Poetry Translating as Expert Action
Figure 26. Toen wij: Version 1 (Fleur, Lines 6–7)
Pre-analysis confirmed that translators manage their work across a poem’s ‘trans-
lating lifetime’, from their first reading of the source until they feel the translation
is finally ready, by dividing it into nesting ‘levels’:
- Draft sessions, separated by drawer time. Here, three were recorded (coded
Draft1, etc.). - Typically, each draft produces one or more separate written versions of the
target text (see Figure 26). Especially when word-processed, however, a single
version may be repeatedly re-edited, even across several drafts. - Typically, each version is produced via one or more strategic runs-through:
passes through the poem from beginning to end (numbered by count within
Draft, e.g. Draft2/RT1, Draft2/RT2). - A run-through involves one or more strategic macro-sequences (numbered by
count within run-through, e.g. Draft1/RT2/Ma5 and Draft1/RT2/Ma6 in Fig-
ure 25). Each macro-sequence involves the translator putting a medium-sized
unit of text into working memory, then translating and/or revising it until it
seems satisfactory and/or until the translator turns to another text unit. Figure
25 shows two macro-sequences in which Fleur initially translates Lines 6 and
7 respectively. - A macro-sequence involves one or more strategic and/or non-strategic micro-
sequences. With strategic micro-sequences, the translator identifies a discrete
text problem, then seeks and evaluates solutions, and finally accepts a solution
or abandons the search. In Figure 25, for instance, Fleur proposes the literal
equivalent happiness for geluk, then realizes that the non-literal joy might be
more appropriate (TU96), evaluates it (TU97), and finally leaves both alterna-
tives on her written version (Figure 26). Non-strategic micro-sequences have
no fixed pattern. Examples are Fleur’s TU108 Scan, where she starts a new
macro-sequence by silently reading Line 7, thus putting it into working mem-
ory; and her Spontaneous change of als rook into as smoke (TU99).