Three Principles of Translation (#137; Topic L)

In 1898, Yen Fu, upon completing his translation of Huxley's On the Origin of Species into Chinese, offered "three difficulties of translation" in his book's preface. I prefer to refer to them as principles, and, in my talk on translating Analects into English on May 28 (#134-5), render them 信、達、雅 as fidelity, fluency, and finesse ("the three F"). Fidelity, the first difficulty/principle, calls for finding words that reflect the original thought as closely as possible, both as to meaning and to tone. Fluency, the difficulty/principle next in importance, refers to phrasing the thought to facilitate smooth reading, including proper word sequencing and grammar. Finesee, which comes into play only after the first two difficulties/principles are properly taken care of, refers to using words that facilitate easy retention -- words that are synonyms-cum-homonyms, words that rhyme, words that begin with the same sound or same letter (such as "the three F" above), etc. New York Times's business section today reports findings of a research by the National Academy of Sciences that was published on-line yesterday. It seems that research subjects consider "easily processed information" -- purely incidental occurrences such as ticker-tape combinations that are pronounceable, meaningful features such as fluency and rhyme, etc. -- as more likely to be "true, likable, familiar, and convincing". They proceed to reward companies with these features with higher stock prices and such, at least in the short run. What a finding. What a coincidence. This is precisely what I strove to achieve in my translation of the Analects -- close representation, smooth reading, and easy retention. (In my talk Sunday, I illustrated each of these with many examples, not repeated here.) Reading that NYT article made me quite happy -- my instinct of what a good translator needs to do is endorsed, making my hard work all the more worthwhile.