CASE STUDY: The Sisters

In the case of The Sisters, I differentiated between the text's serial plane and its structural plane. An analysis of the former stems from the "linguistic artifact" and results in a description of the "literary artifact." A study of the structural plane is influenced by—and at the same time influences—the translator's socio-cultural map of the source text.

Translators read in order to reproduce what they have understood. Their reading is not only, therefore, aiming at the overall meaning of the story; it is also an analysis of vocabulary and grammar.
 

A. Vocabulary: legal terms, South African words, key terms and phrases

As far as vocabulary is concerned, The Sisters stands out because of its legal terms ("water cases," to "bond" a propriety...) and especially its South African words (nouns: "stoep," "platkops" and verbs: "inspanned"). The legal terms posed no problems for the translation, but they had to be included in the Spanish translation. The South African words, however, presented me with a twofold option: leaving the words as they appear in the English text or replacing them with Spanish equivalents. My decision was clear from the beginning. In the case of nouns, which name specific realities of the South African way of life, I was to keep them but italicized, so that the target-language reader notices that these terms are culturally bound. In the case of verbs, the use of which only highlights the peculiarities of South African English, I was to disregard them altogether. On the one hand, I felt it was impossible to re-create a South African dialect in Spanish. On the other, I thought it would be deceptive to use a specific Spanish dialect. So I decided for the standardization of the language.

Idioms were also interesting from the translation point of view. Expressions such as: "and when my father's back was up against the wall" had more than one translation:

The former keeps the reference to the wall but the latter creates a new image—that of the father almost drowning in water—which I thought was appropriate in this case because of the plot of the story. This idiom is a premonitory metaphor of what happens later in the story. Indeed it is the greediness for water that brings tragedy to Burgert de Jager's family.

A short story, for its part, always has key terms and sentences that translators must reproduce efficiently. In The Sisters, many of these terms gain their importance because of their constant repetition. Thus, "mad," "save" and "sinful."

I translated "mad" (when it refers to Jan Redlinghuis) as "es capaz de todo tipo de locuras." This expression sounded natural in Spanish and it could be repeated later on, in the same way and places the English uses "mad."

"Save" was not to be translated as "salvar," which did not mean much in Spanish, but "librar de este mal." Although the Spanish sentence was longer that the English "save," I was only making more explicit the original implicit meaning while conveying the religious aura that envelopes the verb "save."

I decided to change "sinful" totally. "Pecador" was definitely not appropriate for a young girl and "en pecado" sounded too serious. "Malo" lost some of the religious connotations of "sinful" but was indeed more natural for Sukey de Jager to use. I chose the latter option.

There were also key sentences I had to make sure I was translating correctly. Some gain their importance due to their metaphorical meaning: "At sun-down Marta died." Others occupy a relevant place in the text—normally at the end of a paragraph: "And in bitterness and sorrow my mother died." Finally, others determine the tone of the story and must be translated carefully: "Do now as it seems right to you."

The translation of "At sun-down Marta died" was to change the original slightly. I did not write "Marta murió al atardecer" but "Marta murió con el atardecer," which creates a more poetical image by linking Marta's tragedy with the "death" of the day.

The inversion of the adverbial phrase in "and in bitterness and sorrow my mother died" and its definite position at the end of the paragraph confer this sentence a powerful semantic charge. The Spanish was also to invert the order of the sentence but it needed something else to convey additional emphasis. The otherwise insignificant adverb "así" fulfils this purpose.

Finally, the sentence, "Do now as it seems right to you," marks the tone of the story, which is not that of bitterness and revenge but rather that of resignation and uncertainty: nothing can be judged, for who are we to judge, anyway? The translator's understanding of this key sentence will indeed determine not just its rendering into Spanish but also the whole story. I could, for instance, have said: "Haz lo que te de la gana." Or, being less derogatory, "haz lo que te plazca." With these translations I would have given my target-language readers a more belligerent version of the story (which I could have done if my initial purpose had been to emphasize the radical feminist stance). On the contrary, I rendered it: "Haga lo que considere oportuno," using a more respectful, though disenchanted, answer.
 

B. Grammar

Differences in grammar are also to be taken into account while reading, because they will have to be reproduced at a later stage. Translators should have what could be called a "reflex mechanism" by which they stop and take notice when they come across certain grammatical structures. However, this reflex mechanism can only be built up gradually, by having a thorough knowledge of the morphology and syntax of both the source and the target language.

1) Morphology: pronouns, verbs, nouns and adjectives

Morphologically speaking, this story renders evident differences within three categories of words: pronouns, verbs and nouns.

Pronouns seem to form a minor linguistic category because they only have a deictic meaning rather than a full semantic meaning. However, they are of great importance to translators, who will not succeed in their task if they do not adapt the referential system of their target text. There are two clear examples of this in The Sisters: demonstrative pronouns and possessive pronouns.

Sentences like: "And all this time Marta spoke no word against Jan Redlinghuis" have to be slightly modified in Spanish:

Spanish, on the other hand, conveys possessive connotations in a different way than English. Thus,

However, in this particular story I have maintained many of the possessive pronouns of the original in order to convey the atmosphere of greediness that permeates the story. This greediness is more evident in Spanish, where it is uncommon to find so many possessive forms:

English verbs, in the past tense, normally present translators with the problem of selecting between the Spanish imperfect tense and the simple past. By choosing the latter in my translation of The Sisters, I intended to emphasize its definite ending rather than to make it more vivid with the use of the imperfect tense:

There are two other problems as far as verbs are concerned. First, there are moments when Pauline Smith uses two verbs with similar, although not identical, meanings. Translators should also convey a similar pair in their target languages:

Second, Spanish translators have to decide the way the characters address each other. It is particularly difficult to determine how the sisters address their father. Are they to use a familiar tone with the father or a rather more formal one? In other words, will the sisters use the tu-form or the usted-form?

Linguistic, contextual and socio-cultural evidence helped me decide on this point. Linguistically, when Marta talks to her sister about their father she says:

The use of the possessive pronoun—"my father," instead of "our father" or even "dad"—paradoxically distances Marta from her father, and the readers receive the impression that Marta is being rather formal.

The context and the socio-cultural image the story portrays gives the same impression. Even at the risk of being accused of analyzing the story from a Western European point of view—which, in any case, is the only point of view from which I could analyze this or any other story—I would say that a father who sells his daughter to "a sinful" man must have a formal and cold relationship with her. I am well aware that my discourse at this point is not totally scientific. Moreover, it may contradict the impression of impotence and resignation (who are we to judge others?) that I want to convey. By choosing, as I did, the formal address, I may be seen as judging the father's behavior. Nothing could be further from my intention. In making this choice I am relying on what seems intuitively logical to me.

The nouns and adjectives also posed the problem of the way characters addressed each other. Marta says: "Sukey, my darling." I could have translated this sentence: "Sukey, querida," however, it seemed highly unnatural to me. Only in the dubbed versions of American films would we hear someone addressing her sister as: "Sukey, querida."

Thus, I tried to find another sentence which, at least, did not carry this cinematographic load. I had to choose between "princesita" and "hermanita." The former seemed semantically richer and more poetic.

The way in which I was to translate: "Old Jan Redlinghuis" also posed difficulties. In Spanish it is not very normal to refer to anyone as "el viejo...." However, I not only found it necessary to do so (to express the fact that Jan Redlinghuis was much older than Marta), but I also found it allowable as Jan Redlinghuis's nickname.

Some English nouns, for their part, do not have a grammatical gender. Translators are also the ones who decide on this matter. For instance: "Marta was the eldest of my father's children."

Here I had to choose between

Both were possible but I decided to use the former because, while reading the story the reader is only aware of two daughters.

2) Syntax: adverbs, conjunctions, the passive voice and emphasis

The syntactical differences between The Sisters and its translation into Spanish are of four types: adverbs, conjunctions, passive voice and emphasis.

It is not unusual for English adverbs to be translated into Spanish as prepositional phrases or even periphrastic constructions:

As far as conjunctions are concerned, a perfect parallelism between English and Spanish does not exist. Sometimes an English negative construction becomes, so to speak, positive in Spanish:

In turn, the pure passive voice (verb to be + past participle) is hardly ever used in Spanish. Instead, Spanish offers two possibilities: the active voice or a construction with "se." I normally chose the second option because it kept the impersonal tone of the original:

Finally, the characters in this story very often tend to emphasize the meaning of their utterances. However, Spanish and English resort to different methods in order to do this:

C. Dangers to avoid: ambiguity, cacophony and TL mistakes

After their analysis of the morphological and syntactical characteristics of a text, translators must ensure the high quality of their work by avoiding ambiguity, cacophony and target-language mistakes.

There are two types of ambiguity: one which may be caused by the source text and another which can be caused by the target language.

In the former case, ambiguity should be maintained as long as it enriches the text; otherwise, it should be abandoned. Sometimes the translator simply cannot re-create the double meaning an expression has in the source language and must, somehow, make up for the loss of meaning:

The latter case—when ambiguity is caused by the target language—should be avoided. Sentences like:

"his madness was to cry to all the world to look at the wife that Burgert de Jager has sold to him..." could be rendered as:

The Spanish sentence is ambiguous in so far as "que" could be introducing two types of clause: a relative clause or a noun phrase which functions as a direct object. I looked for another sentence that avoided this unnecessary ambiguity:

Translational cacophony, for its part, occurs when the translator's rendering of the text does not sound good:

Finally, translators should be very aware of the grammatical rules of their own language. At first sight, this might appear to be a lesser problem than it actually is. In the translation of The Sisters I encountered a particularly arduous obstacle that forced me to consult various sources. Spanish speakers tend to mix up direct object pronouns with indirect object pronouns and vice versa. This grammatical confusion leads to various linguistic phenomena which are not accepted by the Spanish Royal Academy of Language (RAE): "laísmo," "loísmo" and "leísmo." I had to be very careful not to incur this mistake. This proved to be difficult, especially when the characters used the formal usted form in their dialogues:

D. The translator's personal choices

Finally, there are times when translators decide on this or that expression or structure with no scientific—linguistic or semantic—reason. Their decision is based on a personal preference. This happened to me when translating The Sisters.

Thus, the target text includes vocabulary terms that have no other explanation but this personal preference, such as "amargura" for "bitterness." And this was also the reason for some of the changes I introduced in the translation: merging of sentences, additions, expansions, and changes of order of the original. On most occasions, it seemed to me that—using a somewhat unprofessional expression—it simply "sounded better" if I altered the source text slightly.

Merging of sentences:

Additions:

Expansions:

Changes of order:

Also due to personal preference, I used phrases that were more idiomatic than those of the original because, in my opinion, they enriched the target text:

Sometimes I resorted to words that were not included in the original and which were apparently unnecessary. However, I entirely agree with Belloc when he says:

In my translation the best example is precisely the last sentence of the story:

Finally, on a few occasions I intentionally chose certain terms to emphasize the feminist message of the text. This again was due to a totally personal preference which could have been avoided:

Globally, The Sisters may be studied as a collage of three styles:

The translator should aim at reproducing these three styles, which form the text and confer it its idiosyncrasy.

CASE STUDY: Feminist-oriented views of Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings is a very interesting story, but less for its linguistic problems—which do exist—than for its cynicism and irony. In my translation, I tried to convey the author's harsh criticism.

To use Barbara Godard's term, Atwood decenters different aspects of the present dominant society (Godard 1980). Her first criticism is against the typical middle-class ideal way of life. For the writer, this ideal is naive and absurd and it hardly ever comes true. Nevertheless, the members of the bourgeoisie seek it desperately, and even when they do not achieve it, they pretend they do, with hobbies they do not really have time to practice.

Atwood's second criticism is directed towards relationships. Perfect couples do not normally exist and even when they do, "eventually they die." So the writer seems to wonder if they are "worthwhile."

Third, Happy Endings also attacks a bourgeois, commercial approach to literature.

However, Atwood's most interesting criticism is about language and especially about traditional women's speech. By and large, her technique is more elaborate than it seems. She writes story A in the typical middle-class feminine language that Robin T. Lakoff describes in her article. Let us analyze her linguistic choices in terms of Lakoff's assumptions.

She corroborates Lakoff's belief that women writers describe the reality that surrounds us more in detail and perhaps pay more attention to "matter-of-fact" things: "worthwhile and remunerative jobs," "live-in help," or a "steady, respectable job." She also introduces topics which can be considered trivial: "He's worried his hair is falling out," "a house they bought before real estate values go up," "real estate values go down," or "they both have hobbies which they find stimulating."

Her style is especially notorious in the lexical stratum, with empty adjectives that nevertheless have very positive meanings, such as "charming house," "wonderful record collection," "much nice," or clichés such as "stimulating and challenging." Similarly, there are several examples of intensifiers: "giant tidal waves," "downright sentimentality," "excessive optimism," "malicious intent."

She partly confirms the use of euphemistic and polite forms: "some top-grade California hybrid." Intentionally, I kept these lexical choices in order to produce an effect similar to that sought by the author. Thus, I translated "some top-grade California hybrid" as "una mezcla de clase superior que había traído de California."

However, story B does not fit the previous style, containing rude expressions like "he fucks her," uttered in a matter-of-fact tone that clashes with the mentality of a traditional middle-class woman; and slang about drugs or sexual relations ("stoned," "keep it up longer"), both topics that constitute taboos for traditional women. "He fucks her" became "se la tira," because it conveys the meaning of the English four-letter word while maintaining its prosaic nature. I translated "stoned" as "colocados"—a very modern slang term which seemed the most appropriate option, although I am aware of the fact that this expression may be outmoded in a few years time. In the translation of "to keep it up longer," I was more explicit than the rather ambiguous English expression. I felt that, in this case, my priority was to convey Atwood's tongue-in-cheek remark and this was best done by using "tienen más experiencia en eso de levantarla."

Although there are no examples of "hedges" as such, we might conclude that the whole story is an example of "hedging" in itself, insofar as it aims at expressing tentative ways of approaching reality.

Finally, concerning the syntactic structure, the readers may appreciate what has been regarded as women's characteristic speech. Cixous coins the term "l'ecriture fémenine" claiming that feminine speech is more passionate than rational, and does not present the traditional division between speech and text (Cixous 1976). It is quite conspicuous here that feminist discourse often has an unclear organization, with few full stops but many coordinate and juxtaposed clauses, which express, in turn, the thoughts as they come to one's mind. The following sentences clearly exemplify this:

I indeed kept this style, which I think is one of the successes of Happy Endings.