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A Successfully Stranded Translator’s Dictionary: Arnold Lissance’s Underappreciated Attempt to Create the Perfect Resource for Translators

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Stranded Encyclopedias, 1700–2000

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Abstract

Arnold Lissance was a Viennese-born translator who emigrated to the United States in 1930, and the creator of the Translator’s Dictionary (T.D.). For four decades (1940s–1980s), he worked on his vision of the perfect tool for a translator: a German-English dictionary, focusing on twentieth-century language usage. This chapter presents the T.D. in its historical context and focuses on its value of the T.D. as a resource for translation history. Since the T.D. was never published, is considered unfinished, and has been ignored for decades, it can rightfully be called stranded. However, the fact that it has been preserved and was designed to continuously grow leads to the conclusion that it can be considered successful. With this perspective, the chapter takes account of Lissance’s life and motivations, reconstructs the process of compilation, and explains the makeup of the dictionary. In addition, it highlights the historical value of the dictionary and concludes that, although almost forgotten, the T.D. can be seen as a success story in many ways. Lissance’s approach was pioneering, and he converted the T.D. into a repository of knowledge that was (ideally) ever-evolving and is testimony to the vast knowledge translators acquire over the course of their careers.

Both authors contributed equally to this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Arnold Lissance, “2-Page Letter to Viktor Petioky,” May 31, 1982. Unpublished typescript. Internal archive of the Center for Translation Studies, University of Vienna.

  2. 2.

    Hildegund Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien: Gedanken zum Konzept eines Translator’s Dictionary,” in BudaLEX ‘88 Proceedings: Papers from the 3rd International EURALEX Congress, Budapest, 4–9 September 1988, ed. Tamás Magay and J. Zigány (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1988), 411–19.

  3. 3.

    Hildegund Bühler, “Arnold Lissance (1906–1994): Übersetzer und ‘Terminologe,’” in Sprachnormung und Sprachplanung: Festschrift für Otto Back zum 70 Geburtsstag, mit Beiträgen aus den Bereichen Graphematik, Orthographie, Namenkunde, Österreichisches Deutsch, Sprachnormung und Plansprachenkunde, ed. Heiner Eichner, Peter Ernst, and Sergios Katsikas (Wien: Edition Praesens, 1997), 477–88. Otherwise, there are a handful of references to Lissance and the T.D. in various publications on lexicography or the use of dictionaries for translation students, all dating to the 1980s and 1990s.

  4. 4.

    Marie Luise Knott, “Warum wir Übersetzernachlässe brauchen,” in Zaitenklänge: Geschichten aus der Geschichte der Übersetzung, ed. Marie Luise Knott, Thomas Brovot, Ulrich Blumenbach and Jürgen Jakob Becker (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2018), 209–12. Marie Luise Knott reflects on “Why we need translator estates” and presents the case of Peter Urban, a literary translator whose estate includes lengthy word-lists that show how he prepared for different translation projects.

  5. 5.

    Arnold Lissance, “A Memoir by Arnold Lissance, Covering 1906–1937.” Unpublished, undated typescript (Washington, D.C., 1980s), 2. We thank Carol Lissance for kindly providing us with a copy.

  6. 6.

    Lissance, “Memoir,” 21.

  7. 7.

    Lissance, “Memoir,” 27.

  8. 8.

    Lissance, “Memoir,” 28–29.

  9. 9.

    Arnold Lissance, “The ‘Lissance Archive’ Perceived as the Foundation of a Future ‘Translator’s Dictionary,’” unpublished typescript (c. 1985), 1. We thank Carol Lissance for kindly providing us with a copy.

  10. 10.

    Lissance, “Memoir,” 36.

  11. 11.

    Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv,” 411.

  12. 12.

    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, “Arnold Lissance Family papers”, 5 vol. (“series”), accessed September 16, 2020, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85748. See especially Series 5: “Franz Halder War Diaries and Post-War Correspondence,” for the correspondence, glossaries, and notes which Lissance compiled during his work with the publication of Franz Halder, The Halder Diaries, ed. Arnold Lissance, 7 vol. (Washington: Infantry Journal). See also the editor’s foreword.

  13. 13.

    Lissance, “The ‘Lissance Archive’ perceived as the Foundation,” 1.

  14. 14.

    Lissance, “The ‘Lissance Archive’ perceived as the Foundation,” 1.

  15. 15.

    Arnold Lissance and Ingrid Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” Universitas Mitteilungsblatt, no. 4 (1985): 11: “Ich kann es nicht aufhalten. Wenn ich lese, lese ich gewissermaßen zweisprachig. Ich lese die Presse […] und entdecke etwas, was mir vom sprachlichen Standpunkt her auffällt. Dann versuche ich gewissermaßen zu hören, was in diesem Kontext in der anderen Sprache gesagt wird. Auf den Karteikarten notiere ich die Begriffe und Wendungen immer im Satz. Ohne Kontext wäre das sinnlos. Es ist wie in der Malerei, wo jede Farbe ihren Ton erst durch die umgebenden Farben gewinnt: Rot neben Gelb ist anders als Rot neben Blau. Der Kontext ist also wichtig. […] Die Übersetzung soll absolut natürlich wirken.” Translation to English by the authors.

  16. 16.

    Claire Lissance, e-mail to Stefanie Kremmel, June 13, 2019. The authors wish to thank Claire Lissance for sharing her memories in this study.

  17. 17.

    Arnold Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary: A Twentieth Century German-English Dictionary,” The German Quarterly 22, no. 3 (1949): 134–44.

  18. 18.

    Zeydel is cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 412.

  19. 19.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 134.

  20. 20.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 135.

  21. 21.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 135.

  22. 22.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 135.

  23. 23.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 144.

  24. 24.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 138, 143.

  25. 25.

    Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 412.

  26. 26.

    Katharina Reiß and Hans Vermeer, Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984, 100.

  27. 27.

    Reiß and Vermeer, Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie, 135.

  28. 28.

    Reiß and Vermeer, Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie, 135.

  29. 29.

    In the 1950s, the linguistically oriented newly emerging discipline of Translation Studies imported the concept of equivalence, assuming symmetry between different languages. With the advent of the school of Stylistique Comparée in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the notion of equivalence changed: equivalence now meant that since the elements of languages fulfilled the same communicative functions, structure was no longer the deciding factor. For the Leipziger Schule, translators sought to achieve functional equivalence, so that the translation had the same effect on its reader as the source text had on its readers in a specific communicative situation. Later, more detailed typologies of equivalence (e.g., by Katharina Reiß or Paul Newmark) were developed, leading to a variety of definitions and concepts of equivalence. For an overview, see Erich Prunč, Entwicklungslinien der Translationswissenschaft: von den Asymmetrien der Sprachen zu den Asymmetrien der Macht (Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2012), 31–86.

  30. 30.

    Cesáreo Calvo Rigual and Maria Vittoria Calvi, “Translation and Lexicography: A Necessary Dialogue,” MonTI: Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, no. 6 (2014): 40.

  31. 31.

    Calvo Rigual and Vittoria Calvi, “Translation and Lexicography,” 37–62.

  32. 32.

    Reinhard Hartmann, “Lexicography, Translation and the so-called Language Barrier,” in Translation and Lexicography: Papers Read at the EURALEX Colloquium Held at Innsbruck 2–5 July 1987, ed. Mary Snell-Hornby, Esther Pöhl, and Benjamin Bennani (Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1989), 12.

  33. 33.

    Lissance to D.S. Cunningham, March 24, 1964, cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 413.

  34. 34.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11.

  35. 35.

    Hartmann, “Lexicography, Translation and the so-called Language Barrier,” 12.

  36. 36.

    Calvo Rigual and Vittoria Calvi, “Translation and Lexicography,” 48.

  37. 37.

    Reinhard Hartmann and Gregory James, Dictionary of Lexicography (London/New York: Routledge, 2002), xi.

  38. 38.

    Calvo Rigual and Vittoria Calvi, “Translation and Lexicography,” 49.

  39. 39.

    Sven Tarp, “Qué Requisitos debe cumplir un Diccionario de Traducción del siglo 21?,” in Problemas Lingüísticos en la Traducción Especializada, ed. Pedro Antonio Fuertes Olivera (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 2007), 231. Translation by the authors.

  40. 40.

    Tarp, “Qué Requisitos debe cumplir un Diccionario de Traducción del siglo 21?,” 256; See also Pedro A Fuertes-Olivera, “The Theory and Practice of Specialised Online Dictionaries for Translation,” Lexicographica 29, no. 1 (January 2013): 71.

  41. 41.

    Calvo Rigual and Vittoria Calvi, “Translation and Lexicography,” 41–42.

  42. 42.

    Tadeusz Piotrowski, Problems in Bilingual Lexicography (Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wroclawskiego, 1994), 94.

  43. 43.

    Piotrowski, Problems in Bilingual Lexicography, 94.

  44. 44.

    However, in 1949, Lissance explained that for his T.D., “the word ‘translator’ may be taken in its broadest sense, for anyone reading a foreign language ‘translates’”, in Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 36.

  45. 45.

    Modal particles (in German: “Modalpartikel” or “Abtönungspartikel”) are uninflected words that emphasize a particular part of the message or express the speaker’s attitude or mood and very prevalent in colloquial language. Depending on the context, their meaning can change. A good example is “ja”, which as a modal particle does not mean “yes”, but expresses surprise or urgency or indicates something is obvious.

  46. 46.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 9.

  47. 47.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 139.

  48. 48.

    Gertrude Suschko, Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv: Vorgestellt anhand der Abtönungspartikeln “schon, denn, eben und eigentlich” (Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 1987), 29.

  49. 49.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11.

  50. 50.

    Suschko, Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv, 36.

  51. 51.

    Arnold Lissance Archive, index card: “point, make the //Das Urteil weist ausdrücklich darauf hin.”

  52. 52.

    Fuertes-Olivera, “The Theory and Practice of Specialised Online Dictionaries for Translation,” 74.

  53. 53.

    Arnold Lissance Archive, index card (backside).

  54. 54.

    Lissance to D.S. Cunningham, March 24, 1964 cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 416.

  55. 55.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 139. When D.S. Cunningham from the American Translators Association critiqued the lack of “German originals,” Lissance responded: “There are no German originals. The sentences or significant portions used are English originals […] I am not translating German sentences, I am bringing together in the dictionary the actually used English material that expresses German meanings.” Lissance to D.S. Cunningham, March 24, 1964, cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 413.

  56. 56.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 144.

  57. 57.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 134.

  58. 58.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11.

  59. 59.

    At some point, however, Lissance must have considered adding index cards for the combination French and English, since discarded dictionary entries in this language combination can be found on the backside of some cards.

  60. 60.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11; Suschko, Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv, 36.

  61. 61.

    Arnold Lissance Archive, index card: “denn, es sei …//… no leave may be taken prior to… This does not apply to interpreters who wisht to take leave after an assignment which terminates outside of Washington.”

  62. 62.

    Lissance, “The Translator’s Dictionary,” 134.

  63. 63.

    Lissance cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 415. Some of these exchanges are documented. He exchanged letters with authors and anglicists such as Max Deutschbein, Levin L. Schücking (both in Germany), and Henry Louis Mencken (Baltimore). Max Deutschbein even mentioned that he used the T.D. draft in class. See Deutschbein to Lissance, December 30, 1947, cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 416. He was applauded by these linguists, but feedback from fellow translators was not as positive. When Lissance shared his concept with the American Translators Association, they thought it was indeed pioneering, but unrealistic.

  64. 64.

    D.S. Cunningham to Lissance, March 17, 1964, cited in Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 416.

  65. 65.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11.

  66. 66.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 9, 12. Lissance handed over the collection itself as well as correspondence and unpublished manuscripts concerning the project. Some of these documents are cited by Bühler (1988) and Suschko (1987), but, at some point, they were separated from the T.D. We do not know where these documents are. In 2018, we discovered some letters exchanged between Lissance and the institute’s head, Viktor Petioky, in the internal archive of the Center for Translation Studies. Both are cited in this chapter. Copies of other documents are in the hands of Lissance’s daughter, Carol Lissance, such as the two typescripts written by Lissance himself: “The ‘Lissance Archive’ Perceived as the Foundation of a Future ‘Translator’s Dictionary” (which Lissance presumably wrote as an explanatory guide for the archive), and “A Memoir by Arnold Lissance, Covering 1906–1937,” written for his daughter.

  67. 67.

    Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 411. The Lissance archive is listed as a special collection on the department library’s website today, accessed June 30, 2020, https://bibliothek.univie.ac.at/fb-translationswissenschaft/en/bestand.html.

  68. 68.

    Bühler, “Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv an der Universität Wien,” 460.

  69. 69.

    Suschko, Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv, 53–54, 70.

  70. 70.

    Suschko, Das Arnold-Lissance-Archiv, 53.

  71. 71.

    In order to see if the instructions on the cards were applied in Lissance’s translation practice, the T.D. would have to be compared with Lissance’s translations, ideally after digitization. We do not have access to translations by Lissance from the State Department, and there are no plans to digitize the T.D., which would be costly and very time-consuming.

  72. 72.

    The head of the Vienna institute, Viktor Petioky, addressed this in a letter to Lissance in 1982, assuring Lissance that “[o]ur staff and students will draw stimulating ideas for their didactic or translatorial activity from [the collection].” See Viktor Petioky, “Letter to Arnold Lissance (Washington D.C.) regarding: Lissance-Archiv,” May 17, 1982, unpublished typescript. Internal archive of the Center for Translation Studies, University of Vienna.

  73. 73.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11.

  74. 74.

    Society of Federal Linguists, “The University of Vienna Acquires Arnold Lissance Archives,” Society of Federal Linguistics, Newsletter 56, no. 6 (1986/1985); Lissance, “The ‘Lissance Archive’ perceived as the Foundation.”

  75. 75.

    Lissance, Claire, email to Stefanie Kremmel, June 13, 2018.

  76. 76.

    Lissance and Kurz, “Das Arnold Lissance Archiv [Interview],” 11, transl. by the authors. Original quote: “Ich könnte mir auch vorstellen, daß das auf Computer gespeichert und über Terminals abgerufen werden kann.”

  77. 77.

    Sidney I. Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 113.

References

Archival Resources

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Digital Resources

Printed Works

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Acknowledgements

The authors want to thank Carol and Claire Lissance for answering our questions and providing unpublished material and photographs, and the staff of the library at the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna for their support.

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  1. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Stefanie Kremmel & Marija Ivanović

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  1. Stefanie Kremmel
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Correspondence to Stefanie Kremmel .

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  1. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Linn Holmberg

  2. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Maria Simonsen

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Kremmel, S., Ivanović, M. (2021). A Successfully Stranded Translator’s Dictionary: Arnold Lissance’s Underappreciated Attempt to Create the Perfect Resource for Translators. In: Holmberg, L., Simonsen, M. (eds) Stranded Encyclopedias, 1700–2000. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64300-3_9

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