Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

QUANTITATIVE VARIATION ANALYSIS
Although the need to recreate a given text often limits the translator's
range of possible revisions, in this case, a quantitative variation analysis indicates
a remarkable number of changes between the initial and final versions of the
translation. To perform the analysis, from the 45,857 words of the initial version,
I randomly chose eleven passages of approximately 1.5 pages each, a total of
4844 words, 10.6% of the total text. Comparing this corpus with the identical
passages from the final version revealed differences in the quantity of words and
sentences and in the proportions of changes made. The final version has 2% fewer
words (4725) and 5% more sentences (261 in the initial version and 273 in the
final version). Though some sentences remained unchanged and others were
entirely revised, on the average, more than one change was made per sentence. Of
the 291 changes noted, alterations in sentence structure accounted for 4%,
punctuation, spacing, and italics accounted for 22%, revisions in phrasing for
24%; and word choice for 50%.
Though some of these changes are attributable to the revision process, as
in most kinds of writing, the quantity of revisions in this case exceeds what one
might expect in a translation. Revision in any writing process usually entails
reduction in the number of words as writers eliminate repetition and wordiness.
The increase in the number of sentences marks a tendency to reduce syntactic
complexity thereby moderating the register of the first version. However,
considering that the translator's choices are limited by the objective of fidelity to
the original text and given that these numbers do not include corrections of
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