Showing papers in "International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies in 2019"

Utopian/Dystopian Visions: Plato, Huxley, Orwell

Abstract: This paper attempts to theorize two twentieth-century fictional dystopias, Brave New World (2013) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), using Plato’s political dialogues. It explores not only how these three authors’ utopian/dystopian visions compare as types of narrative, but also how possible, desirable, and useful their imagined societies may be, and for whom. By examining where the Republic, Brave New World, and Nineteen Eighty-Four stand on such issues as social engineering, censorship, cultural and sexual politics, the paper allows them to inform and critique each other, hoping to reveal in the process what may or may not have changed in utopian thinking since Plato wrote his seminal work. It appears that the social import of speculative fiction is ambivalent, for not only may it lend itself to totalitarian appropriation and application—as seems to have been the case with The Republic—but it may also constitute a means of critiquing the existing status quo by conceptualizing different ways of thinking and being, thereby allowing for the possibility of change.

Recreating the Image of a “Chaste Wife”: A Multi-functional Analysis of Two Translations of Li Po’s Changgan Xing

Abstract: This article investigates the image of a “chaste wife” recreated in two English translations of ancient Chinese poet Li Po’s Changgan Xing from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Based on three metafunctions of SFL, respectively ideational, interpersonal and textual, the linguistic choices of the poet and translators are measured from the transitivity and text complexity on what the wife does and how she organizes her thoughts; from the mood and modality on how she interacts with her husband, and the theme and rheme on how she unfolds and foregrounds her concerns. Since translating is a process of making choices, the analysis shows that both translations reproduce the first and second level of poetic themes about love in the original poem but lose the third political theme. Besides, Pound tends to follow an imaginative and creative translation, thus recreating a bashful and innocent image of a young “chaste wife” in a direct and explicit way, while Waley aims at literal translation and presents a more courageous and considerate image of a mature “chaste wife” in a relatively complex and implicit way. It is argued that the context of translation, including the translator’s knowledge of the source language, translation strategies and intended readers, plays an important role in the translator’s seemingly unconscious choices of interpreting and presenting poetic themes, thus recreating different images of a same character.

Exploring Strategies of Translating Metaphor from English into Arabic with Reference to Scientific Texts

Abstract: Metaphors play an important role in conveying meaning not only in literary texts but also in scientific genres. Although there have been many translation studies on metaphor in literary texts, studies on metaphor translation in scientific settings seem to have been overlooked and received less attention. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the strategies used in translating scientific metaphors from English to Arabic by Yemeni senior translation students in three universities. This was achieved by using a translation test consisting of (33) metaphors selected from various sources based on Lakoff and Johnsen’s (1980; 2003) classification of metaphor. The test was given to a sample of 91 students who were randomly selected. 72 participants completed the test. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results showed that eight strategies, adapted from Alshunnag (2016), were used. The highly frequent strategy was the literal strategy and the least frequent was the explication strategy. The use of literal strategy indicated the difficulty of finding a metaphorical expression of a different type for the English metaphors in Arabic which might be due to the limited time available for translation and lack of knowledge of the metaphorical structure in both the source and target languages. It was recommended, therefore, that more comparative studies should be done to help improve translation training offered to students who should also be provided with training sessions which are more conducive to learning.

Media, Translation and the Construction of the Muslim Image: A Narrative Perspective

Abstract: The role played by translators for the media is particularly crucial in the construction, promotion and survival of media narratives, since a narrative cannot travel across linguistic and cultural boundaries without the help of translators. This article aims to identify how the Qur’an, and, in turn, Islam and Muslims, are “narrated” in and by the British press. I use LexisNexis newspaper archives to identify the Qur’anic verses repeatedly used by UK national newspapers between 11/9/2001 and 1/9/2016. I then closely examine the newspaper articles featuring the most repeated verse to establish how narrative strategies (selective appropriation, temporality, causal emplotment and relationality) are used to frame the readers’ understanding. By shedding more light on the active role of translation for the media, I hope to raise awareness of the dangers posed by misrepresenting the world’s second largest religion and by accepting what is presented to us as news unquestioningly.

Unfolding The Female Journey in Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Alameddine’s An Unnecessary Woman

Abstract: This study explores the representations of the female journey and its interconnectedness with female development in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) and Rabih Alameddine’s An Unnecessary Woman (2014). By re-visioning psychotherapist and author Maureen Murdock’s journey paradigm and condensing it into three essential stages (The Separation, The Descent and The Rebirth), this study maintains the applicability of the heroine’s journey to the two male-authored novels. Each heroine’s journey begins when she becomes conscious of the fact that she has been living on the margins of her own life. Consequently, she becomes determined to challenge the conceptualization of traditionally-defined femininity, break free from the oppressive gender roles that were prescribed to them by patriarchy and ultimately define themselves as whole. The significance of this study stems from the fact that it provides an interpretation of how the two heroines’ internal struggles are translated into the outside world in the framework of the postmodern novel, and that it juxtaposes the journeys of two women of different ages, times, social and cultural backgrounds, in order to foreground the universal, multi-dimensional, and transcultural nature of the journey motif.

Systematic Shifts in Implicatures in Two Arabic Translations of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms

Abstract: This paper uses a descriptive model to analyze the systematic shifts in implicatures in two Arabic translations of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The findings have shown that translators tend to observe more maxims and flout fewer maxims than the source author does. The findings have revealed an explicitation trend that improves the quality and quantity of information in the translated text. This trend presents the translator as being more cooperative in communication than the original author. It also repositions the target reader as being less cooperative than the source reader, a trend that indicates a more distanced and less involved reader. There is also a tendency to switch to a more euphemistic form, which gives evidence of the special status of the maxim “be polite” in Arabic. The textual analysis suggests that the explicitation of implicatures has nothing to do with the structural differences between the source and target languages, but is rather related to some assumptions that (i) literary translation involves interpretation and re-verbalization of the original semantic and emotional values, (ii) literary translators may assume a lower level of reader participation or productivity and (iii) they opt for explicitation to avoid gambling with the text’s communicability.

The Relationship between Professional Translators’s Emotional Intelligence and thei̇r Translator Satisfaction

Abstract: It is a well-known fact that translation studies is an interdisciplinary field of science and interacted by other disciplines such as Linguistics, Literature, Sociology and Philosophy to find answers to translation problems. The relationship between psychology and translation has also become widespread among translation scholars in recent years. In addition to cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills also affect the decisions of translators and the quality of translation in the translation process. Related studies on these concepts are being investigated nowadays. The aim of this study is to examine whether there is any relationship between the emotional intelligence of the professional translators working in the market and their translator satisfaction. For this purpose, a questionnaire study for professional translators was completed and the data were analyzed through SPSS 21.0 program. In the study, 3 different data collection tools such as Individual Information Form, Emotional Intelligence Scale and Translator Satisfaction Scale were used. Relational screening model was also used in the study. Pearson Correlation Analysis was used to determine whether there was any statistically significant relationship between the dimensions and besides regression analysis was performed in order to see the effects of interrelated dimensions. As a result of the analyzes, it was found that there was a statistically significant relationship between both the emotional intelligence and translator satisfaction of professional translators. The same was also found the dimensions of both scales.

Effectiveness of Translating English Technical and Scientific Terms by Arabicization Strategy in Al-Oloom Ll-Omoom Magazine and Syrian Researchers Network on Reader’s Understanding

Abstract: This research paper is a genuine one since all previous researches discuss Arabicization as a strategy of translation. However, this paper investigates this strategy as a problematic issue that translators of scientific and technical articles face. This study is based on the theoretical frames of scientific and technical terms discussed in Pinchuck (1977) and Olohan (2013). It also includes the lexical borrowing definitions of Catford (1976). Arabicization is also discussed based on Ahmed (2011) and Al-Asal and Smadi (2012) studies. A questionnaire has been conducted to investigate the readers’ understanding of Arabicized terms. 160 respondents have answered the questionnaire. The data are quoted from Al-Oloom Ll-Omoom magazine and Syrian Researchers network. The questionnaire’s results are analyzed through using SPSS technique. The study concludes that different level of understanding the technical and the scientific terms depend on the frequency of use. The frequent use of the technical terms in our daily life makes these terms are more grasped than the scientific ones. This study also reveals that translating scientific terms using Arabicization is a problematic issue and makes these terms difficult to be understood by regular people who are not expert in the field. Footnote is a good strategy to solve this problematic issue.

Decolonising Language: Towards a New Feminist Politics of Translation in the Work of Arab Women Writers, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Nawal al Sadawim, and Assia Djebar

Abstract: This paper argues that the Anglophone academy’s relative lack of appraisal of Ahlam Mosteghanemi as an Arab woman writer is not incidental. I assert that, for many Arab women writers, authorship is strategic engagement; in other words, they develop strategies that bring together formal experimentation with the social effectivity of authorship. In an attempt to present fully the aforementioned complexities at hand, this paper compares Mosteghanemi’s work with that of two other eminent women writers from the Arab world: Egyptian women’s rights activist and novelist, Nawal al Sadawi, and Algerian writer and historian, Assia Djebar. This comparative analysis is structured into three sections that take up the questions of the politics of literary form, language and decolonisation, and finally, translation. In the critical reception of their work outside their region, Arab women writers all too frequently find themselves caught up in the dynamics of a hegemonic Eurocentric feminism that already constructs them as new representatives of an Orient, one that further stubbornly refuses to dissolve under the action of rigorous critique. I argue that the underwhelming international reception to Mosteghanemi’s writing serves as a reminder that colonialism remains real, even in a world of independent nations, while decolonisation remains on the theoretical horizon in the postcolonial world. It is these two interrelated points that map the wide field of effectivity that is brought into play in the reception of Mosteghanemi as a writer.

Determination of Appropriate Topic for Exercise - A Strategy in Succeeding Translation Teaching for Undergraduate Students

Abstract: Translation is a real-life, a natural activity and increasingly needed in globalization era. Although many believes that translation skill is acquired naturally, but many scholars believe it can be teachable. Besides, teaching translation is a difficult to set up and time-consuming activity, it is necessary to plan carefully. Thus, the aim of this article is to describe the steps in providing the appropriate topic for exercise in teaching translation course for undergraduate students. This is a part of study in inventing the model of translation teaching in university setting for non-translation class. As translation is process that involve the intellectuality, it is also viewed as art, thus this article will clarify how the translation material were prepared, what aspect should be considered before giving it in practice. This article also briefly describe the student perception on teaching-learning activities that suggest that the appropriate preparation of material is significant in keeping the student interest on translation teaching.

Narrative Realism at the Interplay of Traditionality and Modernity in Ousmane Sembene’s God’s Bits of Woods and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between

Abstract: This paper articulates the interactions between a traditional and modern world as embodied by the colonizer and the colonized, focusing on Ousmane Sembene’s God’s Bits of Woods (1960) and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s The River Between (1965). It argues that both narratives can be read as realist novels that counter the hegemonic power of the European empire. While Sembene engages in critiquing imperialism and its social and cultural effects in the West African community –Senegal, Mali and Niger – Ngugi concentrates on the internal problems of the Gikuyu as they respond to the contact with the Western culture. The essay claims that the sociopolitical agendas in these novels should be understood within the context of French and British colonial regimes concerned with finding a legitimizing basis and control in an era when social and political forces of the colonies were energetically asserting themselves.

The Role of Language Ideology in Translating News Media: The Case of the Syrian War

Abstract: The objective of this study is to examine the role of ideology in translating news media, and the representation of language in the media. The framing approach and the framing of realities through the process of translation will be examined whereby ‘changes’ are made for ideological purposes in response to the attempts of the group of receptors and to ‘the norms’ of those receptors. The impact of language ideology on translation and the way in which translation serves cultural, political, religious or literary concepts continues to grow nowadays. Ideology is affecting the translation of the source texts in many types of discourses, among them the journalistic discourse which constitutes the subject of this study. How does ideology work? How is ideology conveyed through the translation of news media? What is its role and impact on the target texts? How does ideology influence the choices of translators? These are some of the questions which will be dealt with throughout this paper. The representation of language in media will be also studied with a particular attention to be given to the use of lexical choices that show how ideology appears in the source texts and the target texts, and to the validity and legitimacy of language which carries an ideological stamp. For the purpose of this study, a corpus of online news articles in English highlighting the war in Syria will be used in parallel with the translation of this corpus into Arabic by two opposite media outlets: the pro-regime and the anti-regime.

Changing the Structure of Paragraphs and Texts in Arabic: A Case from News Reporting

Abstract: This study explores the textual alterations of Arabic news structure and how it has been influenced by news texts produced in English. The paper precisely examines sentence, paragraph and text structures in terms of form and content in relation to news translation. It analyses news articles collated from Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya news networks. The collated corpus is translations from English into Arabic by these two media outlets. The analysis showed considerable changes that the form of Arabic textual structures has incurred, especially in the general layout of texts. Although it confirm Hatim’s (1997) text-type categorisation with regard to argumentation in Arabic news texts that Arabic lacks argumentative elements it news content, it exhibited significant shift in internal cohesion, paragraph transitions, and syntactic patterns. These changes could emanate from many other influencing factors, but translation is definitely one.

An Arabic translation of Susan Glaspell's play, "Trifles"

Abstract: This is an Arabic translation of “Trifles”, a famous play by prominent American playwright Susan Glaspell (1876-1948). Glaspell was one of the founders of the Playwright’s Theatre, formerly recognized as the Provincetown Players in the United States of America. She wrote ten novels, twenty plays, and more than forty short stories. “Trifles” is a one-act play written in 1916.2 It is considered to be one of Susan Glaspell’s major works. “Trifles” is a play that is frequently anthologized in American literature textbooks. The play was based on the murder case of the sixty-year-old farmer, John Hossack, which was covered widely by Susan Glaspell while she was working as a journalist with the Des Moines Daily News immediately after her graduation from Drake University. Accordingly, “Trifles” presents the murder of an oppressive husband by his emotionally abused wife. It is an attempt to re-address the John Hossack case from the point of view of women who might not have a similar viewpoint of the nature of marital disagreement and domestic unhappiness.3 The murder happened in a period where women had insufficient protection from domestic abuse, and had not yet obtained the right to vote. The main characters of the play are: 1- The Sheriff, Mr. Henry Peters; 2- Mrs. Peters(wife of the Sheriff); 3- Mr. Lewis Hale (a neighbour of Mr. and Mrs. Wright); 4- Mrs. Hale (wife of Mr. Hale); and 5- The County Attorney, Mr. George Henderson. The off-stage characters are: 1- Mr. John Write (the victim); 2-Mrs. Minnie Write (the victim’s wife); 3- Frank (Deputy Sheriff); 4- Harry (a helper of Mr.Lewis Hale); 5- Dr. Lloyd (the coroner). The play addressed the life of Mrs. Wright who becameenraged and took the life of her abusive and violent husband after he killed her bird. The motivefor murder was the killing of the canary because it represented freedom for her. Mrs. Wright, theprotagonist, lived through a series of emotions, such as rage, shock, lack of feeling, rejection,and deep sadness, mainly because the loss of her bird was sudden, surprising and unforeseen.4 She considered the death of her bird as a great calamity, as she lost something extremely crucialin her life. Susan Glaspell chose the title of the play from a line stated by one of the characters inthe play, Mr. Lewis Hale, when he says: “Well, women are used to worrying about trifles.” The title demonstrates irony when Mrs. Minnie Wright seemed to be more concerned about triflesthan she is about being under arrest for murder. This English play, “Trifles,” was chosen to betranslated into Arabic because of its significance and association to the Arab culture. For thesake of wide readability, it was translated into Modern Standard Arabic (formal Arabic), as it isquite the same in all Arab countries.

Cosmic Pessimism in Giacomo Leopardi’s “Night Song of a Wandering Shepherd in Asia”

Abstract: The present paper analyses the lyrical expression of ‘cosmic pessimism’ contained in the “Night song of a wandering shepherd in Asia” of the Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1836), a central figure of the European literary and cultural landscape of the first half of the 19th century, who was acclaimed as ‘the greatest Italian poet after Dante’ by the British cultural critic Matthew Arnold. The ‘song’, composed in the period 1828-1829, bridges neoclassic and romantic sensibilities: it is composed of 143 verses without rhyme, subdivided into six parts, called ‘stanze’ and the scenario is that of a night in a desert landscape where a flock is sleeping, while the shepherd addresses himself to the moon, posing her unanswered questions about the meaning of life.

The Encounter between Cambridge Literary Criticism and China

Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to study the impact of Cambridge Literary Criticism (CLC) on Chinese scholars, since the visit to Peking’s Tsinghua University by Prof. Igor Armstrong Richards, the initiator of CLC, in 1929, until present times. That first encounter signed the beginning of a fruitful intercultural communication activity between the two countries, which lasted for a decennial. Those contacts between the British literary world, imbued with the scientific spirit that was the basis of ‘Cambridge Criticism’, was very stimulating for the Chinese academic world, of that was being born. Unfortunately, those contacts were forcefully interrupted in 1939, in the raging of the anti-Japanese war. They resumed, with fruitful results, toward the end of last millennium, when the Chinese government issued a “Program for Education’s Reform and Development in China”. In present times the new movement of ‘Ethical Literary Criticism’ is developing in China by initiative of Prof. Nie Zhenzhao, from Peking’s ‘Central China Normal University’, who took inspiration from the works of the Cambridge literary critic Frank Raymond Leavis.

Incantation as a Means of Communication in Yorùbá Land: ‘Eégún Aláré’ as a Case Study

Abstract: Yoruba oral literature is of three categories namely chant, song and recitation. This paper, therefore, focused on incantation as a means of communication among the masquerades in Yoruba land with its data drawn from “Eegun Alare”, a Yoruba novel. Incantation is a combination of carefully arranged speeches or words in a poetic form and its use makes things work miraculously as the users wish or words that make human wishes come to reality with immediate effect. Before Christianity and Islam gained prominence in the Yoruba society, Alarinjo masquerades were among the well known traditional public entertainers and that during performances, incantation was often used to know who is who among the masquerades. However, Christianity and Islam have made the use of incantation, as a means of communication during masquerade performances, a thing of the past and what used to be a family profession in the past is no longer so because members of the Oje families who were in charge of this cultural profession in the past have now been converted to either Christianity or Islam or have been negatively influenced by Western education. This study nullifies the communication chain as the person to whom incantation is directed does not need to understand the language of the person that uses the incantation as the feed back would be the effect of the incantation in positive or negative form. The essence of this paper is to promote Yoruba oral literature through formal documentation of incantation as a Yoruba linguistic verbal art.

Ramping the Future of Translation Studies through Technology-based Translation

Abstract: Technology has remarkably increased the stipulation for global communication in cross-different cultural settings and diverse linguistics environment. People have experienced tremendous challenges associated with language barriers and constraints. Translation into different languages across the globe has become a necessity to keep these frequent contacts with every corner and maintain mutual understanding among people regardless of the language they speak and the cultural values they keep. The study is an attempt to explore the potentials of Technology-based Translation represented in the three main streams like Machine Translation (MT), Computer-Aided translation (CAT), and Translation Management System (TMS). The potentials of all these distinct genres of Technology-Based Translation are demonstrated through theoretical perspectives and practical framework. Moreover, the ways of accessing and working with these three application interfaces are also precisely explored. The study also focuses on the comparison between Google Translate, as one of the most frequently used types of MT, and human translators in terms of translating an Arabic text into English. In addition, Grammarly, as one of the most popular editing so software, is used as scale-based software to measure the quality of two translated versions associated with Clarity, fluency, and fidelity. The study consolidates the role of technology-based translation as a vibrant driving force in shaping the future of the translation industry worldwide. In spite of these issues, the quality of TMS, MT, and CAT tools remain a complex issue that needs to be investigated in numerous practical researches and studies to determine and identify whether or not the outcomes would be accepted by global translation standards.

A Contrastive Analysis of Legend of Zhen Huan and Empress in the Palace on Impact of Differences Between Chinese and Western Thinking Mode on Translation

Abstract: Translation is not only a language activity, but also a conceptual work. The differences between Chinese and western thinking modes lead to different expressions. It is the key point to realize the differences between Chinese and western thinking modes and then learn to transform them appropriately in translation. This paper takes Legend of Zhen Huan and Empress in the Palace as an example to explore the impact of differences between Chinese and Western thinking modes on translation. The embodiment of thinking modes was analyzed from five aspects, which are ethical and cognitive thinking modes, comprehension and rationality thinking modes, fuzzy and precise thinking modes, subjective and objective thinking modes as well as inductive and deductive thinking modes. The comparison between the above five aspects illustrates the

Brazilian Modernism and Cultural Criticism

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to disclose some issues of Brazilian Modernism (in the 1920’s) and to discuss how the leading exponents of this movement attempted to shape a new and authentic way of evaluating the Brazilian national project, showing their views on cultural criticism as a whole. This paper is also an attempt to understand how contemporary criticism re-evaluates this aesthetic and critical project. The late 1970`s and early 1980`s can be seen as fundamental to all the changes in scenarios, images and discourses that took place in Brazil. These changes were not limited to the composition of pragmatic, academic and disciplinary scenarios, but there was an attempt to bring about changes in the face of Brazil. The new agenda of civil society began to be redefined and the relations between public and private worlds were in the spotlight again. The end of the authoritarian military rule was not only a rupture with the current institutional pattern, but it altered deeply the way of thinking about the country.

Translating on Purpose: Domestication in English Translations of Chinese Publicity Materials

Abstract: English translations of Chinese publicity materials play an important role in introducing China to the outside world and in helping foreigners know more and better about the country. Since the implementation of the Reform and Opening-up Policy in China four decades ago, great progress has been recorded in translating Chinese publicity materials into English. However, poor translations still exist, such as those with linguistic errors, cultural inappropriateness, missing of information, inconsistency in the use of proper names, etc. These problematic translations exert a negative impact on China’s international image and the cross-cultural communication and exchange between China and the outside world. Under such circumstances, the present study proposes the application of domestication in translating Chinese publicity materials into English from the perspective of Skopos theory. Through illustrations with specific examples, three types of domestication are identified, namely, domestication of culturally-loaded words, domestication of syntactic structures and domestication of rhetorical devices.

Review of the Literature on Latin America in Ketab-e-Jom’eh

Abstract: This paper aims to analyze a weekly magazine called Ketab-e-Jom’eh (Friday’s Book) and the reflection of Latin American’s revolutionary movements in it. Ketab-e-Jom’eh, published from July 26, 1979, to May 22, 1980, was supervised by a number of the most legendary Iranian authors and poets, such as Ahmad Shamloo1 and Gholam Hossein Saedi. I focus on the way a particular perspective on Latin American movements is constructed and perpetuated among Ketab-e-Jom’eh’s lectors. With a symbolic approach, I analyze those texts through their symbolic representation in the Iranian society, which requires me to study those symbols and their concomitant relevance in Iran. Eventually, I will use an interpretative approach to examine this magazine’s ideologically motivated articles in the broader context of the Iranian society with its particular traits. The dialectic relationship between literature and society helps us understand literature as the product of social conditions and influential factors in society. The position that I develop here echoes Louis de Bonald’s belief that “through a careful reading of any nation’s literature ‘one could tell what this people had been’” (as cited in Hall, 1979, p. 13). I employ such an expansive horizon to scrutinize the selection of literature on Latin American guerillas. I shall unfold the magazine’s ideological orientation from the angle of the context in which it is used. I aim to show that the historical context of the Iranian society at the moment gives those articles specific meanings. In pursuit of my goals, I will recontextualize the articles to determine their primary significance in the Iran of the 1970s and 1980s.

Fusion into One: Exploring the Complementarity of Shitao’s Waterfall on Mount Lu and Its Inscribed Poem

Abstract: Shitao’s famous poem-painting Waterfall on Mount Lu has generated a great interest in the field of Chinese paintings. However, the purpose of the work remains a topic of discussion among scholars. From the standpoint of complementarity of poetry and painting, this paper discusses the work through a close examination of the painting and its inscribed poem. The interartistic features of the painting and the poem are interpreted in terms of their themes, structures, and imagery. The Chinese aesthetic concept of artistic mood (yijing) is employed to illustrate the connection among these elements. This paper demonstrates that the holistic approach to the poem-painting helps illuminate its Daoist theme of unity of man and nature. This paper also highlights a structural contrast between the secular world and the eternal world expressed in the peom-painting.

Tamar Jalis’ Bercakap Dengan Jin or Discourse with the Jinn: A Modern-Day Malay Odyssey

Abstract: In April, 1981 Variasari, a Malay vernacular magazine that deals in the occult and the paranormal, published its first series of supernatural horror thriller written by a writer who went by the pseudonym Tamar Jalis titled Bercakap Dengan Jin or Discourse with the Jinn. The stories were apportioned into 284 series which saw the final instalment published in January, 2005. It was an unprecedented event in the history of Malay vernacular magazines’ success story. The story is about a teenager named Tamar who accompanied his grandfather, a faith healer and ghost buster of extraordinary prowess, on his journey to several places in Malaysia and Indonesia in the late sixties to help those who were in dire needs of assistance in fighting demonic–related cases. This paper attempts to discuss the collection of stories as a modern-day Malay odyssey. It will discuss four important elements in the story: the narratives of wandering; the ritualistic strands in the story; the theme of endurance as a mode of heroism; and the feminist role in the narratives. These are some of the elements that make the series of stories appeal to its die-hard fans. The series of stories simply had an uncanny effect on the Malay psyche. In its own unique way, the series of stories is akin to a modern-day Malay odyssey.

A Survey on Attitude Towards Quality Monitoring System of Linguistic Landscape

Abstract: This study aims at investigating the difference between attitude towards the construction of quality monitoring system on linguistic landscape of Chinese tourism, and the current situation on regional special linguistic landscape program. By analyzing the degree of participation in serving for improvement the quality of local linguistic landscape, this survey carries out quantitative analysis of attitude research on constructing the benchmark indicators, program management, process control and quality evaluation; explores a sustainable development mode on linguistic landscape assessment for national tourism; promotes the formulation, implementation and promotion of the quality monitoring system on linguistic landscape tourism from 520 feedbacks of respondents. And the objectives of this research were to 1) to investigate the attitudes towards social influence and implementation of series of Standards and Guidance for English Translation and Usage in Public Service(2017-2019); 2) to study the factors that influence different attitudes and opinions; 3) to explore quality evaluation system of linguistic landscape, and promote linguistic landscape evaluation indicators and modes. The conclusion is that the governments should construct the common understanding of program mode and collaborative development on quality monitoring system.

Thomas S. Eliot’s eyes on Dante Alighieri

Abstract: Thomas E. Eliot devoted several essays to Dante Alighieri, declaring that he considered the Italian poet the most universal of all poets of the continent. Dante’s recourse to visual images to enunciate very abstract philosophical and theological themes, finds its counterpart in Eliot’s use of the ‘objective correlative’ to evoke in the reader sensory experiences. Purpose of the present paper is to investigate about the influence exerted by the author of the “Divine Comedy” on the great innovator of the English literary landscape of the 20th century, utilizing to that purpose the scripts by T.S. Eliot himself.

Dis-contenting Khayyam in the Context of Comparative Literature: An Invitation to Translating Rubaiyat with a Focal Shift from Content to Form

Abstract: Since its conception in France in 1877, Comparative Literature, always subject to a critique of Eurocentrism, has been in a state of perpetual crisis. In “The Old/New Question of Comparison in Literary Studies: A Post-European Perspective” (2004), Ray Chow argued for a Post-European perspective in which comparatists begin with the home culture and look outwards to the European cultures, contrary to the dominant approach of doing just otherwise. Missing in Chow’s argument is the position of translation in this post-European perspective. In the 14 years between 2004 and 2018, the grandiose claims of comparative literature have been problematized and addressed; the lay of the land, however, remains predominantly Eurocentric, as it still focuses on content disproportionately. In this paper, through a study of English translations of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, and taking Chow’s argument further, I argue that with its commitment to transfer the form of a text as much as the content, translation studies can further help comparative literature to distance itself from Europe. To exemplify the implication of this, I suggest that a translation of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat from Farsi to English would be more faithful to the original if its translations were to focus on the poem’s form rather than the content. I argue that translating with a focus on form would foreignize Khayyam’s poetry, hence an act of resistance against cultural hegemony.