PRIMARY TASK OF THE TRANSLATOR WITH REFERENCE TO WALTER BENJAMIN

The task of the translator in a general sense is nothing more than to render a source language (SL) text into target language (TL) text. However, for Benjamin the task of the translator is not simply so. But it’s more than that. There are several tasks which the translator should accomplish and, also, there are several grounds which the translator should consider in translation. Such propositions are given by Walter Benjamin in his seminal text “The Task of the Translator” (1923). Anyway, before coming to the main topic, it is good to know at the outset that Walter Benjamin is a philosopher- a mystic kind of philosopher. Therefore, his concept of translation as well as his idea regarding the task of the translator is philosophical.
Benjamin’s main idea regarding translation and the task of the translator centred round his concept of ‘pure language’. To Benjamin, therefore, the task of the translator is to move towards ‘pure language.’ Or, in other words, it is the task of the translator to release ‘pure language’ out of the original and the translation. Benjamin probably mean by ‘pure language’: that both the original and the translated languages are incomplete in themselves; however, translation helps bringing out the complete meaning which is hidden in the original. This means that the original becomes a concrete signifier only through its translation. The original is only the concept, the rule that specifies how language is to be used. The translation is thus not a derivative of the original, and certainly not a copy of the original in another medium, language, or terminology; rather it is its realization.
As a result, the task of the translator ‘consists in finding that intended effect [intention] upon the language into which he is translating which produces in it the echo of the original.’ That intended effect is the production of ‘pure language’. More specifically, ‘instead of resembling the meaning of the original, the translator must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language’. In this way the task of the translator is unique and powerful because until the translator has released this greater language in his translation, ‘it remains hidden in the languages’
Thus Benjamin differentiates the translator’s task from that of the poet. While the intention of the poet is spontaneous, primary, concrete, whereas the intention of the translator is derivative, final and ideal. The translator’s intention is ideal in the sense that his aim is to integrate the plurality of languages into a single ‘true language.’ By ‘true language’ Benjamin probably means the language in which the biblical Adam and Eve conversed with God-since that language was no more or no longer in use; and with the tower of Babel multiple languages came into existence. So, Benjamin probably means that language ‘pure language’ which existed before the tower of Babel; and the task of the translator is to create a language so as to bring out that ‘pure language’.
Therefore, the task of the translator, according to Benjamin, is not only translation of a text but trans-creation of a text. The task of the translator is to recreate the original in all its greatness- because languages do not share the same linguistic codes and modes of intention. For Benjamin, translation does not seem to be about losing something. Instead, translation appears as a way of gaining something through the creation of a text. That created text will not be a pale copy of the original but will have the potential to harmonizes the originally conflicting intentions by transforming the translating language in order to release a ‘pure language’.
In order to produce ‘pure language’ the translator has to transform and adapt the target language (TL) to match the original. To clarify his point Benjamin quotes Rudolph Pannwitz: “Our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English.” Herein comes the concept of ‘fidelity’ and ‘freedom’ in translation. Benjamin says, “These are the old, traditional concepts in every discussion of translation. They no longer seem useful for a theory that seeks in translation something other than the reproduction of meaning.”
According to Benjamin, the translator must be faithful to the original in so far as the meaning of the original is concern. However, this doesn’t simply mean a literal translation. For, whoever goes only for literal translation, according to Benjamin, is a bad translator. On the contrary, the translator must take freedom so as to allow his language (TL) to adapt with the original language. He must expand and deepen his language by the foreign tongue. The African writer Chinua Achebe’s rendering of the word ‘chi’ of Igbo language in English as ‘chi’ itself is a very good example. In Benjamin’s own words, “to set free in his own language the pure language spellbound in the foreign language, to liberate the language imprisoned in the work by rewriting it, is the translator’s task.”
Benjamin claims that languages are not strangers to one another, but are interrelated in what they want to express. Thus to demonstrate this kinship of languages in a translation, the translator has to convey the meaning of the original as accurately as possible. However this does not mean a perfect copy of the original. Benjamin explains, “Fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the smallest details, although they need not be like one another. In the same way a translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the original’s mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language, just as fragments are part of a vessel.”
To sum up, the task of the translator is not only to transmit messages or information from source language (SL) to target language (TL); but to recreate the original in all its greatness. It is the task of the translator to move the original towards higher language or ‘pure language’ in translation. In this sense the task of the translator is something unique and powerful for Benjamin as it is the translator who uncovers the greater language that is hidden in the original language, and thereby creating ‘pure language’.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY


1. Benjamin Walter, “The Task of the Translator” [1923], Trans. Harry John, Illuminations, Ed. Arendt Hannah, Fontana Press, London, 1992, 1973.

2. Rendall Steven, “The Translator’s Task Walter Benjamin (Translation)”- www.erudit.org

3. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/uoh/Doc?id=10100314&ppg=27

4. http://germanquarterly.aatg.org/forum/TranslationForum.php



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