By Ruchika Sharma

The translation is the communication of meaning from one language (the source text) to another language (the target text).

The purpose of this process is to convey the essence and intent of the original text by taking into account the cultural and regional differences between source and target languages. Therefore, translation is a complex process that requires a translator to face many difficult decisions both conscious and unconscious.

Accordingly, there has always been a debate in the realm of translation studies which of these two masters wields more power and requires more respect. This debate, nowadays dominated by Lawrence Venuti’s concepts of ‘domestication’ and foreignization’, has been fought, albeit with changing concepts and names, since ancient times. "Domesticating strategy" (author-to-reader approach) is an "ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target–language cultural values”, "Foreignizing strategy" (reader-to-author) is an "ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text”.

I would now like to do a literal translation of the following text to make my thoughts and views clear:

Harishankar Parsai (22 August 1924 – 10 August 1995) was a Hindi writer. He was a noted satirist and humourist of modern Hindi literature and is known for his simple and direct style. He wrote vyangya (satire).

The following Hindi text is one of the many satires written by him.

Source text:

प्रधानमंत्री और विदेशमंत्री कहते हैं कि दुनिया में भारत की प्रतिष्ठा बहुत बढ़ी है। किसने एकाएक भारत की प्रतिष्ठा बढ़ा दी? क्या भारतीय जनता ने बढ़ाई है? मैं एक भारतीय जन की हैसियत से कह सकता हूं कि हमने पिछले दिनों ऐसा कोई कर्म नहीं किया, जिससे भारत की प्रतिष्ठा बढ़े। ‘आई प्लीड नॉट गिल्टी।’ हमारा कोई कसूर नहीं। हमारे बावजूद भारत की प्रतिष्ठा बढ़ गई हो तो हमारी जिम्मेदारी नहीं। हम रात को सोए हैं और कोई खिड़की से घर में सोना डाल जाए, तो सुबह धनवान हो जाना हमारी जिम्मेदारी नहीं है।

Literal translation( foreignization)
Prime minister and foreign minister say that there has been an increase in prestige of India in the world. Who suddenly increased the prestige of India? I can say that as an Indian that we have not done any such deed in the past which has raised India’s reputation. “I plead guilty”. We have no fault. If India’s reputation has increased despite us, then it is not our responsibility. We have slept at night and someone throws gold through the window, it is not our responsibility to become rich in the morning.

Pros and cons of foreignization:

Advantages:

• · This ideology takes its stand on the opinion that the ‘true”, “acceptable” and “good” translation is the translation which is suitable with the taste and hope of the target reader who wants the presence of the culture of the source language.
• · One of the aims of the effort is to give additional knowledge of foreign culture and phenomena to the reader. Of course, the values existing in the source language are maintained. This ideology is a complete opposite of the domestication ideology.
• · Foreignization in translation is useful to maintain the cultural reference of the source text. Consequently, the reader will know something he does not know before. In other words, the reader becomes aware of the cross cultural understanding.

Disadvantages:  

• · The reader of the target text possible feels uncomfortable finding some strange terms.
• · The language of the target text sometimes sounds unnatural.
• · Negative cultural aspects of the source language can be easily transferred into and can influence the reader.

Faithful translation is a translation that reflects the intent of the original text over the literal or direct translation that conveys the correct grammatical expression over its real meaning or purpose. That is the reason that should be the utmost belief of a translator while doing his job and therefore, foreignization is my ideal choice for translation.