“Stride la Vampa” from Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi

Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano. Aligned source and target text here.

Click on the sidebar on the right to view a video of Stride la Vampa subtitled and translated by Alessio Iacovoni

Stride la Vampa (Translation by Alessio Iacovoni)

(Azucena sings: the Gypsies gather around her)

Fizzles the fire! – the crowd unyielding
to that pyre – happily races;
Shouts of joy – reverberate:
Escorted in chains – a woman approaches!
Sinister glare – on ghastly faces
The gloomy fire – soars high in the air!
Fizzles the flame! – and comes the victim
Scantily black-dressed – in pain
Fierce cries – of death rise;
By echo repeated – in towns far away!
Sinister glare – on ghastly faces
The gloomy fire – soars high in the air!

Gypsies

Sad is your song!

Azucena

And sad is the dismal story from which it was inspired!

(She turns her head towards Manrico and murmurs softly)

Avenge me… Avenge me!

Filed under: Translation , Antonio García Gutiérrez, Azucena, El Trobador, Giuseppe Verdi, Il trovatore, Salvatore Cammarano, Stride la Vampa, Viorica Cortez

Translation by omission

Omission means dropping a word or words from the SLT while translating. This procedure can be the outcome of the cultural clashes that exist between the SL and the TL. In fact, it is in subtitling translations where omission attains its peak in use. The translator omits words that do not have equivalents in the TT, or that may raise the hostility of the receptor. For example, Arab translators usually omit English taboo words such as ‘fuck off’ and ‘shit’, while translating films into Arabic, just for the sake of respecting the Arab receptors, who may not tolerate the use of these words because of their culture. The process is also resorted to when translating from Moroccan Arabic into English:

SL: /3annaq SaHbo wmšaw bžuž lyid flyid/.

TL: He held his boy friend tightly and went together.

Here, we notice that the translator omits the Arabic words /lyid flyid/, ‘hand in hand’, since this act may mislead English receptors into believing that the “boy-friends” are homosexuals.

(From Translation Procedures, by Marouane Zakhir, University of Soultan Moulay Slimane, Morocco)

Similar procedures, with slightly different names,  are very clearly illustrated in the Comparative Stylistics of French and English, by Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet.

This book was first published in 1958, so some scholars may dismiss it as outdated. Far from it! The incredible language insight of its two authors and the thriving bilingual context (Canada) within which their theories were developed, have made it  an all-time classic, a must-have on any translator’s bookshelf.

Here is a compendium of translation procedures proposed by these two authors and by Delisle, Newmark and Catford (compiled by the author of the Blog Mis Trabajos de Traducción, Accessed 11 February 2009).

Filed under: Translation , Comparative Stylistics of French and English, Delisle, Jean Darbelnet, Jean-Paul Vinay, Marouane Zakhir, Newmark, Omission, Translation Procedures

Philosophy and Translation

Abc’s Philosopher’s zone has broadcast two very interesting podcasts on philosophy and translation. Incidentally, one of the two (Gavagai) touches also on sexism and gender neutrality (passing through Foucault and Derrida), a topic dealt with just the other day on this same blog (see Linguistic Sexism in the Italian Language).

1. Gavagai

2. Philosophy in another tongue

Filed under: Translation

Conference Terminology Glossary Italian-English

The following is a link to a glossary I have produced over the past twelve years of work in the interpreting business. Please feel free to make any comments, suggestions or point to possible inaccuracies.

Conference Terminology Glossary

Filed under: Interpretation , conference terminology glossary

Linguistic Sexism in the Italian Language

The issue of sexism in language has been dealt extensively in English and in many other languages, yet very little has changed as far as Italian is concerned. Here is an interesting paper that talks about the linguistic sexism in the Italian language which builds on a previous study by Alma Sabatini entitled “Recommendations for a non sexist use of the Italian language“, submitted to the Italian Government and to the Commission for Equal Opportunities back in 1987.

A brief excerpt from the Recommendations follows:

(…) The choice of one word instead of another entails a modification in the thought and in the attitude of those who pronounce it and hear it. Words are a materialization, a full fledged action. Their semantic value is linked to the linguistic and extralinguistic context in a dynamic relationship, such that it becomes important to promote the use of alternative words or modify some aspects of language not as a simple lip service, but to give rise to more profound changes in the attitude taken in relation to women.

Despite the fact that  language is an ever-changing dynamic structure, most people are conservative and wary – if not even afraid – of linguistic changes. They are offended because they feel such changes may impinge on their habits or because they view them as violent and “against nature”.

(from “Il sessismo nella lingua italiana” by Alma Sabatini, translated by Alessio Iacovoni)

Another interesting research paper by Giulio Lepschy, that discusses the Recommendations, was published just a couple of years after the study by Alma Sabatini with the title Lingua e sessismo (Language and Sexism).

For a less accademic approach to the study of the linguistic impact of language on sexism you may consider reading the very amusing book “The Daughters of Egalia” by Gerd Brantenberg that uses the instrument of satire to reverse the roles and the language of males and females.

Synopsis from the publisher: In the land of Egalia, the rules of society are different. Here, it is the wim who wield the power, control the government and the economy… while the menwim stay at home, minding the children and curling their beard bows. Everyone knows that menwim are inferior to wim–it’s the way of nature.

But something is stirring in Egalia. The menwim are organizing to challenge the social structure and are calling themselves masculinists. They are demanding some answers to outrageous questions: Why must menwim grow up to be housebounds? Why should wim be the ones who can run off to sea and hold jobs, while the menwim must stay at home with no say in things at all? Why must menwim wear pehoes when wim get to wear what they want? And why is it that menwim should wish for nothing more than fatherhood-protection with a strong wom? Who says that a manwom is nothing without his protective wom? Menwim have rights too!

The masculist movement has Egalia in an uproar. When will all this menwim’s lib nonsense stop? Where will all these ridiculous notions lead?

Filed under: Linguistics , Gerd Brantenberg, Giulio Lepschy, Lingua e sessismo, linguistic sexism in the Italian language, Recommendations for a non sexist use of the Italian language, Sabatini, The Daughters of Egalia

The Complete Plain Words: simple versus complex

Golden rule: Simple is better than complex.

If you have an interesting message to deliver there is no need to make it sound any more complex than it actually is.

Why do so many writers prefer pudder to simplicity? Officials are far from being the only offenders. It seems to be a morbid condition contracted in early manhood. Children show no signs of it. Here, for example, is the response of a child of ten to an invitation to write an essay on a bird and a beast:

«The bird that I am going to write about is the owl. The owl cannot see at all by day and at night is as blind as a bat. I do not know much about the owl, so I will go on to the beast which I am going to choose. It is the cow. The cow is a mammal. It has six sides—right, left, an upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with, and the mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realised, but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smell; one can smell it far away. This is the reason for the fresh air in the country. The man cow is called an ox. It is not a mammal. The cow does not eat much, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry it moos, and when it says nothing it is because its inside is all full up with grass.»

The writer had something to say and said it as clearly as he could, and so has unconsciously achieved style. But why do we write, when we are ten, “so that the mouth can be somewhere” and perhaps when we are thirty “in order to ensure that the mouth may be appropriately positioned environmentally”? [From "The Complete Plain Words", Sir Ernest Gowers]

For some strange reason this passage reminds me of “The Catcher in the Rye”. What an interesting remark: “if you have something to say, style is achieved unconsciously“.

Filed under: Linguistics , General, Gowers, The Complete Plain Words

The Complete Plain Words: wordiness

Golden rule: less is better than more.

Here are two versions of a letter sent in reply to a telephone line request. The first version is the original, the second is the one revised by Sir Ernest Gowers.

Version A. I regret however that (1) the Survey Officer who is responsible for the preliminary investigation as to the technical possibility of installing a telephone at the address quoted by the applicant has reported that (2) owing to a shortage of spare wires to the underground cable (a pair of wires leading from the point near your house right back to the local exchange and thus a pair of wires essential for the provision of telephone service for you) is lacking and that therefore (3) it is a technical impossibility to install a telephone for you.

Version B. I am sorry to tell you that (1) we have found (2) that there is no spare pair of wires on the cable that we would have used to connect your house with the exchange. I regret therefore that (3) it is impossible to install a telephone for you. [From "The Complete Plain Words", Sir Ernest Gowers]

At first glance, it may appear that no one in his mind would ever express himself as in Version A, except perhaps the government officials to whom Gowers’ book was addressed back in 1954.

However, Version A is not as far-fetched as it may seem. It is very close to the way in which many native Italians speak and write, notably politicians, poor lecturers, and would-be professors.

Let us have a look at how the two versions differ.

1. Version B (1) has replaced the “Survey Officer”  with a more generic “we have found”. This is correct, as it is absolutely irrelevant for the person requesting the telephone line to know who is actually in charge of carrying out the investigation.
2. It has also removed a piece of information that is most certainly already present in the letter’s subject line and thus is redundant: “as to the technical possibility of installing a telephone at the address quoted by the applicant”.
3. Furthermore, Version B has replaced the tedious explanation in (2) with a more succinct one that does away with the cumbersome brackets. Once again, the abridged version is much clearer.
4. In (3) “technical impossibility” was replaced with “it is impossible to”. We can only speculate on why they used “technical impossibility” in the first place, maybe to suggest that they *did* put some effort in trying to get the job done but that for (technical) reasons beyond their control they were unable to.

The example above is especially instructive for a simultaneous interpreter since it elaborates on the apparently trivial ability of “taking away” that proves invaluable in keeping up with a fast paced speaker while producing coherent, accurate and meaningful sentences.

Here is just one other example, a classic of interpreting taken from the proceedings of a UN conference (Chernov 1994, 146):

Chairman: “And now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of the Republic of Tanzania”

Translated by the interpreter with: “Tanzania”

This example shows just how important context is in eliminating redundancies:

1. “I” – is implied, since the floor is usually given by the chairman
2. “now” – is implied, since the speech is taking place in that moment
3. “give the floor” – is standard conference terminology
4. “to the distinguished” – is just a formal embellishment
5. “representative” - is implied, since all participants at that meeting were representing their countries
6. “of the republic of” – can be omitted as it applies to all countries, with the exception of perhaps a handful of kingdoms.

Filed under: Linguistics , General, Gowers, The Complete Plain Words

The strange case of the mouse’s balls

In the article below, Umberto Eco writes of an amusing hoax that circulated in Italy some years ago, concerning a humorous (but fake) instruction leaflet on computer pointing devices (mice), that had been allegedly translated with some automated tool. The hoax was reported as genuine by the Italian press, which took it as an example of the pitfalls of machine translation.

(…) «Se il vostro topo ha difficoltà a funzionare correttamente, o funziona a scatti, è possibile che esso abbia bisogno di una palla di ricambio. A causa della delicata natura della procedura di sostituzione delle palle, è sempre consigliabile che essa sia eseguita da personale esperto. Prima di procedere, determinate di che tipo di palle ha bisogno il vostro topo. Per fare ciò basta esaminare la sua parte inferiore. Le palle dei topi americani sono normalmente più grandi e più dure di quelle dei topi d’oltreoceano… La protezione delle palle dei topi d’oltreoceano può essere semplicemente fatta saltare via con un fermaglino, mentre sulla protezione delle palle dei topi americani deve essere prima esercitata una torsione in senso orario o antiorario… Si raccomanda al personale di portare costantemente con sé un paio di palle di riserva, così da garantire sempre la massima soddisfazione ai clienti».

Molto divertente, come si vede, e bene inventata. Salvo che questa istruzione, attribuita alla Ibm, è certamente falsa.

Filed under: Translation , CAT, traduzione assistita

Interpreter Training Resources

Here is a link to an internet site with a wealth of totally free conference interpreting resources. Although it is aimed at students,  it has a wealth of material that is equally useful for teachers and seasoned interpreters. I am particularly fond of the excerpts of some of the works of Daniel Gile, but there are many other interesting items, including detailed exercises for both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting.

Filed under: Interpretation , Interpretation, interpreter, simultaneous, training

When literal is not accurate

Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere fidus interpres, Horace [As a true translator you will take care not to translate word for word]

Dictum non verbum de verbo, sed sensum exprimere de sensu, St. Jerome [Not a word-for-word  translation, but a translation that should express the sense as derived from the general meaning]

This interesting post from a blog on wordpress explains the difference between “word for word” and “dynamic equivalence” and argues that a balanced approach employing both is the most desirable. I will quote some parts of it.

Translation of any language is very much like reading music. Instead of notes, you have letters. Instead of chords, you have words. Instead of phrases, you have clauses. Instead of periods, you have sentences. The parallels go all the way up. In music, there is meaning on each one of these levels.

(…) the best-articulated translation philosophy I have found out there is the preface to the Holman Christian Standard Bible. They opt for the “optimal equivalence,” a philosophy that exhaustively examines the text “at every level (word, phrase, clause, sentence, discourse) in the original language to determine its original meaning and intention.” Their practice is then to use literal whenever possible, but when clarity demands an idiomatic translation, they will go for that, and put the literal translation in the footnote.

Filed under: Translation , equivalence, Translation, word for word