Horizons of the Art of Translation in Literary Communication

Abstract

As from the art of translation, national literature is divided into author’s (original) and translated parts, as interrelated as recognisably different in four communicative horizons. (1) On the historio-literary horizon, when it comes to translation works and their readers, separatism rivals confrontation, with both resistant to elimination. In the history of Polish literature there are three literary canons: classicism, modernism, and post-modernism. (2) On the linguistic horizon, literary communication in translation focuses, primarily, on texts, their models and paradigms, as well as on stereotypes, hierarchy of values, cultural memory and linguistic picture of the world, initially belonging to another country but, later, firmly grounded in a new linguistic environment. The source language text is seen as a constellation of the translatable and untranslatable, while the target language text is, similarly, regarded as translated vs ‘non-translated’. In translation, the dilemma arising from lack of equivalence between languages, that is when the linguistic elements which play a role in organising messages at text level simply do not have their countreparts in the target language, can be resolved by translation by substitution, omission, or translocation. (3) On the sociological horizon, translation is greatly influenced by both pillars of and stochastic processes in society, and vise versa; culturally, for the most part, as a ‘response’ to the mere fact of existance of translation. Changes in structures and paradigms imply manipulation of values, seemingly rather controvesial at the beginning: discreditaion of the art of translation vs affirmation of translations. (4) On the psychological horizon, decision making in creating both an original work and translation may seem as essentially similar in nature. The impulse to write is particularly personal — it derives from personal experience: factual, imagery, perceived, heard, dreamed, literary, para-literary, non-literary, and textual, both someone else and one’s own texts in either known or, to a less degree, unknown languages, may serve as an impulse. In theory, there are no definite thematic and information structures at the textual level as a precondition which necessarily implies influence over creation process. The impulse to translate is, essentially, a definite literary work written by someone else in the language a translator works with. Pseudo- and false translations make an exception, which only proves the rule. Ergo: an author is a creator (a co-creator) who brings a literary work into existence, while a translator is someone who performs it, along with its readers, authors of screen or theatre versions, illustrators, literary critics, thus enabling us to treat the art of translation as a secondary communication.