Alles sicher!
- Windscale:
britisches AKW, heute Sellafield, brannte 1957. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
Don Juan on 2022-09-03
| 1. | komet |
| 2. | Das Kabel |
| 3. | Corona 06: Tränen des Vaterlandes |
BlueBird
Fri, 25/02/2022 - 20:33
Poetic tag in LT by definition brings distortion of meaning and possible infidelity to the mind.I try to avoid it the best I can. I usually put footnotes when I feel I might be deviating from literal. The translation is based on the word-by-word translations I received from German, thanks to [@Verula], the poet, who also reviewed the previous English translation.
BlueBird
Fri, 25/02/2022 - 23:03
To me, and I understand to some major theoretician like Eugene Nida, translation is all about 'REPRODUCING' the EQUIVALENT (not necessarily the same) source user's experience for the destination language user. Anything justified within the destination language that helps that is the right thing to do. Anything that harms that is wrong.
In literature (and songs), it is both form and content (referential meaning, connotation, style (literary devices, imagery, ideas, meter, rhyming, etc ), register, etc) that creates the experience. The importance of each item depends on its weight in creating the experience. While trade-off usually required, anything that distorts the experience (distorting the real meaning , etc) should be considered mistranslation, unless maybe in cases where the cost really serves another item(s) of greater value. Finding the correct trade-off could be a very delicate thing, requiring enough knowledge of translation theory and practice and literature.
St. Sol
Fri, 25/02/2022 - 23:22
Poetic (P) tag was always supposed to mean "poetic license" was used in a translation. It has nothing to do with poetic qualities of the translation. The reason why the site developers chose to drop "license" from the definition and keep confusing LT users for 3+ years escapes me. The reason to "mistranslate" the source in some instances and use P tag is usually a desire to write E, R, or S translations. There is no excuse for doing it in literal translations.
BlueBird
Fri, 25/02/2022 - 23:57
Thanks for the clarification. However, The 'poetic license' as the name implies, seems to be the poet's right who owns the poem, not the translators', who are just supposed to reproduce the equivalent experience in the second language. Also, whatever the name is, the definition in LT, seems a blank check to me.
A simple better rule, without the probably bogus naming, is just to use footnotes when there is deviation of the meaning (or if this is too many of them just use author's comments). I think the correct name to use with the current definition is more or less, 'free-style translation' or something like that.
BlueBird
Sat, 26/02/2022 - 01:16
There is another major issue. Assume someone translates "The Brothers Karamazov" but changes many passages and meanings to his liking. Someone who reads that translation would have a distorted vision, very much different from a native Russain reading the same book. It also applies to the style and other things, a translator not versed in literature translation, might give a tasteless translation, that might be totally a literally accurate translation. It would be "The Brothers Karamazov" according to that particular translator, not Dostoevsky.
St. Sol
Sat, 26/02/2022 - 02:55
I agree that using poetic license in translations of prosaic works should be avoided in most cases. Translations of poetic pieces, including song lyrics, usually have to use poetic license out of necessity, if they attempt to preserve the poetic form of the original.
BlueBird
Sun, 27/02/2022 - 12:48
1- Artistic (/creative) licence is about bending the rules or ignoring them. Superman flies and animals talk in animations. However, if a painter uses Mona Lisa's face in a tennis commercial ad by putting a ball next to it, that picture is not Mona Lisa, and the creator is not da Vinci. Someone who is reading a Shakespeare's poem, rightfully believes the poem belongs to Shakespeare, not the translator.
Poetic licence, historical licence, dramatic licence, narrative licence, etc are contextually-specific derivative terms. Poetic licence applies to creating your own poetry. Translators 'reproduce' poetry. They do not 'create' them.
2- A large part of translation studies is ways to 'reproduce' (equivalent, not necessarily the same) user experience (form, content, feelings, ..). Tools like function equivalence are proposed for that. Within destination language's limits, other tools, e.g. relocation to create rhyming, can be used.
3- Poetic tag seems misleading in name and a mix-up to me, basically a free pass. Maybe it would be better to replace it, in name and meaning, with one or more tag(s).I might put that in a suggestion topic after giving it a more thorough consideration.
Thank you [@St. Sol], for the thought-provoking discussion.
BlueBird
Sat, 26/02/2022 - 00:15
EDIT: Translation term and concepts can be very different from language (writing) one. Generally, the opposite of 'literal translation" (word-for-word, formal equivalence) is functional equivalence (sense-for-sense) and there are many other approaches. Both approaches provide "equivalence', which is definitely not a free-pass. Literal translation almost invariably provide poor results for literature. However, functional approach is certainly not 'poetic licence'.
I really doubt that poetic licence can be a usable and meaningful term in translation.
Geborgenheit
Fri, 25/02/2022 - 21:18
For the second last line I would still suggest: "What else is safe?" Also "It doesn’t even worth resaying" is not correct; you need to replace "doesn't" with "isn't". I also thought of "Only the optimist is saying" for the last line. It isn't a literal translation, but "I need an optimist for saying" does not sound natural at all in English. One more thing, it is "on the seabed", not "in the seabed". Otherwise the translation is great.
BlueBird
Fri, 25/02/2022 - 22:11
>>the second last line I would still suggest: "What else is safe?"
[@verula] was the meaning in your literal translation 'safe' or 'certain'? It seemed 'certain' to me. Please advise.
>>"I need an optimist for saying" does not sound natural at all in English
I know that it should be, "It takes an optimist to say ...". However, couldn't come up with something better to rhyme, and the meaning is understood. Might think of something better later.
Typos fixed.
EDIT: Changed "I need an optimist for saying" to "I only trust an optimist's saying", rhyming and very close to the original to me. In my typo's defence, "laying" rhymed much better. What a pity! :)
©️ Vera Jahnke
…oder andere -isten, wie der Maoist, Masochist etc. 😄