Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Magisterská diplomová práce

4. Stylistic Aspects of the Texts: Author’s style vs. Translator’s style

In the present chapter, the style of the individual texts will be discussed. Similarities and differences in the style of the source texts and their translations will be commented on as they can provide some basic hints as far as the occurrences of explicitation and implicitation are concerned.

It can be assumed that the language of the texts will not be as figurative as the language of fiction but, as they are aimed at a broad readership, not only the specialized audience, and as they should awaken the readers’ interest in the questions presented, they should be, first, really comprehensible and, second, more creative than the language of purely scientific texts. Not only the referential function should be essential but also the conative and to a lesser extent also the poetic function ought to be traceable.

4.1 Antonín Hradilek

4.1.1 Stylistic analysis—The Diversity of Life

The author plays with the reader’s imagination, movement being extremely important: the reader is encouraged to imagine a walk from the centre of the Earth where only the furnace-hot rock and magma devoid of life can be found, the path from Carthage to Alexandria in the shade of trees, an investigation of the hawks of Harris County, Texas, or people filled with colon bacteria flying in planes. The reader’s sense of sight is appealed to repeatedly.

The conative function of language seems to be interwoven with the phatic function: the author constantly makes sure the communication channel is open and tries to strengthen it by addressing the reader: imagine yourself on a journey…, let me stress that point, for a moment let me go…, etc. The reader seems to be a real partner in the investigation: It might immediately have come to your mind, we have arrived at the question…, How might we assess…, We have a good idea… This use of plural is not to be interpreted as plural majestic. The author cooperates with the reader; if he wants to stress his own ideas, the pronouns for the first person singular are used: I will try…, I must add…, I think…, My opinion is… In most cases, however, the text is built as if the author were guiding the reader through a museum of knowledge about life and all its mysteries, individual relationships being revealed one by one.

Passages in which stark facts are stated mingle with the author’s thoughts as well as with the narrative passages that read like tales and “Once upon a time” stories: At the height of the Roman Empire, when North Africa was covered by fertile savannas—and it was possible to travel from Carthage to Alexandria in the shade of trees—expeditions of soldiers armed with net and spear captured lions for display in zoos and in Colosseum spectacles.

The vocabulary of the text is rich, scientific terms (phytoplankton, copepods), marked and rare words (tenuousness, haphazard, scrub-pine woods) and idioms are utilized. Adjectives are not too abundant in the text; they are mostly referential and evaluative attributes: kilometer-thick layer, Assyrian king, wonderful mystery. The syntax is rather complex, the mean sentence length being 22.75 words⁸. Simple and compound sentences prevail, a number of parentheses and appositions, however, can be identified.

The translation should reflect and preserve those basic features of style: rather long sentences (the short ones are typical of the author’s commentaries), rich vocabulary, changes in genre, passages of mere facts stating and the narrative ones or those turning to the reader should be distinguishable. The language should be creative; the text should sound idiomatic—as far as the norms governing the Czech popular science literature allow, of course.

The language of the Czech translation, however, is much less colourful and idiomatic. It reads like an ordinary, though simplified scientific text, i.e. a scientific text devoid of difficult complex thoughts, detailed facts and condensed phrasing. It does not have the poetic function, or at least not to such an extent as the original does, and the small details that attract the reader’s attention in English (e.g. the effect of the use of contrast) get lost in translation: so much diversity from so little physical matter becomes z tak malého množství hmoty taková rozmanitost, the marked adverbial with the naked eye is omitted completely (or maybe implicitated), people filled with colon bacteria is translated as less vivid v sobě nesou střevní bakterie, etc. A couple of translation solutions, though, sound really idiomatic, e.g. převrácená vzhůru nohama.

The author’s dialogue with the reader is much more formal and less inventive, the imperative forms often turn into indicative ones (imagine vs. můžete si představit, with the exception of Projděte and hledejte). The use of modal verbs in general is typical of the translator. The distinction between I and we is maintained but the touch of cooperation is not so visible any longer (maybe because of the more frequent use of plural forms with we instead of the English passive verb forms). The contrast between various passages of the original is blurred in the translation as well and the marked vocabulary is neutralized the most wonderful mystery—největší tajemství. The use of the same concepts is not consistent, e.g. two solutions za přirozených podmínek and ve volné přírodě are used for one English phrase under natural conditions.

The sentences in the translation are shorter, the mean sentence length being 11.44 words (compared with 22.75 in English). It is clear that Czech does not have articles and does not have to use pronouns with each verb and thus needs fewer words in individual sentences. In some cases, however, complex English sentences are divided into several Czech simple (or compound) ones and the effect of the text changes: V dobách největšího rozkvětu Římské říše se v severní Africe rozkládala úrodná savana a z Kartága do Alexandrie bylo možné cestovat ve stínu stromů. Výpravy vojáků vyzbrojených sítěmi a kopími zde lovily lvy pro zoologické zahrady a pro gladiátorské hry. It seems as if only the facts were presented, the touch of narration and the mystery of the text disappear.

As far as the styles of Wilson’s and Hradilek’s texts are concerned, considerable differences can be found. The English text is closer to fiction, whereas the language of the Czech text resembles with its unmarkedness the style of unmarked elaborate scientific studies. With respect to the fact that a number of instances of figurative language do not occur in the Czech text and that the Czech text is considerably shorter—as already pointed out above—it can be inferred that normalizations but also omissions, simplifications and implicitations will not be rare in the Czech translation. Normalization, however, is not the point of interest in the present study. A question arises related to the norms that govern individual genres in Czech and English. It seems as if the Czech popular science text resisted figurative language and the English one, on the other hand, luxuriated in it. This observation will be paid attention to in the other texts from the corpus as well. Is it a general feature of the Czech popular science literature or is it a characteristic of the individual translator’s style?

4.1.2 Stylistic analysis—Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny

The beginning of the fourth chapter—The Invisible Brain—included in the corpus consists of three sub-chapters and the very beginning of the fourth one. Each of them seems to have a clear structure—an introduction, the main body and a conclusion consisting either of questions that make the readers stop to think before they proceed to the following sub-chapter (the end of the first sub-chapter) or of the author’s conclusions and evaluative statements (the end of the second and the third sub-chapters).

Questions are extremely frequent in the extract; they push the text forward and strengthen the phatic function of the text. The author, again, communicates with his readers: After all, such industriousness comes naturally to people, no? and makes them a part of the research: as we have seen…

The composition of the passage is similar to the composition of an essay; arguments, general claims, facts and opinions are presented and supported or confuted by quotations of famous writers, scientists and scholars (Robert Carneiro, Adam Smith, Franz Boas) and the author’s conjectures and deductions: maybe then…, maybe we should…, had there been […] farmers would have felt… A number of examples and details that draw the text closer to the readers are provided: Spending your afternoon making yam for a Chilkat robe makes sense only if the finished product can be transported at a cost acceptable to its buyer.

Due to the lack of elements that would draw the readers’ attention to the text itself and its poetic qualities, the extract resembles ordinary scientific texts more than Wilson’s text. Nevertheless, the language is informal and idioms, marked vocabulary and informal syntax (contracted verb forms) can, occasionally, be found: this explanation won’t wash, bushels of fish were hauled in, tons of salmon just begging to be eaten, manioc production skyrocketed!, enticingly foreign, these things don’t grow on trees, wouldn’t, there’s, etc. The author’s personal commitment is also an important characteristic of the text. He repeatedly expresses his own attitudes and judgements: undoubtedly, presumably, granted, certainly, It’s a nice image and so on.

Ordinarily, the sentences are simple or compound, complex sentences often include conditional clauses; the mean sentence length is 19.29 words. Dashes and quotation marks are typical of the text and words of particular importance tend to be written in italics­­­­—contemporary words applied to ancient concepts and words that the author wants to especially emphasize.

The translation is very close to the original. However, some of the marked features of the English text become neutralized similarly like in Hradilek’s previous translation. The strange expressive words are replaced with the unmarked ones in Czech: skyrocketed—prudce se zvýšila, the idioms are less frequent (musel živit víc krků being one of the few exceptions). Fewer words in italics and fewer dashes are utilized. Dashes are, after all, not so common in Czech texts; sometimes, they can be—and they are—replaced with parentheses. Nevertheless, the translator does not pay attention to the meaning of dashes, occasionally, and mistranslations occur: The lower these costs, the more non-zero-sum the relationship among the players—the more each can gain via interaction, the more productive, per capita the web of exchange. vs. Čím jsou tyto náklady nižší, tím je vyšší nenulový součet […], tím více každý z nich obchodem získává a tím produktivnější […] instead of čím více každý získává, tím produktivnější je obchodní síť v přepočtu na jednoho účastníka.

It is virtually impossible to preserve the informal character of the target text created by contracted verb forms in the source text. Again, the marked features are blurred, making the translation more or less average, rather than exceptional and idiosyncratic. The Czech text does not seem to allow the author to share his attitudes and it also seems to involve the reader less than the original, even though a number of indicative verb forms of the second person plural or imperative forms of the second person singular or plural occur: vynalézej, zhyň, vezměte, žijte, všimněte si, etc. However, the author’s comments, such as as we’ve seen or undoubtedly are omitted.

There are 131 sentences (2 527 words) in the English text and 134 sentences (2 463 words) in the translation, the mean sentence length being 18.38 (cf. 19.29 in English). Only once, two short English sentences are merged into a single Czech sentence and only two long English sentences are divided into two Czech ones each. Twice a whole sentence is added to the Czech text: Nebo můžete nachytat víc ryb… and A když se lidé naučili vyrábět… Otherwise, the translation respects the original. This similarity is rather striking. The above stated assumption that there do not have to be articles and personal pronouns in the Czech text and that is why the Czech sentences in general tend to be shorter does not hold true any longer.

All in all, Hradilek’s style seems to be more similar to Robert Wright’s than to Edward O. Wilson’s and, unfortunately, Wilson’s play with language is sacrificed in the translation, the main aim being to provide information. With respect to the frequent avoidance of marked expressions and to the lack of figurative language typical of Hradilek it can be inferred that quite a large number of occurrences of normalization, simplification and implicitation (interpersonal implicitation in particular) will be identified in both texts. On the other hand, experiential explicitations should be rather common as well. This type—accompanied by textual explicitation—could be the two most frequent types of explicitation in general as Hradilek seems to incline to precise, exact language and abandon “unnecessary” elements with poetic function.