When we read translated narrative, the original Narrator's voice is not the only which comes to us. The Translator's discursive presence in the translated text becomes discernible in certain cases, e.g. when the pragmatic displacement resulting from translation requires paratextual intervention for the benefit of the Implied Reader of the translated text; when self-reflexive references to the medium of communication itself are involved; when 'contextual overdetermination' leaves no other option. The ways in which the Translator's discursive presence manifests itself are demonstrated on the basis of different translations of the Dutch novel Max Havelaar (1860).
When Boris Yeltsin speaks through an Interpreter, do we really want to hear the Interpreter's voice? We listen, surely, because we want to know what Yeltsin has to say. To the extent that we are conscious of hearing the Interpreter's voice, it is as no more than a minor distraction. We regard—or better: we are prepared, we have been conditioned to regard—the Interpreter's voice as a carrier without a substance of its own, a virtually transparent vehicle. Anything that takes away from this transparency is unwelcome [ p. 24 ]'noise' in the information-theoretical sense of the term.
References
Bal, Mieke
1985Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, tr. Christine van Boheemen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
1988 “On Translating Proper Names, with Reference to De Witte and Max Havelaar”. Modern Dutch Studies: Essays in Honour of Peter King, ed. M. Wintle. London: Athlone 1988 11–24.
Littau, Karin
1993 “Intertextuality and Translation: The Waste Land in French and German”. Translation—the Vital Link, ed. Catriona Picken. London: Chamelon Press 1993 63–69.
Multatuli
1927Max Havelaar or the Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company, tr. W. Siebenhaar, intro. D.H. Lawrence. New York.
1994 “Derrida’s onvertaalbaarheidsweb”. Bouwen aan Babel: Zes opstellen over onvertaalbaarheid, ed. Raymond van den Broeck. Antwerpen-Harmelen: Fantom 1994 89–100.