Classification of adaptation

Georges Bastin observes that definitions of adaptation can be classified according to the various aspects of translation procedure, like translation technique, faithfulness, genre and metalanguage. The translation theorists Paul Vinay and Darbelenet had listed adaptation as one of seven translation techniques. Adaptation becomes a translation technique when the target language is unable to capture certain aspects of the cultural context of the source text. Then, the translator needs to modify the text which can also be in a certain sense re-creation or a “procedure employed to achieve an equivalence of situations wherever cultural mismatches are encountered” (6). A word-for-word translation is obviously not going to be successful here, because the translation is not just between languages but cultures.In the context of cross-genre translations or translation from one form to another, adaptation becomes “a form of ‘naturalizing’ the play for a new milieu, the aim being to achieve the same effect that the original had…” (6). Adaptations of this sort are usually studied in the context of drama. The text is transplanted to another context where certain elements will have to be foregrounded and others downplayed. For instance, the film version of an epic like Mahabharata cannot hope to encompass the entire story that is contained in the print form. The film version can only be an edited version. This is true of many forms of translation. This  sort of editing and manipulation of text can also be seen in translation (dubbing or subtitling) of advertisements.

When the original text is metalinguistic, or is about language itself, then translation becomes adaptation because the translator has to make the source language suitable for the target readership. Some theorists argue that metalanguage has to be translated if the effect of the original source text is to be recaptured, while there are others who maintain that translation of metalanguage is an unnecessary act of exoticism. Translation of texts like Joyce’s Ulysses or Eliot’s The Wasteland are examples of metalinguistic translation. Joyce plays with the English language, a literary device that is difficult to simulate in another language. Eliot uses many languages in untranslated form in his English poem. In this case, what would the Hindi translator of the poem do? How can she ‘translate’ the German, Latin, French and Sanskrit elements of the  poem? If she wishes to retain the effect of the original, she will have to ‘translate’ these foreign language elements into languages other than Hindi, or retain the foreign language elements as they are. In either case, it will not be translation as it is usually understood.

The concept of faithfulness in translation determines the acceptability of adaptations. To those who believe that a translation has to be faithful in reproducing the same effect of the original, adaptations are acceptable translation techniques. But to those who believe that the original text is sacrosanct and cannot be tampered with in any way, adaptations are not translations at all.