Translation taken to court
Abstract
During a visit by the King and Queen of Spain to Navarra the writer Iñaki Antigüedad wrote an article in Basque for the newspaper Egin for which he was tried in court accused of insulting the King. In these proceedings the inquiry and the trial itself were based on two translations of the commentary in Basque, the first made by the Basque Institute of Public Administration (IVAP) and the second presented by the Ministry of Justice. It was the first time that a text written in Basque had been the subject of a trial. What was even more important, however, was the fact that the trial was based on its Spanish translation.
This article sets out to make comparative analysis of the linguistic use of the stylistic resources of the three texts. To do this a series of questions are posed. which are essential due to the fact that both the judge and the public prosecutor could only fully understand the translations not the original.
- Does a person who has no knowledge of Basque understand the same thing when reading only the text in Spanish?
- Do the original and its translations produce the same effect or sensations?
- Do they all have the same style or technique?
- Such as il was translated would this commentary be published in a Spanish language newspaper? Or expressed in a different way are these texts produced for the same reader?
In the opinion of the author of the article, doubts may be raised regarding the authentic equivalence between the original text and the translations, as these do not have the same style or the same communicative force as the text in Basque, neither are they intended for the same receiver and even the linguistic model, which the receptor is assumed to have, is quite different.
Later, a detailed analysis is made of the most problematic passages in the three texts, reaching the conclusion that the texts known to the judge and public prosecutor did not communicate the same message as the original, as they were only approximate versions of an explanatory nature.
Likewise, the three texts reveal very different styles, as the original is more informal, satirical and even more colloquial, but more coherent in itself; while the translations at times have a more cultured tone and show less internal coherency. These differences derive from the fact that it was the texts which were judged in reality, i.e., the translations, were not intended for publication in a newspaper column, hut to he used as an exhibit in judicial proceedings, and so, should have been a literal expression of the original, as far as possible.
