An introduction to literary translation.

Student: Ayoub Agouzoul.

Professor: Omar Moumni.

Faculty of letters and humanities Sais – Fes.

 Abstract

The objective of this research is to suggest a general view to literary translation.

This later will be based on my perspective and the perspective of other theorists and

scholars. Also, everything began owing to my true desire to seek for information

about literary translation from different sources in order to make this paper more

credible. Moreover, the topic of translation has drawn my attention since I have

learned in my previous semesters the basics of translation in the faculty of letters and

the humanities Sais Fes.

My research is going to concentrate respectively on three main parts which are

literature, translation and literary translation. In fact, I will not begin by my main topic

because I’d like to help average readers more by going from general to more

specific.

Note that I will begin by literature and translation until I reach literary translation.

Furthermore, everything that follows is a result of my own effort, I had mentioned

other scholars and theorists studies that by giving credits to them. Obviously, there is

no place for plagiarism that doesn’t help the research paper to appear more credible

to you.

Literary translation was and still a strange topic for Moroccan and international

students, as its known; the process of translation is mistaken for the reason that it is

easy owing to technological devices such as phones and computers.

The study will also prove that the field of translation needs experience, knowledge,

creativity, and many more thinking materials that are necessary to translate not

words but also meanings, cultural backgrounds and this cannot be done by devices.

Last but not least, there will be questionnaires and surveys that will help you get a

complete image of the field.

Key words: Literature, translation and literary translation.
 Table of contents:

Introduction………….............................................................................................1

Literature…………….............................................................................................3

The definition of literature......................................................................................3

Literary and non-literary languages..........................................................................5

Translation…………...............................................................................................6

The definition of translation....................................................................................7

Methods of translation.............................................................................................9

Literary translation…...............................................................................................11

The definition of literary translation........................................................................12

Why literary translation............................................................................................13

Who is literary translator.........................................................................................14

Conclusion…………...............................................................................................15
 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my teacher that taught me in Al Kindi high school for advices and

support that he gave to me to achieve this research.i’d like also to thank my faculty mates

girls and boys for the exchange of information and guidance even though via what’s app

conversations.
Theoretical part:
Introduction

No one can deny that translation is one of the best inventions that had ever

existed. It is truly life savior and it helps us understand speeches, films, instructions,

and many numerous texts that are not written by our local languages. Translation is a

part of our lives and we need it all time to translate words and sentences that are not

understood. As a student of literature, literary translation remains interesting since it

interacts directly with the field of literature as its name signifies. The process of

literary translation is not that easy and automatic as the stereotypes and people

signified, It doesn't mean translating word by word as it is done by the famous

website called ‘Google Translator’ but also the interpreting of the contexts, ideals,

implied meanings, cultures and more than that. Literary translation is a very wide

term that needs to be simplified and illustrated. I am going to focus on literary

translation as a nucleus of the study and everything that surrounding it of terms such

as literature and translation. Here are my main headings and sub-headings of my

research paper:

 Literature

o The definition of literature

o Literary language and non literary language

 Translation

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 o The definition of translation

o The methods of translation

 Literary translation

o The definition of literary translation

o Why literary translation?

o Who is literary translator?

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1 Literature.

1.1 The definition of literature.

If we want to understand clearly what literary translation is? Then, we have to

clarify the first word that constructs the term which is literary (which stands to

literature). So, basically, what is literature?

 Literature remains a confusing term because if the diversity of definitions that the

theorists and men of letters gave, according to Yi Kwang-Su, he argued that literature

is extremely difficult to define because it's scope is vast and its boundaries are

limitless (294). 

 The issue of literature is that it does not have a precise definition and it cannot be

that easy to define as people do by citing its big genres. ,Ghazala claimed that

everybody knows what literature is by stating its main genres, such as prose novels

short stories poetry and drama. He emphasized also that nobody mistakes them for

something else (1).

Actually, the use of main genres to define literature is incorrect. Therefore, theorists

tried to define literature in another way, this was stated by Ghazala when he

said:"specialists as usual, may find the defining process of literature as more

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complicated than just defining it in terms of its main genres. Various attempts have

been made to define literature by writers and men of letters themselves” (1).

Literature is more than being defined just by its main genres. First, although the

defining process of literature is complicated but it is not impossible; each of the

theorists and men of letters told what they think about the definition of literature but

the definitions vary from one to another. Moreover, if there have been various

attempts to define literature, you can define it for example as an imaginative writing in

the sense of fiction writing, which is not literally really true (Eagleton 1). Based on this

definition of Eagleton, we come to discover that Eagelton wanted to prove that

literature is not just an imaginative writing which stands in contrast to realistic writing

but another interpretation.

 So, was this the feature that was the first brick to construct the process of defining

literature? And does it make sense? Absolutely not because he meant that this

definition was incorrect since he examined that Superman comic or other kinds of

comic belong to fiction but they are not regarded as literature(2).

He also added ironically that if literature is creative and imaginative writing, why

history and philosophy are not considered as literature since they are both creative

and imaginative too (Eagleton 2).

To sum up, creativity and imagination cannot define literature but they are absolutely

related to it directly. They are also among its features. Here is Eagleton came to end

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this the defining question, he concluded that the definition of literature is not about

fiction or imagination, but by the strange use of language in different ways (2).So

actually what makes language literary? And how we can distinguish between literary

and non-literary language?

1.2 Literary and non-literary languages.

To translate literary works, you have first to distinguish literary language from

non-literary language. First, literary language is set to be different from the ordinary

one. Here are some general differences that everyone has to know based on the

perspective of Newmark.

A distinction between literary and non-literary language has to be made. The

substance of both languages is the same, but literary language is concerned with

fiction, the imagined world; non-literary language with reality; literary language is

personal; non-literary language is more standardised, more conventional, and has a

large number of discourses related to class and occupation; fundamentally, literary

language is centred in individual people, allegorical or typical though they are, and

directly in their imagined worlds; non-literary language is centred in facts, in society

or in groups, in processes and in objects, often at a reporting or an indirect stage.

Literary language is predominantly connotative, non-literary language is denotative

(Newmark 9).

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As mentioned before in the definition of literature, the first thing to notice about

literary language is the use of language in peculiar ways (Eagleton 2), which means

that in different ways than the ordinary usage. For instance, I have learned in high

school that poetry has used to break the rules of language by utilizing different

techniques and structure than paragraph, which were called stanza form, rhythm,

rhyme and more. Ghazala argued:" it breaks the common norms of language

including graphological, grammatical, lexical, semantic and phonological norms (2)".

Obviously, he was talking about literary language as a kind in which rules are broken.

So, the question is those rules are broken randomly? The answer is of course not. 

Second, the literariness of language is done through rules, everything is written in

poems or short stories, has methods that have to be respected, or it cannot not be

called as literature. Eagleton argued:"Literature is a kind of writing in which,

represents organized violence committed on ordinary speech (qtd in jakobson).

Third, the ordinary language is a type of language that is used almost in every field

but literature; it can be exploited for science, marketing and many more. Ghazala

argued that non literary language is a language which is normal, boring, and honest.

It loses the literary characteristics which are deviant, aesthetic, expressive, etc.

Honestly, literary language looks more attractive since it interacts with beauty and

creativity of writing, not speaking facts like newspapers. Ghazala concluded that non-

literary language is inferior to literary language (3), in fact; it is visualized through

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beauty but not value because no one can deny that non literary language is the

language of science and policy that have more importance than art or literary

aesthetical writings, such as poetry, novels and short stories. 

2 Translation

Translation is our next step to facilitate the understanding of literary translation,

as we see; translation is constructing the second part of the term that have to be deal

with. So actually what is translation?

2.1 The definition of translation

As it's already known, translation is the transformation of a word, sentence or

a text from one language to another language. The question is that can we consider

this definition as a precise and reliable one? The answer is that we need to explore

the term more by the use of other sources and authors perspectives. The previous

definition was just primary and raw in consideration of a topic that exploited much ink

to define by many theorists and specialists.

There are many theorists, or in other words; there are many authors that are related

to the field of translation who have provided their own definitions on translation that

were at some points identical at the level of meaning and words delivery from one

language to another. 

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First of all, according to the professor of English translation called Newmark:"it is

rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that author intended

the text (5)". In addition to this definition, the process looks simple since it is about

delivering certain text by an author to another language. But its may be complicated

because Newmark emphasized also about the presentation of the meaning of a text

beside the text itself (5).

Actually, translation as we noticed before, it is not just the translation of a word but it

is also the interpreting of meaning, culture, perspective and other aspects. Moreover,

Newmark also added that the purpose of translation is to transfer as many source

language words to target language as possible (5).It might explain that the urgent

task of translation is translate not to interpret but it does not mean to exclude

interpreting from translation. Obviously in this primary level, theorists and

professors shed light on how translation works as a transferring process.

Second, let's examine the definition from different perspective. Mahmoud Altarabin

defined Translation as follow:

Translation can be defined as the process of transferring, reproducing,

replacing, or interpreting source text (ST) message, material, text, or meaning into

another language focusing on meaning and style respectively. The key word in the

above definitions is 'reproduce ' which means that translators analyse the

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components of ST units in terms of meaning and structure and then render such

units into target texts (TTs) (3).

As we notice, there is no much difference between what Newmark said about

translation as definition and what Mahmoud said, they agree that translation is the

transformation of texts and there meaning from language to another language.

Furthermore, it's not about replacing the words, but also about the interpretation of

meaning and message that text tries to convey. Third, it’s very crucial that we have to

shed light on the agreement between almost all theorists and writers that defined

translation in terms of its structure, meaning, message, etc.  

Moreover, we can't deal with every definition in this paragraph to avoid repeating

same ideas .As a result, every one of them [theorists] claimed that translation is not

just producing translation   of words but also of meaning, message, structure and

more. To conclude, words are crucial in translation as well as meaning, message,

structure and others that have to be mixed together to produce a satisfying result of

the target text. Last but not least, well experienced translators use different methods

to gain perfect or at least good results of translation. So, the question that raises its

hand now: what are those methods of translation? 

2.2 The methods of translation

If we think a little bit about translation as process, we will conclude immediately

that it has methods that are needed to be applied each one for certain

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circumstances. Obviously, they are various, but we will deal with the most important

ones and the most exploited by the audience.

To begin with, the most known method of translation is literal translation.

Literal translation according to Newmark:" SL grammatical constructions are

converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated

singly (46)". Clearly, literal translation is keeping then exact meaning and the

structure of source language while translate it to the target language. Moreover, this

method of translation is widely used, since it does not give a distortion to the target

text because it is concerned only with typical equivalent of words from the other

language. Furthermore, this sort of translation is useful with direct text that does not

interact with beauty and creativity of writing because it can miss many meanings

beyond words or idioms. Also, Newmark noticed that literal translation is not a good

method to understand the context of text, because it provides more problems, since it

interacts just by direct literal meaning of words but not the meaning at all. (46)

Many people mistake the literal translation with word for word translation. Actually,

the name of the method describes itself, since it is called word for word. This method

is the translation of each word by its own regardless of the structure or the order.

Newmark illustrates it as the words of targets are below the words of source

language in that order. For example, if we translate the following sentence,' John ate

an apple' from English to Arabic, it will be like this ‘‫’تفاحة ال أكل أحمد‬. Without a doubt,

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"the main use of word for word translation is either to understand the mechanics of

the source language or to construe a difficult text as pre-translation process"

(Newmark 46).

Free translation is the translation without restrictions, rules or borders of structure or

grammar; Newmark considered free translation as paraphrase (46). He also added:"

free translation produces the matter without the manner" (47) which means it does

not obey to rules of translation at all. To translate a word, notice that it is useful when

there is no equivalent word to another of different language or culture such as the

word in Arabic called ‘Zakat’, which implies systematic giving (2.5%) of money or

wealth (Altarabin12).

 Adaption translation signifies to itself by its title. From my point of view, it is

concerned with adapted translation to deliver the appropriate meaning from source

language to target language. So, how others define it? According to Newmark,"is the

freest form of translation, It is used mainly for plays (comedies) and poetry, the

themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture converted to the TL

culture and the text rewritten" (46). To conclude, it is useful for plays and artworks

because it interprets culture to the other culture in understandable way which actually

refers to adaption.

2.3 Literary translation

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 After discussing literature and translation, we have finally reached our main

topic called literary translation. Moreover, literary translation remains a hidden

process that is not used among many students even though the literary ones.

Obviously, it is not general as natural translation because it needs survey and

exploration to actually determine the required knowledge needed to fully understand

its complicated nature.

The first question that comes to mind is what’s the definition of literary translation?

2.3.1 The definition of literary translation

The multiplicity of cultures and literatures all over the world assures the

importance of literary translation. As a primary notice to the term, it is composed of

two words which are ‘literary’ and ‘translation’, both stands for literature and

translation which were discussed in previous parts. Therefore, literary translation is

about the translation of literature. But is this primary definition or prediction valid? 

On one hand, according to washbourn and Van Wyke: "it is important to

acknowledge that when writing a literary translation we must not focus on what the

text says, But also how literary text has been made, constructed, put together(42)". In

that case, literary translation is not only translation of literary passages but also the

interpreting of the meaning and decoding of how the passage is built. For example, if

you have a stanza of a certain poem and you need to translate it, then you have to

use literary translation, but the purpose is not merely translating words into another

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language, but also the translation of structure, Rhyme, the words choice and many

tools that distinct literary works from other works. Actually, this depends on the type

of the literary passage because the analyses of each type of literature vary from one

to another.

On the other hand, literary translation based on Ghazalla:" I define literary translation

as a special type of translation that is

concerned solely with translating literary genres and sub-genres into

literary pieces of work in the TL, accounting for all features of literariness

and creative style of the original, especially, re-registration, semantic

density, syntactic and lexical intricacies, polysemy, Displaced interaction,

multi-layeredness, symbolism / hypersemanticization, aestheticism,

figurativeness and, most importantly, tone: the involvement of human

feelings, sentiments and emotions (19)".Following this, literary translation is

concerned, mostly with literary works and keeping their literariness into the target

language. In fact, if the features of literary works are neglected while translating the

source texts into the target texts, it is no longer literary translation. 

In consideration to both definitions of literature, we shall conclude that neither a

theorist nor a writer mistake literary translation definition because they are all agree

that literary translation is the translation of literary works with keeping their features

and the cultural background in which the work circulates.

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 2.3.2 Why literary translation?

If you are interested in translation, the first kind of translation that will attract

your attention is literary translation for many reasons. 

First, literary translation is considered with translation of artistic literary works in other

words, the written works that are done to entertain the reader such as poems and

short stories, etc. In fact, while translating this sort of works, you will not get bored

because you actually enjoying reading and translating both at the same time. For

instance, if you really like translation, which passage you will like to translate? A

boring weather report or joyful part of a short story! Probably you will choose the

short story passage because it's fun and it's talking about certain plot taking place in

magical place or whatever. For Newmark:" Translation has its own excitement, its

own interest" (6).

Second, literary translation is very challenging since it sheds light on every feature

embedded in the source texts. In fact, you have to deliver not only the meaning but

also the tone, theme structure, cultural background, etc. Newmark claimed that

translation has been instrumental in transferring culture (7).

In short, literary translation is the dealing with an aesthetician and creative types of

writing instead of facts. Therefore, other kinds of translation are inferior to

literary translation.

3.2.3 Who is literary translator?

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 Everyone may not mistake who literary translator is. Literary translator is the

one who makes literary translation as profession or a job either in groups such as

companies and organizations or working alone as a freelancer. Newmark

claimed:"translation as a profession practiced in international organizations,

governments, departments, public companies and translation agencies”. Obviously,

literary translators are working mostly as freelancers since all attention of companies

and translation agencies goes to scientific and commercial translators. To be fair,

most of literary translators are doing it for passion. “Translation has its own

excitement. Its own interest" (Newmark 6). Furthermore, to be a literary translator,

you have to love literary translation and practice it to entertain yourself more than the

desire to gain money and profit because almost all translators are sharing their

translated works for free. In addition to passion and love, a literary translator has to

be aware of every single skill as mastering two languages as well as their cultures,

grammar, figurativeness and   everything that differentiates literary works. Newmark

assured:" a translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his

means of expression" (6). 

To conclude, a literary translator might be one of the most difficult jobs   in the field of

translation since he or she deals not only with words or phrases but also with implied

meanings, structure, grammar, words choice and more. 

Conclusion

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 In short, literary translation remains an open topic that needs more exploration

since the urge to know others literatures and cultures rises. Moreover, this

experience allowed me to acknowledge the favor of literary translation that translated

many literary works of especially those postcolonial writers who wrote there works by

their native languages. Moreover, after reading this study, no one is going to

underestimate the process of translation because of its complicated and wide verse

which is full of skills, knowledge, and experience. Last but not least, the poor

treatment of governments and education institutions toward translation caused poor

knowledge about the field among people and even students. As a result, this will be

discussed in the next part which contains constitutions of students about the field.

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Practical part:

17
Methodology and objective:

The aim of this practical part is to visualize the topic aspects into figures and

exemplified texts to apply the knowledge we have got during the theoretical part. In

addition to that, they will provide understanding about what we have talked before in

an incredible way. The topic of literary translation can be about both   survey given to

specific audience and translated passages. Each theoretical part of the research will

have a practical part that deals with it in a unique method. In fact, it will be either an

analyzed survey or translated passage or even both of them.

Instruments:

In one hand, this survey was done by an application called Google Forms. It

was created after putting in consideration aspects of theoretical part. The audience

was the students of English in the Faculty of humanities Sais-Fes. In fact, the

Constitution was very good since the 28 people have answered all questions

effectively. The survey was sent to all students automatically by the email of the

faculty and it was very smooth process because it does not need much effort.

 In the other hand, the translation of passages was done by the use of dictionaries,

both Arabic and English. Moreover, making the results of translated passages as well

as possible deviant from those of devices since they don't consider features of

translation and literary translation discussed before in the theoretical part. The

18
passages are taken mostly from works that we have studied before in the department

such as the sisters by James Joyce or Mother by Sherwood Anderson. Put in

consideration that all the translated passages and the words do not belong to the

previous two works due to the purpose of each part. Lastly, this practical part

required much effort and time because it interacts with both survey and translated

passages.

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1. Literature

1.1 The definition of literature

Do you define literarure by its main genres?

39.3

60.7
Yes No

Figure 1

At the beginning, we discussed the definition of literature which brought us to

the point of defining literature by its main genres. As a result, I have asked other

students if they define literature by its main genres and the results were as expected.

The majority agreed that they define literature by its main genres by 60, 7%. Well, the

minority said they don't define literature by its main genres by 39, 3%. As I said, this

was expected because when we think about literature and its definition we think

immediately about its main genres such as short stories novels and poetry. This was

illustrated enough in the previous result (see Figure 1). Defining literature by its main

genres is not a crime but it’s unwanted since the poor understanding it gives. It’s

20
claimed by almost all theorists that the field is very difficult and complicated to define

but they agreed that literature is the use of language in peculiar way than the normal

usage( See page1) .At least, no one mistakes literature by mentioning something

else than its main genres.

1.2 Literary and non literary language

Is literary language fictional or realistic for

you?

32.1
Realistic
46.4
Fictional

Both

21.5

Figure 2

After discussing literary and non literary languages, we come to think about if

literary language is fictional or realistic. I have asked students about it and the data

was as follows: The majority agreed that literature is both fictional and realistic by

46.4%. In the other hand, we have two parties that go with realistic or fictional

literature. 32.1% of students went with realistic while the minority went with fictional

by 21, 5 %.  Let's put in mind that the majority of the students claimed that literature

21
is both realistic and fictional. In fact, this is the most logical decision, because actually

almost all works try to present both in order to make balance. For example, we can

find a literary work with realistic actors and issues are taking place in a fictional time

and place like a magical jungle with moving trees and plants. The second less party

goes with literature as realistic since they have experienced with realistic works that

talk about reality such as ‘The sisters’ by James Joyce and ‘Heart of Darkness’ by

Joseph Conrad. Furthermore, it can be quite logical to say that literature is fictional

since all literary works come from the mind or the imagination of the writer. To

conclude, we can determine a work if it is fictional or realistic based on how the plot

is and when and the where it takes place, just put in consideration that the nature of

literature varies from one work to another.

2 Translation

2.1 The definition of translation

How you consider translation?

50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
converting process Interpreting process Both

Figure 3

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 I asked students how they see the translation process and their answers were

as follow: The majority agreed that translation is an interpreting process by 47%

While 18% considered translation as a converting process of words. The third party

claimed that translation is both interpreting and converting process by 35%. The

translation process remains a diverse process that needs more than one method or

style. In fact, translation needs the use of various methodologies in order to produce

good results of target texts. Moreover, if you just convert words without consideration

of their meaning, the outcome will not be completed. In the other hand, if you just use

interpreting of words, it will be much similar to a paraphrase than effective translation.

To conclude, all methods matter in translation. 

2.2 Methods of translation

Which method of translation you use most?

17.80% 14.40%

Word for word

14.30%
Literal translation

Free translation

Adaption

53.50%

Figure 4

To be continued !
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