Antoine Berman’s

“trials of the foreign”

Noemí MarcosAlba

Berman

2 translation methods:

• Domestication

• Foreignisation (Antoine Berman’s “trials of the foreign” 1985)

Antoine Berman

• French philosopher, theorist of translation.

• Writes the essay titled “Translation and the trials of the foreign” (1985).

• Moves from “ethnocentric”

(domesticated-naturalised) to “ethic” translations (respect for the foreign)

Trials of the foreign

• Trial of the foreign (aim: open up the foreign work to TR in its utter foreigness)

• Trial for the foreign (the foreign language (SL) is uprooted).

Trials of the foreign (2)

• Literary works

• Non-literary instrumental semantic transfer

Negative Analysis• Psycholinguistic approach more

than linguistic approach

• Creates an analysis of the deforming system

• “negative analysis”

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

1. Rationalization (comments 4)

• Discursive order

• Recomposition (sentences, punctuation)

• Rationalization destroys prose´s imperfection/polylogism

• And destroys another element of prose: concreteness…by abstraction

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

2. Clarification (2/3)

• Completes sentences

• Includes explicitation:

of something no apparent in the original / to render clear what does not wish to be clear in the original (paraphrase/ monosemy)

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

3. Expansion (2)

• Consequence of “rationalization” and “clarification”. They require expansion.

• It is more clear but obscures the “clarity” of the original

• Expansion is empty, augments only the gross mass of the text

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

4. Ennoblement (1)

• To write a “brilliant” text (rhetoric

/poetics)

• Re-writes from “raw” material (ST)

• Opposite: “popularization”

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

5. Qualitative impoverishment (6/7)

• to replace terms/expressions/figures with equivalents that lack their sonorous richness

• Meaning is rendered

• Phonetic-signifying truth is lost

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

6. Quantitative impoverishment (2/4)

• Lexical loss/gain

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

7. The destruction of rhythms (9)

• E.g. punctuation in “naturalised”

• translations destroys rhythm.

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

8. The destruction of underlying networks or signification (7)

• Lexical chains create signifiers’ networks

• These are destroyed

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

9. The destruction of linguistic patternings (5)

• Type of sentences

• Deforming tendencies destroy the original structure

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

10. The destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization

• Great prose has vernacular languages

• The effacement of vernaculars is a very serious injury to the textuality

• Exoticization> method of preserving (local vernacular (ridiculing the original))

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

11. The destruction of expressions and idioms

• Berman: translate idioms literally rather than writing their TL equivalent.

• Ethnocentrism

“Negative Analysis” – 12 Deforming Tendencies

12. The effacement of the imposition of languages

• Superimposition of languages is threatened by translation

• Texts go homogenous

• Aspiration of translators of making the superimposition visible.

conclusion

• BRIEF: to save the source language forms and cultural expressions for: poetry / exotic prose / drafts (expressive genre).

• Client: personal/collective entertainment or for reflexion about cultures

METHOD: Newmark / SToriented / Faithful Focus on meaning in context Loyal to intention Does not naturalise Transfers cultural words Often reads like a translation

Bibliography• Berman, Antoine, “translation and the trials of

the foreign”, Venuti, Lawrence, Translation Studies Reader (London/New York, 2000, Routledge), chapter 22

• Munday, Jeremy, “translating the foreign: the (in)visibility of translation”, Introducing Translation Studies (), chapter 9

• Venuti, Lawrence, The Translator’s Invisibility (London, 1995, Routledge)

• http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/depts/hal/ug/applied-translation/la2001c-week-2-translation-method/home.cfm

QUESTIONS