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LA TRADUZIONE INDIRETTA

Con traduzione indiretta si intende la traduzione di una traduzione. Può basarsi su una versione tradotta o su varie versioni tradotte dell’originale. Un testo in arabo tradotto in portoghese attraverso una versione inglese, è un esempio di traduzione indiretta.

La traduzione indiretta rappresenta la vecchia realtà degli scambi interculturali, soprattutto per quanto riguarda quegli scambi che coinvolgono comunità distanti geograficamente, culturalmente e linguisticamente (come i traduttori dal cinese al portoghese) o quelle con lingue poco parlate (come il catalano, il ceco, il danese). Rimane una tipo di traduzione molto comune in varie parti della società odierna, come la traduzione audiovisiva, assistita dal computer e letteraria, la localizzazione o l’interpretazione in comunità e conferenze. Attualmente, il suo uso è legato alla globalizzazione e all’attività delle organizzazioni internazionali, nelle quali molte delle lingue con cui si lavora richiedono la modifica di documenti attraverso la lingua franca o altre lingue medianti.

In Translation Studies indirect translation - sometimes referred to by the abbreviations "IT" or "ITr" - is also known as "double, intermediate, mediated, mixed, pivot, relay(ed), or second (third, etc.)-hand translation". Indirect translations are sometimes called retranslations, but this term is more frequently used to describe multiple translations of the same source text into one target language. Indirect translation is opposed to direct translation, which is a translation made directly from the ultimate source text, without a mediating text.

In translations of literature
Until the 1990s Russian classics had only been translated into European Portuguese via French rather than directly from Russian (e.g. José Saramago’s translation (1959) of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina via French).

Another telling example is the first Russian translation of the Arabic One Thousand and One Nights, by Alexey Filatov in 1763–1771. It was based on a French translation produced by Antoine Galland in 1717. Later Russian translations were also based on European editions. For instance, the translation by Yulia Doppelmayr (1889–1890) was based on Galland’s text and the translation by Lyudmila Shelgunova (1894) was based on an English translation by Edward William Lane (1838 to 1840).

In audio-visual translation
In the TV show Breaking Bad (2010, S3E3), the Tortuga character speaks Spanish. The Polish subtitles (fansubs) are made from the English mediating subtitles.

In translation of religious texts
A direct translation of the Qur'an into Latin was made in 1142-1143; many indirect translations into European vernaculars were based on that Latin version.

The English Bible (c. 1385) overseen by John Wycliffe used the Latin Vulgate as mediating text. The Vulgate derived from St. Jerome's Bible (c. 400), itself a Latin translation of mediating Greek sources.

In interpreting (Relay interpreting)
When a conference delegate is speaking Danish and is to be interpreted into English and Czech where no Danish-Czech interpreter is available, the Czech output may be mediated via the English "pivot". Relay interpreting was also common in former Eastern Bloc countries, with Russian as the pivot (mediating) language.

Attitudes towards indirect translation
Indirect translation is heavily loaded with negative connotations. It is often considered as a poor copy of a copy, as in the Xerox effect where each successive passage through the photocopying process entails a loss of detail. Telling examples of this negative attitude towards indirect translation is the recommendation by UNESCO (1976) suggesting that indirect translation should be used "only where absolutely necessary" or the fact that it is often covert, i.e., not explicitly presented as such.

However, research has shown that recourse to indirect translation can also lead to positive results. Had it not been for this practice, certain literary works from peripheral or distant cultures would not have been disseminated in most languages and thus consecrated as world literature classics (or, at the very least, their consecration would have been delayed). Take, for instance, the case of the Portuguese reception of the Japanese Nobel prize winner Yasunari Kawabata or the Japanese Haruki Murakami: had they not been translated indirectly, they would not have become available to the Portuguese-reading 21st-century public. Indirect translation may therefore be the most efficient, and sometimes the only, means of inclusion for cultural products from peripheral or distant cultures. Second, it has been claimed to be profitable to translation companies and clients alike, as it lowers translation expenses (it is often cheaper than translating directly from a small language). Third, it minimizes the risk of literary translation being rejected by editors familiar with the intermediate version. Last, it is claimed that some translation companies even prefer resorting to an intermediate version in a larger and more prestigious language in order to produce a translation from a distant culture, since that increases the chances of translation meeting reader or client expectations (as suggested by an ongoing study).