“l’art porte à son terme ce que la nature n’a pas le pouvoir[...]"

17:00 Feb 19, 2013 

Yes, that's exactly right about Freud.

For your overall point, there definitely is a question of register in translation. That is, the translation of an article to be published in a scholarly journal should read like a scholarly article and not an advertisement, etc.... And vice versa!

Sometimes academic language is complex because it is trying to say complex things, and different fields develop different kinds of jargon to express complexity. But I think it's safe to say that much academic writing is also trying to say new things in one way or another, which is not exactly a simple matter. (It's difficult enough that it can be tempting to rely on "effets de style" instead!)

That is one reason for all the references in academic writing: ultimately, they are part of the effort to get to new ideas by drawing contrasts with things already said. They also help readers understand where the author comes from, the sources.

Finally, of course, there is better and worse academic writing, just as there are better and worse translations. I guess it's a question of trying to find the best fit between the style and the intended audience of each text.

16:12 Feb 19, 2013 

That's an interesting conundrum. If the French translation is off, does one reproduce or correct the error in the English version?

16:09 Feb 19, 2013 

To extend the tangent a bit further ;-) I recently paged through a new translation of one of Freud's works (can't remember which) into English by Anthea Bell, where she discussed in the preface how Freud had given certain everyday German terms a new meaning, which English "academic" translators had chosen to render using Greek roots and forms, like in science. She pointed out that those translations, while accepted in the academic community, were unhelpful to the lay reader not versed in Freudian terminology and ideas, and so put forward her own suggestions in simple, easy-to-understand English (with explanations of how those words ought to be understood in a Freudian context).

We all have our own preferences, but I quite like this simple language approach. I find academic language to be very obfuscating at times, and not at all conducive to the general spread of knowledge and understanding.

But that's all far off the ambit of this question :-) :-p

15:45 Feb 19, 2013 

FWIW, I was talking specifically about academic translation, i.e., of the kind of text that has notes and a bibliography. The idea is not to "just copy" an existing translation but rather to cite it, which means indicating the page number and adding reference information to the bibliography.

There are many reasons why this matters. For instance, in many fields, there are accepted translations of certain scholarly works that have introduced new technical terms or specific usages into the target language. One example of this is the term "cathexis," which essentially was created by James Strachey, Freud's English translator. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathexis
It would not be very helpful to "re-translate" the original German term Besetzung for English readers of Freud. This kind of thing comes up more than you might think when it's a question of translating a commentary on Freud's German from French into English.

Again, this is about academic translation. I'm not in any way meaning to suggest that just because you can find an example of a translation having been used somewhere on the Internet means that it's automatically the best choice, etc.!

15:29 Feb 19, 2013 

Yes, that is a good suggestion. With the risk of discovering that my French "original" is completely off-mark. (As with the "necessary" word "art".) I've had a couple authors disappointed to discover their argument crumbling when the "real" source is quoted.

15:25 Feb 19, 2013 

"I strongly disagree that if a text has been translated already, you should just copy it unless there are any bits you disagree with."

No one said that.

"Of course the existing translation is useful, assuming it\'s any good"

Before you said no one should spend their time looking at existing translations.

14:53 Feb 19, 2013 

I strongly disagree that if a text has been translated already, you should just copy it unless there are any bits you disagree with. Of course the existing translation is useful, assuming it's any good, but it's not set in stone. Each new translator has something to contribute.

23:15 Feb 18, 2013 

Have you tried posting this question under the Ancient Greek to English combination (assuming it exists on ProZ)?

15:33 Feb 18, 2013 

Thanks John

15:29 Feb 18, 2013 

Please note that there is a typo in the second translation I posted. So, no change of tense.
The quote should read:
"And in general human skill either completes what nature is incapable of completing or imitates nature."
Again, sorry for the error.

15:25 Feb 18, 2013 

Yes, it is academic, for Stanford Press. But of course, "there's no need to spend time". ;-))

15:23 Feb 18, 2013 

And as the Waterfield translation (which John Holland found) exposes with its tense change, things are less simple than they may appear.

15:20 Feb 18, 2013 

If this is any kind of academic translation, it is very important to refer to the translated version of a text if it exists. The quotation should only be retranslated if there is a problem with the original translation, in which case a translator's note should be added.
This is all the more the case since we are talking about a core philosophy text originally written in Greek, not French.
This is just normal practice when translating scholarly works.

15:18 Feb 18, 2013 

I will use the best translation I can find, or rework if I find it useful. Personally I find the French translation to be ambiguous, and prefer the text of someone who is informed by the Greek. I will disagree with classical translations, even official ones (as with many contemporary authors), if it is warranted. But I see no reason to avoid the intelligence of experts.

15:13 Feb 18, 2013 

please note that the entire phrase needs to be found

15:10 Feb 18, 2013 

There's no need to spend time looking at how other translators have rendered it. Just have a go yourself! Once someone has translated a text, it's not set in stone for all eternity, and nor is it necessarily even correct.