History of Translation in Canada Essay

The study of translation has been the center of attention of several scholars and schools of thought during the last three decades. Some terms related to the field of translation studies belong to a common language that it has been incorporated to the everyday language of translators; such as correctness, similarity, fidelity, original text, adaptation, equivalence, translation strategies, among others. However, most of the time these translations and equivalences express a connection between the source text and its final version; in such a way that conveys the same communicative function in their respective cultures. Cuba has not been exempted from the translation studies; most of the research on translatology can be referenced back to Amparo Hurtado, David Curbelo, Rodolfo Alpizar and Lourdes Arencibia whom have done a profound research on this branch of the linguistics science during the last thirty years. However, in the first stage of the current term paper it was established -in the case of the English Language Department at the Universidad de Oriente- that the history of translation in Cuba was lightly treated. A survey conducted among 10 students of the second year of the English Language Major during the present academic course (2011-2012) showed that they had a limited knowledge on what history of translation is; however, they seemed to find difficult to characterize translation in Cuba given that they do not have any source where to find information about the issue and their input on the topic was insufficient. Consequently, a question arose: how could they know about the History of Translation in Cuba? Hence, the insufficient knowledge regarding the history of translation in Cuba by the English Major Students of the Universidad de Oriente constitutes the scientific problem of this research. The object of this term paper is the translatological work of Jose Marti Perez The research domain is the translation of the book Greek Antiquities carried out by Jose Marti Perez. The objective is to carry out a contrastive analysis of the translation work developed by Jose Marti Perez of the book Greek Antiquities, which would help to illustrate the general characteristics of the translatological work in the XIX century in Cuba, in order to propose an instrument in the 3rd stage of the research that facilitates the searching of information on the History of translation in Cuba by the English Major Students of the Universidad de Oriente. In order to accomplish the objective in this second stage term paper some scientific tasks were taken into consideration on this second stage: †¢ To approach the XIX Century translation in Cuba and Jose Marti’s translatological work. †¢ To conduct an epistemological analysis of translation, methods and techniques †¢ To develop a contrastive analysis of some fragments of the book Greek Antiquities together with the translation undertaken by Jose Marti Research Methods Theoretical Methods: †¢ Analysis-synthesis: this method had been used to collect and analyze outstanding information acquired from the bibliography consulted. †¢ Hermeneutic: this approach was used to interpret and understand the information gathered. †¢ Induction-Deduction: In the analysis of the different bibliographical sources that contributed to the theoretical explanation of this research. ` Empirical Technique: †¢ A survey applied to students of the second year of the English Language Major. The idea to defend is that a contrastive analysis of the translations work carried out by Jose Marti Perez of the book Greek Antiquities with the original work may be useful for ELP students to learn about XIX Century translation in Cuba. This term paper is structured into one chapter, subdivided into three sections. The most important contribution of this research is to provide English Language Major Students with a contrastive analysis of the translations work carried out by Jose Marti Perez of the book Greek Antiquities that they can use as a bibliographical and practice material for the subject Introduction to translation. An approach to translation undertaken in Cuba in the XIX Century. Jose Marti and his translatological work. Translators in XIX century were people who mostly had the opportunity to travel abroad (mainly Europe and the United States), often motivated by separatist aspirations, therefore, by study or experience, they knew several languages and interacted with other cultures. Among the most important figures of this period were Jose Maria Heredia y Heredia (1803-1839), Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda(1814-1873), Antonio and Eusebio Guiteras Font. Even heroes of our independence war like Juan Clemente Zenea and Diego Vicente Tejera made some translation works, but it is undeniable that the most important figure in this period was Jose Marti Perez. Like many men and some women with access to a good education in his time, Marti studied Latin, Greek, French, English and even some Hebrew. Due to his studies, intensive reading and extensive travels; Jose Marti came to acquire a deep knowledge of his mother tongue, virtually in all its variants. His command of English was deepened and strengthened as he lived in the U. S. His travels through Latin America and Europe enriched his knowledge of French and English, in that way he translated the works of Victor Hugo, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Helen Hunt Jackson into Spanish. The translatological work that was carried out in the XIX century will be illustrated through analyzing a sample of a translation developed by Jose Marti. Even when in the XIX century there is no evidence of any translation school in Cuba and those works were made empirically, some epistemological aspects about translation should be taken into account, like correctness and similarity, methods, techniques and strategies, which will help us to evaluate the quality of the translation in this century. Contrastive analysis of some fragments of the book Greek Antiquities and the translation undertaken by Jose Marti. Using the model proposed by Professor MSc. Tania Vivar in her master thesis, a sample of the translatological work of Jose Marti will be analyzed in order to prove that he was able to translate properly and according to the target readers. He translated from English into Castilian to the Newyorker publishing house Appleton and Co. : Greek Antiquities by J. H. Mahaffy (1883) as part of a group of historical-didactic works. Even when Marti never had any academic formation in translation or in history of Greece, his vast culture was a powerful weapon when translating this book. It can be stated that Jose Marti respects the external and also the internal order in his translation of the original text, the number of paragraphs, the order of the chapters and the sequence of the ideas and uses a neutral vocabulary in accordance to the type of text that he is translating. The work is addressed to the Spanish-speaking public so the translation is direct, which facilitates the correct translation of some idioms and helps him to handle properly with cultural issues. The translation is very faithful to the original text and the statements are very clear and concise. To achieve this purpose he used the literal translation in multiple occasions. In order to create a translation as close as possible to the target readers Marti did some necessary additions and omissions which added logical meaning to the Spanish version and made it look as a text written originally in Spanish. Through the use of literal translation it is not always possible to achieve the same tone of the original text; as a solution to this problem Marti used the modulation. Using his enormous culture and his full knowledge of his mother tongue, Marti could change the original text and reformulate many of the ideas using the implicit translation as he did in some other times, but in this specific translation he only makes few adaptations that were necessary to maintain the tone of the original text. In this translation Marti is able to use different methods that go from the literal method (with techniques like the literal translation) to the interpretative-communicative method (modulation and variation). He was not attached to any specific method or technique; this also demonstrates that he could decide the more appropriate one depending on the type of text, the target reader or the complexity of the idea. Conclusions Translation is considered to be the transfer of meaning from one language into another, respecting the author’s intention and taking into consideration the context which will give a particular sense to such meaning. Throughout all of our history translation has played an important role. For those reasons, the authors of this term paper consider that it would be very useful to undertake a research through a three-stage format with the purpose of providing information regarding the history of translation in Cuba. Therefore, a contrastive analysis of the translation work carried out by Jose Marti Perez of the book Greek Antiquities with the original work was developed, which helped illustrating the general characteristics of the translatological work in the XIX century in Cuba. Hence the authors of this term paper believe that an instrument in the third stage of the research will facilitate a thorough search of information on the History of translation in Cuba by the English Major Students of the Universidad de Oriente since it deals with a subject that has barely been dealt with. Recommendations ? It would be advisable to conduct further research on this important topic, due to its relevance to the English Language Major. ? The results of this paper could be implemented in the study material of the subject Introduccion a la traduccion for second year students of the English Language Major.