Application of Lefevere s Seven Strategies, in English Translations of Sohrab Sepehri s Poems

Transcription

1 Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch Faculty of Foreign Languages English Department A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Translation Studies Application of Lefevere s Seven Strategies, in English Translations of Sohrab Sepehri s Poems Advisor Dr. Kolahi Reader Dr. Khanmohammad By Mahgol Emamian Shiraz

2 In the Name of God the Compassionate the Merciful

3 I To My Dear Parents and My Beloved Husband Whose Boundless Love and Support are the Assets to My Achievements

4 II Acknowledgements Praise to Allah who assisted me to fulfill the assignment in the most turbulent period of my life. I would like to thank the people who supported me with accomplishing the present research and supported me in every step of doing this job. First of all, my sincere thanks goes to my dear advisor Dr. Kolahi, whose ceaseless encouragement and close supervision were the assets upon which this study was developed to reach its status. Secondly, I would like to appreciate my dear reader Dr. Khanmohammad whose advantageous guidance and inspiring ideas enhanced the quality of my thesis. My special thanks also goes to dear external reader who gently took the responsibility of reading my thesis. I must express my sincere thanks to Dr. Yarandi without the help of whom this research could not be done since he kindly took the bother of sending Lefevere s (1975) book which was not available in Iran. Last but not least I would like to thank my wonderful parents and my beloved husband who have always supported me not only with this thesis but also with all the ups and downs of my life. To each and every one of the above, I extended my deepest appreciation. My supervisors have done every effort to improve the quality of this research. I take the blame for all the uncorrected mistakes in spelling and grammatical structures.

5 III Table of Contents Dedication...I Acknowledgments..II Table of Contents...III List of Tables..... VI List of Figures... VII Abstract....VIII 1. CHAPTER I: Background and Purpose Introduction Statement of the Problem Research Question Definition of the Key Terms Poetry Translation Strategies Blank/Free Verse Limitation and Delimitation Significance of the Study CHAPTER II: Review of the Related Literature Introduction Features of Literary Texts Poetry Form and Meaning Form of Poetry Denotation and Connotation Meter Rhythm Rhyme.. 21

6 IV Versification Meaning of Poetry (Figurative Language of Poetry) Metaphor Imagery Prosody Personification Simile Metonymy Irony Poetry Translation: Translatability and Untranslatability Problems in Translating Poetry Finding Equivalence Metaphorical Expressions Unit of Translation Culture Bound Items in Poetry Translation Domestication and Foreignization Strategies for Poetry Translation Lefevere s Seven Strategies for Poetry Translation Sohrab Sepehri s Life Features of Sohrab s Poems English Translations of Sohrab Sepehri s Poems Recent Studies on Poetry Translation CHAPTER III: Methodology Introduction Corpus Theoretical Framework Procedure Unit of Analysis..65

7 V 3.6. Design CHAPTER IV: Results and Discussion Introduction Results Discussion CHAPTER V: Conclusion, Implications and Suggestions for Further Research Conclusion Pedagogical Implications Suggestions for Further Research..85 References...87 Appendix...96

8 VI List of tables Table 3.1. Corpus of the Study 58 Table 4.1. Frequency Count of Emami's pplication of Lefevere s Strategies 69 Table 4.2. Frequency Count of Zahedi s Application Lefevere s Strategies.72 Table 4.3. Frequency Count of Salami and Zahedi s Application of the Lefevere s Strategies... 74

9 VII List of figures Figure 4.1. The Frequency Count of Emami s Translation 71 Figure 4.2. The Frequency Count of Zahedi s Translation 73 Figure 4.3. The Frequency Count of Salami & Zahedi s Translation 75 Figure 4.4. Final Results.76

10 VIII Abstract Amid translation subjects, poetry translation is the most controversial issue caused by the existing conflict between form and content and also high figurative language of poetry. Poetry interested translator needs more effort and creativity to translate the structures and the figurative language involved in poetry (Boase Beier, 2009). The main aim of the present study is to apply Lefevere s seven proposed strategies for poetry translation on the English translations of poems written by Sohrab Sepehri, a contemporary Persian poet and the final purpose is to find out which strategy is the most frequently used one. The corpus of the study contains 34 poems which are selected from three books translated by three translators. After the process of data analysis and calculating the frequency of each strategy, the researcher arrived at the conclusion that the second strategy named literal translation was the most frequently applied strategy (63%) by the three different translators. The results confirm that all the three translators have translated the poems as word for word rendering.

11 CAHPTER I Background and Purpose

12 Introduction In the process of translation two languages are involved: source and target language. The translator tries his/her best to find the best equivalents for each word, phrase and sentence in the target language. Different scholars define translation from different perspectives. Munday (2001) proposes that in the translation process the translator changes an original written message into original verbal language and then transfers the original verbal version into a different verbal language. Hence, in Munday s view in the act of translation written and verbal languages of both source and target languages are of great importance. Bell (1993) looks at translation only as a replacement of a text in one language by finding an equivalent text in another language. Toury (1978) holds the view that translation is a kind of activity which inevitably involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions whereby an original text is rewritten by the translator into a different language (cited in Lefevere, 1992). Accordingly, Toury's definition is a culturally-oriented one focusing on the socio-cultural patterns of both source and target languages. It is necessary to pay close attention to the socio-cultural patterns especially in the act of literary translation. Concerning the translation process, a very general view is that in translation there are two processes involved: First, the translator analyzes the source language form in order to find out the meaning. Second the

13 3 translator produces, or chooses proper target language form for this meaning (Mollanazar, 2005). Thus, in two above mentioned processes both form and content (meaning) are of great importance. In the act of translating literary texts specially poetry there is a great tension between form and content and the act of literary translation is indeed a challenging task in which a poetry translator s main concern is whether to prefer the form over the content or vice versa. Among different scholars who have some words on poetry translation (see section 2.4.), the most famous scholar is Jakobson (1959), who believes that Poetry by definition is untranslatable and it requires creative transposition. (cited in venuti, 2000, p.118). But some other scholars (more information can be found in section 2.4.) argue that all meanings and concepts are translatable and what is said in one language can be conveyed in another language. Many researches are designed to investigate the problems a translator may face during the task of literary, especially, poetry translation. The main focus of the present research was to investigate the most frequently applied strategies in English translations of Sohrab Sepehri s poems (blank verse) according to Lefevere s (1975) seven proposed strategies for poetry translation Statement of the Problem

14 4 According to Manafi (2003, p.28), the seminal problems in the process of poetry translation are linguistic constraints, cultural barriers, literary devices and poetic features. Based on Manafi (2003) since poetry has its own specific figurative features such as rhyme, rhythm and meter, understanding the meaning of a poem and its poetic content is a sophisticated job. The factors like style and figurative traits which cause the poems difficult to understand make them difficult to translate as well. In fact, figurative features make the process of poetry translation a demanding task. Most of the translators face great difficulty in reproducing the original style of the poems in their translations. They should select the best equivalent which contains both contended and figurative meaning. Generally speaking poetry translation is a challenging task because of the special nature of poetry, different styles of poets and difficulties in understanding poetry. During the creative process of poetry translation, the translator may find some words which are untranslatable due to the existing cultural and linguistic differences among language systems. Thus, a number of poetry translations are novel interpretations in which the creativity of the translators plays a crucial role. Consequently, there are many different methods and strategies employed in poetry translation proposed by different scholars.

15 5 The present study deals with Sohrab Sepehri s poems which are in the form of blank (free) verse. This type of poetry is free of metrical limitations and it is a flexible type of poetry which has no special meter or rhythm. Because of the physical features of blank verse translators find it easy to translate but in fact it causes serious difficulties for the translators in the process of translation. Emami (2003/1382) is one of the translators who believes that Sohrab s poems seem to be easy to translate. Emami (2003/1382) cites that the straightforwardness of Sohrab s language is no doubt one reason for the translation s success. The poems of Sohrab easily move from one language to another, unlike those poems that owe most of their demand to a great amount of artifact and musicality in the original. So, in Emami s word the words and language of Sohrab s poems are simple and universal and they can be expressed in different languages. However, it should be noted that because of Sohrab s unique usage of imagination and other figurative styles (more information n be found in section and the subsections), his poetry is not even easy to understand and for sure it is difficult to be translated. The researcher found some translations of Sohrab s poems that are too personalized and most of the translators have chosen word for word rendering. They have not paid enough attention to the abstract mood of Sohrab s poems. They also couldn t transfer Sohrab s imaginative language. The main problem that caused the current research to be initiated was the translator s lack of

16 6 enough attention to Sohrab s exclusive style, and tone as well as his imaginative language. So, the researcher settled on her study to examine English translations of Sohrab s poems according to the Lefevere s (1975) seven suggested strategies for poetry translation. She has attempted to find that to what extent the English translations of Sohrab s poems accord with Lefevere s strategies and which strategies are more frequently used by the translators Research Question The present study was designed to answer the following research question: Q: What are the most frequently applied strategy(s) in English translations of Sohrab Sepehri s poems, concerning Lefevere s seven strategies for poetry translation? 1.4. Definition of the Key Terms In this section the researcher will provide readers with definitions of the key terms used in the present study Poetry translation strategies In translation studies, there are different theories and methods for poetry translation from different points of view. As an instance, Jones (1989) discusses four different levels or types of translation of poetry: Literal translation, Approximation, Adaptation and Imitation.

17 7 Another scholar is Holmes (1988, p.25), who suggests four other different strategies to translate the verse form: Mimetic, Analogical, Organic and Deviant/extraneous. In the present research poetry translation is confined to Lefevere s (1975) proposed strategies. He proposes seven strategies for poetry translation as follows: Phonemic translation, Literal translation, Metrical translation, Poetry into prose translation, Rhymed Translation, Blank/free verse translation, Interpretation (see section 2.7) Blank/free Verse Blank/free verse is a type of poetry which has special features. As Abrams (1993, p.24) notes, blank verse is five-stress iambic verse which is unrhymed hence the term "blank." Of all English metrical forms it is closest to the natural rhythms of English speech, and at the same time flexible and adaptive to diverse levels of discourse; as a result it has been more frequently and variously used than any other type of versification. Divisions in blank verse poems, used to set off a sustained passage, are called verse paragraphs (Abrams, 1993). In the ongoing research poetry is detained to blank/free verse especially Sohrab Sepehri s blank verse which is unrhymed, meter free and imaginative poetry Limitations and Delimitations

18 8 Most of the Sohrab Sepehri s poems are translated into English by four famous translators named: Karim Emami, Mehdi Afshar, Abbas Zahedi and Ismail Salami. But they have not translated all of his poems. One of the limitations of this study was that there were not various published English translations of Sohrab s poems available in Iran and there were only four at hand English translations of his poems. However, some other people who were interested in poetry translation have translated Sohrab s poems into English and they have put them in their weblogs. But they are not published and the researcher was not interested in such unpublished works. She preferred to select the more well known and published translations. As a delimitation of this study the researcher selected Emami s (2003/1382) translation named The Lover is Always Alone, Salami s and Zahedi s (2003/1382) Translation The Water s Footfall and Zahedi s (2008/1387) translation entitled The Traveler as the corpus of her study. The reason behind eliminating Afshar s (2009/1388) translation was that he had only translated some selected phrases or sentences of Sohrabs poems Significance of the study Since poetry translation is a challenging task, translators may face some problems in finding the proper equivalence and some parts may remain untranslated. The art of the poetry translator is to reduce these probable

19 9 untranslatable concepts. So, one of the main factors for such a translator is to find a preferred translation method or strategy and also to find the reason behind this preference. The results of the present research may help poetry translators to have background knowledge about different practical strategies employed in poetry translation. Since Sohrab s poems are in the form of blank/free verse, translators will be persuaded to follow a specific model or strategy in translating this specific form. Besides, the findings of the current study may assist translation studies scholars, investigators, researchers and others who are interested in poetry translation to have some new notions about the methods of poetry translation.

20 CHAPTER II Review of the Related Literature