16 Translation in Systems ‘and intellectual infrastructure within which new ideas have better chances of germinating. Tn the next chapter I want to show the importance of having in place a cttical mass of enthusiasts by tracing some of the more isolated efforts made ‘before the descriptive paradigm came together. As will become clear several of the basic ideas were around early on, but it took an invisible college to shape and launch them as a programme. 2. Lines of Approach ‘We can appreciate the relevance of an invisible college as a network of ‘committed individuals by looking at the stage preceding the emergence ofthe ‘descriptive paradigm. Most ofthe ideas which coalesced with the Manipulation ‘group had been expressed before, but they had not found echoes. John ‘MeFarlane’s essay ‘Modes of Translation’, published in the Durham University Journal in 1953, was one of those forlorn cals, a voice in the wilderness. A ecade later & more concerted effort began to take shape with the work of some Czech and Slovak scholars, notably Jiti Levy, Frantisek Miko and Anton Popovié . They thought along structuralist lines and aimed at a systematic exploration of wanslation. Their meeting with James Holmes would lead directly to the new ‘disciplinary matrix’. Let us look at some of these early cfforts, partly because they define some ofthe key concerns ofthe descriptive paradigm, and partly because they will demonstrate the extent to which new ideas build on existing ones. Throughout, the frame of reference is that of literary studies. “Diagnostic rather than hortatory” ‘The phrase comes from MeFarlane’s ‘Modes of Translation’. James Holmes recognized the essay’s pioneering role when he had McFarlane invited as a _Buest of honour to the 1976 Leuven conference which marked the beginning ‘of the Manipulation group. Its @ remarkable piece for its time. I will retrace its argument and quote its conclusion at some length. The essay as a whole seeks to overtum many of the traditional assumptions the descriptive para- ddigm would also, and more forcefully, argue against ‘There is nothing new in McFarlane’s starting point, Translation, he ob- serves, is generally disparaged today. We recognize its practical value, but especially where literature is concerned we are only too ready to brand an imperfect translation as a ‘travesty’ or worse. However, the reason for this, ‘McFarlane claims, is not so much the appalling badness of most translations for the incompetence of translators, but the way we have come to think about ‘anslation and its feasibility. If we despise translation because i fils to live up to our expectations, this is because our expectations are unreasonable. We ‘want translation to square the circle and express frustration when this cannot bedone, We demand that it reconcile the irreconcilable and then gloat over its necessary failure. McFarlane quotes Wilhelm von Humboldt writing in 1796 to A.W. ‘Schlegel; “All translating seems fo me an attempt to solve an impossible problem” (“Alles Ubersetzen scheint mit schlechterdings ein Versuch zur ‘Auflésung einer unméglichen Aufgabe", 1953:78). This is because the task8 ‘Translation in Systems wwe commonly set translation is that of combining what McFarlane terms “Accuracy of rendering with Grace of expression” (1953:78-79) The remainder of the essay demonstrates the pointlessness and futility of criticism which insists on translation meeting these unattainable requirements. In the process ‘McFarlane demotishes the tequirements themselves. His main target is the notion of “Accuracy, Accuracy in translation involves the search for an equi- Valent content orsense, covering both substantial and stylistic meaning, which fare thought to reside in the words ofthe original. Does Accuracy then result in Titeral, word-for-word translation? That would be a mistake, McFarlane argues. ‘What words mean is determined by the context in which they occur. Since itera! transtation is obsessed with words or even their component parts and takes no aecount of context, any mode of translation based on literalism as a standard for Accuracy is fundamentally fas. ‘meaning is not a matter of isolated words, how complex is it? McFarlane distinguishes referential from emotive meaning. Referential meaning draws ‘on the “powers of symbolic reference” (1953:84) of the language, but since Tanguages are not exactly parallel in this respect, and symbolic reference is not very precise, no precise equivalence between precise symbols can ever be attained. Emotive meaning refers to the power of words to move. In lyrical poems emotive meaning may actually be more important than referential meaning, Ifin translating such texts we want to retain this primacy, we are surely justified in “employing a different referential symbolism in order to obtain equivalence in this all-important emotive meaning” (1953:85). Where does that leave Accuracy, though? In addition, language never functions on ‘one level of meaning only, but always on several simultaneously. Even if, translators were able to separate out all the different strands of meaning in a text, there would still be no way of re-combining their equivalents into one coherent unit in another language. Different languages are differently structured. Bearing in mind linguistic constraints of this order, MeFarlane ‘concludes that “[tJo deny merit to translation ~ to deny certain formulations even the right to call themselves translation ~ simply because there is not ‘equivalence in al respects at once isa facile yet much practised perversion of criticism” (1953:87). “The final twist in the argument involves the question of who in fact de- termines the meaning of a text, especially in literature. Is there a fixed, identifiable meaning to be determined inthe first place? McFarlane draws on LA. Richards's Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), one of the seminal ‘works of English and American New Criticism, to show that divergent read~ ings of literary texts often co-exist, There are similar divergences between ‘what a speaker may have intended and what a hearer actually makes of the speaker's words. If, then, different interpretations yield different meanings, ‘we ean never properly speak of the meaning of a text, hence, by implication, we ean never talk about the translation; there will inevitably be different Theo Hermans a translations deriving from different meanings, all of them perhaps equally valid but none of them an “ideal” ora ‘true’ one” (1953:89). Even $0, a trans lator who takes as a starting point the effect a poem had on him or her as a reader is likely to be reproached for injecting too much subjectivity into the translation, Ifthe translator takes the alternative route and attempts to get under the poet's skin and ropeat the genesis ofthe original utterance, it will be objected that this requires a totally bilingual poet ~ and here McFarlane quotes Rilke, who wrote French with virtually the same ease as he did German but found, to his own surprise, that he wrote differently in French compared with German, g ‘The complexity and elusiveness of meaning, then, is such that we Cannot derive an absolute standard of Accuracy for translation from it. Translation ‘cannot produce total accuracy because there is no way of determining what total accuracy would consist of. Itis therefore pointless to continue to think of translation in terms of demands for equivalence “in all respects at once”. What ‘we need instead, McFarlane contends, is a different approach to translation, ‘an approach which accepts translation as itis rather than as we might wish it to be, and which wants fo gain insight into its nature rather than to urge it to pperiorm the impossible. Therefore the intent of his essay, McFarlane con- cludes, has been to underline the need for some new, provisional theory of translation new’ in the sense that it should be diagnostic rather than hortatory, that it should be concerned not with unreal ideals and fictional abso lutes but actualites, and thatt should not hesitate to use the instruments of modern semantic theory; and “provisional” inthe sense that it should fot so much attempt to impose a rigid pattern on the facts as we at present see them but rather serve as a device forthe better understand ing of them. (1953:92-93) ‘His proposal is set out in full in the final paragraphs, which are worth quoting ‘more of less in their entirety. The proposal is that we consider translation as a complex act of communication embracing two acts of speech, ‘each with its own structure of speaker and hearer, “meaning” and me- dium, and wherein the one speech act stands in some analysable relationship with the other; and that we must then consider what must surely be the chief questions: In whai ways may an utterance in one linguistic medium be made ‘like’ another in a different medium, and ‘what things are essentially within and what necessarily beyond the con- trol ofthe translator? In recommending a codification and analysis ofthese activities, in ‘advocating an examination of what translation is and can be rather than ‘what ought to be but never is, we dono more than urge a measure that