Indirectness in literary translation: Methodological possibilities

ABSTRACT

Translation scholars have recently become interested in indirectness, a productive concept that stresses hidden dynamics in the process of translation, rendering visible the hierarchies between literatures and the complexities of literary translation. Since the publication of Toury’s seminal chapter in 1988, researchers working in various linguistic combinations and historical contexts have paid attention to indirect translation. However, there have been few attempts to reflect how it can be studied and documented. Based on both a review of previous research and the author’s study of twentieth-century Chinese literature translations in Spain, this article offers a systematic discussion of the different contributing sources (e.g. bibliographic databases and catalogues; paratexts; book reviews; sources about translators; and sources about contexts and translations) and methods (e.g. translation comparisons and interviews). The strengths and limitations of such sources and methods are assessed, with examples drawn from case studies to illustrate each category. This article also discusses methodological issues and offers valuable guidelines for research design.

KEYWORDS:

• Indirectness
• indirect translation
• literary translation
• translation history
• methodology

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Carles Prado-Fonts, Alberto Fuertes, the two anonymous referees and the editors of this special issue for their helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Maialen Marin-Lacarta is research assistant professor in the translation programme at Hong Kong Baptist University, teaching Chinese literature and translation. She holds a PhD in Chinese studies and in translation and intercultural studies from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and is interested in the complex position of Chinese and Sinophone literatures in the global literary system. Marin-Lacarta is currently the principal investigator of the project “Digital Translations in the Making: Hong Kong Contemporary Fiction in Spanish”. Research areas include literary translation, modern and contemporary Chinese literature, literary reception, indirect translation, translation history and digital publishing. She is also a practising literary translator and, among other authors, has published Mo Yan’s work into Basque and Shen Congwen’s fiction into Spanish.

ORCID

Maialen Marin-Lacarta http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8444-217X

Notes

1. It is worth mentioning other initiatives led by comparatists that give visibility to the complexities of translation, such as the four-volume Histoire des traductions en langues française, edited by Yves Chevrel and Jean-Yves Masson and published by Verdier.

2. For more on the terminology and meanings related to ITr, see studies by Ringmar (2007, 2–3), Marin-Lacarta (2012a, 79–88) and Pięta (2014, 17–18). This article uses the abbreviations ITr, ST, MT, TT, ML and DTr as previously used by Ringmar (2007) and Pięta (2012).

3. Although other authors expand the meaning of paratexts (and, more precisely, epitexts) to book reviews and translator biographies (see, for example, Gil-Bardají, Orero, and Rovira-Esteva 2012), Genette (1987, 14) restricts the term paratext to those elements written by the author or one of his associates, such as the editor. Following Genette, reviews and translators’ biographies are not considered paratexts in this article.

4. György Radó (1975, 51), one of the main promoters in the 1960s of writing a universal history of translation, states: “while English, French, Russian or German poetry has usually been translated directly into Dutch, Swedish, Polish or Hungarian, first-rate English, French, Russian or German poet-translators have rarely adapted poetry directly from these languages. Hence the necessity for indirect translation, a necessary evil” (my emphasis).

5. See also a study by Perdu Honeyman (2005), who lists the various consequences of ITr in the case of the Spanish translation of El Kitáb-i-Aqdas through the English version.

6. I borrow the adjective “probabilistic” to describe the task of finding MTs from Toury (1995, 134), who also highlights its problematic nature.

7. For more on reasons behind ITr, see studies by Ringmar (2007, 2012) and Pięta (2014).