TranslatorPub Date : 2014-05-04DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2014.960654
Juan G. Ramírez Giraldo
{"title":"Translation right or wrong","authors":"Juan G. Ramírez Giraldo","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2014.960654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2014.960654","url":null,"abstract":"Czech Republic, suspended at the time between its totalitarian past and uncertain capitalist future. The short, concluding chapter, ‘Interpreting Kafka,’ braids an analysis of the ways Kafka has been iconised with a reading of sound repetition in Kafka’s story ‘Josefine the Singer, or The Mouse-People’. Here, Woods delves into ‘Kafkology’ and the mythologies already created by his friend and first hagiographer, Max Brod. It was in the face of a very limited pre-war readership and in response to his departed friend’s work that Brod took it upon himself to imagine Kafka as a religious thinker. Woods reminds us that this is also a translation: from a human, warm, comic writer into a pure and saintly figure forever squashed under the thumb of totalitarianism. This translation is evident in the iconic photo of Kafka that most readers carry in their minds, taken shortly before his death and ‘retouched by the German publishers, Fischer, in the 1950s “to give Kafka’s eyes the desired gleam” of prophesy’ (p. 252). Woods meditates here on Kafka’s own relationship to his Jewishness by a reading of ‘Josefine the Singer’ as both a stand-in for the incomprehensibility of his own art and as another representation of translation in his work. While the book is grounded in translation theory and provides detailed close readings, the greatest pleasure for any reader will come from whole sentences of deep, lyrical observations given in the strong confident voice of a novelist rather than (merely?) a literary critic. In the first chapter Woods writes, for example, ‘translation reveals the complexity of representing what we really mean and the accretions of associations of personal and cultural meaning to language’ (p. 35). Or consider the fragment which summarises Woods’s reading of Kafka’s main preoccupations, ‘the seams of language are constantly stretched to clothe the human in the human, baring in short glimpses the human animal’ (p. 143), or another, on his characters, who ‘are not heroes in a classical world doomed to, but elevated by, tragedy, they are fallible people in a fallible world’ (p. 99). This erudite book should find its way to the bookshelf of every lover of Kafka’s words, so it can be read alongside them and re-read accordingly to add nuance and draw attention to every beat, every repetition, and every measured word choice.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"20 1","pages":"249 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2014-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2014.960654","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59845964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2012-11-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10799507
Julie McDonough Dolmaya
{"title":"Analyzing the Crowdsourcing Model and Its Impact on Public Perceptions of Translation","authors":"Julie McDonough Dolmaya","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2012.10799507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799507","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper draws on the results of an online survey of Wikipedia volunteer translators to explore, from a sociological perspective, how participants in crowdsourced translation initiatives perceive translation. This perception is examined from a number of perspectives, including the participants’ profiles, motivations and idiosyncrasies vis-à-vis those of individuals involved in other collaborative social phenomena. Firstly, respondents are grouped on the basis of their training background, their current professional status and their former occupation to compare how translation is perceived by volunteers who do and those who do not work in the translation industry. To further understand the range of respondents ’ perceptions of translation, the crowdsourced translation initiatives they participate in are divided into three types: product-driven (localization/translation of free/open-source software projects), cause-driven (not-for-profit initiatives with an activist focus), and outsourcing-driven (initiatives launched by for-profit companies). A comparison between the results of this survey and two others focusing on the motivations and profiles of free/open-source software developers seeks to identify distinctive features of participatory translation practices. The final part of this article discusses how participants in a crowdsourced translation initiative view translation and how the latter is depicted by the organizations behind such collaborative projects.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"252 1","pages":"167 - 191"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2012-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799507","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59844746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2012-04-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2012.10799502
Ben van Wyke
{"title":"Borges and Us","authors":"Ben van Wyke","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2012.10799502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799502","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The traditional notion of the translator as someone who should remain invisible while reproducing the original and/or intentions of the author is still commonplace today in translation workshops. Although it has been radically called into question by poststructuralist theory, this type of theory often does not ‘translate’ into what students understand as the practice of the craft. The essay draws on a comparative study used with the author’s students that involved eight English versions of Jorge Luis Borges’s 1960 text ‘Borges y yo’ to indirectly introduce them to poststructuralist notions of translation, reading and authorship that can help them confront the limitations of the traditional conception of translation and assist them in developing the critical capacity to work responsibly through the complexities involved in the task of rewriting someone else’s text in another language. This activity – with its combination of close readings of the eight translations together with an analysis of the text’s plot in the context of the contemporary notion of the ‘death of the author’ – helps students discover that they cannot escape complex ethical decisions related to their agency both as readers of an ‘original’ and as authors of their translations, even when, as is the case with one of the translations, the author has collaborated with the translator.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"18 1","pages":"100 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2012-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799502","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59844679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2011-04-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2011.10799480
Julie McDonough Dolmaya
{"title":"A Window into the Profession","authors":"Julie McDonough Dolmaya","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2011.10799480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2011.10799480","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When translators, academics and other language professionals blog about translation, their posts describe working conditions, emerging technologies, ethical challenges and other aspects of the profession, indicating how translation is evolving and how translators are working in the 21st century. To illustrate how such blogs can be used by scholars of translation to better understand translator practices and attitudes, this paper uses content analysis to explore a convenience sample of 50 blogs, randomly selected from a pool of translation blogs active between January and June 2009. Some characteristics of the bloggers are discussed, including how they self-identify, where they live and what language(s) they write in. The content of the blogs is then analyzed to show how it can be used to enhance our understanding of the sociology of translation. Finally, some suggestions for future research in this area are explored.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"17 1","pages":"104 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2011-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2011.10799480","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59844263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2009-11-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2009.10799283
Nam Fung Chang
{"title":"Repertoire Transfer and Resistance","authors":"Nam Fung Chang","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2009.10799283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2009.10799283","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Modern translation studies has developed in the West and in China along similar routes. The application of linguistic theories to the study of translation has brought attention to this longneglected field and has shown the possibilities of alignment with a serious academic subject. Linguistic models, however, have proved rather unproductive. Instead, it has been the explorations initiated by polysystem theory and other cultural theories in recent decades that have allowed translation studies to grow into a discipline in its own right in the West. These theories were introduced to China in the 1980s and 1990s. Initially, they met with various forms of resistance because of their intrusion upon an established tradition. Yet because these theories created a new direction for translation discourse and helped gain wider recognition for translation studies as a discipline in China, they gradually took over the centre of the home repertoire. This article views the process of the Westernization of translation studies in China since the 1980s –which is taking place at a time when Chinese culture is particularly receptive to foreign repertoires due to a strong sense of ‘self-insufficiency’ – as a case in which a polysystem borrows repertoires from others to fulfil certain self-perceived needs.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"15 1","pages":"305 - 325"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2009-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2009.10799283","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59842459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2009-11-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2009.10799288
Bai Liping
{"title":"Anthology Compilation as a Purpose-driven Activity","authors":"Bai Liping","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2009.10799288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2009.10799288","url":null,"abstract":"With more than 180 essays, mostly Chinese classical writings on translation, Luo Xinzhang’s An Anthology of Essays on Translation, hereafter Anthology, is one of the most comprehensive Chinese anthologies in the field. The essays are arranged in five chapters, according to time sequence, covering five different periods in Chinese history during which translation played a significant part in cultural and social life. The first chapter focuses mainly on Buddhist sutra translation, with a collection of essays from ancient times ranging from the East Han Dynasty (25-220) to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). This is the first Chinese anthology to include primary documentation on the translation of Buddhist sutras. The second chapter covers the period from the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) to the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911); the third covers the period from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic period; the fourth covers the May 4th Movement (1919) to the establishment of the PRC (1949); and the fifth is dedicated to the contemporary era. In each chapter, the selected essays are followed by a section entitled yanjiu yu ziliao 研究与资料 (Research and Materials); this consists of related studies written at a later time. For instance, ancient writings on Buddhist sutra translation in Chapter One are followed by several articles that include ‘Fanyi wenxue yu fodian’ 翻译 文学与佛典 (Translated Literature and Buddhist Sutras) by Liang Qichao 梁 启超 (1873-1929) and ‘Fojiao de fanyi wenxue’ 佛教的翻译文学 (Translated Buddhist Literary Works) by Hu Shi 胡适 (1891-1962) – two authoritative","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"15 1","pages":"423 - 429"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2009-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2009.10799288","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59842072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2009-04-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2009.10799270
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar
{"title":"Translation, Presumed Innocent","authors":"Şehnaz Tahir Gürçağlar","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2009.10799270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2009.10799270","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In late Ottoman society, in the 19th century, translation was instrumental in the emergence of new literary genres such as the novel and western-style drama. It maintained its significance and influence in the early Republican period, starting in 1923. Apart from its literary significance, an interesting aspect of the trajectory followed by translation in Turkey concerns the way it has conspicuously allied itself with political and ideological agendas, such as westernization, Marxism and Islamism, to mention a few. This paper explores the ideological entanglements of translation in Turkey in the 20th century. It examines the discourse that emerged around translation at certain moments during that period and argues that translation served as a mirror, reflecting the literary and cultural ‘lacks’ of the target system, as much as it was meant to import new forms and ideas which would eventually help Turkish society overcome its perceived deficiencies. The study also problematizes the ways in which the translator’s subject position has been suppressed, especially in the discourse of translators reflecting upon their own work, and concludes that this self-effacing attitude seems to have become part of the professional identity of the Turkish translator.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"29 1","pages":"37 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2009-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2009.10799270","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59842342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2008-11-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2008.10799260
Elena Di Giovanni
{"title":"The American Film Musical in Italy","authors":"Elena Di Giovanni","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2008.10799260","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2008.10799260","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract After the climax of the Golden Age of the American film musical at the beginning of the 1950s, Hollywood musicals quickly reached Italy and were screened and broadcast frequently over the years. Italian distributors were eager to exploit the success these productions had achieved in their country of origin, as the magical and utopian worlds evoked by these films were equally appealing to Italian audiences. Yet the genre was received rather unevenly in Italy. This article examines the factors that influenced this reception and attempts to establish whether the unsystematic and partial translation strategies employed played a role in this process. It first offers a brief overview of the genre’s evolution and of its unique and multifaceted ‘language’. It then analyzes the context of production and release of the Italian versions of fifteen popular American film musicals produced between the 1950s and late 1970s, before describing the translation strategies employed. Finally, some examples from macro- and micro-level translational decisions are presented.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"14 1","pages":"295 - 318"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2008-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2008.10799260","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59842191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
TranslatorPub Date : 2007-11-01DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2007.10799236
Karen Bennett
{"title":"Epistemicide!","authors":"Karen Bennett","doi":"10.1080/13556509.2007.10799236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2007.10799236","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract English academic discourse, which emerged in the 17th century as a vehicle for the new rationalist/scientific paradigm, was initially a vehicle of liberation from the stifling feudal mindset. Spreading from the hard sciences to the social sciences and on to the humanities, it gradually became the prestige discourse of the Anglophone world, due no doubt to its associations with the power structures of modernity (technology, industry and capitalism); today, mastery of it is essential for anyone wishing to play a role on the international stage. The worldview that this discourse encodes is essentially positivist; it privileges the referential function of language at the expense of the interpersonal or textual and crystallizes the dynamic flux of experience into static, observable blocs, rendering the universe passive, inert and devoid of meaning. Despite its obvious limitations for dealing with a decentred, multi-faceted, post-modern reality, its hegemonic status in the world today is such that other knowledges are rendered invisible or are swallowed up in a process of ‘epistemicide’. This paper examines this process from the point of view of the translator, one of the primary gatekeepers of western academic culture. Drawing on surveys carried out in 2002 of Portuguese academics working in the humanities, it attempts to discover just what happens to the very different worldview encoded in traditional Portuguese academic discourse during the process of translation, and goes on to discuss the political and social consequences of the ideological imperialism manifest in editorial decisions about what counts as ‘knowledge’ in today’s world.","PeriodicalId":46129,"journal":{"name":"Translator","volume":"13 1","pages":"151 - 169"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2007-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13556509.2007.10799236","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59842383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}