Custom essays on Translator

The translator should possess many qualities which should let him or her reach the adequate equivalence in translation. Translator should possess a perfect knowledge of culture and language of the ST. This becomes a very important factor when we speak about the translation of such deeply symbolic and literary complicated work as the old man and the sea. Rabassa (1984) underlines that translator should possess a wide range of responsibilities. As he states: “For better or worse, he must satisfy many different people: the author (often the easiest), the editor (plenty of trouble), the critic and the reader (like the author, often the easiest). His world is complicated because he is a go between and must keep so many people happy” (Rabassa, 1984, 39). Such an approach gives the translator definite freedom but at the same time puts more responsibility on him.

Both, English and Arabic language have their certain peculiarities and this should be definitely taken into account when making a translation. The main characteristics of English languages include affixation, acronyms, compounding and prioritizing. Peculiar features of Arabic language are parsing, pronouns, annexation and the use of inter-sentence connectors. All these peculiarities of both languages were taken into account when making the translation of the old man and the sea by Hemingway.  Word order is fixed in English language in contrast to Arabian one. This peculiarity can be used while translating from English to Arabic. Arabic is very flexible to word order and it permits different sentence structures. As states Bakir (1980), Arabic is probably the most tolerate language in the world when it comes to word order and sentence structure.  This gives additional opportunities for the translator as he can use the word order to pass the ideas to the readers. These peculiarities where taken into account when translating the old man and the sea from English to Arabian. Translator used flexible sentence structure, peculiar to Arabian language in order to pass the ideas of the author.

Hemingway’s style has definite peculiarities and they should be kept in mind when translating his works. As states Levin, the main distinguishing feature of Hemingway’s style is “his conviction that knowledge is equivalent to experience” (Levin, 1972, 322). Hemingway does not use many adjectives and sophisticated sentence structures. He does not want to impress his readers with his literary style. He rather counts on inner impression and passing his experience to his readers. In some points of his work it seems that he wants to pass his experience to his readers directly, without turning to the help of the words. Such style is hard to pass when translating the text. The interpreter has to put certain effort in order not to add extra coloring and expression to the translation. The main task of translator here becomes to preserve the style of Hemingway and to give the readers and opportunity to obtain their own experience when reading the story. Translator should do his or her best in order to find adequate means to use Hemingway’s stylistic devices in the TL. The use of repetition is one of distinguishing features of the story. The author uses the repetition with definite purpose. As states Bonynge, he uses repetition in order to “convey action clearly to the reader and to create the impression that it is happening in the present” (Bonynge, 1977, 12). These stylistic peculiarities were taken into account when translating this short story to the TL. The use of special terms in another important peculiarity of translation of the old man and the sea. The text contains a lot of terms which refer to deep-sea fishing. Translator should definitely give good translation of these terms since all they serve to pass the author’s idea to the readers. In the translator of the old man and the sea took into account peculiarities of special terms and the Arabian variant is distinguished by the good choice of special terms.

This essay has discussed the several theories and approaches which have been introduced to solve translation difficulties and enhance literary translation. In this essay, the translator faced serious difficulties in the translation of the old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway from the second language to the native language of the translator. Given that this work involved different and complicated literature features, when the translator evaluated the translation. He/she found different errors. That is, translators face different types of problems and difficulties in the literature translation. However, despite all possible difficulties in the process of translation, translators should take necessary procedures which focuses on the essence of messages and makes everything possible to pass the information as close to the original text, as possible.  It is not even enough sometimes to be faithful or sincere to the translation process to produce accurate and high standards translation because there are always types of metaphors and figurative speech which do not have equivalent in the source language.

List of references

Bakir, M.j. (1980) Aspect of Clause Structure in Arabic. Unpublished Phd Thesis,IndianUniversity.

Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words: “A Coursebook on Translation”,London: Taylor and Francis Limited.

Boase-Beier, J and Holman, M. (1999). The Practices of Literary Translation: Constraints and Creativity.Manchester:St Jerome.

Bonynge, Fiona, (1977), Brodies Notes. Pan Books.

Cary and Jumpelt. (1963). Quality in Translation, Pergamon Press,Oxford.

Catford, J C, (1965). A Linguistic Theory of Translation,Oxford

University Press,London.

Eco, U. (2003). Mouse or Rat? – Translation as Negotiation. London: Weidenfelt & Nicholson.

Landers, C. (2001). Literary Translation: A Practical Guide. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Leven, Harry, (1972). “From Obsrvations on the Style of Ernest Hemingway”, in Essays in Stylistic Analysis, Bab, H., ed.

Rabassa, G., (1984).  The Silk Purse Business: A Translator’s Conflicting Responsibilities, in Frawley, W. ed. Translation, Literary, Linguistic, and Philosophical Perspectives.

Sanger, K. (2000) The Language of Drama.London: Routledge.

Venuti, L. (1995). The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation.New York: Routledge

Venuti, L. (1998) The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference.London: Routledge.

Venuti, L. (ed) (2004) The Translation Studies Reader. Second edition.London: Routledge.

Weissbort, D (ed) (1989) Translating Poetry: The Double Labyrinth. London: