PHONIC/GRAPHIC AND PROSODIC ISSUES 53
translation of each line becomes impossible: the vital thing is to have as many permutations as there are words in the epigraph, while not losing the overall thematic exuberance of the ST.
We have quoted the Morgan and Fazzini texts because they offer extreme examples of basic truths of translation. First, they show very clearly how reducing one sort of lossÐhere, graphic lossÐentails increasing other sorts of loss, deemed less importantÐhere, lexical and grammatical. And second, they are especially good illustrations of the importance of prosodic factors.
THE PROSODIC LEVEL
On the prosodic level, utterances count as `metrically' structured stretches. `Metric' here covers three sorts of thing. First, in a given utterance, some syllables will conventionally always be accented more than others; on top of this standard accentuation, voice stress and emphasis will be used for greater clarity and expressiveness. Second, clarity and expressiveness also depend on variations in vowel pitch and voice modulation. And third, the speed of vocal delivery also varies, for similar reasons. On the prosodic level, therefore, groups of syllables may form contrastive patterns (for example, short, fast, staccato sections alternating with long, slow, smooth ones), or recurrent ones, or both. Morgan's `Opening the Cage' shows very clearly the crucial role of prosodic features. Because they are grammatically so unusual, many of the lines mean very little when scanned silently on the printed page, as one normally reads. For all the grammatical vagaries, however, they do make sense if they are read out loud, with appropriate pauses and variations in speed, intonation and stress. The same is true of the Italian TT. Indeed, it is true of any text. Go back to the start of this paragraph, and try reading it in a monotone and without any variations in stress: this is very difficult to do, because it is so unnatural; and if you do succeed, the text becomes virtually incomprehensible.
For the translator, there are four factors to be borne in mind when considering the prosodic level. The first is that English and Italian are as different from one another on the prosodic level as on the phonic/graphic level. This is vividly illustrated by listening to an Italian speaking on the radio, with the tuning not quite on the station, so that it is not quite possible to distinguish the words. This brings the prosodic features to the foreground. It only takes a few seconds to realize that the tempi, rhythms and melodic undulations sound very different from those of English. It is virtually impossible to produce a TT that both sounds natural and reproduces the prosodic characteristics of the ST. Just occasionally, it is worth aiming for similar rhythms in the TT to those of the ST. For instance, if part of the ST's expressive effect stems from imitative rhythmsÐgalloping horses, breaking waves, dripping water, etc.Ðthere would be significant translation loss on the prosodic level if the TT failed to use similar rhythms to similar effect.
54 THINKING ITALIAN TRANSLATION
However, prosodic translation loss far more commonly arises from a failure to heed one or more of the other three factors. For example, it is vital to recognize the nature and function of ST intonation and stress. This is relatively straightforward in the case of oral texts. Even in written texts, either the grammatical structure or the context will usually show what the intonation is and what its communicative purpose is. Take the following two sentences:
Anch'io sono pittore. (Correggio)
Io sono anche pittore.
It is impossible to confuse these two sentences. In each, the grammatical structure engenders a specific prosodic profileÐintonation and stress pattern Ð and a specific meaning.
Following from this factor is the third: the need to select an intonation and a stress pattern which ensure that the TT sentence has the same communicative purpose as its ST counterpart. So the Correggio quotation and its variant might be translated thus:
I'm a painter, too (or. I, too, am a painter) [e.g. as well as you]. I'm a painter, too [e.g. as well as a writer].
The fourth factor arises from the third, and is perhaps the one that needs closest attention. Even where the TL expression does not seem grammatically or prosodically problematic, the translator must be sure not to introduce prosodic features that are inappropriate to the message content. Perhaps the commonest cases of significant translation loss on the prosodic level arise when a grammatical choice in the TT implies a stress pattern and an intonation that lead the reader/listener to expect a different sort of message from the one that actually materializes. This often happens when the translator chooses an inappropriate conjunction or conjunctive phrase. Here is a typical example. (Contextual information. Micòl is in bed. The narrator climbs onto the bed and tries to kiss her, but she turns her head away.)
`Perché fai così' disse Micòl. `Tanto, è inutile.'
(Bassani 1991:176)
`Why d'you behave like that?' asked Micòl. `In any case, it's no use.'
(Bassani 1989:218)
The English expression `in any case' sounds odd after a question. It typically accompanies a second affirmation in support of a quite different one that has just been made, as in `I can't afford a satellite dish. In any case, I'm too busy with the farm' (or: `I'm too busy with the farm, in any case'). The tone in the second sentence is emphatic and authoritative, strengthening the previous assertion into a positive refusal to buy the dish. In the Bassani TT, the translator may have been
PHONIC/GRAPHIC AND PROSODIC ISSUES 55
influenced by the absence of a question mark in the ST; but the fact remains that `in any case' does not work after the TT question, because it implies intonations for the two sentences which clash with the message-content of Micòl's words. The only way of making the TT convincing would be to speak the question as a sneering exclamation, as if Micòl were contemptuously saying `That's not the way to do it!' Ðbut that is not the sense of the ST question at all. The weakness of the TT is primarily a matter of literal meaning, not of prosodic features, but scanning the TT on the prosodic level is the best way of confirming, or even discerning, the fault in literal meaning. A better TT might be: `What are you doing that for? You know there's no point'
Here, for discussion in class, is a similar example from the same novel; the expression at issue is `As far as I was concerned'. (Contextual information. The characters in question are all Jews, friends of the narrator. One had died of illness in 1942. The others were arrested by Mussolini's fascists in September 1943.)
Dopo una breve permanenza nelle carceri di via Piangipane, nel novembre successivo furono avviati al campo di concentramento di Fòssoli, presso Carpi, e di qui, in seguito, in Germania. Per ciò che riguarda me, tuttavia, debbo dire che durante i quattro anni intercorsi fra l'estate del `39 e l'autunno del `43 di loro non avevo visto più nessuno.
(Bassani 1989:291) (Bassani 1991:240)
After a short stay in the prison at via Piangipane, they were sent to the concentration camp at Fòssoli, near Carpi, the following November, and thence to Germany. As far as I was concerned, though, during the four years between the summer of `39 and the autumn of `43 I never saw any of them.
Rudiments of Italian and English versification
A special set of features on the prosodic level are those found in verse, which present specific translation challenges. Our aim in the following short introduction to the rudiments of Italian and English versification is to give students a foundation for discerning and interpreting the conventional patterns in Italian verse, and for making an informed choice between English metres if the strategic decision is to produce a verse TT. We shall look only at the metrical side of versification. But do not forget that tempo and melodic pitch are also vital prosodic textual variables requiring as much attention in verse translation as in prose. We shall not consider other aspects of verse, such as types of stanza or the phonic question of rhyme. For fuller information on these and on metrical questions, see Menichetti 1993, Bausi and Martelli 1993, and Hollander 1981.
Italian
56 THINKING ITALIAN TRANSLATION
A line of verse in Italian is defined in terms of the number of syllables it contains. There are four specifically metrical devices that affect how the syllables in a line are counted. In the following examples, the divisions between metrical syllables are shown as oblique lines.
1.The fundamental principle is that, when a word ending with a vowel is followed by one beginning with a vowel, the vowels are generally considered as one syllable. This is known as sinalefe. For example:
Pa/ne/ di/ ca/sa e/ lat/te ap/pe/na/ mun/to/.
In performance, sinalefe usually entails partial elision of the two vowels, so that they sound like a diphthong. An exception is when the speaker makes a pause for effect, or if a punctuation mark after the first vowel suggests it.
2.Sometimes, however, the vowels at the end and beginning of the two words are counted separately. This is known as dialefe. It is normal when the first vowel or both vowels are accented. For example:
El/la/ giun/se e/ le/vò/ am/be/ le/ pal/me/.
3.Two consecutive vowels within a word are often counted as one syllable, even where they do not normally form a diphthong. This is known as sineresi. In performance, the effect is similar to that of sinalefe, the two vowels sounding like a diphthong. For example:
Dis/se/: Bea/tri/ce/, lo/da/ di/ Dio/ ve/ra/.
4.Sometimes, two consecutive vowels within a word which do normally form a diphthong are pronounced separately. This is usually shown by a diaeresis over the first vowel, and is known as dieresi. For example:
For/se/ per/ché/ del/la/ fa/tal/ qui/e/te/.
There is another factor that affects how the syllables are counted: the stress pattern of the final word in the line. When the main stress of the final word is on the last syllable but two, the line may have an extra syllable. Here is a hendecasyllable (a notionally eleven-syllable line) ending with such a word:
a/ pa/ro/le/ for/mar/ dis/con/ve/ne/vole.
If, however, the main stress is on the very last syllable, the line will have one syllable fewer than expected. Here is a hendecasyllable ending with such a word:
Pren/di/ sol/ un/ non/ti/scor/dar/di/me/.
If the poem as a whole consists of hendecasyllables, variants like the last two examples also count as such, metrically speaking. The same principle holds for other standard line lengths as well.
PHONIC/GRAPHIC AND PROSODIC ISSUES 57
Every line has its own stress pattern: a hendecasyllable must have a main accent on the tenth syllable, a decasyllable (ten-syllable line) on the ninth, and so on. The distribution of other stresses within the line can vary slightly, depending how many syllables it contains, although generally lines with an even number of syllables follow a constant rhythm.
In reading Italian verse, then, there is no need to look for some rigid pattern of feet that has to be imposed on the text. The pattern of stresses in the line virtually always coincides with the `natural' stresses the words have in prose. The reader should therefore read the verse as the sense dictates, while taking due account of the rules given above. Observing these rules will automatically have certain rhythmic consequences and mean highlighting certain words: that is, the versification will have specific thematic and expressive functions. These functions are special effects on the prosodic level, and the translator simply has to be as aware of them as of every other feature of the ST. If the verse is in rhyme, the phonic/graphic functions of the rhymes will also be affected by these prosodic features.
The foregoing applies to texts in traditional, regular, verse. The very fact that a text is in regular verse is usually significant, marking the text as belonging to a particular genre. This in itself is a factor that will weigh in deciding a strategy.
If a text is in free verse, this fact is similarly strategically important. Apart from that, all the student translator needs to remember is to read the text as the sense demands, while taking due account of the phonic/graphic and prosodic effects of the line-ends.
English
English metre is syllable-and-stress metre. That is, the line is defined in terms of feet. A line of traditional verse consists of a fixed number of particular feet. For example:
The cur/few tolls/ the knelll of par/ting day/
This line has five feet; that is, it is a pentameter. In this particular case, the feet have one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable. This is known as an iamb, or iambic foot. A line consisting of five iambs is an iambic pentameter. It is the most common English line, found in the work of the great playwrights and poets. The commonest other feet are:
trochee (adj. trochaic): dactyl (adj. dactylic): anapest (adj. anapestic):
When the/ pie was/ opened/ Merrily/ chatting and/ clattering/ And made ci/der mside/ her inside/
Most poems do not have a regular beat throughout. This would be intolerably dreary. Even limericks are very rarely exclusively anapestic or dactylic. The