Chapter 5. Five translators translate
The interplay of Image and other strategies means that translators are not so much
rejecting lexical equivalents in favour of counterparts or analogues (cf. Holmes
1988: 9–10, 53–54), but debating their relative effectiveness. This typically follows
a four-stage progression. Initially, lexical equivalents are generated and evaluated- for instance, hing om ons heen → hung around us. If these prove ineffective, near-
synonyms are sought and tested, sometimes with an eye to image, as when Irene
debated between lingered around us and enveloped us for hing om ons heen. If these
also prove ineffective, the relevant source image is used as a guide for a looser re-
ceptor-language rewording – as with Irene’s tentative blanket of. If even this proves
ineffective, re-imaging may take place. The new image is not random, however, but
is anchored in a macrostructural interpretation of the source poem’s text world.
Thus Geoff ’s final re-imaging of Line 1’s when we stroked our hands over our heart
into when we threw caution to the winds is based on Kouwenaar’s explanation,
quoted earlier, of the poem’s real-world inspiration.
There are two provisos here. Firstly, with multi-meaning items, re-imaging
may take place with some or all component meanings. Geoff ’s final-version Line 1
re-images the source item’s figurative meaning (leniency → boldness) and all its
literal meanings (stroked-hands-heart → threw-caution-winds). Hugo’s final Line 1
(when we decided to have a heart: Figure 24), however, keeps the figurative mean-
ing (leniency) but changes some of the literal meanings (stroked-hands → decided-
have) whilst keeping heart. Similarly, my final Line 1 (when hands on heart we felt
it unharden: Figure 24) expands both the figurative meaning (adding honesty to
leniency)^21 and the literal meanings (adding unharden to stroked/felt-hands-heart).
Secondly, only some translators are prepared to re-image. Fleur and Irene, for in-
stance, make no re-image changes. Hence their Line-1 solutions (when we smoothed
our hands over our heart and when we passed our hands over our heart) keep the
idiom’s literal meaning whilst abandoning its figurative meaning – though Fleur
did consider and reject a partial re-imaging of Line 1 (when we had a heart to
brush over: see Evaluation below). Nevertheless, those who did re-image only did
so after trying out less radical alternatives in the series just mentioned: this is al-
most certainly why Geoff, Hugo and I spent significantly longer on Line 1 than
Fleur and Irene.
5.3.5.4 Feel/Flow and Scan
The next two most time-consuming foci, the wholist Feel/Flow and Scan, also in-
creased in importance over the three drafts (see Figure 41). Feel/Flow micro-se-
quences changed textual units longer than the individual lexeme for unspecified
reasons, or citing reasons such as “feel”, “flow” or “style” – as in Fleur’s Draft 3:- Alluding to the English idioms hand on heart and hard-hearted.