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are not separated by dialects, but merely belong to different classes
not often linked in social intercourse and far apart in education,
can often understand each other only by means of similar
mediation. Indeed, are we not often required to translate another s
speech for ourselves, even if he is our equal in all respects, but
possesses a different frame of mind or feeling? Sometimes we feel
that the same words would have a totally different sense in our
own mouth, or at least that they would carry more weight here and
have a weaker impact there. We also feel that we would make use
of totally different words and locutions, more attuned to our own
nature, if we wanted to express what he meant. If we define this
feeling more closely, and if it becomes a thought for us, we realize
we are translating. Indeed, we sometimes have to translate our own
words after a while when we want to make them really our own
once again. This ability is not only exercised to transplant into
foreign soil what a language has produced in the field of
scholarship and the arts of speech and to enlarge the radius within
which these products of the mind can operate. The same ability is
exercised in the domain of trade between different nations and in
the diplomatic commerce individual governments engage in: each is
accustomed to talking to the other in its own language only if they
want to make sure they are treated on a basis of strict equality
without having to resort to a dead language.
We shall be able to distinguish two different fields [in translation] as
well. They are not totally distinct, of course, since this is very rarely the
case, but they are separated by boundaries that overlap and yet are clear
enough to the observer who does not lose sight of the goal pursued in
each field. The interpreter plies his trade in the field of commerce; the
translator operates mainly in the fields of art and scholarship. Those
who think of this definition as arbitrary, since interpreting is usually
taken to mean what is spoken and translating what is written, will forgive
me for using them, I am sure, since they are very conveniently tailored
Longer statements 143
to fit the present need, the more so since the two definitions are by no
means far removed from each other. Writing is appropriate to the fields
of art and scholarship, because writing alone gives their works endurance,
and to interpret scholarly or artistic products by word of mouth would
be as useless as it seems impossible. For commerce, on the other hand,
writing is but a mechanical tool. Oral bargaining is the original form
here and all written interpreting should really be considered the notation
of oral interpreting.
Two other fields are joined to this one, and very closely so as
regards their nature and spirit, but they are already transitional
because of the great multiplicity of objects belonging to them. One
makes a transition to the field of art, the other to that of
scholarship. If a transaction includes interpreting the development
of that fact is perceived in two different languages. But the
translation of writings of a purely narrative or descriptive nature,
which also merely translates the development of a fact into another
language, as already described, can still include much of the
interpreter s trade. The less the author himself appears in the
original, the more he has merely acted as the perceiving organ of
an object, the more he has adhered to the order of space and time,
the more the translation depends upon simple interpreting. The
translator of newspaper articles and the common literature of travel
remains in close proximity to the interpreter and risks becoming
ridiculous when his work begins to make larger claims and he
wants to be recognized as an artist. Alternatively, the more the
author s particular way of seeing and shaping has been dominant
in the representation, the more he has followed some freely chosen
order, or an order defined by his impression, the more his work is
part of the higher field of art. The translator must then bring other
powers and abilities to bear on his work and be familiar with his
author and that author s language in another way than the
interpreter is. Every transaction that involves interpreting is
concerned with drawing up a specific case according to certain
legal obligations. The translation is made only for participants who
are sufficiently familiar with these obligations, and the way these
obligations are expressed in the two languages is well defined,
either by law or by custom and mutual explanation. But the
situation is different in the case of transactions initiating new legal
obligations, even though on the formal level it may be very similar
to what we have just described. The less these can be subsumed as
particular cases covered by a general rule which is sufficiently
144 Translation/History/Culture
known, the more scholarly knowledge and circumspection are
needed in formulating them and the more scholarly knowledge of
both language and fact the translator will need for his trade. On
this double scale the translator will, therefore, rise higher and
higher above the interpreter until he reaches his proper field,
namely those mental products of scholarship and art in which the
free idiosyncratic powers of combination vested in the author and
the spirit of the language that is the repository of a system of
observations and shades of moods are everything. In this field the
object no longer dominates in any way, but is dominated by
thoughts and emotions. In this field, indeed, the object has become
an object through speech only and in which it is present only in
conjunction with speech.
What is the basis of this important distinction? Everyone
perceives it even in borderline cases, but it strikes the eye most
strongly at the outer poles. In the life of commerce one is for the
most part faced with obvious objects, or at least with objects
defined with the greatest possible precision. All transactions are
arithmetical or mathematical in nature, so to speak, and number
and measure help out everywhere. Moreover, an established usage
of individual words will soon arise through law and custom even
in the case of those objects which, as the ancients were wont to
say, subsume what is more and what is less into themselves and
are referred to by means of a gradation of words that sometimes
carry more weight in common life and sometimes less, because
their essence is not defined. It follows that if the speaker does not
intentionally construct hidden indeterminacies or makes a mistake
with intent to deceive or because he is not paying attention, he can
be understood by everyone who knows both the language and the
field, and at worst only insignificant differences will appear in
linguistic usage. Even so there are rarely any doubts that cannot be
immediately dispelled as to which expression in one language
corresponds to an expression in another. Translating in this field is
therefore almost a mechanical activity that can be performed by
anyone with a fair to middling knowledge of both languages. It
shows little distinction between better and worse as long as the
translator manages to avoid obvious mistakes. But when the
products of art and scholarship have to be translated from one
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