Ian Monk and John Lee (Greaves 2000, Lee 2000). An ef-fective way of developing the skills required to translate this textual form is

by asking students to compose a univocalic lipogram (Table 3).

TASK 3: WRITING UNIVOCALIC LIPOGRAMS

To compose a univocalic lipogram.

Constraint: The text can only include one vowel or vowel sound. Thesemay be represented by more than one letter or character in some languages.For example, Y can function as a cheat in English.

Aim 1:To sensitize students to the material, phonic qualities of their

target language.Aim 2:To prepare students for more complex lipogrammatic exercises.

Methodology:Students are introduced to the concept of lipograms andunivocalic lipograms. They are then presented with an example of a uni-vocalic lipogram (Christian BksEunoia), before being asked to composetheir own, using any vowel sound.

Reflection:This activity works best as a take-home exercise. Workingat their own pace allows students to compose more elaborate texts. Theexercise could also work as a group activity in class. In this case it would

be best to constitute groups of students around shared target languages.

Further resources and links: Excerpts from Christian Bks Eunoiacan be found at the publishers website at: http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/eunoia/ (last accessed on 15 May 2012).

A Spanish translation of the incipit of PerecsLes revenentesby the novelistEduardo Berti is available at http://eduardoberti.blogspot.com/2007/08/

perec-es-excelente.html (last accessed on 15 May 2012).

Several univocalic exercises are included in Monk (n.d.).


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Carol OSullivan 249

The substantial difficulty of Task 3 (Table 3) mitigates the challenge ofthe following exercise, which consists of a lipogrammatic translation of ashort section from any of the available lipogrammatic texts. The next task(Table 4) is about the translation of a paragraph from La Disparition; aliteral English translation can be used as a source text for students who donot read French. As this text has been translated into a number of languages,this exercise clearly represents an authentic translation brief. The availabilityof multiple language versions allows students to compare their translationswith the respective published versions.

TASK 4: LIPOGRAMMATIC TRANSLATION

To translate a paragraph from Georges Perecs lipogrammatic novel Ladisparition(Perec 1969:17).

Anton Voyl narrivait pas dormir. Il alluma. Son Jaz marquait minuitvingt. Il poussa un profound soupir, sassit dans son lit, sappuyantsur son polochon. Il prit un roman, il louvrit, il lut; mais il ny sai-sissait quun imbroglio confus, il butait tout instant sur un mot dontil ignorait la signification.Il abandonna son roman sur son lit. Il alla son lavabo; il mouilla un

gant quil passa sur son front, sur son cou.[LT: Anton Voyl couldnt get to sleep. He turned on [the light]. HisJaz [watch] read twenty minutes past midnight. He heaved a deepsigh, sat up in his bed, leaning on his bolster. He took a novel, heopened it, he read it; but he only picked up a confused imbroglio, hekept coming across a word whose meaning he didnt know.He put down the book on his bed. He went to the basin, wet a flanneland wiped his forehead, his neck.]

Constraint:The target text must omit the most common letter of thetarget language alphabet.

Aim:To prompt students to draw on non-dictionary resources in thetranslation of a narrative text while conserving the register and coherenceof the source text.

Methodology:Students are given a brief introduction to Perec and thenovel, then a copy of the French text and a literal translation. This is usu-ally done as a take-home exercise but can also be done in class if there

is sufficient time.Reflection:This exercise requires student translators to think outside the

box and use a rather different series of linguistic tools. Translating lipogramsin E into English means that most past participles (ending in -ed) become

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unusable; this is also the case with the definite article the, and all thirdperson singular and first person plural subject pronouns (he, she, they,we). The students attempt to abide by the constraints of the exercise is

likely to bring about shifts of denotative meaning, at least locally. Wherethe aim of the exercise is to produce a text whose losses are not at firstevident a mirror, as Briggs points out, of the problematic of translationitself (Briggs 2006:44) the translators ingenuity is often stretched toits limit.

Further resources and links: Translating into English there are a numberof other lipogrammatic texts which could be used, such as Ernst Jandls

poem Ottos Mops. Jandls poem and Elizabeth MacKiernans English

translation Lulus Pooch are available at www.lyrikline.org (last accessedon 15 May 2012).

Alternatively one could use Douglas Hofstadters autolipography athttp://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/autolipography.html(last accessed on 15 May 2012), or the novel Gadsbyby Ernest VincentWright, also available online.


Some texts are progressively rather than statically lipogrammatic. Oneexample is Mark DunnsElla Minnow Pea, set in a small community whichworships the inventor of the pangram The quick brown fox jumps over thelazy dog.9The inventor has been immortalized with a statue on whose pedestalthe pangram is also proudly displayed on a series of tiles. When the tiles beginfalling from the pedestal, the town administration interprets this as a messagefrom the beyond instructing them to remove these letters from their vocabulary.Told in an epistolary form, the novel gradually loses letter after letter, as more

tiles fall from the pedestal. This exercise intercepts the text at the point wherethe letters Q, J, Z and D have been banned. A fragment ofElla Minnow

Peaserves as a basis for the next task outlined in Table 5.

TASK 5: PROGRESSIVE LIPOGRAMMATIC TEXTS

To translate a short passage from the progressively lipogrammatic text EllaMinnow Pea(Dunn 2002:71) which omits the letters Z, Q, J and D.

Ella,Mr. Warren is here. I wasnt aware that he was so young! Perhaps he

9Pangrams are sentences that use all the letters of the alphabet at the same time.

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have very different morphological characteristics and include, for instance,both inflected and non-inflected languages.

Some of the formal exercises used in the workshops on translation and con-

straint lend themselves very productively to a multilingual classroom becausetheir acoustic and prosodic features can be appreciated without knowledge ofthe language. The composition and sharing of univocalic lipograms (Tasks 3and 4), for instance, work very well in class because students have immediateaccess to the sounds of the words. Palindromes (Task 2) also work well forthis reason. Usually, however, the fact that students in the group are working

both in and out of English represents a challenge for the unit tutor. Individualactivities will therefore consist normally of two strands, one working out ofEnglish, and one into English (e.g. Tasks 4 and 5). Because the emphasis is

on target-language competence, all students working into English may beasked to attempt an exercise from a specific source language, as long as theyare provided with a literal translation and a set of accompanying notes.10

The potential for the use of activities on translation and constraint us-ing non-alphabetical languages can be illustrated with reference to my ownexperience teaching students who translate into Chinese. The translation oflipograms into Chinese, for example, can be approached by experiment-ing with tones, e.g. by eliminating one of the four tones used in the target

language. A univocalic lipogram, on the other hand, could be translated byrelying on only one of the four tones. As far as the English-Japanese combi-nation is concerned, lipograms can be translated by omitting a grammatical

particle rather than a letter. Palindromic pairs are equally challenging whenworking with inflected languages. In character-based languages, the useof characters which are symmetrical around a central axis is one possiblesource of play.

4. Students responses

The exercises outlined in the previous section are informed by problem-solving (Mayoral Asensio 2007:95), or task-based learning (see Kelly2005:16-17) approaches to translator training and contribute to developingthe trainees attitudinal competence, i.e. a sense of confidence in beingable to perform to the best of their ability. I argue that these tasks can bothenhance the students awareness of the extent to which the translation of atext exceeds the transfer of its denotative meaning, and increase their con-

fidence as writers.11

10 This writing/translation approach to the tasks has an established pedigree in literarypractice (take, for instance, the use of literal translation in the theatre, as discussed byRappaport 2007).

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Carol OSullivan 253

Students I have used these activities with may respond to the constraintsof the exercises, once they have grasped the rules, by exceeding their brief.This is a relatively common response to the challenges posed by constrainedtranslation, even outside the field of translation itself. Some reviewers oftranslations of PerecsLa disparition, for example, went as far as to write theirreviews as lipograms (see, for instance, Monk n.d.). Umberto Ecos translationof Raymond QueneausExercices de style, which approaches the exercises byextending and developing them, is another interesting example:

if in Homotleutes Queneau alliterates to the extent of having 27words ending in -ule, why should the translator not attempt a doubleexercise (one with words ending in -ate and the other in -ello) total-

ling 28 words in the first and 30 in the second? And if Queneau usesparechesis on 34 words, why should the translator not do so with67? [] Queneau only presents an E lipogram, presumably so asnot to take the exercises beyond the magical number of ninety-nine.I felt duty-bound to follow my authors intent through to the endand, therefore, my Lipogramma contains five exercises, one for eachvowel. And I had to resist the temptation of having an exercise foreach of the consonants too. (Eco 2002:236, 238)

Several students enrolled in a distance learning course, also at the Uni-versity of Portsmouth, responded to the acrostic exercises outlined above(Table 1) by producing acrostics of their own. For example, one studentwrote a reflection on her translation in five paragraphs, each beginning witha letter of her name. Another student exceeded the stipulated constraintswhen he wrote his translation of Mullens alliterative and acrostic AskAden (Appendix I) as a five-line stanza which doubled-up as an acrosticon his own name (including, of course, the accented character):

Juras que juntaste un jurel jorobado?Estuviste en el entierro del elefante estpido?Sentiste el sonido de la siseante serpiente?ltimamente es acaso una urraca un ave que ulula?Siempre salta el seto el sucio sapo?

11Designing exercises that build students confidence is particularly important in thoseareas of specialization where learners may experience more difficulties. Literary translationis gradually becoming one of them. Trainee translators registered in most professionally-

oriented MA courses may have had very limited exposure to literature, whether as activereaders or writers. As a result, I have gradually abandoned exercises which involvedwriting lines of metrical verse (e.g. iambic pentameter, alexandrins) or rhymed verse:they no longer contribute to generating confidence among students who tend to havedifficulty in evaluating their own output effectively when mediating literary texts.

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Another student, having produced a translation of Christian Morgen-sterns Das aesthetische Wiesel into English (see Appendix III), produceda second translation where the same number of words was preserved in eachline and each word began with the same letter as the corresponding word inthe source poem.

The triggering of this overt creativity has tended to be an occasional,rather than a regular benefit of the class. However, this is likely to be

because these workshops on translation and constraint were delivered aspart of a larger applied theory course rather than as part of a dedicatedunit within a programme on creative writing for literary translators. Asa larger component of a more specifically-targeted course, exercises ofthis kind would contribute to developing students confidence as well

as their creativity. In Georges Bastins terms, they would go some waytowards turning students into communicateurs directs not botes vo-cales (2003:348) or, as Mary Bryden puts it, into designers rather thanproduction engineers (1991:5).

With more advanced students, and over a greater number of classes,there are further exercises one might try. Doloughan and Rogers (2006)argue that translation students, and not just literary translation students,

benefit from creative writing classes.12Homophonic and blind translationexercises may work well. Homophonic translations which have a long

pedigree (Forster 1970: 91-92; dAntin van Rooten 1967) consist oftranslations which transpose not the semantic, but the acoustic features ofthe source text. Celia and Louis Zukofskys translations of Catullus are awell-known example.13Although blind translation is sometimes regardedas co-terminous with homophonic translation, it is used here to designate aform of translation inspired by the physical features of the foreign text onthe page (usually a poem) that conveys what the translator sees and hearsin the text including, for example, the shapes of characters in a differentalphabet; the phonic sounds represented by related alphabets; the layout

of the text on the page; or, finally, proper names or chance consonancesin words. Alan Semerdjian has used this type of exercise with Englishwriting students to interesting effect (Semerdjian 2003). Overall, blindtranslation exercises are more appropriate for advanced students who arealready experienced and confident creative writers.

12This is corroborated by my past experience teaching translation as creative writing atthe University of East Anglia (UK) to students on the MA in Literary Translation and onthe MA in Creative Writing.13Some more examples can be found at http://www.cipherjournal.com/html/blind_translations.html (last accessed on 15 May 2012).

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Carol OSullivan 255

5. Conclusion

The present article has suggested that the dialectic between constraint andcreativity is worthy of consideration by translation scholars and translatortrainers for several reasons. Firstly, material features of language representan important challenge that translators are faced with more commonly thanmight be sometimes thought whether in the context of consumer-orientedor expressive texts (Laviosa 2007), in various fields of popular culture or inmore traditional literary texts. Secondly, student satisfaction with coursesaddressing the materiality of language is generally high (Doloughan and Rog-ers 2006), because students (i) clearly see the link between writing skills andtheir own needs as trainee translators; and (ii) find the classes enjoyable andintellectually and creatively stimulating. Expressions of enthusiasm duringclass discussions have been frequent in my own experience as a trainer, andend-of-semester feedback suggests that these were among the units whichtrainee translators found most stimulating. Finally, being no longer able todraw on the dictionary for solutions and faced with the need to identify al-ternative resources, students seem to enjoy accessing what Seamus Heaneycalls the word hoard or, in the words of Janet Fraser, the capital of words,collocations and phrases that is often much larger and richer than we giveourselves credit for (Fraser 1999:32). Further research is required, however,in order to assess more systematically how far such materials go in adjustingstudents perceptions of and performance in translation, and to what extentthese skills of divergent and lateral thinking may also be perceived as useful

by translators in more pragmatic fields such as technical translation.

School of Languages and Area Studies, Park Building, King Henry I St.,Portsmouth PO1 2DZ, UK. [email protected]

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Carol OSullivan 259

APPENDIX I

TRANSLATION TASK: ALLITERATIONTo translate the short alliterative poem Ask Aden from Harryette Mullenscollection Sleeping with the Dictionary.14

Are aardvarks anxious?Do dragons dream?Ever see an eager elephant?

Newts are never nervous, are they?

Constraint:Each line contains: one question about a particular animal;

and an adjective/a verb/an adverb which alliterate with the name of theanimal. The first letter of each line forms an acrostic which gives the

poem its title.

Aim:To encourage students away from denotative meaning and thinkabout target-language resources and semantic fields.

Methodology:Take-home exercise. Students are shown the poem andgiven time to discuss the challenges that it poses in class. They are thenasked to produce a four-line poem on the same theme, meeting the same

constraints.

Reflection:Mullens poem acts as a good introduction to the identificationof salient features. Students will quickly identify the alliteration betweenthe noun or verb of emotion and the animal. These are not culturally em-

bedded collocations but spontaneous and formally motivated. It may takelonger for students to establish that the questions share in the alliteration.The production of a polished translation is less important than the adop-tion of the right, lateral-thinking approach. What animals names can also

alliterate with emotions in the TL? The ST has built-in perfectibility, sincelines three and four are not perfectly alliterative. In the light of this, canan entirely alliterative poem be produced? Should it be?

Further options:This exercise can be extended to other texts, notablyany text in the A to Z format. Some examples include Boyd (2010) andOgunlesi (n.d.). Ogunlesis is an interesting text to use because it includesan Italian translation which allows us to see the shifts to which the transla-tor is put in order to reproduce the constraint. The translator is successful,

but at the cost of a few instances of padding.

14 2002 the Regents of the University of California. With thanks to Harryette Mullenfor permission to reproduce the text.

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APPENDIX II

This exercise is designed to provide students with an opportunity to think

about rhyme in translation outside the environment of metrical poetry. In thepast, I have used exercises involving simple quatrains of metrical poetry witha rhyme scheme; however, unless students have a very strong background inliterature and creative writing, the combination of managing metre, rhymeand poetic discourse normally proves too frustrating for the exercise to beuseful. On the other hand, this short exercise, where the use of language isvery banal except for the rhyme, is often enjoyable for students and bringsacross to them the amount of reformulation of the lines necessary to producea fluent and effective text in the target language.

TRANSLATION TASK: RHYME

To produce subtitles for a short scene from the comic fantasy film ThePrincess Bride (Reiner, 1987).

INIGO: That Vizzini, // he can fuss.FEZZIK: Fuss, fuss... // I think he like to scream... at us.

INIGO: Probably he means no harm.FEZZIK: Hes really very short on... charm.INIGO: You have a great gift for rhyme.FEZZIK: Yes, yes, some of the time.VIZZINI: Enough of that!INIGO: Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?FEZZIK: If there are, well all be dead!VIZZINI: No more rhymes now, I mean it!INIGO: Anybody want a peanut?

Constraint: The words in bold must rhyme. Both the denotative and thepragmatic meaning of the rhymes and the semiotic environment (visual,acoustic) of the dialogue must be taken into account. The subtitles should

be limited to no more than 37 characters per line.

Aim: To introduce students to the balancing of priorities in privilegingdenotative meaning versus form.

Methodology: Students watch the film clip. A short introduction is givento the film and the characters. Students watch the film clip again, with acopy of the script. They are asked to discuss the problems that they thinkthe clip will pose. Students may then (a) be asked to draft subtitles to

present and discuss at a subsequent class or (b) be given approximately

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Carol OSullivan 261

20 minutes to draft subtitles for this scene ideally in groups if languagecombinations permit. Students reconvene to discuss their translations in agroup for 10-15 minutes. They are then given an example of professional

subtitles for this scene, with a literal English translation and/or notes, andasked to comment.

Reflection: This is a subtitling rather than translation activity, and to dateI have delivered it in a subtitling workshop rather than an applied theoryseminar. It could also be delivered straightforwardly as a paper exercisein a normal seminar or as a script translation exercise. The subtitles areeach a single line (// in the script indicates recommended breaks betweensubtitles). The rhyming is foregrounded by its sound patterning and be-

cause it becomes the subject of the dialogue. The dialogue is simple andthe dynamics of the scene leave room for flexibility. The illocutionary and

perlocutionary force of the dialogue should be highlighted to students. Thesubtitles by Bernard Eisenschitz and Pierre Cottrell on the MetropolitanRegion 2 French DVD (2011), reproduced below with a literal Englishtranslation, preserve the dynamic of the scene but the pragmatic force ofsome lines is privileged over their denotative meaning. The final line ofthe scene is not anchored, visually or semantically, to any other elementin the scene, and the subtitler therefore has more autonomy in choosinga suitable item to replace peanut. The English rhyme is conspicuous

because it is polysyllabic, and it is written and timed to get a laugh. In thiscase the French subtitler has chosen to replace the peanut with a sweet,

but one could imagine other possibilities.

Vizziniquel faiseur dhistoires. [what a thrower of tantrums]oiresoires [Fezzik sounds out the rhyme ending]Il nous prend pour des poires. [He takes us for idiots]

Il fait bien du vacarme. [He makes a lot of noise]Il manque plutt de charme. [He is rather lacking in charm]Tu es un bon rimailleur. [You are a good rhymester]Oui, mes heures. [Yes, I have my moments][Assez!] [Enough!]Devant, y a-t-il des cueils? [In front, are there rocks/sandbanks?]Si oui, ils seront ton cercueil. [If yes, they will be your shroud.]Assez rim! Pour de bon! [Enough rhyming! Really!]Un bonbon? [Sweet? (as in: a piece of candy, anyone?)]

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APPENDI

As explained in Appendix II, students in my applied theory class did not

respond well to rhyme exercises when embedded in lyric poetry (the usualexercise was a quatrain from Michelangelo). Although the exercise which fol-lows involves a poem, it is comic rather than lyrical, and students respondedvery well to it in when it was provided as an extra optional exercise in adistance learning environment. It generated a large number of translations.

TRANSLATION TASK: RHYME

To translate Christian Morgensterns poem Das aesthetische Wiesel(available at http://www.lehrer-online.de/311842.php)

Ein Wieselsass auf einem Kieselin mitten Bachgeriesel.

Wisst ihrWeshalb?

Das Mondkalbverriet es mirim Stillen:

Das raffinier-te Tiertats um des Reimes willen.

Aim: To introduce students to the playful use of rhyme, where the empha-sis is not on denotative meaning but on the rhyming pattern.

Constraint: The translation of a piece of free verse with a rhyme schemeAAABCCBDBBD and a specific narrative arc.

Methodology: Take-home exercise. Students are shown the poem andgiven time to discuss its challenges in class. They are then asked to producea poem with the same narrative design and the same rhyme scheme.

Reflection: This has always been presented to date as an optional exer-cise but it has proved very popular with students. The lack of fixed metremeans that students are free to concentrate on the rhyme. The poem itself

has been translated many times. The following table reproduces some ofthe published translations of the first three lines, as well as some of thetranslations produced in my 2011 workshop:

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Carol OSullivan 263

Translator Translation

Snodgrass

(qtd. in Waldinger 2009) An otter/sets his daughter/on gravel near swiftwater.Max Knight(qtd in Zabalbeascoa 2006) A weasel/perched on an easel/within a patch

of teaselMK A ferret/nibbling a carrot/in a garretMK A hyena/playing a concertina/in an arenaMK A mink/sipping a drink/in a kitchen sinkMK A lizard/shaking its gizzard/in a blizzard

JC (student) A goat/put to sea in a boat/which would notstay afloat

JJ (student) A bream/pondered its dream/in the middle ofa stream

BBB (student) A cat/went and sat/in a filthy mudflat

The rhyme words in the student translations are less ambitious than inthe published translations (monosyllables rather than di- and trisyllables)

but the basic message, that of the shift away from the denotative meaningof Wiesel in favour of an animal which can be worked effectively intothe poems rhyme scheme has been grasped. The poem would seem tofunction best as a template in which a basic structure is described and thestudent translator is asked to fill in the gaps.

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playing without the dictionary (2013)

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