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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 66:6 (2020) ► pp.973–998

Translations and original

A shift model to identify influence between translations

| Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

In 1989 and 1990, Kitty van Leuven-Zwart published two articles on the similarities and dissimilarities between a translation and its original. My research is based on a classification model which derives primarily from Van Leuven-Zwart’s comparative method, although I also work with concepts from other authors. The major difference to Van Leuven-Zwart’s research is that the main aim of the model I propose is not to indicate the differences between a translation and the original, but to detect whether previous translations have had any influence upon the studied translation. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the shift approach to find out the relationship between different translations. I explain and illustrate the classification model by comparing the Catalan translation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Josep M. de Sagarra (1959) with previous French, Spanish and Catalan translations in order to ascertain whether these texts had any influence upon Sagarra’s translation.

Keywords: shift, similarities, influence, literary translation, Kitty van Leuven-Zwart, William Shakespeare, Josep M. de Sagarra
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The classification model
    • 2.1Classification of coincidences which show a shift regarding the original text
      • 2.1.1Register
      • 2.1.2Specification
      • 2.1.3Generalisation
      • 2.1.4Intensification
      • 2.1.5Modification
      • 2.1.6Addition (of information)
      • 2.1.7Addition (of metaphor)
      • 2.1.8Deletion (of information)
      • 2.1.9Deletion (of metaphor)
      • 2.1.10Total change of meaning
      • 2.1.11Change of metaphor
      • 2.1.12Explicitation
      • 2.1.13Implicitation
      • 2.1.14Syntactic order
      • 2.1.15Punctuation
      • 2.1.16Metre
      • 2.1.17Phonic pattern (rhyme)
      • 2.1.18Phonic pattern (alliteration)
    • 2.2Classification of coincidences which do not show a shift regarding the original text
      • 2.2.1Lexical choice
      • 2.2.2Semantic choice in the case of polysemy
  • 3.Further concepts
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1 The French, Spanish, and Catalan influences on Sagarra’s translation of Macbeth
    • 4.2The classification model
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00200.ber
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