Homophonic Translation
Homophonic translation, is an attempt to retain as much of the sound as possible from the original. Whereas many translations focus on translating the meaning behind the poem, homophonic translation tries to align the new rendering of the poem as close as possible to the sound of the original. To see two examples of poems that apply this principle, see:
- Robert Johnson's “Hellhound on My Trail,” where the lineated version and the inclusion of vocal sounds attempts to get closer to the sound and pacing of the original song.
In Lawrence Venuti's The Translator's Invisibility, he discusses the “illusion of transparency” in Anglo-American translation culture, which emphasizes fluent translation where a translator works to make their work 'invisible' and therefore, “producing the illusory effect of transparency that simultaneously masks its status as an illusion: the translated text seems “natural,” i.e., not translated” (Venuti 5). He continues to argue, “The translator’s invisibility can now be seen as a mystification of troubling proportions, an amazingly successful concealment of the multiple determinants and effects of English-language translation, the multiple hierarchies and exclusions in which it is implicated. An illusionism produced by fluent translating, the translator’s invisibility at once enacts and masks an insidious domestication of foreign texts, rewriting them in the transparent discourse that prevails in English and that selects precisely those foreign texts amenable to fluent translating…The translator’s invisibility is symptomatic of a complacency in Anglo American relations with cultural others, a complacency that can be described—without too much exaggeration—as imperialistic abroad and xenophobic at home” (17). Continuing, he uses German theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher lecture to explore two types of translation, domesticating and foreignizing. Domesticating translation seeks to create, “an ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values, bringing the author back home,” while the foreignizing method attempts, “an ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad” (20). Continuing he writes,
I want to suggest that insofar as foreignizing translation seeks to restrain the ethnocentric violence of translation, it is highly desirable today, a strategic cultural intervention in the current state of world affairs, pitched against the hegemonic English-language nations and the unequal cultural exchanges in which they engage their global others. Foreignizing translation in English can be a form of resistance against ethnocentrism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism, in the interests of democratic geopolitical relations.”
…Anglo-American culture, in contrast, has long been dominated by domesticating theories that recommend fluent translating. By producing the illusion of transparency, a fluent translation masquerades as true semantic equivalence when it in fact inscribes the foreign text with a partial interpretation, partial to English-language values, reducing if not simply excluding the very difference that translation is called on to convey (Venuti 21-22).
Rothenberg's work highlights many translation techniques that work to fight back against the violent effects and cultural political practices of translation domestication. Total Translation underscores the attempt to remove translation from the dominating shadow of translation domestication and to provide new light and life to translation that can more fully attempt to encapsulate a more unified experience, for both the translator and the reader. Without the illusion of invisibility, the audience becomes illuminated to the ways in which translation can be fragmented and an incomplete experience. Rothenberg and Tedlock's exploration into this topic allows for one way to approach translation without, or at the very least less, of the Euro-centric violence of translations.
“A Homophonic Translation,” is another way that “modernist experiments with heterogeneous discourse” (40) worked as part of a foundational piece in the development of translation methods that rebutted the dominating culture of fluent translation. This poem, along with many other works in the SaF do the very work that Venuti advocated for, “The point is rather to elaborate the theoretical, critical, and textual means by which translation can be studied and practiced as a locus of difference, instead of the homogeneity that widely characterizes it today” (42).
References
Eastman, Andrew. Estranging the Classic: The Zukofskys’ Catullus, Rendre étrange® le classique : le Catullus des Zukofsky, Revue Lisa, vol. 7, no. 2, 2009, pp. 117-129, https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.312 Link : https://journals.openedition.org/lisa//312?lang=en
Venuti, Lawrence. “Invisibility.” The Translator’s Invisibility, Routledge, New York, NY, 1995, pp. 1–42.
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