Translation Ethics - Lambert 2023

 Lambert 2023

• Juramento de Jeronimo de Chesterman 2001 30-31
• build upon more solid foundations and focus solely on a deontological professional ethics while separating personal ethics from the discussion,
• divides ethics into four key areas (truth, loyalty, understanding, and trust).
• Ethics of representation: this deals with fidelity, accuracy, truth, and how to choose and transmit a good, or the best, interpretation of a source text. This prioritises the value of “being true to the source”
• Ethics of service: this falls in line with functionalist models of translation, ... loyalty
• Ethics of communication ... “ethical translator is a mediator working to achieve cross-cultural understanding”
• Norm-based ethics: this centres around predictability and hence trustworthiness. Essentially, a norm-based ethics says that if we behave in a predictable manner and state where we have moved away from norms (using prefaces and so forth, when possible) then we can be trusted. However, inherent in this adherence to norms is the assertion that to follow existing standards is to be ethical, a notion that has been questioned with considerable force (and success)
• The key idea behind fidelity is that the translation is faithful to, or stands in for, the source text in some way. As we have seen, for Chesterman fidelity is underpinned by the value of truth: “a translation must be true to its original, as a translator must be true to the original author” (Chesterman 2021: 15). And, in the accounts shared above, there is a sense that the method of sensefor-sense translation has allowed the translators to achieve such truth. 34
• Unfortunately, translation is not a simple case of swapping terms for perfect equivalents that will work in exactly the same way in another culture/time/place, or for another readership, for instance. This means that the aim of achieving total parity from source to target is simply not possible. As such, what we are looking for is not necessarily perfect sameness, but rather equivalence, a term which has too been fiercely contested (see Pym 2014, chapters 2 and 3) but raises a range of questions to consider 35
• “[e]ither the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the reader toward him. Or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author toward him” (Schleiermacher 2012: 49), leaving the translator with two separate paths they can follow. Hermans contends that the dichotomy is not real as the second option is “mentioned only to be dismissed” (Hermans 2019: 27) and argues that both poles are impossibilities. Indeed, Schleiermacher again indicates that the irrationality of language – the fact that words do not simply map together as one-to-one equivalents – means that our translations can only be an approximation, a reconstruction, and for us a compromise ... this acknowledgement that we can only approximate problematises the notion of absolute fidelity 39-40
•  Natureza dualistica, oposições 41-2
• Berman 47-50
• The author considers that “[t]he properly ethical aim of the translating act [is] [...] receiving the Foreign as Foreign” .... This is a key point to take forward, as it is this imposition that drives Berman’s deontological rulings.
• twelve deforming tendencies ...  “[a]ll the tendencies noted in the analytic lead to the same result: the production of a text that is more ‘clear,’ more ‘elegant,’ more ‘fluent,’ more ‘pure’ than the original. They are the destruction of the letter in favor of meaning” ... good translation restores the signifying process of works (not just considering their meaning) while also transforming the translating language.  
• To recap, in specifically ethical terms Berman states that: “ethical translation is opposed to ethnocentric translation”
•  “translating is not about finding equivalents”, and “equivalents of a phrase or a proverb do not replace them” (ibid. 65). Even though “equivalent” proverbs exist in most languages, using these stock phrases does not suffice for a translation methodology 52
• In this way, rather than searching for equivalents in the text, which would thus see us refusing to carry over the foreignness of the original into the translating language, this “littéralisante” [literalising] translation engenders a subtle shift 53
• . The further we mimic the tools employed by the other language, the closer we get to the Foreignness that translation is seeking to capture. Ultimately, Berman leaves us with the notion that this uniqueness inherent in a source language is absolutely vital to ethics and to translation ... This deontological call to preserve certain textual features does not entail a slavish attachment to every word and phrase of a text, but rather seeks to carry over the unique features of a language in order to enrich the receiving language and culture 54
• Problemas com Berman. Não exequível materialmente. Ignora outras trads que não a literária. Não integra teoria e prática 54-5
• Preocupação pedagógica. 56
• Reiss
• Reiss’s text type theory, first of all, is more deontologically focused. It posits three main text types – informative, expressive, and operative – each with distinct characteristics (1977/1989: 108–109) and prescribes different loyalties (or fidelity) depending on the type of text we are translating 59
• This loosely represents a shift from deontology to consequentialism: we set a certain aim or skopos to be achieved (i.e. a consequence), and follow a methodology that will allow us to achieve that aim. 60
• Nord
• Function plus loyalty
•  As an interpersonal relationship, loyalty was meant to replace the traditional intertextual relationship of “faithfulness” or ‘fidelity’, concepts that usually refer to linguistic or stylistic similarity between the source and the target texts, regardless of the communicative intentions involved. Nord’s loyalty seeks to embrace that difference by positing translation as a subjective, personal activity. 61
• In ethical terms, the intrinsic values of loyalty are set to a tripartite distinction: loyalty to source text author, the target audience, and the commissioner of the work.62
• contractarianism 62
• Máxima deontologica: recusar traduzir se os outros dois pilares forem conflituosos, mas
• Yet, while this may be feasible in certain situations, the likelihood that a client will be open to these kinds of demands in a professional situation is low. Furthermore, no potential resolutions are offered for occasions where the demands of all parties involved are in conflict. 63
•  her analysis returns to an ethics of explicitness, which accords ultimate responsibility to the translator and enables any course of action based on transparency and accountability 64
• refacing a translated text (also suggested by Chesterman) seemingly represents a beneficial course of action when feasible but the assumption of an ability on the part of the translator to intuitively know where this subjectivity arrives and in what form seemingly underestimates the complexity of such a task. The idea of “adopting clear choices at points of source-text ambiguity” (ibid. 185) equally relies on intuition and equates a clear choice with the right choice (ethically), which is not necessarily the case nor a simple matter. Furthermore, “ensur[ing] loyalty to the source-text author’s intentions” both contradicts her tripartite loyalty outlined above and makes light of what is itself surely another subjective category (if the preface is to discuss all points at which a subjective decision has been made, arguably the text should be covered in its entirety) and one that again returns us to problematic discussions of fidelity. 
• Ultimately, though problems remain when we are to decide what course of action is to be taken when the interests of individual parties conflict, Nord’s framework has multiple strengths. It demonstrates a keen awareness of the importance of considering the needs and interests of a range of agents involved in the translation process, incorporates conceptions of subjectivity, and counters some of the criticisms previously levelled against skopos theory by attempting to bind the translator’s decisions to these various agents. Nord’s hybridity is also an interesting feature. Deontology again emerges at various points, traditional notions of function are consequentialist, and contractarianism is contained within the notion of cooperation and an insistence upon loyalty to various parties. Yet through all of these theories, various issues of compatibility see responsibility return to the translator a problematic call for transparency. 64
• Pym
• Foco em Translator ethics ao invés de translation ethics 65 mas inclui collective, professional aspects 65 Cooperation mas tem que ser maior que os translation costs
• The goal of any translation project should be long-term cooperation between cultures. 66

66

• Trust é a coisa mais importante 70
• Venuti
• translation is a political act 78
• “[t]he purpose of transparency/invisibility is to inscribe foreign texts with English-language values and provide readers with the narcissistic experience of recognizing their own culture in a cultural other” (Venuti 1995: 15). Insofar as the effect of transparency effaces the work of translation, it contributes to the cultural marginality and the economic exploitation that translators have long struggled with. 79
•  While Venuti stands as another advocate of the idea that translators should include prefaces and notes with their work where possible, his ethics of difference departs from Nord’s loyalty, as it can require the translator to be disloyal to domestic cultural norms – something that the commissioner of a translation is generally very unlikely to agree to. Indeed, Venuti’s ethics requires the translator to call attention to what these norms enable and limit and admit and exclude in the encounter with foreign texts, although he insists that a translation can deviate from norms without being so estranging as to be self-defeating. 79
•  Venuti’s method is not a simple binary opposition between good and bad, as has often been considered to be the case ... Subversion or deviation from cultural norms that promotes innovation is set as his ultimate value, even when this – seemingly paradoxically – entails the use of a domesticating method. 80

• Publishers exploit the low status of translators Lambert & Walker 2022 79
• Koskinen (2000: 99) helpfully breaks visibility down into three different types: textual visibility, paratextual visibility, and extratextual visibility. 
•  the development of formal codes of ethics as one of five steps towards professionalisation found in many “newer and marginal professions”.
• In her influential early study of codes of ethics for interpreters, Bancroft (2005) found five (near-)universal ethical principles – competence, integrity, confidentiality, neutrality, and fidelity – while Schweda-Nicholson (1994: 82) listed seven key points covered in codes (integrity was removed, neutrality became impartiality, fidelity became completeness and accuracy, and continuing professional development, role boundaries, and conflicts of interest were added). Skaaden (2013) later highlighted neutrality and fidelity in particular as guidelines that specifically differentiate interpreting from other activities. 120
• half of codes include no mention of rates 128
• David Jemielity (2018: 535) discusses a potential ideological and behavioural “disconnect” between general translator culture and businessperson culture, pointing towards a “poverty cult” among translators, characterised by an “economically unambitious, arguably anticapitalist approach”.  141
• Ethical stress 142
• This leads McAlester (2003: 226) to powerfully contend that “ultimately, translators’ responsibility is not to the author, or the reader, or the commissioner, or to the translating profession but to themselves” 144
• . Generally, translators feel that they are not paid enough, and there is evidence of low, and decreasing rates being offered. This stems from a number of key sources, including industry disruptors, ongoing issues of low status, and a lack of regulation (this is not the place to get into an in-depth exploration of money in translation). 147
• Mais questões de preço. É ético baixar o preço? é ético pagar pouco? 148
• Socialist translation theories 163
• ethics of sheer self interest .... stark contrast to conceptions of fidelity .... enlighened egoism 165

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Ver também: Kotze & Crots 2014