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Towards a Translation Array:
Digitally Exploring Clouds
Crowds of Translations
Tom Cheesman

Swansea University College of Arts and Humanities
Department of Languages, Translation and Media
Research Seminar 2011-12 – March 6, 2012

‘Version Variation Visualisation’
www.delightedbeauty.org
Phase 1 (Feb-July 2011)
Supported by Swansea U, College of Arts and Humanities, Research Innovation Fund
Co-Investigators David M. Berry, Robert S. Laramee, Andrew J. Rothwell
Research Assistants Alison Ehrmann, Zhao Geng
Design consultant Stephan Thiel

Phase 2 (Feb-Sept 2012): “Translation Arrays”
Supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council, Digital Transformations
Theme, Research Development Fund
Co-Investigators Robert S. Laramee, Jonathan Hope (Strathclyde)
Research Assistant Kevin Flanagan
Design consultant Stephan Thiel

2

Caroline Bergvall: ‘VIA (48 Dante Variations)’ (2000 / 2004 / 2005)

Variants:

http://www.carolinebergvall.com/projects-sound.php

http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Bergvall/Rockdrill-8/Bergvall-
Caroline_06_Via_Via_Rockdrill-8_2005.mp3

http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Bergvall/Bergvall-Caroline-Via-2004.mp3

4

“In discarding chronological sequencing in favour of alphabetization, Bergvall
carefully avoids any false sense of teleology toward some final, perfected
English version of Dante’s tercet, instead using paratactic form to emphasize
the historical and contextual relativity of translation … [E]ach translation is an
actualization of a particular point on a virtual line of continuous variation that
passes through all possible instantiations of Dante’s lines. Indeed, from this
perspective, Dante’s “original” can no longer be privileged as the basal
statement which then undergoes various subtle nuances in meaning as it is
diversely translated within different historical contexts. Rather, it occupies a
certain point on that virtual line of semantic values, a line that includes all of
its various English translations as well.”
Jared Wells, ‘Caroline Bergvall’sDeleuzian Stuttering’ (blog, 14 Dec 2010)
http://sprattsmedium.blogspot.com/2010/12/caroline-bergvalls-deleuzian-stuttering.html

5

“The translations themselves thus find themselves 'out of joint‘. However
correct and legitimate they may be and whatever right one may acknowledge
them to have, they are all disadjusted, since unjust in the gap [l’écart] that
affects them: within them, for sure, as their meaning remains necessarily
equivocal, then in their relation to one another and thus in their
multiplicity, finally or first of all in their irreducible inadequacy to the other
language and to the stroke of genius of the event that makes the law, to all
the virtualities of the original. The excellence of the translation cannot help.
Worse, and this is the whole drama, it can only aggravate or seal the
inaccessibility of the other language. A few French examples from among the
most remarkable, irreproachable, and interesting: […].”
Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, trans. adapted from Kamuf, 1994: 19

6

Retranslating

Translating again Chain translating Back translating

SL SL
ST(e1) → TL1:TT1 ST → TT
→ TT2 → TT2(e2) (↘) ↙
↙ ↗ ↘ SLTT
ST(e2) → ↓ TT3 ↗ ↓
↘ ↗ ↓
→ TT4 → TL2:TT
ST(e3) … …
…

7

“*…+ 'active' *rather than 'passive'+ retranslations” *not only reveal+ “historical
changes in the target culture” *they also+ “yield insights into the nature and
workings of translation itself, into its own special range of disturbances.”
Anthony Pym, Method in Translation History, 1998: 82-84

8

Jan Willem Mathijssen, ‘The Breach and the Observance. Theatre Retranslation as a Strategy of Artistic
Differentiation, with Special Reference to Retranslations of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1777-2001)’
(PhD, Utrecht, 2007, p.26) www.dehamlet.nl/the-breach-and-the-observance.htm
_________________________________________________________________________________________
_

9

Data visualisation
for literary studies

10

FeridunZaimoglu and GüntherSenkel, Nathan Messias(2006):
Nathan’s sermon in a Wordle (from wordle.net – cf. IBM’s ManyEyes)

11

Phrase Net: < ’s > in the Sonnets

12

Graphs from Franco Moretti’sGraphs, Maps, Trees (2005)
Timelines showing production of differing literary genres etc

13

Literary data visualisations

Franco Moretti (1998), Atlas of the European Novel
(2005), Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary History

Ben Fry (2009), ‘On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces’
at http://benfry.com/traces/

Stephan Thiel (2010), ‘Understanding Shakespeare: Towards a Visual Form for
Dramatic Texts and Language’
at www.understanding-shakespeare.com

14

Translation variation visualisation

Jan Rybicki (2003), ‘Original Characters’
at http://www.cyf-kr.edu.pl/~strybick/original_characters.htm
(2006) ‘Burrowing into Translation: Character Idiolects in Henryk
Sienkiewicz's Trilogy and its Two English Translations’, Literary and
Linguistic Computing 21 (1): 91-103

Rybicki applies stylistics analysis (computer stylometry, based on distributions of
‘stop words’) to differentiate between ‘idiolects’ in the speech of Polish and
foreign characters in three love triangles in the three novels by Sienkiewicz;
and then Rybicki applies the same method to two translations of the trilogy.
He finds that “patterns of difference and similarity are almost
mysteriously preserved in the translations”, yet the translations flatten
national differences, and introduce new ones: gender differences which are
absent in the source.

15

Crux: “delighted”

Puns: “virtue”, “delighted”, “far more”, “fair”, “black”

Joke ↚ Serious Insult ↚ Praise

Addressees? Overhearers?

Duke: status, character

Ideologies of state power, of gender, of race – on & off stage

19

German versionscurrently in print

Wenn man die Tugend muß als schön erkennen,
Dürft Ihr nicht häßlich Euren Eidam nennen. Baudissin 1832

Wenn zur Tugend die Freude an der Schönheit gehört, dann ist Euer
Schwiegersohn eher schön [hell] als schwarz. Klose 1971

Wenn es der Tapferkeit nicht an froher Schönheit mangelt, ist Euer
Schwiegersohn eher weiß als schwarz. Bolte/Hamblock 1976

wenn der Tugend nicht die lichte Schönheit fehlt, dann ist Euer Schwiegersohn
viel eher hell als schwarz. Engler 1977

Wenn Ihr der Tugend nicht Schönheit absprechen wollt,
Ist Euer Schwiegersohn nicht dunkel, sondern Gold! Fried 1970

Gäbs helle Haut für Edelmut als Preis,
Dann wär Ihr Schwiegersohn statt schwarz reinweiß. Günther 1995

Solange männliche Tugend mehr zählt als Schönheitsfehler, kann man sagen, Ihr
Schwiegersohn ist eher edel als schwarz. Zaimoglu/Senkel 2003 20

Baudissin (1830s): If one must recognise virtue as beautiful / you may not call your
son-in-law ugly.

Klose (1970s): Ifjoy in beautybelongstovirtue, thenyourson-in-lawisbeautiful
[bright/light(hell)] ratherthanblack.

Bolte/Hamblock (1970s): Ifcouragedoes not lack happy beauty, yourson-in-
lawiswhiteratherthanblack.

Engler (1970s): If virtue does not lack bright-lit (licht) beauty, then your son-in-law
is much more bright/light (hell) than black.

Fried (1970s): If you do not wish to deny beauty to virtue / your son-in-law is not
dark but gold!

Günther (1990s): If bright/light (hell) skin were a prize for noble-mindedness / then
your son-in-law would be pure white instead of black.

Zaimoglu/Senkel (2000s): So long as male virtue counts more than blemishes [lit.:
beauty-failings/-lacks], one can say your son-in-law is more noble than black.

21

Modern Englishes
If valour is the measure of true beauty, your son-in-law is fairer than he’s black.
Shakespeare Made Easy. Othello, Alan Durband, 1989
If goodness is beautiful, your son-in-law is beautiful, not black.
No Fear Shakespeare. Othello, John Crowther, 2003
If virtue is missing delightful beauty, / Your son-in-law is far more just than black.
Othello. Side by Side, James Scott, 2005

A gloss
*…+ your son-in-law’s virtues are so fine that they completely overwhelm any qualms you
may have at his Negro race. Othello, ed. C.W.R.D. Moseley , 1974

A rewriting
“If virtue’s qualities are always rare / Your son-in-law is far more black than fair.”
Bit clumsy. What if I change “fair “ to “white“? Um ... what about:
“If virtue lack no beauties that delight / Your son-in-law is far more black than white.”
22
Better: “white“ has fewer positive connotations than “fair“. Needs more work, though.

(2011), ‘Thirty Times More Fair Than Black: Shakespeare Retranslation as
Political Restatement’,Angermion: Yearbook fur Anglo-German Literary
Criticism, 4: 1-51.

(2012) (forthcoming), ’"Far More Fair Than Black”: Mutations of a Difficult
Couplet’. In Smith, B. and Rowe, K. (eds), Cambridge World Shakespeare
Encyclopaedia, vol.2: The World’s Shakespeare. Cambridge UP.

23

Crowd-sourcing
www.delightedbeauty.org

• Translations in all languages + metadata + back-translations in
English + users’ comments/debates

• See esp.: Polish, Persian, German

• VVV project outputs

24

22 French versions supplied by Matthias Zach, 2010

25

Statistical analysis of translation variation: ‘Eddy’ and ‘Viv’

‘Eddy’ is a measure of the lexical distinctiveness of a translation text (or
segment of it) relative to all comparable texts (or segments) in the same
target language.
Eddy is defined as ΣD/tf(w1,d … wN,d)
where: each translation text/segment is a document, d, containing Nwords
(i.e. from word 1 to word N, or: w1,d … wN,d); the corpus of all
comparable ds contains D documents; and term frequency, tf, is the
number of times a word occurs in the corpus.

The algorithm
1. The documents are aggregated into a corpus.
2. Term frequencies are calculated for every word in the corpus.

3. For every word, tf is divided into D. (A common word acquires a low
numerical value; a unique word has the highest value.)
4. D/tf totals for all words in each separate document (i.e. “w1,d …
wN,d”), are added together (Σ = sum of). Each total is the Eddy result for
that document.
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Eddy results (rounded): 80–335, measuring distinctiveness
Text-types: S = Study edition, R = Reading edition, T = Theatre script
80Engler 1977 S: If virtue not lack bright-lit beauty, then your son-in-law is much more
bright than black. 80 Wieland 1766 S: If virtue is the most-bright-shining beauty, then
your daughter’s husband is more white than black. 80Gundolf 1909 R: If virtue not
lack charm and beauty / your son-in-law is less black than bright-lit. 80
Bodenstedt1867 R: If virtue does not lack charm and beauty, / your son-in-law is
beautiful and lovable. […] […]240Engel 1939 T: If one speaks of virtue as of a light, /
your son-in-law seems not so dark to me. 245Baudissin1832 R: If one must recognise
virtue as beautiful, / you may not call your son-in-law ugly. 245Zeynek1945 T: If manly
courage is not without charm and radiance/glory / then he is, even if black, highly
estimable. 255Zaimoglu /Senkel2003 T: So long as male virtue counts more than
blemishes, one can say your son-in-law is more noble than black. 270GildemeisterR
1871: Your son-in-law – if virtue makes [people] lovely – / resembles more the bright day
than black night. 280Günther1995 R: If bright/light skin were a prize for noble-
mindedness, / then your son-in-law would be pure white instead of black.
290Laube1979 T: If virtue is beautiful, you now have as your reward / a black but
beautiful son-in-law. 290RotheR 1956: If people’s inward appearance alone *were all
that] counted, / we would be darker than Othello. 305SchröderR 1962: Where so
much courage resides with so much zeal, / your son-in-law appears less black than
blond. 335 Motschach1992 T: If outward appearance were always the prize for [or:
price of] inner values / many a white man would appear black, many a black man white.
(NB These Eddy results are for 35 German translations, not for the back-translations !)
29

Sets of Eddy results for different sample segments
show limited similarity

Ranges and distributions are significantly different

Sample A: the Duke’s “delighted beauty” couplet:
Eddy range 80-335, mean 182

Sample B: the first sentence in Othello’s great speech to the senate:
Eddy range 16-310, mean 144

32

‘Viv’ (Variant Intensity in Variation) measures the degree to which
a source text (or segment) is associated with
variation among its translations

Provisional Viv formula:

The Viv of a (segment of a) source text = the mean ( ) of the associated Eddy
results (i.e. the sum of results, divided by the number of results), divided by
SN – i.e. the number of words in the source text (segment).

This is a provisional, simple formula. Further experiments will discover how
Viv can be weighted to reflect the ranges and distributions of Eddy results.

Note that Viv is a value associated with the source segment
and all the words in that segment.

34

Viv plotting

For the Duke’s ‘delighted beauty’ couplet (in 35 differing German
translations), Viv = 13

For the first sentence in Othello’s great speech to the senate (in 32
differing German translations), Viv = 5.3

By plotting Viv across all segments of an entire source text, we can create
a new way of reading it – as refracted through multiple translators’ work.

Readers don’t even need to understand the translating language(s) – (but they
might feel encouraged to try to learn)

35

Translation Array design

On the following slides:
Mock-ups by Tom Cheesman and Stephan Thiel
in:
TC and the VVV Team, ‘Translation Sorting: Eddy and Viv in Translation
Arrays’ (draft paper, 2011, attached to www.delightedbeauty.org, and under
consideration for the conference volume Un/Translatables)
and
included in the application to AHRC

36

SHAKESPEARE FOUND IN TRANSLATION

http://globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com/home-shuffler

http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/events/lectures-
seminars/translation-lectures

New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare
(inaug. Horace Howard Furness, 1860s): Othello, 1886

42

Tom Cheesman - 6 March 2012 - Towards a Translation Array: Digitally Exploring Crowds of Translations at Swansea University

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Tom Cheesman - 6 March 2012 - Towards a Translation Array: Digitally Exploring Crowds of Translations at Swansea University

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