Approaches to Translation Studies – serie

This book studies the influence of censorship on the selection and translation of English language fiction in the People’s Republic of Poland, 1944-1989. It analyses the differences between originals and their translations, taking into account the available archival evidence from the files of Poland’s Censorship Office, as well as the wider social and historical context.The book examines institutional censorship, self-censorship and such issues as national quotas of foreign literature, the varying severity of the regime, and criticism as a means to control literature. However, the emphasis remains firmly on how censorship affected the practice of translation. Translators shaped Polish perceptions of foreign literature from Charlie Chan books to Ulysses and from The Wizard of Oz to Moby-Dick. But whether translators conformed or rebelled, they were joined in this enterprise by censors and pulled into post-war Poland’s cultural power structures.

Translation and interpreting (T/I) and cross-cultural communication activities in the Asia Pacific are unique in that they involve vastly different languages and cultures. Such differences pose challenges for T/I practitioners and researchers as well as scholars of cross-cultural studies. In Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication Studies in the Asia Pacific, Leong Ko and Ping Chen provide a comprehensive and in-depth account of various issues encountered in translation and interpreting activities and cross-cultural communication in the Asia Pacific.The book covers six areas including translation research from the historical perspective and different issues in translation studies; research on literary translation; studies on translation for special purposes; research on interpreting; translation and interpreting training; and research on issues in cross-cultural communication.

Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) is Finland’s greatest writer. His great 1870 novel The Brothers Seven has been translated 59 times into 34 languages. Is he world literature, or not? In Aleksis Kivi and/as World Literature Douglas Robinson uses this question as a wedge for exploring the nature and nurture of world literature, and the contributions made by translators to it.Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of major and minor literature, Robinson argues that translators have mainly “majoritized” Kivi—translated him respectfully—and so created images of literary tourism that ill suit recognition as world literature. Far better, he insists, is the impulse to minoritize—to find and celebrate the minor writer in Kivi, who “sends the major language racing.”

Trends in E-Tools and Resources for Translators and Interpreters offers a collection of contributions from key players in the field of translation and interpreting that accurately outline some of the most cutting-edge technologies in this field that are available or under development at the moment in both professional and academic contexts.Particularly, this volume provides a wide picture of the state of the art, looking not only at the world of technology for translators but also at the hitherto overlooked world of technology for interpreters. This volume is accessible and comprehensive enough to be of benefit to different categories of readers: scholars, professionals and trainees. Contributors are: Pierrette Bouillon, Gloria Corpas Pastor, Hernani Costa, Isabel Durán-Muñoz, Claudio Fantinuoli, Johanna Gerlach, Joanna Gough, Asheesh Gulati, Veronique Hoste, Amélie Josselin, David Lewis, Lieve Macken, John Moran, Aurelie Picton, Emmanuel Planas, Éric Poirier, Victoria Porro, Celia Rico Pérez, Christian Saam, Pilar Sánchez-Gijón, Míriam Seghiri Domínguez, Violeta Seretan, Arda Tezcan, Olga Torres, and Anna Zaretskaya.

Examining the cultural dynamics of translation and transfer, Cultural Transfer Reconsideredproposes new insights into both epistemological and analytical questions raised in the research area of cultural transfer. Seeking to emphasize the creative processes of transfer, Steen Bille Jørgensen and Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink have invited specialized researchers to determine the role of structures and agents in the dynamics of cultural encounters. With its particular focus on the North, as opposed to the South, the volume problematizes national paradigms. Presenting various aspects of tri- and multilateral transfers involving Scandinavian countries, Cultural Transfer Reconsidered opens perspectives regarding the ways in which textual, intertextual and artistic practices, in particular, pave the way for postcolonial interrelatedness. Contributors: Miriam Lay Brander, Petra Broomans, Michel Espagne, Karin Hoff, Steen Bille Jørgensen, Anne-Estelle Leguy, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Walter Moser, Magnus Qvistgaard, Anna Sandberg, Udo Schöning, Wiebke Röben de Alencar Xavier

This is the first complete study of the relationship between Retranslation and Reception. Although many translation scholars have cited Reception Theory in their work, this is the first systematic study of its relationship to Retranslation. The book starts from the hypothesis that frequent retranslations of the same literary text into the same language may be indicative of its impact in the target culture. The volume encompasses both theory and practical analysis of Retranslation and Reception as mutually dependent concepts. The sixteen chapters relate the translations analysed to their socio-historical contexts in order to assess the impact that they have had on the target culture in terms of the reception of the authors studied, and also explore the relationship that may exist between the appearance of new translations and historical, social or cultural changes.

The viscerally haunting and politically disturbing Painted Bird, the most famous novel by the Polish-American writer, Jerzy Kosinski, finally receives a long overdue fresh scientific perspective: a truly insightful study of linguistic and cultural controversy in translation against the benchmark of a tailor-made iron-clad methodology of such concepts as involved culture, detached culture and the universe of the opus. The study presents the kaleidoscopic cross section of renditions into as many as thirteen languages, making it a pioneering elaboration of a macrocosm of the afterlife of a translated novel and a tour de force of comparative translation studies. The dark contents of the work, heavily loaded with political and moral issues, vulnerable to shifts and refractions in the process of translation, have been analysed, unaffected by ideological sway, debunking any persistent myths about Kosinski’s harrowing work.

Avant-Garde Translation is a playful ensemble that celebrates creativity in all things translation by taking you on a journey to the cutting edge of translation practice and theory. Through a refreshing mix of essay forms, from scholarly study to practical translation toolkits, Avant-Garde Translation explores territories as diverse as children’s picturebooks, multilingual poems, and visual artworks, and proposes various translation strategies such as audio-visual collages, ninja invisibility, and collaboration with invented translators. The spirited and provocative contributions intervene in the field of translation studies to shake up the status quo: by highlighting the critical and creative connections between thought and practice, the book shows how literary translation can be an exploratory playground for radical transformation.

Early modern culture was multilingual, and so were many of the works produced across Europe and beyond its borders. The contributors to this volume draw new interrelations between different humanistic traditions and multilingual and translational writing practices using a wide range of primary sources—documents produced in Norwich, scientific treatises by Galileo and Stevin, travel accounts and dictionaries by James Howell, translations an retranslations of Antoine de Nervèze’s moral letters, Aljamiado documents and short comic plays in Spain, Jesuit pedagogical theater in New France, grammars, dictionaries and historiographical accounts in missionary contexts, and a mining law code in South Central Europe—that highlight the significance of polyglossia in early modern cultural production and transmission. Covering a wide range of languages, including Latin, Nahuatl and Turkish, their analysis invites comparison with today’s polyglot practices in a globalized world, as we also adapt to new technologies and ever-changing realities.

No detailed description available for "The nature of translation".

This book addresses the need for a systematic approach to the study of identities. It explores the potential of drawing conclusions about linguistic identities through analysis of source and target versions of texts. It focuses on English-Greek translation contexts and brings in evidence from other language pairs. It investigates systematic variation in three genres (press, EU and literary/theatre translation contexts) to trace signs of intercultural difference inscribed in text that may be part of the source or target identity. It, thus highlights the potential of translation to enlighten research on identity and contributes insights into interdisciplinary projects on intercultural difference. This book has a consciousness-raising intention, in that it seeks to enhance linguistic identity awareness and shed light on its development.

Corpus-based Approaches to Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies presents readers with up-to-date research in corpus-based contrastive linguistics and translation studies, showing the high degree of complementarity between the two fields in terms of research methodology, interests and objectives. Offering theoretical, descriptive and applied perspectives, the articles show how translation and contrastive approaches to grammar, lexis and discourse can be harmoniously combined through the use of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual corpora and how contrastive information needs to inform translation research and vice versa. The notion of contrastive linguistics adopted here is broad; thus, alongside comparisons of Malay/English idioms and the French imparfait and its English equivalents, there are articles comparing different varieties of French, and sign language with spoken language. This collection should be of interest to researchers in corpus linguistics, contrastive linguistics and translation studies. In addition, the section on corpus-based teaching applications will be of great value to teachers of translation and contrastive linguistics.

This book, a first in its kind, offers a survey of the present state of affairs in media accessibility research and practice. It focuses on professional practices which are relative newcomers within the field of audiovisual translation and media studies, namely, audio description for the blind and visually impaired, sign language, and subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing for television, DVD, cinema, internet and live performances.Thanks to the work of lobbying groups and the introduction of legislation in some countries, media accessibility is an area that has recently gained marked visibility in our society. It has begun to appear in university curricula across Europe, and is the topic of numerous specialised conferences. The target readership of this book is first and foremost the growing number of academics involved in audiovisual translation at universities – researchers, teachers and students – but it is also of interest to the ever-expanding pool of practitioners and translators, who may wish to improve their crafts. The collection also addresses media scholars, members of deaf and blind associations, TV channels, and cinema or theatre managements who have embarked on the task of making their programmes and venues accessible to the visually and hearing impaired.

Why did Italo Calvino decide to translate Les Fleurs bleues by Raymond Queneau? Was his translation just a way to pay a tribute to one of his models? This study looks at Calvino’s translation from a literary and linguistic perspective: Calvino’s I fiori blu is more than a rewriting and a creative translation, as it contributed to a revolution in his own literary language and style. Translating Queneau, Calvino discovered a new fictional voice and explored the potentialities of his native tongue, Italian. In fact Calvino’s writings show a visible evolution of poetics and style that occurred rather abruptly in the mid 1960s; this sudden change has long been debated. The radical transformation of his style was affected by several factors: Calvino’s new interests in linguistics, in translation theory, and in the act of translation. Translation as Stylistic Evolution analyses several passages in detail and scrutinizes quantitative data obtained by comparing digital versions of the original and Calvino’s translation. The results of such assessment of Calvino’s text-consistency suggest clear interpretations of the motives behind Calvino’s radical and remarkable change of style that are tied to his notion of creative translation.

This volume aims to take the pulse of the changes taking place in the thriving field of Audiovisual Translation and to offer new insights into both theoretical and practical issues. Academics and practitioners of proven international reputation are given voice in three distinctive sections pivoting around the main areas of subtitling and dubbing, media accessibility (subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and audio description), and didactic applications of AVT. Many countries, languages, transfer modes, audiences and genres are considered in order to provide the reader with a wide overview of the current state of the art in the field. This volume will be of interest not only for researchers, teachers and students in linguistics, translation and film studies, but also to translators and language professionals who want to expand their sphere of activity.

This volume brings together some of the latest research by scholars from the UK, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to examine a variety of issues relating to the history of translation between China and Europe, aimed at increasing dialogue between Chinese studies and translation studies. Covering the nineteenth century to the present, the essays tackle a number of important issues, including the role of relay translation, hybridity and transculturation, methods for the incorporation of foreign words and concepts, the problems entailed by the importation of foreign paradigms and epistemes, the role of public institutions, the issue of agency, and the role of metaphors to conceptualize translation. By examining the dissemination of certain key terms from the West to the East, often through pivotal languages, and by laying bare the transformation of knowledge conveyed through these terms, the essays go well beyond the “difference and similarity” comparison model in the investigation of East-West relations, demonstrating that transcultural hybridity is a more meaningful topic to pursue. Moreover, they demonstrate how the translator, always working simultaneously under several domestic and foreign institutions, needs to resort to “selection, deletion and compromise”, in other words personal free choice, when negotiating among institutional powers.

This volume presents a systematic overview of current research on the issues that arise when recreating and translating dialogue in works of fiction (including narrative, drama and film scripts). The central concept is that of fictive orality, a situational linguistic variety differing from spontaneous speech in various respects. Speech in fiction is the product of stylised recreation or evocation by an author. While realism and authenticity may be the most celebrated qualities, ultimately, the literary functions and the semiotic dimension of dialogue place significant constraints on the decisions taken both by the source text authors and the translators. Moreover, the traditions and conventions of the target culture act as powerful sources of expectations that influence the final form of the text.This collective volume is divided into three parts: Part 1 deals with the translators’ own reflections on the qualities of fictive dialogue. Part 2 discusses the interaction of fictive orality with other varieties such as dialects (geographical, chronological and social) and genres. Part 3 discusses a range of language resources present in fictive dialogue (syntax and sentence connection, information packaging, pragmatic markers and modalisers, appreciative morphology and phrasemes, spelling and typographical conventions, deictics, etc). All chapters present research results in an accessible language and are thoroughly illustrated with translations from and into various European languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Romanian and Italian) and their varieties. The volume will be of interest for scholars in translation studies and contrastive linguistics, for graduate students, and for readers interested in the translation of style.

This third volume in the Media for All series offers a diverse selection of articles which bear testimony to the vigour and versatility of research and developments in audiovisual translation and media accessibility. The collection reflects the critical impact of new technologies on AVT, media accessibility and consumer behaviour and shows the significant increase in collaborative and interdisciplinary research targeting changing consumer perceptions as well as quality issues. Complementing newcomers such as crowdsourcing and potentially universal emoticons, classical themes of AVT studies such as linguistic analyses and corpus-based research are featured. Prevalent throughout the volume is the impact of technology on both methodologies and content. The book will be of interest to researchers from a wide range of disciplines as well as audiovisual translators, lecturers, trainers and students, producers and developers working in the field of language and media accessibility.

The past decades have witnessed considerable developments in Translation Studies and, particularly, a growing interest in the cultural and ideological differences engendered by the act of translating. More recently, Audiovisual Translation has also experienced an impressive growth in terms of research developments and applications. This book focuses on the role that cinematic language and audiovisual translation play in the transmission of stereotypes concerning gender, sexuality, ethnicity and economic status. While it helps identify the gender bias embedded in language and how this is then manipulated during the dubbing transfer, this book also addresses other considerations such as the role of the audiovisual translators, the triggers which reinforce the androcentric views already present in films, and the influence on the translators of ideological and political constraints. For this reason it is of interest to both the academic community and the wider public who may still be the target of gender discrimination themselves and/or are sensitive to gender issues.

This book explores the birth, life and afterlife of the story of Romeo and Juliet, by looking at Italian translations/rewritings for page, stage and screen. Through its analysis of published translations, theatre performances and film adaptations, the volume offers a thorough investigation of the ways in which Romeo and Juliet is handled by translators, as well as theatre and cinema practitioners. By tracing the journey of the “star-crossed lovers” from the Italian novella to Shakespeare and back to Italy, the book provides a fascinating account of the transformations of the tale through time, cultures, languages and media, enabling a deeper understanding of the ongoing fortune of the play and exploring the role and meaning of translation. Due to its interdisciplinarity, the book will appeal to anyone interested in translation studies, theatre studies, adaptation studies, Shakespeare films and Shakespeare in performance. Moreover, it will be a useful resource for both lecturers and students.

The volume aims to be a reference work for all researchers interested in the study of fictional dialogue and its translation in suspense novels and films as well as in related genres. The volume also aims to determine the interplay between the creation of suspense and fictional dialogue. The particular interest in dialogue comes from the host of roles it plays in fiction. It helps create suspense and arouses a whole range of feelings in the reader or the audience related to the development of the plot.Fictional dialogue is the discursive method of evoking orality, conferring authenticity and credibility on a plot and giving fictional characters a voice. As a narrative strategy, dialogue is an important resource that enables the writer to shape the character’s subjectivity. In thrillers the characters’ voice is part of the process of creating suspense, an element of uncertainty, anxiety and excitement, which is not exclusive to this genre. To clearly differentiate suspense from the tension created by other types of fiction, this volume aims to study the relationship between the characters’ voices and the building of suspense and to describe the translation difficulties arising from this particular interdependence.

The publication deliberately concentrates on the reception and application of one concept highly influential in the sociology of translation and interpreting, namely habitus. By critically engaging with this Bourdieusian concept, it aspires to re-estimate not only interdisciplinary interfaces but also those with different approaches in the discipline itself. The authors of the contributions collected in this volume, by engaging with the habitus concept, lend expression to the conviction that it is indeed “a concept which upsets”, i.e. one with the potential to make a difference to research agendas. They are cutting across diverse traditions of Bourdieu reception within and beyond the discipline, each paper being based on unique research experiences. We do hope that this volume can help to find and maintain the delicate balance between consolidating an area of research by insisting on methodological rigour as well as on the sine-qua-non of a given body of thought on the one hand and being critically inventive on the other.