Antoine Berman’s

“trials of the foreign”

Noemí Marcos
Alba
 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