There is no question that simply reading a text sets in motion an act of interpretation. By this we do not mean just the necessity for an interpretation such as R. L. Politzer refers to. Politzer has in mind the decisions the translator faces when the original text provides no clues. As an example he points to languages which have no generic word for “horse,” but only specific words for white, dark, young, male or female horses, or which have not only singular and plural numbers but also a dual number. “How can you translate ‘my chil-dren,’” he asks, “if the original text does not distinguish between,
‘two and more than two?’ You interpret and become more precise than the text you are translating” (Politzer, 1966, p. 34).
What concerns us here is not simply the interpretation of differ-ent lexical and grammatical structures where the translator has to make clear and definite decisions in the target language, but rather interpretation in the broadest sense based on an appreciation of the text as a whole, namely the hermeneutical process which is i n-volved in the simple reading (or hearing) of any text. This process decides primarily what the reader infers from a text or reads into it.
Every translator is also first a reader of the text which will become the material for translation. From this it follows that a translator who takes his work seriously and considers it his responsibility to communicate without any prejudice the thoughts, perspectives, arguments, intentions and purposes of the text’s author, will not try to adapt the text to his own taste or perspective but will be mindful of his responsibility as a mediator even as he reads, and he will read with discernment, observing the inherent principles established from
the start as common to all tr anslation activity. Ultimately every analysis admittedly issues in an interpretation, no matter how ob-jective one tries to be. Yet it still remains the best counsel for the translator to “feel himself in the position of the original author.”
This means that every translation is necessarily also an interpre-tation. Of course the possibility and the necessity for similarities as well as differences between various translations of the very same original is due among other reasons to the fact that the translator – as distinct from the interpreter – works from a fixed written text which is unable to convey the speech mannerisms and intonations of the author, and as Hans-Georg Gadamer115 emphasizes, can there-fore be more ambiguous than the spoken word. Even more significant is the “tentative nature” of translations, because every translator is an interpreter. When Gadamer (1998, p. 365) says that “the foreign-ness of a language is simply an extreme example of a hermeneutical difficulty, i.e., of foreignness and its resolution,” he is focusing on the intrinsic nature of the process. And it should also be added that limitations may also be personal: ultimately interpretations will stand or fall with the interpreter. Personal character, historical setting in time and space, and degree of facility with languages (both source and target languages) as well as educational level achieved are sub-jective limitations to the effectiveness of interpreters, leading them in particular directions and making their decisions favor their own understandings and preferences in what and how they translate. It is a commonly accepted fact that it is impossible to preserve all the values of the original in a translation. It is also a truism that in trans-lating a choice must at times be made between two or more possibilities. A first decision, which is based on interpretation, leads to a second decision on how the results of the interpretation may best be represented in the target language. And this again has its
115 H. G. Gadamer (1998, p. 371): “Gesprochenes Wort legt sich in erstaun-lichem Grade von selber aus, durch die Sprechweise, den Ton, das Tempo usw ...” (“The spoken word is amazingly self-interpretive through intonation, accent, timing, etc ...”).
subjective aspects. Even when two translators are in complete agreement on the interpretation of a text or a passage, their transla-tions in a target language will almost never be identical. Their choices of optimal equivalents from among all the potential equivalents in the language are so influenced by non-linguistic factors that only rarely is the same equivalent chosen. However objective they may try to be, in the end the choice will be subjective, because it is influ-enced by factors over which the translators have no contro l and from which they cannot, even with the best of intentions, disengage themselves. These have to do with belonging to a particular nation sharing a particular language and culture. Ideally, given the identi-cal interpretation, the form of a version in German as the target language would be quite different depending on whether the trans-lator is a Swiss, Austrian or German – or even a North, West, South or East German (quite independently of political affiliations). Simi-lar subjective factors would include a person’s educational level and personal habits of speech and style.
The range of variation and possibilities of interpretation would differ in the various text types and kinds of texts. They would be fewer in content-focused texts than in form-focused texts; in appeal-focused texts the differences would be greater than in form-focused texts but still fewer than in audio-medial texts. Again, within the content-focused text type of a philosophical nature there would be a greater range of differences than in newspaper articles or bib-liographical surveys, etc. Among form-focused texts there would be a greater variety of interpretation in lyrical poems than in short stories or novels, etc.
All the factors enumerated here, whether the presuppositions of an interpretation or the decisions made in translating, may be con-sidered as subjective factors affecting the hermeneutical process.
These factors naturally also affect the critic of a translation.
Ultimately the demand that critics not assume the role of judges is essentially grounded in the very human subjectivity which charac-terizes both the translator and the critic. This subjective condition of the hermeneutical process also makes the further demand that a
critic should give reasons for his judgment, whether it be positive or negative, and in the end, following the suggestion of A. W. von Schlegel (1963, p. 99) cited earlier, “there should always be a pro-posed remedy” whenever a negative judgment is rendered.
In other words, sweeping statements such as “super bly trans-lated,” “awkwardly transtrans-lated,” “a sympathetic translation,” etc., as well as such radically censorial expressions as “false” or “true”
should be eliminated from translation criticisms. It is far better to agree with Julius Wirl (1958, p. 39) that “the farther ... the ele-ments of a text or the text as a whole stays from material specifics or analytical reasoning, the more varied its influence may be with readers and hearers, ... and the less likely a particular translation (paraphrase or rendering) can be shown to be the best or accepted as uniquely true.” Such judgments as “true” and “false” are perti-nent only when grammatical or typographical errors show a translator to be either lacking competence in the language or sim-ply irresponsible.