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Babe1, 43: 160-75" Federation Intemationale des Traducteurs (FIT) Revue Babel
Naturalness in Literary Translation
Abdul-Baki As-Safi & Incam Sahib Ash-Sharifi
Abstract
In the literature on translation theory, naturalness in not encompassed in an overall
approach but is often subsumed in certain definitions and notions. Among the
prominent notions of naturalness are Nida's and Newmark's, which seem to match
each other on a number of points. Nida (1964:166) regards the concept as parallel to
dynamic equivalence and thus defines translation grounded on such equivalence as
"the closest natural equivalent to the source-language message." He echoes this
definition in 1975:33 and in a joint work with Taber (1969: 12). Elaborating on the
concept, he attaches it to certain areas: the receptor language and the culture, the
context of the message and the target receptors (1964: 167), the last of which,
however, is inappropriate to literary translation in the sense that literature addresses
no specific receptors. Newmark (1988:24,26) refers to natural language as one
constructed from the "most frequently used structures and words" or "the common
grammar, idioms and words that meet that kind of situation." For him (Newmark,
1983:5) it is a fluent language which might be marred by adherence to the source
language (SL) norms, and yet should not be misinterpreted as being ordinary
language (ibid.:26). Steiner(1975:333), commenting on Dryden's three types of
translation, speaks of naturalizing the content of the source text and focusing on the
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form to attain a matching literary level to the original. Other references to
naturalness are merely notions, less crystallized in the form of a concept.
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Naturalness in Literary Translation
1.Features of Naturalness
The salient features of naturalness can be classified as primary and secondary, the
latter - such as intelligibility, accessibility or readability being generated by the
former. The primary ones, which are well-formedness, acceptability, idiomaticity,
authenticity and contemporaneity, are more rigid than the secondary ones.
2.1 Well-Formedness
Well-formedness is a property of syntax which requires that the target language be
consistent with the TL grammar rules (a requirement elaborated on in 3.2) and be
free from SL syntactic interference.
Acceptability 2.2
Acceptability in the TL can be ensured by compliance with the target linguistic and
cultural norms. More restrictively, it may ensue from grammaticality, which applies
particularly to literature since literary language, the standard, is normally
grammatical and acceptable. This holds true except for some neologistic forms
which cannot be accepted immediately by readers (a point amplified in 3.1.2 below).
On the other hand, some constructions that are prima facie ill-formed may be
incorporated as acceptable in a language due to currency of usage. Such ill-
formedness often results from the impact of literal translation, that is, translationese.
It is rejected by a norm of naturalness that stipulates authenticity and well-
formedness. An instance of translationese which has become acceptable in Arabic is
the proverb:
.=- ` ='=' -=-
mujbarun ' axa:ka la: batal
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Your brother is forced, not a hero.
, axa:ka is an accusative form which should be nominative (' axu:ka), since it is the
predicate of a nominal sentence.
However, in literary translation acceptability extends to include other facets from
which the concept of literary intuition may be hypothesized. Simply stated, the
translator should possess a literary competence which manifests itself firstly by his
acquaintance with the rhetoric and the dominant aesthetic canons of the TL culture.
Consequently the translator can discern whether certain stylistic features are
acceptable or not in the TL culture. Secondly, his subjective presence and aesthetic
selectivity, which can be substantial in literary translation, should be permeable in
limited ways, for instance for neologizing and for discriminating current usages
from archaic ones. That is to say, the translator's mastery of writing should be not
less than the SL writer's if he is to translate naturally. Thirdly, he can recognize and
identify the tenor of the original, e.g. 'elevated', 'serious', 'simple', 'florid' and so forth
(Tytler in Rener, 1989:193). In point of fact, he can achieve a high level of
literariness.
2.3 Idiomaticity
Idiomaticity is a feature of authenticity (see 2.4) which is basic to natural translation.
It can be characterized as the tendency to use certain established formulas in the TL
culture, namely collocations, idioms and proverbs (see 3.4). Such formulas are part
of the literary heritage of a language. As a corollary, the longer the tradition in which
a language is rooted, the more it is likely to beget and preserve such formulas. Such
languages may demonstrate a very marked register of literary language, since they
possess a plethora of literary norms, part of which is their idioms. In Arabic, the
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sacred text of the Qur'an is the most abundant source for literary norms in general
and idiomatic formulas in particular.
2.4 Authenticity
The prime distinctive characteristic of natural translation is authenticity. Authentic
language is characterized by well-formedness and acceptability, that is, freedom
from SL linguistic and cultural interferences (as pointed out in 2.2). More
significantly, authentic language tends to utilize the TL literary resources so as to
attain naturalness. In other words, it exploits the TL rhetoric and aesthetic canons. It
also maintains an equilibrium between the natural flow of content on the one hand
and literariness on the other. Natural translation can thus approximate or even
surpass the original literary level which recalls Nida and Taber's ideal (1969: 12)
that "the best translation is the one that does not sound like a translation."
Consequently, it should not "exhibit in its grammatical and stylistic forms any trace
of awkwardness or strangeness," that is to say, it should carefully avoid
'translationese', which Nida and Taber equate to "formal fidelity" (ibid.: 13).
However, it should be noted that natural translation does not undermine content
accuracy and it by no means diverges towards 'imitation', which is another state of
the equilibrium. It exerts an effort to employ the particularities of the TL forms but
simultaneously adheres to the SL content (for examples, see 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4).
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2.5 Contemporaneity
Contemporaneity can be illustrated in the translation of any ancient work that
addresses its new readership in the language of the new age (Prochazka in Garvin
1964:95). It presupposes that literary norms can change across cultures and periods,
as was instanced by the violation of meter in poetry to allow free or blank verse or
poetic prose to evolve, and the tendency to embellish language with ornaments in
certain literary periods but to be simple in others. Contemporaneity is important due
to its incidence on naturalness, i.e. on intelligibility, acceptability and readability.
However, in seeking contemporaneity the translator may seem to lean towards
imitation. Hence it should be made clear that contemporaneity is rather the opposite
pole to archaism. A contemporary translation language therefore tends to discard
archaic usages which are undesirable in terms of intelligibility and aesthetic value.
Furthermore, certain stylistic usages in an old work may not appeal to the taste and
literary awareness of the contemporary reader; for example they may strike him as
exaggerated. In these circumstances the translator may manipulate such usages by
compromising between them and the norms of his own period. Zlateva (in Bassnett
and Lefevere 1990:32) comments on a translator of an ancient work explaining that
he had rendered it in an essentially different way from the original because the latter
contained "different archaic words and structures, many synonymous verbs, and
adjectives so colourful and outdated that they represent an obstacle to any smooth
reception of the text."
Nonetheless, we feel bound to add that making a natural translation contemporary
does not contradict the tendency to have recourse to tradition, that is, to the
authenticated. In fact, evading archaic usages on the one hand and borrowing from
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tradition make up a dual strategy, for which purpose the subjective aesthetic
selectivity of the translator must constantly be applied. This manner of proceeding
may be necessary when criteria and statistics are lacking to help decide between the
tendencies, for instance in deciding whether to use archaic words like the two below
as equivalents to the English word 'leafless' and thereby fill a lexical gap:
leafless trees
_'-= '=-' / -'-
'ashja:r 'ubla:/sulub
Such words are hardly a natural choice despite their historical authenticity, since
they impair intelligibility and any literary effect. The use of a third equivalent, other
derivatives of which are still current, viz:
-'-- '=-'
'ashja:r marda:' (Ath-Th'a:libi: 360,59)
Can be both intelligible and aesthetically acceptable, hence natural.
1. Levels of Naturalness
Naturalness can be studied in terms of the stylistic elevation achieved by
utilizing the resources peculiar to the TL.
. Lexical Level
Naturalness on this level requires proper diction, i.e. proper choice of vo-
cabulary, and demands transfer of the connotative meanings of SL words over and
above their denotative meanings. If the connotations go unheeded, as is liable to
happen in literal renditions, meaning will not be reproduced (Benjamin in Schulte &
Biguenet, 1992:72). Furthermore, one element of propriety is precision, which
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implies that proper diction should not express any irrelevant or superfluous notions
which were not intended originally (Corbett, 1971:430). To put it differently,
naturalness entails that one word may be appropriate in a given context whereas
even its synonyms are not. Take, for example,
'-' ='- ,,- --
tilka idhan qismatun di:za: (An-Najm:22)
That were indeed an unjust division (Arberry 1964:550)
This Qur'anic verse mocks the Arabs' contradictory attitude to women in the pre-
Islamic era. They used to bury young girls alive, and yet they considered idols and
angels as girls whose father was God. 'di:za' imparts this connotation, whereas its
synonyms 'ja:'ira' and 'za:lima' do not function
similarly and so could not replace it. This makes di:zs the precise natural word
choice.
Likewise the tendency to vary diction, but to forego words whose emotive power
is almost stripped away, maintains proper choice and hence naturalness. A case in
point is the following two Qur'anic verses, which vary diction in a similar context.
This variation gives rise to a stylistic effect as well as a pragmatic connotative
meaning; thus the two words used represent natural choices :
'-,= -= '--`' -- -=--' =='' ='-- --'
idrib bi'aa:ka alhtajar fanfajarat minhu ithnata: cashrata caynan (Qur'an, AI-
Baqara:60)
'Strike with thy staff the rock' and there gushed forth from it twelve fountains
(Arberry 1964:7,8).
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The same verse appears in AI-ara:f:, but with the word 'fanbajasat' instead of
'fanfajarat'. The variation accords with the intended meaning, that is, with the
associations of the words used to depict the two events: in the first case, where
Moses himself has asked for water, 'fanfajarat' makes a stronger impact on the
reader than does 'fanbajasat', which is used when it is Moses' people who were the
askers (La:shi:n, 1979:50).
In translations, similar criteria should prevail so as to lead to a felicitous natural
choice imparting perspicuity, vividness and expressiveness while being economical.
In the following example, the translator seems to convey a different, imprecise
meaning and effect due to an unnatural choice of word. He (Hussayn, 1990:593)
uses the word --'' = _' 'al-mustala' as an equivalent to the italicized words below:
He shifted slightly on the hearth,... Gudrun was aware of the beautiful
panels of the fireplace,... (Lawrence 1960:367)
Though the denotative meaning of 'istala' is 'to warm oneself', its derivative
'mustala' conveys an image of horror due to the dominant effect imparted by the
verb root _'- 'sala' 'to be burned by fire.' This verb and its derivatives are used in
the Qur' an to connote the agony that awaits sinners in Hell.
3.1.1 Morphological Sublevel
Morphology studies the structure or form of words (Crystal 1978:100). The form of
a word, both in Arabic and English, often corresponds to a syntactic category, e.g.
'hulmi' 'dream' (noun), 'hulum' 'dream-like' (adjective). Naturalness requires that
when no TL lexical equivalent with the same syntactic category is available, the
translator should use a semantically equivalent word with a different syntactic
category; this in turn usually imposes a change of morphological structure, as in:
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_=-,'' ,-'' ,-'=-
sajja:nu: al-quru:n al-wusta: (noun structure and word form)
mediaeval jailors (adjectival structure and word form).
3.1.2 Neologism
Strictly speaking, neologism is the coining of new words in the language (Shaw,
1979:253). However, new words can be produced by a writer's idiosyncracies and
deviations. Neologisms can be stylistic devices, foregrounded by their strangeness
and unexpectedness. A translator, on the other hand, may be more given to
neologizing than the original author because of doing it to fill lexical gaps as well as
using it for aesthetic effect. A neologism is ipso facto not natural (in our sense of
'natural'), since it cannot be accepted immediately by the reader's intuition. Hence
this is an area where naturalness has to be suspended in order that literary creation
may prevail. It means that the translator should endeavour to neologize to enhance
literary effect, or to compensate for loss of effect elsewhere in the text where he has
been unable to render an SL neologism by a TL neologism; and finally, sometimes,
in order to cope with a lexical deficiency. For all of these purposes, he should
endeavour to make felicitous aesthetic choices and avoid processes of word-
formation likely to beget cumbersome words, such as blending or compounding in
Arabic; and of course he must avoid deriving ill-formed words. The following
example of a derivation illustrates a natural choice of neologism which at the same
time fills a lexical gap; it concerns an idiosyncratic use of 'wrung' as an adjective by
Faulkner (1954:332):
and they swung and tilted in the wrung branches.
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Jebra (1979:332) translates 'wrung' by the neologism +- ,- 'mahsur', deriving it by
regular morphological formation from 'hasara' 'to bend down (a branch), to produce
a crack'.
3.2 Sentential Level
3.2.1 Syntax
Syntax studies the grammatical rules of sentences and the interrelationships between
sentences (Crystal, 1987:30). Naturalness requires well-formed sentences. It follows
that a syntactically natural translation should be well-formed and that the source text
may have to be restructured in line with the rules of the TL syntax (Nida, 1964:165),
for example in order to deal with translation of agentive and agentless passives
between English and Arabic.
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3.2.2 Rhetoric
Furthermore, a 'rhetorical' sentence, which can be roughly defined as "a carefully
and skillfully assembled construction" (Rener 1989:161-162), subsumes well-
formedness; the product of the latter being convergent with the main features of
rhetorically natural sentences, namely smoothness, intelligibility and acceptability.
Basically, however, attainment of a rhetorical sentence rests mainly on attaining
harmony and coherence. For this, phonetic effects may be used, i.e. alliteration,
assonance or parallelism; or simply the elimination of "clashes of harsh-sounding
consonants, meetings of two vowels" and "the repetition of the same syllable" (ibid.:
162). In addition, a naturally rhetorical sentence tends to exploit the particular
resources of the language, such as paronyms and repetitions in Arabic, so as to
generate sentences that are harmonious, e.g.
_-=, ' =' -', '-'' _-=-,
wataxsha: an-na:sa wallahu 'ahaqqu an taxsha:hu
(Qur'an, AI-' AJ:lza:b:37)
fearing other men; and God has better right for thee to fear Him
(Arberry 1964:431).
To take a translation example, compare our proposed Arabic rendition
of the following English sentence with the first translation below:
Here they sat, folded together, folded round with the same rug
(Lawrence 1982:436 )
=`' _'= ,=-- -=','' '-'= '- --=', ,-'=-- '-' ,,,=--
huna: jalasa:, muntawin cala: al-'a:xar, muntawiyayn
luffa: bibara:niyya wa:hida (Hussayn 1990:698).
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This is our proposal
',,=-, -=', '`- , =`' _'= '--=' ,=-, '-+ ---'
istaqarra: hahuna, yantawi: ahaduuma: ahdha:ma: 'ala; al-a:xar, wafi
ditha:rin wa:hid yantawi:yan.
We submit that our version is more consistent with natural Arabic rhetoric than
Hussayn's, since, though both use a paronym, ours foregrounds it in the manner
exemplified by the Qur'anic verse quoted earlier.
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that Arabic does not altogether reject
repetition of syllables as unnatural. Criteria discriminating desirable from
undesirable repetition can be found in Al-Jurjani's monograph on paronymous
effects (in La:shi:n, 1979:141). Al-Jurjani was a renowned Arab rhetorician and
semanticist of the eleventh century. For him, such usages should be regulated by the
content.
The use of phonetic effects may alleviate clashes between syllables or between
vowels, and build up a natural sentence, as illustrated in the second of the two
translations below, which is ours:
and the awful inchoate eyes, which seemed to be decomposing
(Lawrence: 362)
,-''=-- ',--- '--' ,-''' ,-,-'--'' ,---'-'' ,-,=-'' ,-,'', . - '-- ,-''=--
wal-baynayn al-faz:'atayn al-qa:timatayn, al-bada: iyatayn,
allatayn k:anata: tabduwa:n mutahallitaya (Hussayn 1990:585)
,---'-'' -'' ,-,-'' ,--,---'' ,-,'' .=-- _-- '- '-'-=' ,---
wal-'aynayn al-manqu:satayn al-mu:qicatayn lil-faraq wal
qa:timatayn, tabdu: a~aduhuma: ma: tabrahtu tanhalu.
. Cohesive Level
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Cohesion requires that redundant elements be curtailed from a translation and the
text made compact, powerful and smooth. In this way the style is elevated and
meanings are lucidly exposed. The more cohesive a text is, the more natural it is and
the better it becomes stylistically. Al-Jurjani (La:shi:n,1979:166) views style as
clarity of meanings and ideas whose integration is ensured by cohesiveness, hence
by the natural flow of content. Cohesiveness is deployed with "ia rhetorical
purpose", that is, in order to be convincing, and to that end affects the presentation of
content by making some elements of the text more conspicuous than others (Hatim
and Mason, 1990: I 44ff.) A case in point in Arabic is deletion, which represents a
rhetorical feature of cohesion:
'-, '=,= ' .=, ',
wa-lam yaj'allahu 'iwa:jan, qayyima:
(Qur'an, AI-Kah :l, 2)
and has not assigned unto it any crookedness; right
(Arberry 1964:228)
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Since the combination of crookedness and righteousness to describe the same
thing, viz. the Qur'an, is contradictory, it can be inferred that a deleted verb precedes
'qayyima', i.e. 'azalna:ha' 'He sent it down'. The deletion makes for economy and
gives prominence or focus to the notion of righteousness (AI-Ansa:ri:,534-535).
Each language has its ways of building up a cohesive text. If the discrepancies
between the cohesive systems of different languages are disregarded, translations
may be unintelligible, unacceptable and unreadable - in other words, unnatural. An
example of the discrepancies between Arabic and English is coordination versus
subordination; Arabic coordinates clauses far more than English does.
Generally speaking, lack of TL cohesive devices results in poor coherence in
translations, as can be observed in certain renditions that are too literal and thereby
impose the cohesive system of the SL on the TL. Nonetheless, it does not follow that
achieving a natural target text is a matter of using cohesive devices to a greater or
lesser extent than the source text does. It is the proper use of cohesive devices that is
first and foremost required. Improper use includes overuse. It may arise
unintentionally from literal translation, or from deliberately seeking to reproduce the
SL coherence - a procedure which hampers readability because the devices do not
have the same function in the TL, and which has a negative effect on literariness.
Here is an example:
Ursula, left alone, felt as if everything were lapsing out. There seemed to be no
hope in the world. One was a tiny little rock with the tide of nothingness rising
higher and higher (Lawrence:75)
'- -- -- '-=, -- -'' `,,-' '-' ' - . ' ,' `,' .', _'' . '-' . _-`- -- '+
- ' ,= +'- -,- -'== = -'-= --'' ' '-- '- _'= '''' - -,'-- _'--' ,-,-`'
-,'-- .
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amma: ursyu:la: allati: turikat wahdaha: faqad sha'arat kama: law inna kulla
shay'in ka:na a:yilan ila: zawa:1. faqad tala:sha: kull 'amallaha: fi: al-'a:lam,
'ala: ma: bada: ka:na aI-mar' 'iba:ra can hijarain saghiratin ta:fihatinfi: hi:n,
fi: hli:n ka:na madd al-Ia:shay'iyya fi: 'irtifa:' mutaza:yin, muta:zayid.
Our proposed revision, which follows, is made more natural by alleviating
cohesion, besides using an idiomatic expression (shay'an fashay'an) and changing a
piece of diction (al-Ia:shay'iyya) that hampers smoothness:
'-,- '-,- -'' -- -''- -='--, `-'--- '''' .-' -` '+' ,--, ', .
., waIam yabduw laha: thammat amal fi: al-'a:lam muta:la:'ilan
yatasaadu bi'aza: ihi madd al-'adam shay'an fashay'an.
On the other hand, deliberately overused cohesive devices can, by their proliferation
or extravagant repetition, constitute a stylistic feature. One such rhetorical device is
polysyndeton, that is, "deliberate use of many conjunctions" for certain effects
(Corbett, 1971:471), e.g.
` -,-, ` ',=' '-',-' --, ,=- ,'' ` ,,=, .
wakuntum amwa:tan fa'ah haa: kum thumma yumi:tukim thumma yuhilyi:kum
thumma ilayhi turja'u:n. (The Qur'an, AI-Baqara:28)
seeing you were dead and He gave you life, then He shall make you dead, then He
shall give you life, then unto Him you shall be returned (Arberry 1964:4-5).
However, such overuse should be accompanied by phonetic effects so as to
maintain smoothness. As for the translation, the translator should endeavour to
reproduce the intended overuse, the rhetorical device, by working analogous
phonetic effects into the target text lest the repetition should seem redundant, as it
does in the first translation below:
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He watched it, then dropped another daisy into the water, and after that another, and
sat watching them with bright absolved eyes (Lawrence: 145)
,---- ,,-'- ,,-- '+-', '=, ='- -- ,=' ` -'-'' ,=' -',=' =--' ` '+-' .
ra:qabaha:, thumma 'asqata 'iqhliwa:na 'uxra: fi: al-ma:', thumma uxra: ba'dd
dha:lik, wa-jalasa yura:qibuha: bi'aynayn barra:qatayn mustaghriqatayn.
(Hussayn, 1990:244)
Here is our version, in which parallelism and phonetic effects are used in analogy
to the original and make the translation seem natural:
,-,-, '= ,=' _'' _+--' ` ,=' -',=' +-'' _-'' ` '+-' '+-' ,,---- ,-'- .
raqa:baha:, thumma alqa: fi: al-nahr 'iqhiwa:na uxra:, thumma
'intaba: 'iLa 'uxra:, fajalasa, wabi'aynan barra:qatayn mustaghri-
qatayn ra:qababa:.
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3.4. Idiomatic level
Since naturalness gives preference to idiomatic language, it implies that wherever
established formulas - collocations, idioms and proverbs - exist in a language, they
should be used rather than free word combinations. The translation is thereby made
more intelligible, acceptable and effective. By the same token, some collocations
may be more authentic than others according to the literary heritage of the language.
Such forms are particularly conducive to naturalness.
3.4.1. Collocations
A collocation is "the habitual association of a word in language with other particular
words in sentences" (Robins 1967:67). Here are some examples of non-natural and
natural translations involving collocations.
SL TL Unnatural TL Natural
To invent lies :
-', / -,-'`' _---,
yulaffiq/yabtadic al-' aka:dhib
'-- --,
yaftariy kadhiban
A low status:
=- / -=', '--
daraja/manzila wa:!i' a
.--`' =-''
al-darak ai-' asfal
He has a wide
experience :
',,= --= '
labu xibra !awiyla
.,,= _'- '
labu ba:c !awiyl.
For further exemplification, see: A.B. As-Safi. " The Dynamic vs. Static Translation
of Literary Texts into Arabic." Turjuman. 1994, 3, (1), pp. 57-79.
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4.Conclusion
The principles that this article propounds are as follows.
4.1 The main features of naturalness can be firmly identified as: grammaticality,
acceptability, idiomaticity, authenticity and contemporaneity, all of which aid in
maintaining intelligibility and readability.
4.2 Acceptability depends in large part on well-formedness, that is, on
grammaticality. Yet it extends to encompass judgments on literary usages insofar as
the latter are appealing or not to the TL reader; these judgments demand a high level
of proficiency in the TL, namely a level at which the translator possesses literary
intuition. At that point the translator's subjective interference, which is
indistinguishable from literary creation, may come into play. It enables him to apply
aesthetic selectivity, notably for neologisms, and to avoid usages that are authentic
but likely to be perceived as archaic.
4.3 To be natural, the translation should use established formulas from the literary
heritage of the TL, that is to say, it should be idiomatic.
4.4 Authenticity requires full utilization of the TL's particular resources and
conformity with its aesthetic norms. In this way a high literary standard can be
attained. Nevertheless, though it focuses on form in its seeking after authenticity,
natural translation does not entail deviating from the content of the source text; it
creates an equilibrium between accurate content reproduction on the one hand and
aesthetic reproduction, smoothness and literariness on the other.
4.5 Contemporaneity is a facet of naturalness which might appear incompatible with
authenticity in some texts. It is important to distinguish between authenticity in the
sense in which we use here and archaic usages which were authentic in their day but
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which are now undesirable because they hinder intelligibility and readability, or
because they are remote from what appeals aesthetically to contemporary readers.
4.6 The study of naturalness at these various levels favours stylistic elevation. On
the lexical and cohesive levels, naturalness is a concomitant of proper diction and
proper use of cohesive devices in compliance with the TL system. On the syntactic
level, well-formedness brings about natural sentences which makes good use of TL
resources.!
Note
1. The authors wish to thank Professor Brian Harris of the University of Ottawa for
his help in editing this article.
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About the Authors
Abdul-Baki As-Safi is a professor of translation, lecturer in literary translation and
head of the Translation Department at AI-Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, Iraq.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Al-Zaytoonah University, Amman, Jordan He obtained
his Ph.D. in Literary Translation from the University of Lancaster ( Britain) in 1979.
He is the author of two books on linguistics and translation, has published 25
papers and supervised 16 MA theses and 10 Ph.D. theses . His translations include
Taha Hussein's novel The Call of the Curfew (Leiden, Brill, 1980).
Permanent Address: Translation Department, College of Arts, AI-Mustansiriya
University, Baghdad, Iraq .
Current Address: Faculty of Arts, Al-Zaytoonah University, Amman, Jordan.
In'am Ash-Sharifi holds an M.A. in Translation and Interpretation from AI-
Mustansiriya University. She did her B.A. in English Literature and worked
subsequently as a postgraduate research assistant.
23
Abstract
The present article investigates the concept of naturalness in literary translation. The
aim of the investigation is to delineate an integrated approach to 'natural' translation,
the essence of which lies in creating a compromise between accurate rendition and
literary reproduction. Such a compromise entails attaining an artistic verbal
smoothness which transcends the level of ordinary language. To this end, natural
translation calls for utilization of the target language's resources that will make the
translation read like an authentic target language (TL) work, while preserving the
content intact.
The article thus identifies naturalness as the achievement of authentic TL style, and
unnaturalness as the hybrid language of literal rendition, i.e. translationese that may
be unacceptable or unintelligible. It detects the actualization of an authentic style of
Arabic rendition on several levels: lexical, sentential, cohesive and idiomatic. On the
lexical level, naturalness is delimited in terms of proper choice of appropriate
vocabulary. On the sentential level, well-formedness is posited as the feature of
naturalness which outlines a rhetorically natural sentence, besides other concomitant
features. On the cohesive level, the features of a natural target text are based on the
use of cohesive devices to a greater or lesser degree than the source text in general
and on the propriety of their use in particular instances. At the idiomatic level, we
mention idioms and proverbs but concentrate, with examples, on collocations.
Resume
Cet article examine la notion de naturel dans la traduction des textes litteraires dans
le but de cerner une approche integree de la traduction 'naturelle' qui consiste
essentiellement a obtenir un compromis entre un rendu fidele et une reproduction
litteraire. Ce compromis exige une fluidite verbale artistique qui depasse le niveau
de la langue ordinaire. La traduction naturelle doit donc utiliser toutes les res sources
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de la langue d'arrivee pour que la traduction se lise comme ouvrage litteraire redige
dans cette langue d'arrivee, tout en respectant fidelement le contenu.
Dans leur article, les auteurs definissent donc le naturel comme l'obtention d'un
style authentique dans la langue d'arrivee, et le manque de naturel comme un
langage hybride avec un rendu litteral, c'est-a-dire des traductions susceptibles d'etre
inacceptables ou incomprehensibles. L'article analyse comment mettre en reuvre, a
differents niveaux, un style authentique en arabe: lexicologie, phraseologie,
coherence et usage d'expressions idiomatiques. En ce qui concerne le niveau
lexicologique, le naturel se definit comme etant le choix correct d'un vocabulaire
approprie. Au niveau phraseologique, des phrases formees correctement sont la
caracteristique du naturel qui fait apparaitre, a cote d'autres proprietes, la rhetorique
naturelle de la phrase. Au niveau de la coherence, les caracteristiques d'un texte
redige avec naturel dans la langue cible sont basees sur des mecanismes utilises plus
ou moins intensivement que dans le texte d'origine en general et sur leur utilisation
appropriee dans certains cas particuliers. Au niveau des expressions idiomatiques,
les auteurs mentionnent de telles expressions ainsi que des proverbes, mais se
concentrent, en donnant des exemples, sur des collocations.