Abstract
The article begins with the previously observed fact that there is a shifting middle ground between direct and indirect reports, in order to argue that that middle ground is occupied and complicated by translation. This case is pursued through a look at translations of four example passages: (1) the problem of translating tonality from Aleksis Kivi’s Finnish fiction; (2) the problem of translating argumentative slippage from Aristotle’s Rhetoric; (3) the problem of translating grammatical gender from Friedrich Schleiermacher; and (4) the problem of translating prosodic features from Volter Kilpi’s Finnish fiction. The conclusion is that our sense of the difference between direct and indirect reports is organized “icotically,” through the power of group normativization/plausibilization.
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Notes
- 1.
See also my discussion in Robinson (2017a).
- 2.
My reading of Bakhtin’s table in Robinson (2003: 107) is that Bakhtin expressly presents his first two levels—“direct unmediated discourse” and “objectified discourse”—as “single-voiced discourse,” not because they are that, but because speakers tend to think of them that way. In retrospect I’m not sure that’s the case. I suspect Bakhtin either actually thought that his first two levels really were single-voiced—this was after all an early stage of his thinking on the matter—or else didn’t believe it but presented it that way so as to bring his more conservative readers along slowly. Certainly by Discourse in the Novel (1934–1935/1981) he is clear that all discourse is internally dialogized.
- 3.
For comparison, to show how Svobodová elaborates her IR, let us consider a different passage, first in Kivi’s Finnish original, then in Svobodová’s Czech translation, then in my translation from her Czech, then in my translation from Kivi’s Finnish:
JUHANI. Voi, veikkoseni! luulenpa että haastelisit vähän toisin, jos hieman enemmin olisit katsellut ympärilles tässä maailmassa, jos esimerkiksi olisit käynyt Turun kaupungissa. Sen olen minä tehnyt, koska ajoin sinne härkiä Viertolan kartanosta. Näinpä siellä yhtäkin ihmeekseni, näin kuinka prameus ja komu voi panna pyörään ihmislasten päät. Voi teitä, voi pauhaavata kylää, voi häilyväistä elämää kumminkin! Tuolta jyrisee vaunut, täältä jyrisee vaunut, ja vaunuissa istuu sen vietäviä viiksinaamaisia narreja, istuu tyttöjä kuin posliinivauvoja, tuoksuttaen kauas ympärillensä sakean hajun kalleista öljyistä ja rasvoista. Mutta katsoppas tuonne! Jesta ja varjele! sieltähän nyt hipsuttelee esiin kultahöyhenissä oikein aika vekama mamselli tai röökinä mitä hän lie. Kas hänen kaulaansa! Valkea kuin rieskamaito, poski ruttopunainen, ja silmät palaa hänen päässään kuin päiväpaisteessa kaksi roviotulta, koska häntä vastaan käy oikea kekkale mieheksi, hatussa, kiiltomustassa hännystakissa, ja tirkist... — no vie sinun pirkele itseäskin! — tirkistelee läpi nelikulmaisen lasin, joka välkkyy vekkulin vasemmalla silmällä. Mutta kas nyt... — no sinun seitsemän seppää! — nytpä keksautetaan kummaltakin puolelta, ja kas kun naara nyt oikein rypistää suunsa mansikkasuuksi ja livertelee kuin pääskynen päiväisellä katolla, ja teikari hänen edessänsä viskelee kättänsä ja häntäänsä, heilauttelee hattuansa ja raappaisee jalallansa että kivikatu kipenöitsee, kas sepä vasta leikkiä oli. Voi, te harakat itsiänne! aattelin minä, poika-nalliainen, seistessäni kadun kulmalla, rykelmä tuoreita härjänvuotia olalla, ja suu mareissa katsellen tuota teerenpeliä.
TUOMAS. Herrat ovat narreja.
TIMO. Ja lapsekkaita kuin piimänaamaiset kakarat. Niinpä syövätkin, ryysyt rinnoilla, ja eivätpä—koira vieköön!—osaa lusikkaansakaan nuolla, koska pöydästä nousevat; sen olen nähnyt omilla silmilläni suureksi ihmeekseni.
SIMEONI. Mutta peijata ja nylkeä talonpoikaa, siihen kyllä ovat miehiä. (Kivi 1870/1984: 126–127)
„„Ach, bratříčku,“ řekl Juhani s úsměvem, „„jinak bys mluvil, kdyby ses byl více poohlédl světem, kdybys byl býval na přiklad v městě Turku jako já, když jsem tam kdysi hnal voly z panství Viertola. Tehdy jsem viděl mnoho podivného a poznal jsem, jak přepych a světská marnost mohou lidem zmásti rozum. Tu jede vůz, tam jede vůz, a v nich sedí samí blázni s kníry pod nosem, s nimi jedou dívky jako porculánové loutky a šiří kolem sebe vůni drahých olejů a mastí. Tu zase kráčí manželka nebo kdovíjaká slečinka zlatem ověšená. Jen pohleďte na její krk, je bílý jako mléko, tváře purpurově červené a oči jí září, jako dva ohně, když ji potká pán v klobouku a v čistém černém šosatém kabátě. A což teprve tento hejsek, když na ni pohlíží čtvercovým sklíčkem, jež se mu blyští v levém oku! A pak se oba pitvoři; ona stáhne ústa jako jahodu a švitoří jako vlaštovka na střeše a onen chlapík před ní mávne kloboukem, rozhodí vysoko šosy, pohne nohou, až se dláždění odletují jiskry. Ó, vy straky, pomyslil jsem si, když jsem stál na rohu ulice a hleděl na ně.“
„Velcí páni jsou blázni,“ zabručel Tomáš.
„„Jsou dětinští,“ přitakal Timo. „Při jídle si dávají šatky pod krk - a neumějí, věřte tomu, po jídle ani lžicí pořádně olíznout. To jsem viděl na vlastni oči!“
„„Ale sedlákovi kůži přes hlavu sedřít, v tom jsou mistrní,“ zanaříkal Simeon. (Svobodová 1940: 66–67)
“Oh, brother,” said Juhani with a smile, “you would talk differently if you’d seen more of the world, if for example you’d been in Turku, as I was when I took oxen there from Viertola Estate. I saw many strange things, and saw how the luxury and vanity of worldly people can confuse the mind. Here goes a carriage, there goes a carriage, with a man sitting alone with a crazy mustache under his nose, or girls like porcelain puppets spreading around them the scent of precious oils and ointments. Now there walks a wife or some ordinary slattern festooned with gold. Just look at her neck, it’s white as milk, her face purple, her eyes shining like two fires, when she meets a man in a hat and a plain black coat with tails. And take a gander at this fellow, with a square glass sparkling in his left eye! And then they both twist their faces; she puckers her mouth up like a strawberry and chirps like a swallow on the roof, and that fellow in front of her waves his hat, throws up his tails, moves his feet until the paving gives off sparks. Oh, you magpies, I thought, as I stood on the street corner and stared at them.”
“The great lords are crazy,” growled Tomáš.
“They're childish,” agreed Timo. “While eating they put scarves under their necks– and believe it or not, after eating they don’t know how to lick a spoon. I saw it with my own eyes!”
“But at skinning a peasant they’re masters,” wailed Simeon.
Molanus-Stamperius only writes “asked Aapo”; Svobodová describes how the various brothers said things, Juhani “with a smile,” “Tomáš” (Svobodová’s Czech-marked pronunciation of Tuomas) “growling,” Timo “agreeing,” and—oddly—Simeoni (who becomes Simeon in her Czech) “wailing.” Here is my translation from the Finnish:
JUHANI. Blessed fig ‘s end, brother! methinks you ‘ld talk out of your mouth ‘s other side an you ‘ld of but seed a bit more of this old world, like say an you ‘ld of been to Turku Town, like I have, that time I drove bulls thence from Viertola Manor. I tell you, they ‘ve gone about as far as they can go, down there. I saw with mine own eyne how daubery and ‘dornment can set a man ‘s mazzard a-spin, yes sir. O you fardels and fantasticoes, O you clamouring city! Carriages clattering this way and that with citizens in ‘em wearing big curly moustachios, and girls like Cataian dolls, strowing their scents from them fancy greases and oils they smear all o’er theirselves. But look o’er there! Cheeses and rice! ‘Tis a merry mamzell, or a frisky frakin, or what have you, sashaying ‘long in gold feathers. And behold her throat! White as a pail of fresh milk, aye, and cheeks red as the plague, and her eyne burn in her head like a geminy of bonfires in great morning, soon ‘s she spies a layabout lace curtain of a Count Confect in a shiny black hat and tails, squinying—a pox on him!—squinying thro’ a square glass squinch’t up to his left eye there. And now lo—Siamese sailors seven!—now there ‘s bowing and scraping on both sides, as the brach puckers her lips up like a earthberry and skirls like a swallow singing off somebody ‘s sunlit roof, and the finical fop flutters his fingers and twitches his tail, daffs his hat and strikes sparks on the cobblestones with his chopines. Some sport, eh? You maggot-pies! mutter’d I, a mere boy standing there on the street corner, a load of oxhides o’er my shoulder and a big smile on my face, watching them grouses go at it.
TUOMAS. Cavaleros is chuffs.
TIMO. And childish as a kid with a buttermilk mustache. And they eat with rags round their necks, and—dog take it, I seen it my own self, to my great gloppenment—they wot not e’en how to lick a spoon when they ‘s finisht.
SIMEONI. But they ‘s man enough to cog and cony-catch a carlot. (2017b: 150–51)
- 4.
Here is the actual gloss Cope (1877: 2.285–86) offers:
The object of this topic is (says Brandis, u. s., p. 20) to weaken the force of arguments from probability. “In incredibilibus provocatur ad effectum, qui si conspicuus sit, resisti non potest quin, quod incredibile videbatur, iam probabile quoque esse fateamur.” Schrader.
‘Another (class of arguments) is derived from things which are believed to come to pass (gignesthai, actually to take place or happen) but (still) are beyond (ordinary) belief, (you argue, namely) that they would not have been believed at all, had they not actually been or nearly so’: i. e. either been in existence, or come so near to it, made so near an approach to it, as to enable us by a slight stretch of imagination to realize it so as to be convinced of its existence. Any case of very close analogy, for instance, to the thing in question might produce this conviction. ē engus is a saving clause; ‘fact or nearly so’. Rhetorical argument does not aim at absolute truth and certainty: it is content with a near approach to it within the sphere of the probable, which is enough for complete persuasion.
‘Nay even more’, (we may further argue that these at first sight incredible things are even more likely to be true than those that are at first sight probable. Supply dokounta esti for the constr. and (mallon) alēthes or onta esti tōn eikotōn kai pithanōn for the sense): ‘because men believe in (suppose, assume the existence of,) things either actual, real or probable: if then it (the thing in question) be incredible and not probable, it must be true; because its probability and plausibility are not the ground of our belief in it’. The argument of the last clause is an exemplification of Topic IX, § 10, supra, see note there. It is an inference ek diaireseōs, ‘from division’; a disjunctive judgment. All belief is directed to the true or the probable: there is no other alternative. All that is believed—and this is believed—must therefore be either true or probable: this is not probable; therefore it must be true. alēthes more antiquae philosophiae identifies truth and being: alēthes here = on.
In other words, the antecedent improbability of anything may furnish a still stronger argument for its reality than its probability. Anything absolutely incredible is denied at once, unless there be some unusually strong evidence of its being a fact, however paradoxical. That the belief of it is actually entertained is the strongest proof that it is a fact: for since no one would have supposed it to be true without the strongest evidence, the evidence of it, of whatever kind, must be unusually strong. The instance given is an exemplification of the topic in its first and simplest form.
- 5.
The confusion may in fact stem from the negation. The standard Platonic position would be that things are or are not a certain way, regardless of how likely or believable they seem, and Aristotle seems to take that as his epistemological starting point, and then merely to present it in the negative: “it’s not how a thing seems that makes it what it is,” or “the likelihood or believability of a thing is not what makes it what it is,” etc. In the Platonic epistemology, seeming (ta dokounta), plausibility (ta eikota), and believability (to pithanon) are all equally and interrelatedly irrelevant to the being of a thing (ta onta). But this negative formulation begs the positive question of what does make a thing what it is—and this is where Aristotle falls down. The fact is, he doesn’t seem to know—here in Rhetoric 2.23.22, in any case. His argumentation in the Rhetoric seems to be pushing him toward a positive answer, namely that seeming (ta dokounta), plausibility (ta eikota), and believability (to pithanon) do indeed make things true; but that seems like too radical a departure from a conservative Platonic epistemology, so he takes a hesitant step in that direction, still in the negative: ou gar dia ge to eikos kai pithanon dokei houtōs “for not through its likelihood or believability, at least, does it seem so.” My guess is that the negative seems safe, because it isn’t propounding a radical positivity—but this isn’t the right negative, for either philosophical safety or philosophical coherence. I think he’s actually looking for something more along the lines of “for we don’t disprove a claim just by invoking its implausibility or unbelievability.” By inattentively revising this negative statement of the Platonic epistemology, Aristotle effectively protects his confusion from his own philosophical inquiry, and so unwittingly renders his argument incoherent.
- 6.
Note that the Finnish for what I translate as “train his tongue twisty” is kieltänsä lipeällä pitääkseen, with what I take to be a pivotal pun on the middle word: lipeä is lye, a caustic (sodium hydroxide), and Pukkila is a caustic character who would certainly want to “keep his tongue on lye” (a literal translation of kieltänsä lipeällä pitääkseen); but lipeä is also used colloquially as a synonym for lipevä, “smooth, glib,” and a glib tongue is an excellent way to conceal a caustic speaker’s true intentions. “Twisty” is my IR attempt to capture that pun, connoting both “limber” and “twisted”; the DR translation takes sides, opting for “limber.”
- 7.
- 8.
For the “feeling one’s way into” passage, see Herder (1774/1967: 37):
Ganze Natur der Seele, die durch Alles herrscht, die alle übrige Neigungen und Seelenkräfte nach sich modelt, noch auch die gleichgültigsten Handlungen färbet—um diese mitzufühlen, antworte nicht aus dem Worte, sondern gehe in das Zeitalter, in die Himmelsgegend, die ganze Geschichte, fühle dich in alles hinein—nun allein bist du auf dem Wege, das Wort zu verstehen …
The whole nature of the soul, which rules through everything, which models all other inclinations and forces of the soul in accordance with itself, and in addition colors even the most indifferent actions—in order to share in feeling this, do not answer on the basis of the word but go into the age, into the clime, the whole history, feel yourself into everything—only now are you on the way towards understanding the word. (Forster 2002b: 292)
Note especially there Herder’s distinction between antworte[n] nicht aus dem Worte “answering not on the basis of the word” (which is effectively what I’ve been calling the DR norm) and the Romantic hermeneutic of sichhineinfühlen “feeling oneself into.” For discussion, see Forster (n.d., 2002a, 2002b: xvii–xviii, and 2005) and Robinson (2013: 28–29).
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Robinson, D. (2019). The Translatorial Middle Between Direct and Indirect Reports. In: Capone, A., García-Carpintero, M., Falzone, A. (eds) Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_19
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