Translated Fictions

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TRANSLATED FICTION Leo Tak-hung Chan a a Lingnan University, Hong Kong Online Publication Date: 20 June 2006

To cite this Article Chan, Leo Tak-hung(2006)'TRANSLATED FICTION',Perspectives,14:1,66 — 72 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09076760608669018 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09076760608669018

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TRANSLATED FICTION Leo Tak-hung Chan, Lingnan University, Hong Kong [email protected] Abstract

This article discusses translated fiction in terms of ontology and epistemology. Translated novels should be considered distinct from untranslated fiction, notably the original from which they derived. They offer a distinctive alternative model of reality; after the brief moment of bifurcation which occurs in the translation process, they exist in another languages, culture, and literary system than the source text. There has been increasing recognition of the uniqueness of translated fiction, but there has been little research on it. The author suggests that insights of translation theorists, textual semioticians and literary scholars can unravel the nature of translated novels, including their culturally hybrid elements, their reshaping of the narrative voice, their use of an interlanguage, and so on.

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Key words: Literary translation; translating fiction; different realities; markets and audiences for literary translations.

Introductory comments The textual characteristics of translated fiction, notably full-length novels, have received little attention. There is little discussion of what it is (its ontology) and what we know about it (its epistemology). Prose narratives usually differ from poetry in form, lay-out, length, sequencing, and the element of temporality; literary narratives, on the other hand, differ from non-literary ones (such as newspaper reports) in that the narrator dictates the outcome. Translated fiction is a special kind of literary prose narrative, which is often considered only as a secondary, derivative version of a masterpiece. It should in fact be set apart from native (untranslated) fiction. It should also be held as something distinct from the version from which it derives. In the target language translated fiction usually offers distinctive, foreign models of reality; as texts that are naively said to be the ‘same’ in sources as disparate as common parlance, library catalogues, and comparative literary studies, translated fiction is one of two texts that exist independent of one another in two different cultures and accidentally co-exist (as long as both have a readership in their respective languages), namely the source and the target texts. Translation Studies has recognised the uniqueness of the translated text, but apart from many MA and PhD theses that deal with comparisons of source and (sometimes many) target versions, there is little serious scholarship with regard to translated fiction, the most translated literary genre worldwide. It is true that literary translation accounts for less than 1% of all translations in the world, but given the fact that much theoretical thinking in Translation Studies is still largely inspired by literary translation, this disregard for translated fiction is remarkable. The present article is meant as a first consideration of whether we can make use of insights recently developed in textual studies, narratology, and Translation Studies to unravel the nature of translated fiction, in particular to understand how readers respond to it. Epithets popularly to describe postmodern texts apply well to translated fiction; its unusual nature can be captured in terms like “border-crossing,” “hybridity,” and “intertextuality.” Here, I would like to propose that the nature of translated fiction can be understood from the 0907-676X/06/01/066-7 $20.00 Perspectives: Studies in Translatology

© år Leo Tak-hung Chan Vol. 14, No. 1, 2006

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following perspectives: In the translated text, there may, at the linguistic level, be 1) an interlanguage that incorporates elements of both the source and target languages, 2) a textual fragmentation because literary and cultural systems clash or are interwoven at two or more discourse levels; and 3) textual noise that is caused by the translator’s voice. At the ‘cultural level’ (however this is defined), there may be

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4) hybrid cultural elements; and 5) features of cross-cultural intertextuality; Provided the above is the case, readers of translated fiction cross borders and move between known and unknown worlds. The power of translated fiction cannot be denied. It facilitates cultural contacts. New knowledge is produced through making sense of, as well as relating to, translated fictional texts; and individuals, in some cases entire communities, are affected by their encounter with it. Textual characteristics of translated narratives Can a translated narrative be seen in terms of ‘text’? We may check it against the definition put forward by Basil Hatim and Ian Mason. They list four main standards of textuality according to which texts can be differentiated from nontexts: cohesion, coherence, intertextuality, and situationality (Hatim and Mason 1997: Chapter 2). One might expect that a translated narrative would easily satisfy the standards of cohesion (since it reads fluently when the translation is successful) and coherence (since it observes rules of grammar and logic). But this is questioned by some postmodern literary texts as writers of our time play havoc with the rules for writing cohesively and coherently, when they strive to free themselves from the shackles of a common, ordinary language. Unlike postmodern texts, however, translated narratives are sometimes forced to depart from such standards by nature. As far as intertextuality is concerned, all texts are unavoidably intertextual in postmodern terms (Still and Worton 1990), yet a translated narrative is intertextual in two cultures. It is part of its very existence that a translated text has an umbilical cord to one other identifiable text. Since the source text is already embroiled in a network of intertextual relationships, it is inevitable that the translation will carry over those intertextual allusions. Yet in the process of replacement of signs of one language by those of another that happens in translation, new webs of associations may emerge and new links will be formed in the target linguistic context. Those latter intertextual allusions may conflict with those stemming from the original. And if we take the definition of intertextuality to include iconic and semantic associations to real objects rather than textual ones as Hatim and Mason put it (Hatim and Mason 1997), then it is evident that a translated text will constantly invite readers to make intertextual references to two cultures instead of one.

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Finally, translated narratives may play havoc with situationality, too. Unlike readers of the original novel, those of a translated novel will be listening to two voices simultaneously, namely those of the narrator and of the translator. The discussion between Theo Hermans (1996), Guiliana Schiavi (1996), and Charlotte Bosseaux (2001) shows that there are two different perspectives on this issue: one that the translator usurps the place of the narrator, who disappears when the translator is “over-assertive”; the other is that, in a translation, a new narrator emerges who is quite distinct from the narrator of the original. Whichever view is adopted, it is clear that a translated narrative may be double-voiced. If so, insightful readers notice that the narrative is reconfigured as well as disfigured when it is translated, so that it relates in different ways to the author, the narrator, the translator, and the reader. In other words, a translated narrative constitutes a text that is unlike the original. It could be characterized as a hybrid text, a discourse which was in one brief moment bifurcated from the source text and subsequently became a text in its own right situated in the target culture but with an undeniable relationship to the text with which it co-existed in the moment of its creation but which now has an independent and unaffected life in the source culture. In some cases, namely when a translation calls attention to its nature as a non-native text, it may be considered as a text comprising two sets of signs referring to two different textual realms which defy a smooth integration. The relatively few readers who will be willing to read such texts will experience an interminable string of incongruities. Successful translations would, in my view, be those transparent translations that seek to reduce incongruous elements to a minimum, “deceiving” the reader with the illusion of a meaningful, interpretable text. Views of Textualists and Translation Scholars Comparative literature scholars know a plethora of textual studies touching upon reading, e.g. Roland Barthes’s “the text that gives pleasure,” Jacques Derrida’s “unlimited textual semiosis,” Hans Georg Gadamer’s “the fusion of horizons,” and J. Hillis Miller’s “deconstructive readings.” Translated fiction is rarely discussed. In a study of how readers construct meaning in a literary text, Horst Ruthrof (1981) has a perceptive discussion of translated fiction. Molly A. Travis (1999) adds concrete references on how readers “received” specific literary works through the twentieth century, concluding with a chapter on the reception of new textual categories like the hypertext. Translations are not mentioned. In The Empire Writes Back (1989), Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin discuss hybridized interlanguage as a strategy of resistance adopted by writers in postcolonial Africa and the Caribbean. It can be argued that this is a type of language of translation as seen in colonial and postcolonial texts. Gabriele Schwab (1996) discusses border-crossing in the reading of fiction and how it is achieved by the language used, while Emily Hicks (1991) participates in the current debate about how literary texts transgress boundaries and engages in ideological struggles. It can be claimed that in reading translated fiction, readers also find themselves at borders, boundaries, and margins. Since the 1980s translated texts have been identified as an area for research.

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The outcome is represented by Hatim and Mason’s The Translator as Communicator (1997), although their examples are mainly from non-literary texts whereas Albrecht Neubert and Gregory M. Shreve take a more philosophical approach in their Translation and Text (1992), in which they examine a variety of genres, both literary and non-literary. There have been studies on specific aspects of translated texts with examples from fiction. Tim Parks analyzes translated modernist fiction to see how translation problems can call attention to the originals in Translating Style (1992) but makes no attempt at a comprehensive theory. A special issue of Across Languages and Cultures (2002) edited by Christina Schäffner focuses specifically on hybridity in translated texts. It thus complements the works of the above-mentioned literary critics and opens up research on the interlanguage in translated novels as “mixed breeds.” There is some promising work in China although it is still in its infancy. Jiang Qiuxia and Quan Xiaohui (2000) suggest that holistic interpretations of translations of fiction are impossible, a claim they underpin with copious exemplification from English novels translated into Chinese. Shen Dan has repeatedly approached translated fiction from a stylistics point of view. She explores translated Chinese fiction by examining aspects of lexis, syntax, speech, and thought presentation. Her Narratology and the Stylistics of Fiction (1998) is a broad study of the interface between narratology and stylistics, with a glance at their application to translations. Six facets of translated fiction In my view, the myth of a translation as a unitary, interpretable textual object needs to be exploded, since translated fiction must be torn between cultures, discourses, and languages. It will here suffice that I sketch elements that can form the basis for studies of translated fiction. My point of departure is that a translated piece of fiction can be characterized along three axes - the cultural, the literary-narratological, and the linguistic ones. This yields six facets that can be further probed into from a Translation Studies perspective. 1. Since the eighties, translation scholars have increasingly focused on “differences” rather than similarities between the original and the translation as worthy of critical attention. In my view it is important how these differences are experienced by readers. Reading translated fiction can be characterized as a “border-crossing experience” in that readers move between two semiotic realms, one familiar, the other one strange. Readers can either assimilate the outside system into their own ones, or succumb to the power of the foreign. In the reading of a translated narrative, the Self comes face to face with the Other; the familiar meets the strange. The frequent comparison between translated fiction and travel literature is not altogether misdirected. For translations represent alien cultures no matter how much effort translators expended on domesticating texts. 2. Hybridity in translated texts is caused, first, by non-correspondence between languages which means that at the word-level, there are terms in the original that do not have ready target-language lexical equivalents. It is

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also caused by cultural incommensurability since the original has cultural references that are non-existent in the target culture. Given the obvious incompatibility of languages and cultures, hybridity is thus a central issue in Translation Studies. On the other hand, it is thought-provoking that readers continue to enjoy translated fiction without taking note of discordances between textual elements. For instance, D.H. Lawrence’s novels which are coloured by a highly idiosyncratic religious terms and images, are enjoyed by readers accepting Buddhist and Taoist belief systems in Chinese translations (Chan 2001). 3. ‘Intertextuality’ is a term that has had a pervasive influence in our time, but it is ‘cross-cultural intertextualities’ that is central to the understanding of translated fiction. It is inevitable that the original text is an intertext for the product of a translation in another language. And both the source and target texts comprise other intertexts in a web of correspondences, associations, and linkages. This situation becomes even more complex in adaptive translations: Wang Dahong’s Chinese translation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray deliberately invokes intertexts from the target culture, namely classical Chinese novels (Chan 2004). If all translations are inscribed within constellations of cross-cultural intertexts, this is even more so with translated fiction. 4. In translated fiction, it can be argued that the narrator is reconfigured, in that translators – despite all efforts not to do so - tamper with the relationship between the narrator, the narrated subjects, and the readers. The positioning of the narrator vis-a-vis the characters and the readers is crucial to the interpretation of fiction. Yet in translated fiction, these relationships may be disrupted by the intervention of translators who do not withdraw behind the narrating voice. Narratology studies has paid little attention to this difference between original and translated fiction. 5. It is worth exploring ‘textual noise’ with regard to translated fiction. For anthropologists, close translation is one of the best methods for narrating ‘native’ material. It also involves an abundance of annotations to situate a text in a broad and rich cultural environment, as in ethnographical renditions of oral African texts for English readers. This method has also been used by translators: in Chinese there are notable examples such as Li Wenjun’s translation of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1992) and Jin Di’s translation of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1994-96), both with hundreds of footnotes explaining the text proper. How do readers react to such paratextual matters as footnotes, endnotes, and parenthetical notes in a story? Can we understand these as creating “a voice splitting itself,” “a form of discourse about discourse,” or “a multi-layered narrative”? What if there are already plenty of footnotes in the source text (like Spike Milligan’s parodies of literary works)? 6. Linguistically, it may be argued that some translations use an interlanguage, ‘translationese’, which incorporates features from both the source and target languages. A well-known example is Europeanized Chinese which was born out of the contact between Chinese and English. It has borrowed extensively from English and thus become ‘colonized’ since the early twentieth century. In Europeanized Chinese, lexis, structures, and

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syntax are an Other from the outside, superimposed upon the indigenous Chinese tongue. To many, such hybridized Chinese was the language of colonialism; for others, it is the language of postcoloniality. It calls for a close examination of surface textures (as opposed to the structures) of well-known translated novels. An integrated approach to the study of translated fiction can thus be diagrammatically represented in terms of my three parameters as follows: CULTURAL 1. Self vs. Other

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2. Cross-cultural intertextualities

LITERARYNARRATOLOGICAL 1. Disappearance of the narrator 2. Multi-layered narrative

LINGUISTIC 1.

Use of an interlanguage 2. Incompatibility of languages

Moving beyond the peculiarities of a text, one needs to consider the issue of interpretation of translated fiction. According to Heidegger and Gadamer, the hermeneutic circle has it that the object of knowledge is either a part or a whole, but that “knowledge of the part requires knowledge of the whole and knowledge of the whole requires knowledge of the part.” It will be difficult to reach a holistic interpretation of characters and situations in translations because most translators are constrained by the source text at the micro-level of the sentence. It seems that readers of translated fiction may sometimes fail to “get the whole picture,” as the parts may conflict with the whole. In interpretations of translated fiction, critics must accept that attempts at construction of meaning may fail. At best, interpretations of translated fictional texts can only be local, not global: “translation undoes the tropes and rhetorical operations of the original,” as pointed out by the deconstructionist Paul de Man (as quoted by McQuillan 2001: 63). Conclusion The possibilities for exploring the character of translated fiction are infinite, and it is surprising that so little has been done so far. There is, in my view, no doubt that it will be fruitful to conduct research into the impact of translations on particular societies at specific points in time, investigating such fiction in relation to the four areas of: a) publishing (e.g. are the publishing houses local or national?); b) education (e.g. does translated fiction occupy an institutional space in academia?); c) journals publishing translations (e. g. are these academic or popular?); and d) translation prizes and awards (e. g. what recognition is given to the works in question?). Following the models of literary fields and symbolic capital by Pierre Bourdieu, or that of centres and peripheries by Immanuel Wallerstein, such research can contribute to our understanding of translated fiction, or better still, to our knowledge of the sociology of fiction in translation. But we should also take care that individual readers who deserve as much attention as publish-

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ers, academics, and critics of translation, are not overlooked in the process. The theories of reading, propounded by a generation of deconstructionists, have made research into the reading of translated fiction more manageable. After all, the in-depth study of individual readers’ response to translated fiction may provide a chance for a fruitful dialogue between translation theorists, semioticians, and literary scholars. Works cited Ashcroft, Bill & Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin. 1989. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. New York & London: Routledge. Bosseaux, Charlotte. 2002. A Study of the Translator’s Voice and Style in the French Translation of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. CTIS Occasional Papers Vol. 1. 55-75. Chan, Tak-hung Leo. 2004. The Poetics of Recontextualization: Intertextuality in a Chinese Adaptive Translation of The Picture of Dorian Grey. Comparative Literature Studies 41. 464-481. Chan, Tak-hung Leo. 2001. Cultural Hybridity and the Translated Text: Re-reading D.H. Lawrence in Chinese. Across Languages and Cultures 2. 73-85. Hatim, Basil & Ian Mason. 1997. The Translator as Communicator. New York & London: Routledge. Hermans, Theo. 1996. The Translator’s Voice in Translated Narrative. Target 8. 23-48. Hicks, Emily. 1991. Border Writing: The Multidimensional Text. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jiang Qiuxia & Quan Xiaohui. 2000. Wenxue fanyi guocheng yu geshita yixiang moshi [The Process of Literary Translation and Gestalt Models]. Zhongguo fanyi [Chinese Translators’ Journal]. No.1. 26-30. Kozak, Jolanta. 2000. The Spirit of the Letter: Standards of Textuality and the Semic Codes in Translemic Analysis. Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny 47. 457-476. McQuillan, Martin. 2001. Paul de Man. London & New York: Routledge. Neubert, Albrecht & Gregory M. Shreve. 1992. Translation as Text. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. Parks, Tim. 1998. Translating Style: The English Modernists and Their Italian Translations. London: Cassell. Ruthrof, Horst. 1981. The Reader’s Construction of Narrative. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Schäffner, Christina (ed.). 2001. Hybridity and Translation. Across Languages and Cultures 2. 2. Schiavi, Guiliana. 1996. There Is Always a Teller in a Tale. Target 8. 1-22. Schwab, Gabriele. 1996. The Mirror and the Killer-Queen: Otherness in Literary Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Shen, Dan. 1998. Narratology and the Stylistics of Fiction [in Chinese]. Beijing: Beijing University Press. Still, Judith & Michael Worton. 1990. Intertextuality: Theories and Practices. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Travis, Molly A. 1999. Reading Cultures: The Construction of Readers in the Twentieth Century. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.