TRANSLATION AND MEANING: A CULTURAL- COGNITIVE ...

TRANSLATING POE’S ‘TO HELEN’ INTO ROMANIAN
CRISTINA NICOLAE
University of Piteşti
1. On literary translation
Literature represents a language within language, both a reduction
and an expansion of the linguistic pattern, therefore the translation of
literary texts raises particular problems. According to Nida’s diagram (apud
Bassnett, 1988: 16) of the translation process, the translator is first a reader
who decodes / analyses the message in the SL, and then a writer who reencodes
/ restructures it in the TL. The ideal position as a reader for a
translator is, according to Lotman (apud Bassnett, 1988: 77-78) the reader
who is able to grasp the structure of a text as well as its various levels and
their interactions. The levels of a text that are of interest for a translator are
the significance (which can be stratified in multiple layers), the form
(language), as well as the cultural background.
The first task that a translator should accomplish is to correctly and
completely understand the text in the SL. Each text can be considered, in a
semiotic approach, a sign having an expression (the linguistic form) and a
content (the meaning). The expression and the content are set against a
cultural background. A very important characteristic of a SL text, which
should be observed in the TL, is style, defined by Leon Leviţchi as “the
specific way in which the author organized his message in point of
coherence and expression, in his desire to value it at the utmost in the
conscience of the potential reader.” (Leviţchi, 1993:98, my translation). This
definition summarizes all the problems in translating literature, because it
draws one’s attention to what the translator should take into account when
translating a text: the logical organisation (coherence), the expression with
the purpose of valuing the message (denotation, connotation, accentuation
and modality) and the specific way of organizing this message. The style of
every work is made specific by the existence of dominants (see Leviţchi,
1993:99). There are dominants of denotation, vocabulary and grammar;
dominants of accentuation and modality; dominants of connotation and
dominants of coherence.
The translation of poetry is the most challenging form of literary
translation. From a strictly linguistic point of view, poetry appears as a
superior form of synonymy at all levels: lexical, grammatical, syntagmatic
(Bantaş, 1998:121). A “translation-oriented text analysis” will present the