I did not find very much theory about abridged translations, and the little I found deals mostly with children's literature. I will present the methods Klingberg deals with in his book, and later I will use them to evaluate the examples I have chosen, even though the second example is a book for adults. I will also try to evaluate the methods on basis of what I find out from the examples and on the basis of Oittinen's criticism of Klingberg's approach. My examples, which are presented in chapters 4 and 5, both belong to category 1 (see 2.6.1), abridged translations, because that group is the largest of the five groups presented in chapter 2.6 and this method seems to be the one used most often.
Klingberg (1977:194) gives four reasons for abridged translations. First there are the economic reasons: lower production costs and therefore lower sales price. Second point is making the translator's work easier. I am not quite sure if I agree with Klingberg on this one, because the shortening could make the work more difficult when you have to make all the decisions about the parts to be left out and make sure that the logic of the text is maintained. There is one situation in which the shortening could make the translating easier: if the source text is very culture-specific, it may be easier, if you can just leave something out. The third reason is taking into consideration the interests of the readers, i.e. leaving out parts which the readers would not be very interested in. The question here is who can decide what the readers are interested in or not. Fourth, and the last, reason is taking into consideration the readers' reading abilities, i.e. making the text easier to read. This is probably not a valid reason for shortening a book for adults, except perhaps for Kirjavaliot (see chapter 2.8).
Klingberg (1977:304) also gives some norms for shortening texts. According to him:
Abridgements of children's books - in the translation process or otherwise - should not be undertaken so as to damage content or form. If there is some reason for a shortening, whole chapters or passages should be deleted. If one wishes to delete within paragraphs, whole sentences ought to be cut out. The author's style of writing should under no circumstances be altered.
Klingberg (1977:186) also deals with the concept of purification, defined as additions, embellishments, modifications or deletions, which aim to make the target text more suitable to the readers. He says that purification is more common in children's literature than in adults' literature. Purification happens because adults have their own notions about what is suitable for children. In Klingberg's opinion "purifications in the course of a translation work should, however, not be tolerated...if one doesn't want to pass on certain values or emotional effects, the simplest way is not to translate" (1977:303).
In his book 'Children's fiction in the hands of the translators', published in 1986, Klingberg presents the same views, although he stresses that his recommendations of how to make the abridgements are only recommendations (1986:79).
The starting point of Oittinen's (1993:96) criticism is the fact that Klingberg bases his views "on the old dichotomy of translation vs. adaptation. Translation good - adaptation bad. Translation invisible - adaptation visible." She also disagrees with him about the function of the text. Klingberg (1977:101) considers it natural that the function of the translation is always the same as that of its source and from this follows that any alterations at the translation stage are negative. Oittinen (1993:52) sees the matter quite differently:
Yet it is not self-evident, or even possible, for translations to have exactly or even nearly the same effect on their readers as the original texts had on the original readers. Situations vary. A translation is written in another time, another place, another language, another country, another culture.
I agree partly with Oittinen on this matter. Only partly, because, as my examples show, sometimes the function changes, sometimes it can be basically the same in both original and translation. In Malory's case the readership has changed (from adults to children), when in Straub the readership is basically the same both in the original and the translation. With this I mean that they are of the same age, live in the same time and share the same western culture. Of course there are culture-specific details, but as the American culture is quite well known in Finland, these should not cause any major problems.
The function of Malory's book was to entertain, inform and show example (the last two of these can be seen in Caxton's preface, see chapter 4.2). The function of the original is different now than it was in the 15th century, because modern people are very different from the original readership. So the function of the translation is not the same as the function of the original, but it is close to the function of a modern version. Of course, when mythology is in question, a reader from a different culture does not react to the translation same way the reader of the source culture reacts to the source text, but I think that basically all readers familiar with western culture will have the same type of reactions.
In Straub's case the function can be the same in both original and translation, because the function of a ghost story is to scare the reader. People read horror stories for the thrill they get from them. They want to be scared, but in a safe way, so that the cause of the fear is not real. This is probably the most important aspect the translator has to remember. And because fear of anything unknown is one of the basic, universal feelings shared by all people, it is easy to scare people with stories of the supernatural, at least when the original and the translation both belong to the western culture.
According to Oittinen (1993:107) Klingberg's view on abridgements is mechanistic, because he gives a list of clear instructions on how to proceed. Especially the demand of unaltered style presents some problems. As Oittinen says (1993:107-108), "is it possible to reduce a text in half and still keep it the same, even stylistically? Doesn't 'a style' include the length of sentences, texts, paragraphs?"
Mostly Oittinen's criticism seems to be valid. For example, when translating classics to children it is very difficult, if not impossible to save the style, if you want to make the text readable. On the other hand, Malory's style was modern prose in the 15th century (see chapter 4.3), so translating it in modern prose of our time may be regarded as saving the style.
Making the text readable can be seen as a more important goal than preserving the style, because translating classics for children is one way of keeping them alive. As Hellsing (Oittinen 1993:92) says, many classics now exist only through adaptations for children. According to him adaptations keep the stories readable so they will not die.
My examples are from the 1970's and especially in the translation of Malory's book can be seen some of the tendencies of 1970's. Oittinen and Ammondt both write about children's literature, but the tendency to emphasize information was wider spread.
Oittinen writes in her pro gradu thesis (1987:16-17) that in Finland in 1970's there was a strong opposition to old folk tales in their original form. Many of these classic tales were modified into modern, nonviolent versions. In general there was a strong tendency to avoid violence in children's literature and also in children's TV programmes. She says that the demand for informativeness was over-emphasized at the expense of the fantasy, and the children's literature was impoverished.
Ammondt's article (1978) gives support to this theory. Ammondt gives some ethical and social goals for education. He extends his ideas even to children's literature, so that children's books should contain elements which teach children friendliness, responsibility, ability to solve conflicts, ability to control negative feelings, and so on. It seems that in his opinion the literature is only meant for strengthening the influence school has in children. He criticizes violence and all other kinds of negative behaviour, because they give children wrong kind of models. According to him the classics should not be translated for children - it would be better to write new versions based on them, because this would make it possible to write something along the lines set by the given ethical and social goals.