Is this really possible to make a transparent translation?

Résumé du document

To say the least, The Translator's Invisibility, written by ?Lawrence Venuti', Professor of English at Temple University has provoked many debates and controversy within the field of translation and has therefore, become a classic text. At the beginning of the book, Venuti quotes Norman Shapiro, professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Wesleyan University. Let us discuss this quotation and question to what extent Shapiro's idea is feasible. According to him, translation is an "attempt" to produce a transparent text. This means that the aim is not systematically reached, and translation remains an activity mainly directed by a certain ideal objective. Besides, the adjective "transparent" expresses the idea of absence of any trace, or clue. You only notice that there is a translation when there are "little imperfections", which could be considered as evidence that there is a filter of translation ahead of the text. "Ideally" there shouldn't be any imperfection so the translation would be "so" perfect that the text would look natural and fluid.

Extraits

[...] Besides, the adjective “transparent” expresses the idea of absence of any trace, any clue. You only notice that there is a translation when there are “little imperfections”, which could be considered as evidence: the evidence that there is a filter in front of the text, the translation's filter. “Ideally” there shouldn't be any imperfection so the translation would be perfect that the text would look natural and fluid. But isn't translating a work on communication (in the most liberal sense of the world) and a linguistic challenge about cultural values? [...]

[...] It all depends on the type of audience the translator wants to target. The force of the translator is to admit, since the beginning, the impossibility to offer a perfect translation, since: - every language has its own words - every word has different meaning in every language - every culture has different common images, different values, different realities But there is probably some texts easier to be translated than other: for example, technical texts, because the words are part of a jargon, and words define really precised realities. [...]

[...] So how is it possible to translate the perfect speech? How to be equal to our job? The absolute fidelity to the essence of the original text may only be God's prerogative, as it is showed on the Pentecôte day : suddenly, all the apostles can speak all the languages in the world without any help from any translator, let's even say that they suddenly speak an international language that anyone can understand : the perfect translation ! Likewise, we often refer to the translation of Poe's text by Baudelaire to say that it's one of the best translations ever, because Baudelaire knew quite well the american author and therefore, was able to adopt his style and his verve. [...]

[...] So to speak, the problem is the link between being faithful to a text and being free that rules every act of translation. This assertion infers a disjunction in the texts to be translated. When it comes to a scientific text or to the common sense, common places and everyday life notions, the difficulties implied by the translation are minimized, because the denotative language in scientific works excludes any distance from the original text through all the constraints each reference impose. [...]

[...] & Darbelnay, J., Stylistique comparée du français et de l'anglais, Méthode de traduction, Paris, Didier - Jost Trier, Das sprachliche Feld in G.Mounin, Les problèmes théoriques de la traduction, Paris, Gallimard p.44-45 - G.Mounin, Les fonctions du langage in La littérature et ses technocraties, coll. Synthèses contemporaines, Casterman p .168 - Octavio Paz, Vers et prose, L'Arc et la Lyre, Paris, Gallimard p.85 - François Wuilmart, La traduction littéraire, scientifique et technique Actes du colloque international, Coll. Paroles & Actes Paris p.49 - W. Benjamin, La tâche du traducteur in Mythe et violence, traduction de M. de Gandillac, Denoël p. [...]