Showing papers in "Translation Studies in 2015"
TL;DR: This paper uses Mossop's taxonomy of editing and revising procedures to explore a corpus of translated Wikipedia articles to determine how often transfer and language/style problems are present in these translations and assess how these problems are addressed.
Abstract: Wikipedia is a well-known example of a website with content developed entirely through crowdsourcing. It has over 4 million articles in English alone, and content in 284 other language versions. While the articles in the different versions are often written directly in the respective target-language, translations also take place. Given that a previous study suggested that many of English Wikipedia's translators had neither formal training in translation nor professional work experience as translators, it is worth examining the quality of the translations produced. This paper uses Mossop's taxonomy of editing and revising procedures to explore a corpus of translated Wikipedia articles to determine how often transfer and language/style problems are present in these translations and assess how these problems are addressed.
30 citations
TL;DR: The authors discusses the problem posed by linguistic variation for interlingual translation, in particular by the relation between language, context and identity in speech and orality, within the framework of descriptive translation studies.
Abstract: This article discusses the problem posed by linguistic variation for interlingual translation, in particular by the relation between language, context and identity in speech and orality, within the framework of descriptive translation studies. It starts by defining linguistic variation as a correlation of linguistic form, communicative meaning and sociocultural value. It examines the particular case of literary representation of varieties to suggest strategies and procedures for their translation. It ends with an analysis of selected examples of canonized British fiction and their translation into European Portuguese, and a discussion of causes and consequences of the patterning resulting from the translation of speech and orality in fiction.
27 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored interpreters' agency in wartime, with a focus on their active positioning and border-crossing strategy when facing violent conflicts, highlighting the interpreter's hybrid cultural background and accumulation of social and political capital via interpreting work.
Abstract: This article explores interpreters' agency in wartime, with a focus on their active positioning and border-crossing strategy when facing violent conflicts. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's concept of capital, it presents a case study of Xia Wenyun, who served as a Chinese interpreter and double agent between the Chinese Kuomintang government (KMT) and Japanese forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945), highlighting the interpreter's hybrid cultural background and accumulation of social and political capital via interpreting work. It argues that interpreters' agency is determined by the relative value of their capital (including their linguistic and cultural competences, interpreting and social skills) recognized by other agents and institutions. The relative value is subject to the structure(s) in which interpreters position themselves and relates to the interpreters' personal profiles. When facing extreme situations such as wartime, interpreters can actively use their accumulated capital to negotiat...
21 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored how China is represented in English translations of contemporary Chinese literature and how Chinese authors and their works are positioned, marketed and commodified in the West through the discursive material that surrounds a translated book.
Abstract: This article explores how China is represented in English translations of contemporary Chinese literature. It seeks to uncover the discourses at work in framing this literature for reception by an anglophone readership, and to suggest how these discourses dovetail with meta-narratives on China circulating in the West. In addition to asking what gets translated, the article is interested in how Chinese authors and their works are positioned, marketed and commodified in the West through the discursive material that surrounds a translated book. Drawing on English translations of works by Yan Lianke, Ma Jian, Chan Koonchung, Yu Hua, Su Tong and Mo Yan, the article argues that literary translation is part of a wider programme of anglophone textual practices that renders China an overdetermined sign pointing to a repressive, dystopic Other. The knowledge structures governing these textual practices circumscribe the ways in which China is imagined and articulated, thereby producing a discursive China.
18 citations
TL;DR: The authors compare the practice of translation between the Spanish Habsburg and contemporary US empires and show how the practice alternately enables and disables this metaphysic from functioning in such disparate areas as Christian conversion, counter-insurgent warfare and the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Abstract: In a bid to prompt discussion of the engagement of translation studies with issues of politics and language ideologies, this article compares the practice of translation between the Spanish Habsburg and contemporary US empires. It focuses on what they have in common – an enduring attachment to logocentrism, or a metaphysics of the sign – and shows how the practice of translation alternately enables and disables this metaphysic from functioning in such disparate areas as Christian conversion, counter-insurgent warfare and the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics.
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore whether the so-called new "cinema of attractions" requires a specific approach to audio-description (AD) and find that effect-driven narratives require carefully timed and phrased ADs that devote much attention to the prosody of the AD script, its interaction with sounds and the use of metaphor.
Abstract: This article explores whether the so-called new “cinema of attractions”, with its supposed focus on visual effects to the detriment of storytelling, requires a specific approach to audio-description (AD). After some thoughts on film narrative in this type of cinema and the way in which it incorporates special effects, selected scenes with AD from two feature films, 2012 (directed by Emmerich) and Hero (directed by Zhang Yimou), are analysed. 2012 is a disaster movie aiming to thrill the audience with action. Hero is an equally visual movie but its imagery has an aesthetic purpose. The analysis investigates how space, time and action are treated in the films and the ADs, and how the information is presented in terms of focalization, timing and phrasing. The results suggest that effect-driven narratives require carefully timed and phrased ADs that devote much attention to the prosody of the AD script, its interaction with sounds and the use of metaphor.
17 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the cultural and social background of oral and textual translation in Rome to discuss the profound effects that oral forms of translation, along with oral performance, had on ancient Roman translation, examining the significance of speaking and writing "proper" Greek among the Roman elite, the anxieties that provoked in Rome, and the reasons why Roman texts elide the help of Greeks in their translations, even though the lack of dictionaries and other aids meant that their help was necessary.
Abstract: This article explores the cultural and social background of oral and textual translation in Rome to discuss the profound effects that oral forms of translation, along with oral performance, had on ancient Roman translation. It examines the significance of speaking and writing “proper” Greek among the Roman elite, the anxieties that provoked in Rome, and the reasons why Roman texts elide the help of Greeks in their translations, even though the lack of dictionaries and other aids meant that their help was necessary. It also discusses the role of orality in Cicero's translations and, in particular, in his On the Best Type of Orator, and in Pliny the Younger's and Catullus' writings on translation.
17 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the relationship between the orality of the Old Testament as a source text and orality as a feature of the target culture through a performance translation of a liturgical psalm (Psalm 24) into Sesotho.
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between the orality of the Old Testament as a source text and orality as a feature of the target culture. This relationship involves both alterity, the assertion of distance of culture, and similarity (or familiarity), the assertion of proximity of culture (Sturge 2007). However, because orality does not involve a fixed set of universal features, the similarities and differences between the orality of the Old Testament and the orality of a target culture are examined using the insights of Biblical Performance Criticism (Rhoads 2012). In other words, the process involves not just the translation of performance but also translation for performance (Maxey 2012). These concepts are explored through a performance translation of a liturgical psalm (Psalm 24) into Sesotho, a Bantu language of Southern Africa.
17 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a set of Jacques Brel's songs as covered in English by the American singer Scott Walker are examined. But the authors focus on the complexity of the production and circulation of cultural products, uncovering the important yet frequently obscured role of a range of agents.
Abstract: By focusing on a set of Jacques Brel's songs as covered in English by the American singer Scott Walker, this article addresses the complexity of the production and circulation of cultural products, uncovering the important yet frequently obscured role of a range of agents. Combining approaches from sociology and cultural studies, it examines the ways in which “Brel” was integrated within Walker's work and artistic persona and this in turn exemplifies how an imported product can become the object of new strategic uses in the field of reception. The article also addresses the multiple operations involved in this process, which are not limited to textual translation, but include further discursive and non-textual practices. Finally, issues of reception and authorship are raised to show how the study of translation can become an exploratory tool in historical and cultural analysis.
13 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the translation-theoretic appropriation of the concept of intertextuality presents itself as a particular moment of a reshaping process in the development of the translation discipline.
Abstract: The present article offers a critical account of key applications of the concept of intertextuality for translation-theoretic purposes. It is argued that these applications form part of a reorientation in Western translation studies that involves a significant reconceptualization of both the practice of translation and the role of the translator. Seen from this perspective, the translation-theoretic appropriation of the concept of intertextuality presents itself as a particular moment of a reshaping process in the development of the discipline. The translation-theoretic import of the concept in question is examined against the backdrop of precisely this reshaping process.
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the development of translations in the Dutch literary field between 1981 and 2009 and found that there is a minor increase in the relative share of translations, followed by a decline after 2003.
Abstract: This article sets out to understand the development of translations in the Dutch literary field between 1981 and 2009. The analysis shows that there is a minor increase in the relative share of translations, followed by a decline after 2003. As such, the rise of globalization does not straightforwardly transpose into an unlimited growth of translations. Moreover, while the concentration of translations rises, the diversity also increases as more and more languages are represented in translation. Comparing translations in four main genres, this analysis shows that translation flows differ across genres in line with the opposition between the small-scale and large-scale logic of cultural production. However, over time, translations in the four genre subfields develop relatively independently, which implies that these subfields also have an autonomous internal dynamic that influences translation flows.
TL;DR: The authors consider the ways in which human translation and human translators are depicted as interacting with unknown languages in classic works of speculative fiction and reveal the range of underlying conceptions entertained about language and consciousness.
Abstract: This work considers the ways in which human translation and human translators are depicted as interacting with unknown languages in classic works of speculative fiction. The objective is to reveal the range of underlying conceptions entertained about language and consciousness. Some of the philosophies on which these linguistic fictions are built are benign, but some use translation for expansionist ends. Almost all the fictional scenarios posit a colonial encounter, hence the potential interest of these works to translators, especially as they form a vexed image of translating, showing translating to be a primary intercultural contact skill on which political realities, and existential identities characterized by ethnocentricity – or, less commonly, ethno-relativity – depend. Resistances to translation – untranslatabilities – emerge as a common denominator of depictions of otherness, whether for reasons of distance, for thought manipulation or as a defense against cultural appropriation from colonizers.
TL;DR: For instance, the authors published a collection of translations of between words of Juan Gelman's public letter, Between Words: Between Words (National Translation Award), Commentaries and Citations and Com/positions.
Abstract: Note on contributor Lisa Rose Bradford teaches comparative literature at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata in Argentina. Having published poems and translations in various magazines, she has also edited books of and on translation (Traducción como cultura, La cultura de los géneros, Usos de la imaginación: poetas latin@s en EE.UU. Los pájaros, por la nieve. Antología de la poesía femenina contemporánea de los Estados Unidos) and three bilingual volumes of Juan Gelman’s verse, Between Words: Juan Gelman’s Public Letter (National Translation Award), Commentaries and Citations and Com/positions. Email: lisarosear@yahoo.com
TL;DR: The relationship between orality and translation is intimate and intricate as mentioned in this paper, and the very act of speaking, which sets humans apart from other living species, involves the translating of thought into aud...
Abstract: The relationship between orality and translation is intimate and intricate. The very act of speaking, which sets humans apart from other living species, involves the translating of thought into aud...
TL;DR: For instance, this paper investigated the origins of Russian translation theories and found that the formalist theories of Retsker, Sobolev and Fedorov were associated with the final years of Stalinism and were thus strangely cut off from the development of translation studies in most other languages.
Abstract: Translation Studies is performed through an international network of relations between largely isolated scholars, many of whom cooperate in order to create knowledge. The sparse nature of the relations, however, coupled with the difficulties of relatively opaque languages and hard-to-assemble materials, means that the cooperative production of knowledge is often fraught with difficulties: the network only vaguely discerns its international extension (rarely reducible to the West vs. the Rest) and has a very sketchy awareness of its own origins. Russian translation theories published between 1950 and 1953 constitute an acute case in point. Although highly innovative precursors of later theories of text types, purposes, and indeed of Translation Studies as a unified field, the formalist theories of Retsker, Sobolev and Fedorov were associated with the final years of Stalinism and were thus strangely cut off from the development of Translation Studies in most other languages. We recount our attempts to locat...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present and discuss their impact on the shaping and reshaping of cultures and identities in a dynamic interrelation with the African agenda, and suggest a revision of the notion of directionality typically applied to the observation of translation.
Abstract: Bringing together history and the study of translation, this article focuses on Christian missionary activities in Eritrea and Ethiopia, with special reference to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It presents and discusses their impact on the shaping and reshaping of cultures and identities in a dynamic interrelation with the African agenda. Though focusing on relatively recent events, this article also takes into account the traditions of evangelization and translation that populated the cultural and religious landscape of the region over a timespan of more than 16 centuries. Focusing on orally transmitted knowledge, written documents, the advent of printing in the area, and all the other activities which have made the dissemination of the missionaries' Christianity possible, this article aims to overcome the common assumption that colonialism stands as an absolute historical divide, and to suggest a revision of the notion of directionality typically applied to the observation of translation ...
TL;DR: This article presented an overview of constructions of orality that played an important role in the theory and practice of modern Bible translation, focusing on universalist and dichotomous constructions, informed by mid-twentieth-century linguistics, anthropology and philology that strictly separated, isolated and contrasted oral and written communication.
Abstract: This article presents an overview of constructions of orality that played an important role in the theory and practice of modern Bible translation. Three distinct perspectives can be distinguished. First we have the constructions of orality as articulated by Buber and Rosenzweig in the Interbellum period, a view of orality embedded in ideologies and patterns of thinking of nineteenth-century Germany. The second perspective focuses on universalist and dichotomous constructions of orality, informed by mid-twentieth-century linguistics, anthropology and philology that strictly separated, isolated and contrasted oral and written communication. The third perspective has roots in developments in late twentieth-century biblical scholarship and linguistics. It rejects the universal dichotomies of the preceding period as pseudo-universal and empirically false and emphasizes two things, the interconnectedness of oral and written dimensions and the local nature of oral–written interfaces in different linguistic, cul...
TL;DR: This article explored the translation of orality in two postcolonial Arabic novels, namely Najīb Mahfūz's Awlād Hratinā and Muhammad Shukrī's al-Khubz al-Hāfī, into English and French.
Abstract: This article explores the translation of orality in two postcolonial Arabic novels, namely Najīb Mahfūz's Awlād Hāratinā and Muhammad Shukrī's al-Khubz al-Hāfī, into English and French. It is argued that assimilation and non-assimilation of cultural aspects of foreign texts can have both positive and negative effects depending on the case examined. Specific examples are analyzed to show the various factors that can influence the way orality is translated as well as the hybridity of the methods used by the translators. This article further illustrates the complexity of evaluating assimilation and non-assimilation as they have an impact on linguistic, semantic, aesthetic, discursive, and cultural levels. It also sheds light on the translator's role by analyzing the effects of his/her interpretation and choices and the patterns detected in his/her work.
TL;DR: The original and carefully grounded vision of Kobus Marais is evident throughout this book-length essay as mentioned in this paper, which is, in many ways, a personal journey, but at the same time represents an engagement.
Abstract: The original and carefully grounded vision of Kobus Marais is evident throughout this book-length essay. The work is, in many ways, a personal journey, but at the same time represents an engagement...
TL;DR: Thomas Churchyard in his A General Rehersal of Warres (1579) describes the tactic of terror employed by one military commander in the conquest of Elizabethan Ireland as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Thomas Churchyard in his A General Rehersal of Warres (1579) describes the tactic of terror employed by one military commander in the conquest of Elizabethan Ireland. His manner was that the heddes...
TL;DR: Creative Constraints as mentioned in this paper is an edited collection of scholarly articles and literary translations that grew out of Translated!, Monash University's inaugural Literary Translation Summer School which too...
Abstract: Creative Constraints is an edited collection of scholarly articles and literary translations that grew out of Translated!, Monash University's inaugural Literary Translation Summer School which too...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the construction of the literary fame of Roberto Saviano, author of the 2006 Italian bestseller Gomorra, in the British book marketplace and demonstrate that the political import of the narratives that underpin the author-brand in translation is linked with a set of public narratives.
Abstract: This article considers the construction of the literary fame of Roberto Saviano, author of the 2006 Italian bestseller Gomorra, in the British book marketplace. In order to understand the political import of Saviano's translated author-brand, this analysis utilizes the tools of narrative theory to look at what narratives were created around the authorial personality and what other public narratives and meta-narratives are mobilized to introduce the author to his new reading public. The analysis centres on Saviano's reputation as “Italy's Salman Rushdie” and it demonstrates that the political import of the narratives that underpin the author-brand in translation is linked with a set of post-9/11 public narratives.
TL;DR: Pym and Ayvazyan as mentioned in this paper investigated precursors of later theories of text types, purposes, and indeed of translation studies as a unified field in the former S...
Abstract: The article by Pym and Ayvazyan is an investigation of “highly innovative precursors of later theories of text types, purposes, and indeed of Translation Studies as a unified field” in the former S...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the way voice(s) create suspense in crime fiction and how these voices are then translated to the real world, both literature and film.
Abstract: This volume focuses on the way voice(s) create suspense in crime fiction – both literature and film – and on how these voices are then translated. The notion of “voice” here includes dialogue, but ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the life and afterlife of the play on the Italian stage and screen and its fortunes on the page, as well as its success on the web.
Abstract: With an account of its “life and afterlife” (p. 15) on the Italian stage and screen – as well as its fortunes on the page – Reclaiming Romeo and Juliet adds to the body of work on translations and ...
TL;DR: The rich linguistic history of the Iberian Peninsula with its Arabic, Hebrew, Mozarabic and Ladino incursions on the Latinate outgrowths of Castilian, Galician, Catalan and Portuguese is discussed in this article.
Abstract: The rich linguistic history of the Iberian Peninsula with its Arabic, Hebrew, Mozarabic and Ladino incursions on the Latinate outgrowths of Castilian, Galician, Catalan and Portuguese – not to ment...
TL;DR: Rafael's "Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest" is a timely and thought-provoking reflection on the complex relationship between translation and its underlying ideology as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Vicente Rafael's “Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest” is a timely and thought-provoking reflection on the complex relationship between translation (especially its underlying...
TL;DR: Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest by Vicente L. Rafael hits many historical-political nails bang on the head and makes perfect "postcolonial" sense as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: “Betraying Empire: Translation and the Ideology of Conquest” by Vicente L. Rafael hits many historical-political nails bang on the head and makes perfect “postcolonial” sense. By way of engaging wi...