tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89788861157705410592024-02-20T15:11:28.893+00:00Literary Translation at UEALit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-22458102505321703282014-09-03T08:59:00.000+01:002014-09-03T08:59:00.194+01:00Reflections on working with Arc Publications
Publishing poetry in translation is something of a niche
business, but it is a niche that Arc Publications has successfully made its
own. I was fortunate enough to be offered an internship with Arc for the duration
of my MA, and it has provided me with a fascinating insight into the process of
editing and publishing translations of poetry.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Under the supervision of UEA’s very own Jean Boase-Beier,
editor of the Arc Visible Poets series, I learned about how submissions are
received, how decisions are made, and how some authors and translators are more
amenable than others to suggestions for cuts and alterations<span class="MsoPageNumber">…</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
The Visible Poets series prints the original text and the
translation on facing pages; visibility belongs to both translator and original
poet. This allows the reader to get a sense of what the translator has done –
even if s/he has no knowledge of the source language, s/he can still see how it
looks on the page.<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p> </o:p><br />
Arc’s understanding of and sensitivity to translation means
that just as much importance is placed on the quality of the translation as on
the original poetry. I saw submissions turned down because the translation was
not bold enough – there is no place here for the age-old image of the translator
as self-effacing plodder.<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p> </o:p><br />
My introduction to the editing process began at the
beginning, with some examples of what a proposal looks like, and also a couple
of examples of how not to do it…<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Allow me to generously pass on a few useful tips: look
carefully at the website to make sure you are sending your proposal to the
right person; don’t send a ready-made book of your translations of your own
poetry; and in this particular case, take the time to find out that Jean
Boase-Beier is not to be addressed as ‘Sir’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
These key tenets established, we moved on to the more
difficult decisions. It will come as a surprise to none of you that publishing
poetry in translation is not terribly lucrative; Arc, like many small
publishers, relies on outside funding in order to pursue many of its projects.
As such, it cannot take on all the excellent submissions it receives (although having
funding will not be enough to get your proposal accepted if the translation is
not up to scratch!). The word that came up again and again was ‘outstanding’.
We were looking for something that really leapt off the page. There is, of
course, no formula for this; it might be a distinctive voice, dexterity with
the intricacies of language, or a dazzling solution to rendering wordplay and
ambiguity. It was very exciting to be consulted on these matters, and made me
think hard about what it is that makes an outstanding translation, as opposed
to a merely competent one.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Another tricky issue to negotiate once a proposal has been
accepted is ensuring the book makes a coherent, appealing whole. Cuts are often
necessary, either because there is simply too much material, or because the
book would be unbalanced. Once again, both original poem and translation have
to be taken into account. A suitable title also has to be chosen – one which
reflects the content as well as sounding like something people will want to
read. It should not, however, sound like an existing work they have gone to
considerable effort to avoid: following consultation, a forthcoming Arc book
has been renamed and will not be published under the title <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twilight</i>. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Although my internship with Jean took place at UEA, I did
make one trip up to Arc HQ in Todmorden to see an independent publisher in its
natural habitat. I also attended several editorial meetings in Norwich, where
we discussed the status of all ongoing projects, from Tamil to Finnish, and I
got rather overexcited at the mention of some very well-known figures who might
write an introduction for one of Arc’s forthcoming titles. Working with Arc has
been a truly rewarding and exciting experience, and I am grateful to Angela,
Tony and Jean for the opportunity. I am now looking forward to seeing the final
published versions of some of the books I saw in manuscript form. Look out for
forthcoming translations from German, Russian and Old Norse, among others, in
the Visible Poets and the Classics series.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Find out more about Arc at <a href="http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.arcpublications.co.uk</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
Livvy Hanks translates from French to English, with a
particular interest in poetry. She can be contacted at om.hanksATgmail.com.<o:p></o:p><br />
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-57797131826378253042014-08-27T08:56:00.000+01:002014-08-27T08:56:00.323+01:00Necessity is the Mother of In(ter)vention
<span lang="EN-IE" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">The Irish have a reputation for being inventive
users of invective – I should know, I am Irish and have spent most of my adult
life so far in Dublin city, hearing the language of the street and the pub.
There’s the classic long word bisected with a curse in the middle;
abso-xxxx-lutely, the mixing of vulgar language and profanity; ah for Jaysus’
sake! My personal favourite is the former, it feels like language taken to its
absurd yet logical conclusion. However, all this was taken away from me as a
translator, when I began my dissertation recently.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-IE" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">I decided to see what would happen if I translated
a text in French into English, but English of a certain flavour.
Hiberno-English is spoken in Ireland, and glories in the turns of phrase I have
just mentioned as well as many others, according to the region. My idea was to
show that a quite specific kind, or variety of English can be just as
expressive as any other. More importantly, I wanted to show that specific
varieties of language can express big, important emotions and concepts as
easily as a more standardised kind, (like the one you might read in a
newspaper, or a literary novel). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-IE" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">The text I am translating is a short story by the
Moroccan writer and novelist Fouad Laroui. It is an extended conversation between
friends on the terrace of a café, during which ne character recounts a
dramatic, often funny story about their city, El-Jadida. It is satirical and
hilarious, pointed but subtle. Best of all, it reminded me of the conversations
I would often hear on the bus, or at the next table at a Dublin café. This gave
me a sort of model, a delineation for the kind of Hiberno-English I would
employ. But the fact remained that nobody in the story really swears. Once or
twice, this is suggested, and there are plenty of opportunities for the less
than polite use of language in the friendly, yet combative discussions and
teasing the story contains. As for blasphemy, it wasn’t even an issue.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-IE" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-IE" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">The important thing to remember about translation,
and this is especially obvious in literary translation, that it’s not just the
words and the plot that have to be read again in the new language, it’s also
aspects of culture. They affect both source and target text at every level;
what characters assume to be normal, or good, or funny; the aspects of daily
life which the author needs to explain to the readers and those things which
are ‘obvious’. In seeking to help <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i>
readers in translation know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Laroui’s</i>
characters better, am I inadvertently distorting them? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-IE" style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">My solution was to let loose Dublin speech in the
story and to employ just as much hyperbole and storytelling as in the source
text. I did introduce one or two words which don’t exist in other Englishes,
but the point was to be inventive. Without the blasphemous, curse-heavy aspect
of Hiberno-English to fall back on, I had to engage more with the source text,
play with sentence structure and make it funny without being rude. In my
opinion, my story is the better for it. And, thank Jaysus, I have not
misrepresented the characters, or at least done my very best not to. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-IE" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anna Bryant
is completing her MA in Literary Translation at UEA, and hoping to start
translating in the real world soon. She works from French and Irish to English
and likes short and long form fiction. She is contactable at
anna.frenchtrans@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-15442560249617296132014-08-20T00:00:00.000+01:002014-08-20T00:00:00.953+01:00Defining the Role of the Translator: my year on the MA in Literary Translation<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13.0pt; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 13pt;">Looking back at my work from
the MA in Literary Translation, it has been the role of the reader and of the
author that has continued to shape my idea of what it means to translate. To
what extent is an author responsible for their work? And how does this
influence the process of translation? To what extent is any reading of a text
possible? And how does this affect my role as a translator? These are the ideas
which have and continue to excite me.</span></div>
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">During the first semester I focused
on the translation of landscape within Anton Chekhov’s short stories. Through
this work I discovered that a text, in itself, creates the potential for
profound effects on the reader, something which I argue is similar to standing
in a landscape; the topography, colours and situation all create a potential to
illicit certain responses from the reader. My main focus therefore remained on
the text itself, in considering, as Umberto Eco puts it, its ‘maze-like
structure’, and therefore my aim as a translator was to recreate this
particular structure in order to retain the same potential for effects.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">During the second semester I
translated a children’s story that was written in Russia during the Stalinist
period. I found the translation of this particular children’s story to be
extremely complex, as the role of the reader (a child) and of the author (someone
bound by law to write for the purposes of communism) were closely bound by an
ideology that differed drastically from the prevailing ideology of the culture
into which I was translating the text; my focus was consequently shifted to the
reader, making sure that the subversive elements, already present in the text,
were visible in the translation. During this semester I also translated a
selection of microfiction by the Russian writer Daniil Kharms. I began the
project by reading the author’s notebooks alongside his microfiction, but soon
discovered that the voices within these texts were indistinguishable; the voice
in the notebooks was no closer to Daniil Kharms, as a once real, living person,
than the voice in his microfiction. This project transformed the way in which I
approach translation, decentring the role of the author, and thereby freeing up
my role as a translator; emphasis was on the text, and my reading of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Finally, my last project on
this course focuses on the translation of three short stories by the Russian
writer Tatyana Tolstaya, and in particular on the notion of ‘mind style’; a
notion which suggests that systematic linguistic choices reflect the workings
of an individual mind. Through this research I have come to understand the author
within the text is a hazy spectral figure created through concrete elements of
the text, something neither completely dead nor completely alive; something
which has the ability to shift and change, but which nevertheless has a felt
presence, allowing the text to work as an organic whole. I have so far
concluded that because a work of literature is both a concrete text which has
been organised by an individual mind, and because it requires a reading in
order for it to have any meaning, a translation is always inevitably both an
individual reading and a recreation of the work as constructed by an author; a
translator, in other words, is always to a greater or lesser degree, a
collaborator; neither working alone, nor at the mercy of authorial intention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Hannah
Collins studied Russian and French at the University of Nottingham. She works
as a freelance translator and is currently studying on the Literary Translation
MA at the UEA. Her email address is Hannah.Collins@uea.ac.uk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-19013420329097246252014-08-13T00:00:00.000+01:002014-08-13T00:00:01.098+01:00Trying to Become a Translator<div class="normal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-line-height-alt: 13.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">At
the beginning of the year I asked one of the PhD students about the reputations
of the various creative writing courses. He had something to say about the
prose students, the poetry students and then stopped. ‘What about the
translation students?’ I asked – ‘Oh, we’re invisible’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I did not realize at the time how deep his comment went. From
neglect in the publishing world to second class literary status in the narrow
minds of few, translation has a tough living all around. But while I could not
do much in a global sense, I made every attempt to bring literary translation
to the public. As part of my internship with the British Centre for Literary
Translation (BCLT) I led an international literature reading group at the
Norwich Forum public library. The meetings to talking about world literature in
translation were an opportune time to share what I learned in translation
courses with the general public. And in return I received insight into actual
readers of translated literature. What a translation should sound like, look
like, read like was challenged on both sides of me—on the one side theory from
academia, on the other side an appreciation for unobstructed literature written
in English. Even now I try to keep the two sides in mind when I translate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Of equal but very different value to me was the MA reading series
I founded and hosted at two venues in Norwich. The free events were an excuse
to get people together from different UEA MA creative writing courses: prose,
poetry, nonfiction, literary translation and scriptwriting (though no
scriptwriters participated this year). At these events the five or six readers,
who would consist of writers from the various MA courses, would read about ten
minutes of their work, followed by mingling. People seemed to enjoy the
readings, which included joke means of introducing the readers such as
horoscopes and fake biographies. In the spirit of keeping the final reading
lively and anything but a reading, I staged a ‘performance piece’ in the style
of American comedian, Eric Andre, wherein I destroyed the setting of the show
to jazz music (<a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=MOQkqnTVCUa9cmm3iTVTNhSh5coThNEI-k2bN1oC2yAcWovOd5hZ8ist_B0U08ZdM_7ywzxsbfw.&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fwatch%3fv%3dls_8G1CE0Bs" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlinkchar"><span style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls_8G1CE0Bs</span></span></a>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">While some of this may indeed have chipped the status of literary
translators in the community, it was all meant in good fun and aimed at making
literary translators and literary translation memorable to others. For that
reason I also aimed to include literary translators, my course-mates, in as
many of the readings as possible, despite being the smallest group in numbers.
The motivation behind these things, but in no way responsible for them, was
Daniel Hahn’s differentiation between translating—doing the work of
translation—and being a translator, spreading the word about translation as
well as translating. It means promoting the work of translators and translation
as a whole concept in the community here and abroad. While I could only work in
Norwich, I think I did something right. After my antics, I read a poem I am
currently translating for my dissertation; and despite my heavy breathing,
bleeding and general disorientation after the introduction, two people
contacted me about seeing the poem again with the originals. Not only did my
translation piques peoples’ interest, but it put more translations in more
hands (or ears), which is the goal of every translator.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Bell MT', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Cole Konopka was born in 1988. He is a freelance English-German
translator, writer and painter (<a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=MOQkqnTVCUa9cmm3iTVTNhSh5coThNEI-k2bN1oC2yAcWovOd5hZ8ist_B0U08ZdM_7ywzxsbfw.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.bluecanvas.com%2fknpk" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlinkchar"><span style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">www.bluecanvas.com/knpk</span></span></a>).
You can contact him at:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=MOQkqnTVCUa9cmm3iTVTNhSh5coThNEI-k2bN1oC2yAcWovOd5hZ8ist_B0U08ZdM_7ywzxsbfw.&URL=mailto%3acolekonopka%40gmail.com" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlinkchar"><span style="color: #0563c1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">colekonopka@gmail.com</span></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-14363201197274045142014-08-06T00:00:00.000+01:002014-08-06T00:00:00.711+01:00What is Translation, Then?<div class="predefinito" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span class="predefinitochar"><i>Onement VI</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar">(Barnett Newman, 1953)</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
On 14<span class="predefinitochar"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>May 2013, this work of art was sold
for 44 million dollars. The people of the Internet reacted as expected (see <a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=MOQkqnTVCUa9cmm3iTVTNhSh5coThNEI-k2bN1oC2yAcWovOd5hZ8ist_B0U08ZdM_7ywzxsbfw.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fallteresting.com%2fpost%2f7333067%2fpainting-was-sold-438-million-onement-vi-barnett-newman" target="_blank"><span class="collegamento0020internetchar"><span style="color: navy;">http://allteresting.com/post/7333067/painting-was-sold-438-million-onement-vi-barnett-newman</span></span></a>).
44 million dollars for a blue canvas with a white line in the middle? Is that
art? Why? What<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>is</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>art?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
Like art, translation is very hard – if not impossible – to
define. Many have tried; many have failed. Most resort to the use of metaphors
in order to express the ineffable, as metaphors supply what language itself
cannot provide (Dann, 2002: 2).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
One of the most famous is the metaphor of translation as a
beautiful and unfaithful woman (D’Ablancourt, quoted in Hurtado Albir, 1990:
231), but the world of Translation Studies (and literature) is full of other
examples. I would like to quote Nabokov (cited by Bollettieri Bosinelli, 2003:
47), who wrote:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar"><i>What is translation? On a
platter</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar"><i>a poet’s pale and glaring
head.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar"><i>A parrot’s screech, a
monkey’s chatter,</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar"><i>and a profanation of the
dead.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
Scholars have also tried to offer a proper definition, or
at least to express the need of a definition or sets of definitions. Many other
questions have been proposed in order to be able to answer the main one: ‘what
is translation?’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
Is translation a matter of...<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
source and target text?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
author and reader?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
fidelity and originality?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
foreignisation and domestication?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
Is a translator a reader or a writer?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
There is an evident recurring theme, here. Aren’t these
spectra of choices? Two distinct ends and the whole world in the middle. Is
translation a matter of choices, then?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
I would say yes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
A translator might choose a text to translate in which
language. Or might be given a text which has been chosen by somebody else. The
translator chooses to translate almost literally or to be creative and make
bolder stylistic choices. When it comes to individual ‘translation issues’
(e.g. the translation of names, of neologisms, of metaphors, of culture-bound
words...), he or she might choose literal translation over dynamic equivalence
or vice versa, or even adapt his or her choices to the individual instances.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
In this way, a translated text looks like a finished
painting for which the painter has strived to find the perfect combination of
materials, tools and colours according to his or her own personal view on art.
Should I use watercolours or oil paint? What shade of green should I use to
paint this detail? Which size of brush for that section?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
Translation is a matter of choices, which vary from the
very small detail of choosing a word instead of another, to the definition of
translation itself. As a matter of fact, I believe that a translator is
entitled and heartily recommended<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>to choose his or her own definition of translation</i></span>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
After this MA programme in Literary Translation, I have now
clearer ideas on what I think translation is<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>for me</i></span>. I have tried to formulate my own
definition of translation, not because the one I had already read and heard
were incomplete or not right, but simply because I felt the need to find a
definition which could lead to a general approach, which in turn would lead to
the individual choices.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
For Elena Traina, 24 years old, musician, writer and
translator, translation is experiencing and sharing a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>literary
aleph</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="predefinitochar">with someone else in another language. Borges explains
the fictional concept of</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>aleph</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar">as “one of the points in space containing all points”
(Borges, 1968: 146). A text, as a literary aleph, places itself in the space of
literature, surrounded by the infinite possibilities, the infinite connections
between me, Elena Traina, and the text. Literary allusions, echoes and
legacies. But this is just</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>my</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="predefinitochar">view on translation.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">I wonder what Cole Konopka,
American writer and translator,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar">would say about it. Or Livvy Hanks, English translator and
editor.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">I do not think the world of
Translation Studies needs a single, unifying definition of what translation is.
Looking for my own definition of translation, instead, is a step I am glad I
have taken, and that I highly recommend to my peers, for it has opened doors I
did not even know were there.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">Works cited:</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">Hurtado Albir, A. (1990).</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i><span lang="FR">La notion de fidélité en traduction.</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span lang="FR"> </span></i></span><span class="predefinitochar"><span lang="FR">Paris: Didier Érudition </span></span><span lang="FR"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar"><span lang="FR">Dann,
G. M. S. (2002).</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="FR"> </span></span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>The Tourist as a Metaphor of
the Social World</i>. Wallingford: CABI</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">Bollettieri Bosinelli, A. M.
(2003). “From Translation Issues to Metaphors of Translations”. In</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar"><i>James Joyce Quarterly.</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><span class="predefinitochar">Vol. 41, No 1/2. Tulsa:
University of Tulsa</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">My name is Elena Traina, I
graduated in Lingue</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar">e Letterature Straniere at the Università degli Studi di
Milano, now I’m studying Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia.
I translate from English and Spanish into Italian. My main literary interest is
children’s literature, but I also like to write and translate poetry and short
fiction. I can be reached at</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=MOQkqnTVCUa9cmm3iTVTNhSh5coThNEI-k2bN1oC2yAcWovOd5hZ8ist_B0U08ZdM_7ywzxsbfw.&URL=mailto%3aelena.traina39%40gmail.com" target="_blank"><span class="collegamento0020internetchar"><span style="color: navy;">elena.traina39@gmail.com</span></span></a><span class="predefinitochar">.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="predefinito" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="predefinitochar">If you are interested in the MA
in Literary Translation, or would like to study at UEA, I also recommend that</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="predefinitochar">you take a look at my Italian
blog:</span><a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=MOQkqnTVCUa9cmm3iTVTNhSh5coThNEI-k2bN1oC2yAcWovOd5hZ8ist_B0U08ZdM_7ywzxsbfw.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.elenainuk.blogspot.it%2f" target="_blank"><span class="collegamento0020internetchar"><span style="color: navy;">http://www.elenainuk.blogspot.it</span></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-79681509555880130812014-05-01T09:39:00.000+01:002014-05-01T09:39:00.721+01:00Translating the Language of Love
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You might be forgiven that the title of this post refers to
the cliché of how Anglophones often view French, the language from which I
translate. And in the end the basis of that cliché may become clear. But what I
am talking about is representations in literature of what lovers say to each
other, how we describe feelings of love and how this is translated. Since this
is an enormous subject, and, let’s face it, found in millions of works of
literature across time and space, I’ll concentrate on one example I have found
interesting, in the hopes that you will too. I made this translation myself,
and directly encountered the occasionally cringe-inducing cultural differences
which stand in the way of a text making its true declaration of/about love. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The short comic by Charline Colette, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’Amour. . . Ça Gratte!<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></sup> or Love is Itchy! </i>is a
fascinating example of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>the ironic and
playful use of love clichés. A little girl called Chouki finds a caterpillar in
the school yard, names it Camille and rubs it against her cheek affectionately.
Unfortunately, her older sister notices that Camille is an urticating
caterpillar, which stings when touched or disturbed. Chouki is distraught and
itchy and must leave Camille forever. However, she soon finds happiness with a
nearby hedgehog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When thinking about how I might translate this pretty
simple, gently humourous comic, the way Chouki talks to Camille the Caterpillar
proved a subtle challenge. She calls the caterpillar “Ma douce”(my sweet), and
is told later by her sister that “Mais il va falloir t’en separer” (But you
will have to separate from it). It felt as if the mixing of phrases usually
used between lovers with those used between children playing at mothers and
babies was what made the comic so charming and funny. To express something of
this atmosphere of first love, I used a similar strategy, but had to adapt. The
difficulties of translating for or about children are well documented<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">2 </span></sup>but
my feeling was that Anglophone children express different attitudes towards the
aforementioned language of love. In my translation, when Chouki cuddles the
caterpillar, she says “Little cutie” and when her older sister has to say that
most difficult of things, it turns into “But you know you can’t bring her home”,
which blurs the line somewhat between the ironizing of the language of adult
relationships and the reality of the situation, without making the former
uncomfortably overt. I found myself considering and then rejecting options
involving friendship or maternal play as appropriate but missing the point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The double meaning of the title is clear and adds a
mischievous edge to the whole story. The truth is, it is no less subtle in
French than it is in English, but could be differently received according to
cultural differences. Due to the importance of the title to the humour in the
story and even the idea of an older sister passing on important information to
a younger sister, I did not make any change to it (well, apart from translating
it!). Lastly, and very importantly, I tried to translate in a style that suited
the pictures. The interplay between words and pictures in a comic gives very
specific information about character and the world of the comic. The speech in
this comic needed to make sense, correspond with existing pictures. I hope that
in my translation Chouki is still innocent and very affectionate, and that her
sister is exasperated, yet kind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1 Colette, C.
(2014) L’Amour . . .Ca Gratte!
http://grandpapier.org/charline-collette/l-amour-ca-gratte?lang=fr#page1<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 See Oittinen, R. (2000) Translating for Children, Oxford:
Taylor and Francis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Normal4" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Anna Bryant is from County Meath, Ireland.
She translates from French into English, and also occasionally from Irish. She
is currently enjoying studying on the MA in Literary Translation course at the
University of East Anglia and can be contacted at anna.bryant@uea.ac.uk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-48657023144011308372014-04-24T11:34:00.000+01:002014-04-24T11:34:00.555+01:00Theatre Translation and the Suspension of Disbelief
All theatre requires us to
suspend our disbelief. If we didn’t, we would be forever asking questions like:
“How is it tomorrow already?” and “Why did these people come here to have their
argument, in front of loads of spectators?” We accept these dramatic
conventions; they do not trouble us when we watch a play.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Translated drama – or any drama
that is set in a country with a different language from the language of the
play – requires an additional suspension of disbelief, if we are not to ask:<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<u>“Why are all these Frenchmen
speaking English?”<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<u><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></u></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Our unquestioning acceptance of
this situation is partly to do with ‘transparent’ language. When people speak
the same way we do, we don’t tend to analyse their forms of speech. When they
speak differently, we notice. When characters in a Shakespeare play speak in
Elizabethan English, we accept it because it conforms to what we know about
when the play was written and when it is set. If characters in a David Hare play
started throwing I-do-beseech-thees into conversation, we’d be puzzled (and if
they talked about ‘maidenhead’, we’d assume the play was set in Berkshire). <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
This leaves the translator with
two potential problems: time and place. If s/he is translating a 17<sup>th</sup>-century
play, what kind of language should s/he use? Shakespeare’s? Difficult to
master, and would sound like pastiche. Today’s? Probably easier for the
audience to accept, but they might get upset if there are knights and ladies
going round saying “OK” and “awesome”. Most theatre translators end up opting
for as neutral an idiom as they can manage (modern-ish but avoiding any
expressions that too obviously come from the last twenty years or so), which
makes the play more acceptable to the audience’s ears, but does run the risk of
losing some of the colour of the original.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Translators of contemporary drama
are not saved from these dilemmas. If I am translating a play set in northern
France, and it is an important fact about the play that one of the characters
comes from Marseille, how do I translate her/his accent? I can’t just
arbitrarily make her/him a Scot. The introduction of dialect is the point at
which an English audience might well start thinking, not “Why is this Frenchman
speaking English?” but<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<u>“Why is this Frenchman
speaking with a Scottish accent?”<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Bill Findlay (2006) has written,
referring to his experiences translating a Goldoni play into Scots dialect,
that the translator runs the risk of using a kind of invented “Costume Scots”.
Since Scots as a full language was dying out by the 18<sup>th</sup> century,
when Goldoni was writing (in Venetian), a ‘matching’ contemporary idiom is hard
to find. For Findlay, this was made easier by choosing a play with a “narrow
social and linguistic focus” (2006: 53) – a broader range of social
classes would have been harder to render in Scots.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Findlay’s translation retained
the original setting, whereas other modern Scots translations have tended to
translocate the play to Scotland. (Findlay 2006: 54) Translocation makes
the language consistent with the setting, but creates a whole new set of
problems: can one milieu really be equivalent to another? Is the play’s message
the same if it is set in Northern Ireland rather than the Spanish Civil War?
And is this still a translation?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
The question of translocation
arises during almost any drama translation process, since there will invariably
be elements that suggest a certain location. Should names be translated?
English names will be easier to say on stage. But if my characters are now
called Peter and Millie rather than Pierre and Amélie, what are they doing in
Paris? Wholesale translocation requires a great deal of thought, about the
setting but also the events of the play and the characters – are they all
compatible with the new location? Partial translocation, where, for example,
names are translated and cultural markers such as food removed or changed,
without explicitly moving the action elsewhere, requires a further extension of
the audience’s suspension of disbelief.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Part of the difficulty comes from
the tendency to ‘domesticate’ in English translation – that is, to force the
text to fit into the English language and context, rather than extending the
English language to meet the demands of the text. We have grown used to a very
English Chekhov, for instance, and tend to think of him almost as one of our
own. Translocation is therefore tempting, as a way of making the play seem more
relevant and immediately acceptable to an English audience; but it is only by
maintaining the ‘foreignness’ of a play that translation can really extend and
enrich the English drama.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<u>References<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Findlay, B. (2006) ‘Motivation in a Surrogate Translation of
Goldoni’, in Bassnett, S. and Bush, P., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Translator as Writer</i>. London: Continuum, 46-57.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Livvy Hanks translates from French to English. She is
currently translating a poem every day, and blogging about the experience, at <a href="http://www.napotramo.blogspot.co.uk/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.napotramo.blogspot.co.uk/</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
She can be contacted at om.hanksATgmail.com<o:p></o:p></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-33320335082997326552014-04-19T09:42:00.000+01:002014-04-19T09:42:00.646+01:00NAPOTRAMOMALT student Livvy Hanks is currently translating (at least part of) a poem every day, and blogging about it, in her own twist on <a href="http://www.napotramo.blogspot.co.uk/">'National Poetry Writing Month'</a>. Check it out!Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-31250893245207133492014-04-17T11:31:00.000+01:002014-04-17T11:31:00.375+01:00Comics Translation and Zombies: Uncomfortable Issues
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve known people who read and love comics, but I
have never been into any comics myself. It was simply a lack of exposure, I
think, because I’ve come to respect and appreciate the art form ever since I’ve
been exposed to it in Case Studies this semester. Yes, like painting,
sculpture, graphic design and all the rest, comics are a form, a way of
presenting art. But it is also a form of writing, of literary and narrative
effort. Since reading McCloud’s (2006) book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Making
Comics</i> and making myself break the threshold of comics with an issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fables</i>, I appreciate comics and see
their entertainment value, but more importantly their readability—their
multiple layers of characters, narratives and themes. I did not particularly
like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fables </i>itself, but I could see
how complex comics could be. I learned how enjoyable they can be to read,
though I admit I read quickly through the text and overlooked much of the art.
I think comics, like drama, straddle different art forms, and like zombies
which are both living and dead, indefinable forms are often difficult to
accept. (Appropriately enough: The Walking Dead) It is difficult to read them,
at least I found it so, because a person reads differently than he or she looks
at art. Art you look at as a whole then read in parts; literature you read then
look at as a whole (see <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ernest Gilman, <i>The
Curious Perspective</i>, (1978)). </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think people who don’t like comics have not found the
right comic yet. I say the same thing of poetry. I haven’t found the right
comic for me yet. I admit I haven’t started reading comics, but I do search for
them. I think I have a difficult time, because my narrative style and artistic
style are at odds. My literary tastes are in realism, or at furthest magical
realism; my art tastes lean toward the abstract. A gap has not been bridged
thus far, but I will find a comic some day. Recommendations welcomed. But it
does take both to appeal to someone, both an appealing narrative or literary
side and inviting artwork. That is the risk of such an art form. With the
freedom to display your ideas pictorially comes the responsibility of
displaying your ideas pictorially in addition to text. But the rewards, as I
have heard from friends, are highly worth it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In my experience attempting to translate for comics, I
found brevity the most difficult issue. I constantly overwrote in German, and I
doubt my translation would have been accepted anywhere for publication due to
its length. It would not have fit in the speech bubbles. Translating for comics
takes a similar, though certainly more extreme, amount of brevity as
subtitling. Both are limited in space, but if the subtitle is a tweet of 140 characters,
the speech bubble is half a haiku. Space is at a premium.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cole Konopka is a translator of German to English, a
writer, painter. He can be contacted at </span><a href="mailto:colekonopka@gmail.com"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">colekonopka@gmail.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-62628267849108504362014-04-10T11:29:00.002+01:002014-04-10T11:31:21.587+01:00Translating Arkady Gaidar’s The Blue Cup: the complex nature of children’s literature
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">For the
past few weeks, I have been absorbed in the translation of children’s
literature. Before looking into this area of translation, I wouldn’t necessarily
have expected it to be easy to translate children’s literature, as any literary
text will pose its own particular set of problems, but I certainly hadn’t
expected it to be one of the most challenging and complicated areas of
translation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">First of
all, defining what does and doesn’t constitute children’s literature is
problematic; should we define it as literature that has been written for
children? Or as works of literature that children choose to read for
themselves? What is a child? Can we come to a complete definition of a child,
and therefore firmly conclude what children’s requirements are with regards to
literature? Furthermore, when we translate cross-culturally, what may be
considered appropriate for children in one culture may not be considered appropriate
for children in another, how can translators deal with such instances, while
avoiding the manipulation of their readers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I have
been working on a translation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blue
Cup</i> by Arkady Gaidar, a children’s story written in Soviet Russia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many aspects of the text have been heavily
influenced by the Socialist Realist doctrine of the time; it presents the
reader with idealisations of work, industrialization, the Russian countryside
and of the Red Army, for example, and some could consider such a text unworthy of
translation into English for Western children, as the underlying ideology of
such a text is not fully convergent with the ideology of Western culture, and
may therefore be considered harmful and manipulative. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">However,
what prompted me to translate this particular text is its fragmentary nature;
despite being heavily influenced by the ideology of its time, this text is
predominantly subversive and, I would therefore argue, valuable for children. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blue Cup</i> is a story about a Russian
family (a mother, father and daughter) on holiday at a cabin in the
countryside. The mother takes to nagging the father and daughter (Svetlana) about
all kinds of chores, not allowing them to play and enjoy themselves whilst on
holiday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final straw comes when she
accuses them of breaking her blue cup and in an act of defiance they decide to
leave for an adventure across the Russian countryside. It is through Svetlana
and her father’s close relationship that this text comes to be subversive, as the
father introduces Svetlana to the emotional complexities of the adult world; through
allowing his daughter to come into contact with a variety of people and discussing
issues such as war and anti-Semitism, and by confiding in her his doubts with
regards to the mother’s love for him. Furthermore, and most importantly, in
their defiance of the mother, the father teaches Svetlana to challenge over-bearing
authority. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In these instances I therefore
paid particular attention to the nuances of the language used by Svetlana and
her father when addressing each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It was
extremely difficult to decide how to deal with aspects of the text that were
conventional for its time, as children would not be aware of the
socio-historical context and could consequently be open to manipulation; I had
therefore considered changing or even removing some aspects of the text.
However, I have come to the conclusion that it would be short-sighted to alter
or remove these aspects. Precisely because Western children will lack the
socio-historical context that would allow these images to be understood as part
of a certain ideology, these idealisations will be no more harmful than the
idealisations of work and the British countryside in children’s stories such as
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thomas the Tank Engine</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Postman Pat</i>. Furthermore the underlying
ideology will not be consistently supported by surrounding discourse; and
therefore these depictions will do little more than allow children to come into
contact with ‘the foreign’, displacing them for a short time from their own
culture. I have come to believe that translating a variety of children’s
literature is therefore necessary and vital to encourage a multiplicity of
world views within children, and not to simply limit them to the confines of
their own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Hannah
Collins studied Russian and French at the University of Nottingham. She works
as a freelance translator and is currently studying on the Literary Translation
MA at the UEA. Her email address is Hannah.Collins@uea.ac.uk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-57205556061014133482014-02-04T17:44:00.003+00:002014-02-04T17:44:21.519+00:00Call for Papers
The Norwich Papers editorial team is pleased to announce its
call for papers for Issue 22, to be published in 2014. The theme of the issue
is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">‘Voice and Silence in Translation’</b>.
We welcome articles from anyone with an interest in the topic, regardless of
experience, and are looking for a broad range of contributions covering a
variety of languages and cultures and engaging with the many possible
interpretations of this theme. Possible topics could include, but are by no
means limited to:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">The
individual voice of the translator<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">What
is left unsaid or implicit in translation<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">Translation
and censorship<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">Particular
issues in the translation of texts intended to be read aloud<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;">Heteroglossia
in translated texts<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
These are only a few suggestions – there are many other
possible approaches, so we hope the theme will inspire you in some way! Please
do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Articles should be 4000-5000 words in length and must be
written in English. Submissions should be received no later than <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Wednesday 30<sup>th</sup> April 2014</b>.
We will send a free copy of Issue 22 to all whose contributions we are able to
publish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Please submit papers to <a href="mailto:norwichpapers@uea.ac.uk"><span style="color: blue;">norwichpapers@uea.ac.uk</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
You can find more details about our back issues and how to
purchase them on our <a href="https://www.uea.ac.uk/literature/publications-and-papers/back-issues"><span style="color: blue;">website</span></a>.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Submission details<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></o:p></u></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Please submit papers to <a href="mailto:norwichpapers@uea.ac.uk"><span style="color: blue;">norwichpapers@uea.ac.uk</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Deadline for submissions: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Wednesday 30th April 2014</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Format: Word document (preferred) or Rich Text Format
(.rtf). Please follow the Harvard style of referencing (also known as the ‘author,
date’ system), for which guidelines can be found <a href="https://www.uea.ac.uk/~d051/plagiarism/Referencing.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Articles should be 4000-5000 words in length and must be
written in English.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-32452326144073654942014-01-28T17:55:00.000+00:002014-01-28T17:55:00.417+00:00Che gelida manina! – baby-talk in translating Where the Wild Things Are
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It’s a Saturday night and I have decided to translate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where the Wild Things Are.</i> Sometimes
people debate on which books can be considered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">classics </i>in children’s literature, but about Sendak’s masterpiece
there’s absolutely no doubt. And this is the reason why I wanted to translate
it on the first place. It’s no secret that I aspire to combine translation with
my other great ambition to become a writer, and translating classics for children
is my starting point. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What interests me the most are not only the reasons
why some children’s books become classics (oh, the list is long…) but also the
way authors use words and language. I have a passion for words that words alone
cannot describe. Let me put it this way. You know the old ice-breaking game
“what would you bring with you to a desert island?”… I would bring a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dictionary</i>. Preferably one with
synonyms, etymology and collocations. I am mad for words. Give me neologisms to
translate, and I will be the happiest translator on Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I approached my first draft of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Là dove stanno le cose selvagge</i> with certain boldness. While I was
working on it, I had that feeling only translators know: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this is the right direction</i>. I was happy with many of the choices I
made, every sentence seemed to fit like a glove, but. But.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At some point, I realised that there was something
that sounded wrong, almost out of key. I read and re-read my translation,
looking for unconvincing verb tenses, superfluous possessives, well-conceived
grammatical discrepancies. What was it? What is it that sounds so wrong?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Ohhh. Got it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The wild
things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">and rolled
their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">but Max
stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye […]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Le cose selvagge
ruggirono terribilmente e digrignarono i terribili denti, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">e spalancarono i
terribili occhi e mostrarono i terribili artigli, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">ma Max salì sulla sua
barca e fece ciao con la manina […]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Here’s a gloss of the last sentence, where the off-key note is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">ma Max<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>salì<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>sulla <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sua <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>barca<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>e<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>fece <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ciao <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>con
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>la <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>manina […]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">but<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Max<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stepped <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on-the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>his<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>boat<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>did<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bye<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>little-hand</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> DIM.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">La <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manina</i>. The
little hand. It’s back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Don’t get me wrong, I love diminutives and all kinds
of alterations. But I have become very sensitive to using them when addressing
to children since I have worked for the British Council in Milan as young
learners’ assistant. One of my duties was to walk my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">caterpillars </i>(pre-primary school children) to the toilet during classes,
and one day it happened that I asked one of them to give me their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manina</i> (little-hand). My supervisor had
heard me and she kindly urged me not to use diminutives with children. After
all, what from our point of view is a cute little child hand, from their point
of view is… just their hand. Proportions, uh?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I had forgotten about this, but then the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manina</i> came back in my translation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where the Wild Things Are.</i> I did a
little bit of research on the topic, and I found that the debate on what expert
call “baby-talk” is lively. On one side, “baby-talk” seems to be encouraged
because it bonds a strong relationship between parents and children (it is also
called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">parentese</i>), and because it
also contributes to children’s mental development; on the other, it is strongly
criticised for giving the child a limited repertoire of words, and therefore
can inhibit the child’s speech development.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What should the translator do? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Personally, I’ve decided to put away the little hand.
Partly because my supervisor’s argument seemed strong enough to me. Then I also
thought: what if by using diminutives we contribute to build a wrong child
image in children’s literature? How would an Italian child describe Max’s hand?
And even if s/he said <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manina</i>, how can
we be sure that s/he has not been influenced by the baby-talk employed by
adults that surround him?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I have no answers for these questions, not at the
moment. Anyway, I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where the Wild Things Are</i> is a book to be read aloud by parents to their
child, and if they really want to say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manina</i>
instead of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mano</i>, certainly I won’t be
the one preventing them from doing that! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">See also:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">How can child-directed speech facilitate the acquisition of morphology?</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">, by Vera
Kempe, Patricia J. Brooks, and Laura Pirott. 2001. Research on Child Language
Acquisition: Proceedings of the 8<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> Conference of the International
Association for the Study of Child Language. 1234-1244) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">---<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My name is Elena Traina, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I
graduated in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lingue e Letterature
Straniere</i> at the Università degli Studi di Milano, now I’m studying
Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. I translate from English
and Spanish into Italian. My main literary interest is children’s literature,
but I also like to write and translate poetry and short fiction. I can be
reached at </span><span lang="IT"><a href="mailto:elena.traina39@gmail.com"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">elena.traina39@gmail.com</span></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you
are interested in the MA in Literary Translation, or would like to study at UEA,
I also recommend that you take a look at my Italian blog: </span><span lang="IT"><a href="http://www.elenainuk.blogspot.it/"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.elenainuk.blogspot.it</span></span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-44437039476046234652013-12-26T00:00:00.000+00:002013-12-26T00:00:00.101+00:00Considering Foreignization<div class="Normal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
This semester my peers and I took to holding casual workshops of one another’s work between classes. As few people shared the language of the translator whose work we were looking at, the main drive in those meetings was to try and help the translator’s work sound more fluid, more readable, more like English. It seemed like the most natural way to go about things, both because it was the only help we could offer and because, well, an English translation should read as flawless English. That was the thought.</div>
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For me this all changed after reading some of Lawrence Venuti’s work on foreignizing and domesticating translations. In his book,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Translator’s Invisibility</span>, Venuti talks about the state of translation and the translator’s role in the print culture, and what he has to say is not very encouraging for an aspiring translator. According to Venuti, and probably many people working in translation or translation theory, translators are overlooked. I would agree with this. In a translation of Hesse’s<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Steppenwolf</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I am currently reading, there is no biography of the translator, but there is one of the cover artist. That seems imbalanced to me, though the publisher found it reasonable. More shocking was Venuti’s comments on how translators often rewrite a text in an ethnocentric fashion, making it accessible to the new readers at the expense of its cultural heritage. This in turn erases the sense of a text as a translation and imagines it as a new, original text which makes the translator an invisible entity and elevates the original author and his or her work. This can also flatten a text, smoothing out its many potential idiosyncrasies, which is a complaint in regards to poetry which I have heard among my course mates.</div>
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Venuti calls for a translation that to some degree foreignizes a text. This means including some idiosyncrasies of the original (language) as well as some of the translator’s hand. By making sure a translation reads as a translation, with some of the strangeness of a foreign language and the translator’s influence, the translator will not be so invisible and the foreign culture will not be subject to the hegemony of the English language. Or so goes the idea.</div>
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This has all given me something to think about in relation to my dissertation project, which I intend to be a translation of German poetry. By no means do I intend to write a half German translation, one abound with foreign references and my own flights of fancy. But before reading Venuti the question of translation would have been ‘how can I make this sound like good (English-language) poetry?’ Now I think the question of how to translate is a more complicated one. The first question is still relevant, but in addition to that one I must also ask ‘what marks can I leave as a translator?’ and ‘what marks of the original German should I maintain?’ Translation has always seemed like a delicate balance, but this issue of domestication and foreignization has added more weights to be allocated to just the right spots.</div>
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Cole Konopka was born in 1988. He lived, studied, and worked in Germany in 2007 as a participant of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Vocational Program. After studying English and Anthropology at the University of Iowa, Cole began his studies in literary translation at the University of East Anglia. In addition to translation, Cole also enjoys writing original works and painting.</div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-87001577025249848022013-12-19T07:58:00.000+00:002013-12-19T07:58:00.621+00:00‘Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking…’ : Prefaces and the voice of the translator<div class="Normal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
The preface is not something I had spent much time considering in my literary studies until now. In spite of a few notable exceptions (think Wordsworth’s<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Lyrical Ballads</span>), prefaces to literary works tend to go relatively unnoticed. The important thing is ‘the words on the page’ – and pages prior to page 1 don’t count. “WE CANNOT KNOW THE AUTHOR’S INTENTIONS,” we shout, drowning out the author’s (timid or otherwise) declaration of “What I meant to say was this…”</div>
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It is true that authors do not have exclusive ownership of the meaning of their work, nor are they always best placed to comment on it. A magnificent novel might be preceded by a pretentious or less-than-insightful preface, like a once-aloof film star posting inanities on Twitter. Perhaps for good reason, then, prefaces to literary works are relatively rare today. However, there is a school of thought that says translations should be an exception to this rule.</div>
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Why, then, might a translator write a preface? It may be partly to do with the fact that we ask questions of translators that we don’t tend to ask of authors:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">why did you choose this text? Why doesn’t your translation of this poem rhyme? Translating poetry is impossible, isn’t it?</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A preface can be a way of pre-empting some of those questions; and it is hardly surprising if they sometimes come across as somewhat defensive.</div>
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We could also look at it in a more positive way: prefaces are a way for translators to explain their approach. They allow us a glimpse of the translation process. Most significantly, though, they make the translator visible. They remind the reader that the text is a translation – something which is all too easy to forget, particularly when reading fiction, where all efforts have usually been made to disguise the text’s translated nature.</div>
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Translators speak to the reader in the texts they translate, but it is only in a preface that they can speak entirely in their own voice. Prefaces can sometimes be political: for example, they have often been used by feminist translators to explain why a text by a woman writer has been neglected, or why they have adopted a ‘hijacking’ strategy, where a text that was not originally feminist is ‘appropriated’ in translation through alterations such as the introduction of gender-inclusive language.</div>
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Opponents of the translator’s preface argue that a translated text should ‘stand alone’, should speak for itself. However, this is not as straightforward as it sounds. No translation stands alone; it always bears the trace of its source. Any text is a palimpsest of influences and allusions, and is completed by a reader in a particular cultural context. It does not exist out of context. A non-translated text, however, is interpreted directly by the reader. In the case of a translation, the source text is interpreted by the translator, who then inevitably brings this interpretation to bear on his or her translation; reading translation is a more intertextual experience than reading a non-translated text.</div>
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Why, then, pretend that the need to explain is a weakness? We too often expect reading a translation to be like reading any other text; as a result, we do not want to hear the voice of the translator. Hearing that voice in a preface forces us to acknowledge the translator’s presence in the text itself; it reminds us that what we are reading is not a fixed, finite object, but is slippery, multi-layered, polyphonic.</div>
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Olivia Hanks translates from French to English, with a particular interest in poetry. She blogs about French literature at <a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=Y3sx5QY4TkiS0cQ01wWI7ngQRXzqxdAIcZ11z9TNFCq9RqxR0IMzQAc5Hk3YoKnJrPv0dNp088A.&URL=http%3a%2f%2flaloutrequilit.blogspot.co.uk%2f" target="_blank"><span class="Hyperlink__Char" style="color: blue;"><span class="Hyperlink__Char" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">http://laloutrequilit.blogspot.co.uk/</span></span></a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and can be contacted at om.hanks@gmail.com.</div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-27151824418953903002013-12-12T00:00:00.000+00:002013-12-12T00:00:00.193+00:00Translation and Resistance<div class="Normal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 11pt/13pt Calibri, Arial; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Translation can be a wonderful means of resistance in all sorts of ways. One of the most recent and prominent forms of resistance through translation has resulted from the issue concerning feminist punk rock group ‘Pussy Riot’. Pussy Riot staged a provocative performance of their song ‘Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!’ in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, and were venomously charged and imprisoned by the Russian government for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Many of their speeches and court hearings have been translated, raising their profile in the West and perhaps hopefully, with the whole world watching, ensuring a certain amount of their safety in Russia. The translation of Pussy Riot has meant that both the western and Russian governments’ actions have become more visible to the general public and thus arguably, more accountable. Recently, correspondence between the only member of Pussy Riot to remain in prison, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and the famous Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, was translated into English and featured in The Guardian. Interestingly Nadezhda states:</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">“Here in Russia I have a strong sense of the cynicism of so-called first-world countries towards poorer nations. In my humble opinion, "developed" countries display an exaggerated loyalty towards governments that oppress their citizens and violate their rights”.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Through translation, we have an opportunity to bring such views to the world stage, and potentially as a result to constrain our own government to take action. It is important that we continue to support these brave actions and to keep them in the spotlight. It is however necessary to try to understand why Pussy Riot has become so widely recognised and someone like Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who dedicated her life to human rights and because of her actions was assassinated in her own apartment, barely acknowledged.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">In ‘The Invisibility of the Translator’ Venuti criticises the idea of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Simpatico;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>the way in which a translator may empathise with an author s/he is translating in order to ‘improve’ the translation. Venuti posits that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">simpatico</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>causes the work of literature to be centred on the ‘poetic I’, he states that: “Here it becomes clear that the translator’s feeling of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">simpatico</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is no more than a projection, that the object of the translator’s identification is ultimately himself, the “private associations” he inscribes in the foreign text in the hope of producing a similarly narcissistic experience in the English language reader.” In other words,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Simpatico</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>can lead us to impose a predominantly Anglo-American style of writing onto a foreign text and to recognize ourselves within it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Simpatico<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>will therefore also lead us to choose to translate works of foreign literature that embody this particular style.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Perhaps, then, our overwhelming recognition of Pussy Riot stems from their mode; first of all the band name ‘Pussy Riot’ is not a translation, the name was originally in English and is therefore easily recognisable for an English-speaking audience. Secondly, as a feminist punk-rock group, Pussy Riot appeals to many young individualistic adults and teenagers in the West. We may conclude then, that through translation and the close analysis it requires, we can come to recognise how we relate to other cultures, and in turn we can learn to pay attention to narratives which do not necessarily have an initial impact on us, to recognise a plurality of outlooks and world-views, rather than ones which instantly appeal to our own.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 11pt;">Hannah Collins studied Russian and French at the University of Nottingham. She works as a freelance translator and is currently studying on the Literary Translation MA at the UEA. <span class="normalchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Her email address is Hannah.Collins@uea.ac.uk.</span></span></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-41621363028045923482013-12-05T17:40:00.002+00:002013-12-05T17:41:08.799+00:00Fear of Theory<div class="Normal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 11pt/13pt Calibri, Arial; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
During the final year of my undergraduate degree I wrote a dissertation on translation. It grew from a need for more engagement with poetry in my course and a suspicion that long essays need enjoyment and interest behind them, as well the impetus of a deadline. Little did I know how far from my previous life this particular long essay would take me. I threw myself into a reading list provided by my supervisor, hoovering up whatever I could get my hands on.</div>
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Sitting down to read, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had already translated some poetry by the French poet Pierre Alferi and it seemed to have gone well. However, what I found in books by Lawrence Venuti<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>, Basil Hakim and Susan Bassnett, among others, was a new world opening up before me. Sometimes alarming, always exciting, this discipline of literary translation theory presented challenges I had never envisioned, much less been prepared to tackle.</div>
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Imagine this - you are standing over a chasm, toes gripping the surrounding cliff edges like a cartoon bird, desperate not to plummet into the darkness. In black clothes and holding a duffle bag in which the entire culture of a country is hidden, you creep towards a large building. A moment later you’re calmly shelling peas, separating the delicious from the inedible. These are strange metaphorical situations to find yourself (metaphorically) in. These images arose in my mind from the apprehension of how little I felt I really knew about other readers, other writers and the way others think, how essential this had suddenly become. I asked myself, what did this mean for the translation I had just done? What had I got myself into?</div>
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Translation theory and much historical thinking about translation makes liberal use of metaphor to explain the sometimes mysterious act of making one text into another one. It was the first thing which struck me about the discipline and the aspect that still interests me now, as a wiser, more experienced MA student. There are so many sites of activity in any one translation, so much happens! Anything which can bring the complications of language difference, cultural difference and historical changes in society into one neat package is very valuable. Metaphor does this.</div>
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But what about the similarities, what about the need to explore the literature of other languages from sheer curiosity, from respect? There are metaphors for that too, different from the figures I mentioned before, though no less important. My favourite comes from Walter Benjamin’s essay The Task of the Translator<sup>1</sup>. Language, he says, shouts into the forest and waits to hear its own echo, transformed yet familiar. This is beautiful, and expresses the reason why the potential mistakes and dangers the previous metaphors entail are worth it in the end.</div>
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Here at the university, in the controlled environment of the seminar, I no longer feel the vertigo I once did when faced with the metaphors for translation. In fact, I have learned to look behind them to the many truths about the practical considerations of translating literature. Not only that, but I have learned to live with the risks of translating. I trust my languages and my instinct; I trust theory to keep my mind open. Can you think of a metaphor for that…?</div>
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<sup>1<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></sup>Benjamin, W. (2012) in L. Venuti (ed)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">The Translation Studies Reader,</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>London and New York: Routledge, p80</div>
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Anna Bryant is from County Meath, Ireland. She translates from French into English, and also occasionally from Irish. She is currently enjoying studying on the MA in Literary Translation course at the University of East Anglia and can be contacted at anna.bryant@uea.ac.uk</div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-79374167089772973952013-11-21T08:50:00.001+00:002013-11-21T08:50:33.850+00:00The surgeon, il chirurgo and la cirujana: gender in translation
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
have to admit that when it comes to “gender” and “translation”, I get extremely
suspicious towards my own ideas on the topic. I had never come across the issue
before starting the MA in Literary Translation and I found out that for me
dealing with gender and translation is more complicated than I thought. Mainly
because my native language is Italian, I’ve always taken for granted the
linguistic binary system (masculine-feminine) Italian is based upon. What I had
never considered is how much this affects the way I think.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As
a teenager I was really into riddles and I remember being told a very clever
one which in English would sound more or less like this:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">A man is driving
his son to school, when a terrible car accident happens. The father dies, while
the boy is in very critical conditions and needs surgery. An ambulance takes
the boy to the hospital, where an astonished surgeon claims: “I can’t operate:
he’s my son.” How is this possible? <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
answer: “The surgeon is the boy’s mother”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">But
when I was told that riddle that answer didn’t even cross my mind. My first
attempts at resolving the riddle included miraculous resurrections on the
ambulance and <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">soap-opera</span>
finales, and it took me years until I finally got it right. Presuming that the
original version of the riddle is in English, the ambiguity of the language
(genderless, with few exceptions) makes the riddle work very well, but in
Italian it works even better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Because
the Italian word for “surgeon”, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chirurgo</i>,
is masculine and breaks the rules.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
general rule that helps you distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one is
that nouns ending with<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">–o</i> are masculine and nouns ending with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">–a</i> are feminine. For nouns belonging to
the field of “jobs and crafts”, there are other matching desinences like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">–tore</i>/<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">–trice</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">–iere</i>/<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">-iera</i>, that perform the same
duties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Therefore
we have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">operaio</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">operaia</i> (worker), but also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">direttore/direttrice </i>(director) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cassiere/cassiera</i> (cashier)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Sometimes
the noun doesn’t tell us anything about the gender. It’s the case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">preside </i>(headmaster), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cantante </i>(singer) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stilista</i> (fashion designer), that don’t
vary according to gender. However, we can easily understand whether we are
talking about a man or a woman by looking at the accompanying article. </span><span lang="IT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-ansi-language: IT;">Is
it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">il cantante</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">la cantante</i>? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Un preside</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">una preside</i>?
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">And so on.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Then
what happens with a noun like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chirurgo</i>?
According to the general rule, the boy’s mother would be a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">*chirurga</i>. Or, at least, *<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">una
chirurgo</i>. For historical and social reasons, though, there are some nouns
that don’t have a feminine equivalent: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chirurgo</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avvocato</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ministro</i>, for example. There have been some attempts to introduce
some feminine equivalents like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ministra</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">avvocatessa</i>, and though in both
cases you can actually find those terms in the dictionary, you will also find a
“derog.” after them. Feminist translation theorists will please excuse me if I
don’t delve deeper into the matter of sexism in Italian jobs and crafts; the
only consideration that I’ll make is: no wonder the riddle worked great in
Italian, at least ten years ago. Obviously, the more the years go by, the less
effective it will be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As
a translator, I consider this to be one of the rare cases where the genderless
ambiguity given by the source text (which was written in English, presumably)
is enhanced by gender in the Italian language. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As
a final consideration, I wondered whether this riddle could work in Spanish as
it does in Italian. It doesn’t. It’s almost impossible to translate. The
Spanish feminine word for “surgeon” is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cirujana</i>,
as opposed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cirujano</i>. Using the
masculine to preserve the surprise effect in a Spanish translation of the
riddle not only would be stretched and démodé, but also grammatically
incorrect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I’m
Elena Traina, and I translate English and Spanish into Italian, and Italian
into English. I’m currently studying Literary Translation at the University of
East Anglia. My main literary interest is children’s literature, but I’m a great
fan of sci-fi, drama and poetry, too. I can be reached at
elena.traina39@gmail.com.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-81173803782536856382013-09-02T00:00:00.000+01:002013-09-02T00:00:05.476+01:00The New Sorrows of a Young Translator<div class="Normal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 11pt/18pt Calibri, Arial; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">After two pages I chucked the thing across the room. I’m telling you, guys, you just could not read that shit. Even with the best will in the world. Then five minutes later I’d got hold of it again. Either I wanted to read till the early hours or not at all. That’s just what I was like. Three hours later I’d finished it.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Guys – I was majorly pissed off. The bloke in the book, this Werther, his name was – he commits suicide at the end. Just gives up the ghost. Puts a bullet through his fricking head because he can’t get the woman he wants, and feels mega sorry for himself the whole entire time.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">This biting critique of one of the all-time classics of German literature – Goethe’s 1774 epistolary novel<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Die Leiden des jungen Werther</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’) – is spoken by the protagonist of another popular German work called<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Die neuen Leiden des jungen W.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(‘The New Sorrows of Young W.’), written by Ulrich Plenzdorf and published in 1973. Plenzdorf’s hero, Edgar Wibeau, is seventeen years old and a self-styled ‘unrecognised genius’. He likes painting abstract pictures, listening to jazz and inventing things, none of which are very compatible with being a factory apprentice in small-town East Germany. Edgar therefore abandons his apprenticeship and runs away to Berlin to become an artist. He holes up in a friend’s empty summer house, where he stumbles upon Goethe’s classic novel. It consists of a series of letters written by an emotional young man called Werther, whose verbose, effusive style Edgar initially finds somewhat ridiculous. Eventually, though, Edgar comes to see Werther as a kindred spirit. Both young men are frustrated by the conformist, restrictive worlds in which they live – in Werther’s case the rigidly class-conscious society of eighteenth-century Germany, in Edgar’s the authoritarian regime of the Socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1970s. Both protagonists feel unable to express their creativity, fulfil their ambitions, and live authentic lives within the confines of their respective societies, but Edgar expresses his frustrations in an ironic, slangy, modern idiom which is in stark contrast to Werther’s elevated language and tendency to wax lyrical.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">I had to take all this into account when, as part of my final dissertation for the MA in Literary Translation, I translated the first 10,000 words of Plenzdorf’s<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">New Sorrows of Young W.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The two biggest problems I faced were what to do with Werther – a figure well-known to most German-speaking readers but potentially unfamiliar to English-speaking ones – and how to translate Edgar’s GDR youth slang: should I use 1970s or twenty-first-century slang, where in the world should it come from, and could I make it sound convincing? Both problems turned out to be hugely enjoyable to (try to) solve, and both involved some fascinating research.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Plenzdorf’s book is closely tied up with Goethe’s in terms of themes, plot, and characters. Werther, for instance, falls in love with Charlotte, and Edgar with Charlie. Both women are already engaged when Werther and Edgar meet them, and both end up marrying sensible older men. I felt that in order to fully understand and appreciate Plenzdorf’s text, it would be helpful for readers of my translation to know a bit about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Sorrows of Young Werther</span>. I therefore decided to write a Translator’s Preface providing information about the novel for readers who might not have come across it before.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">I also had to deal with some direct quotes from Goethe’s text. While living in Berlin, Edgar records several messages to his best friend Willi onto cassette tapes. The messages are all quotations from Werther’s letters, which Edgar uses to express his own feelings and views on the world – in a language, however, that is so alien to poor Willi that he thinks it is some kind of code, and cannot understand a word. Edgar’s mother and father are similarly baffled. I knew that these ‘Wertherisms’ would need to sound as flowery and archaic in English as they do in German to justify the characters’ mystified reactions to them, and to capture the comedy generated in the German text by the contrast between Edgar’s modern(ish) slang and Werther’s eighteenth-century rhetoric. I decided to lift the Werther quotes from an existing translation of Goethe rather than translating them myself, so that English-speaking readers of my translation might have a chance of recognising them (given that they would be recognisable to many German-speaking readers of the original text). The question was, which of the existing English translations of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Sorrows of Young Werther<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>could supply the antiquated-sounding language I was after? I was thrilled to discover the following passage in a translation by R.D. Boylan from 1854:</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Because, on either side of this stream, cold and respectable persons have taken up their abodes, and, forsooth, their summer-houses and tulip-beds would suffer from the torrent; wherefore they dig trenches, and raise embankments betimes, in order to avert the impending danger.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Compare this with a 2012 translation of the same passage by David Constantine:</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Friends, on both banks are the dwelling places of placid gentlemen whose summer-houses, tulip beds, and vegetable plots would be destroyed and who therefore in good time ward off the future danger by damming and diverting.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">And, forsooth, I compared several different translations but it was Boylan’s – deliciously old-fashioned throughout – that won hands down.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">When it came to translating Edgar’s language, however, I went in completely the opposite direction and used contemporary slang and colloquialisms, gleaned from slang dictionaries in print and online as well as from personal experience. As Michael Adams observes, ‘[s]lang is fresh and improvised, for the most part young language’ (2009:88). Slang that was in vogue in the 1970s, I felt, would not sound very fresh or improvised today. Slang also ‘indicates that the speaker is fun-loving, youthful and in touch with the latest trends’ (Coleman 2012:71), and I knew that if Edgar was to strike modern-day readers (particularly younger ones) as being ‘youthful and in touch with the latest trends’, he would need to use youthful, trendy slang.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">I had decided<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">when</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to locate my slang, then – knowing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">where</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>it should come from was slightly more difficult. I didn’t want Edgar’s voice to sound too localised, as I felt it might be jarring for the reader to hear a German character speaking like a born-and-bred New Yorker or Yorkshireman, for example. I eventually opted for the strategy suggested by Susanne Ghassempur of using ‘a supraregional colloquial language that is universally understood by readers in the target language’ (2011:54). I tried to use slang and colloquialisms that were not strongly identifiable with any particular place (so Cockney rhyming slang was out, unfortunately!)</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">The work I have done for my dissertation, translating part of Plenzdorf’s text and writing a commentary explaining my translation strategies, has been a lesson in the potential neverendingness of translation. Firstly in the sense that I could work on this project for years – reading and comparing the many English versions of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Sorrows of Young Werther</span>, consulting secondary literature on Plenzdorf and Goethe, researching the historical context of the GDR, poring over slang dictionaries, referring to books and articles on translation theory – without knowing everything there is to know. And secondly in the sense that, as I have realised over the past few months, different people could translate this book (or any book) over and over again forever, and each version of it would always be new, and would never be definitive. Language is always evolving (and slang evolves particularly rapidly). A text can be renewed in translation with each new generation of language users – with each new translator, in fact, since every translator will produce a different interpretation of a given text. The New Sorrows – and Joys! – of every translation can shed fresh light on an original text, and on whole multitudes of new linguistic possibilities.</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">References</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Adams, M. (2009<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">) Slang: The People’s Poetry</span>, Oxford: Oxford University Press</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Boylan, R. D. (tr.) (2009 [1854]) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Sorrows of Young Werther<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>[Online]. Available at:</span><a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=tXRQlKT_Vk2QN6aEtxQmMmbN0fMCZtAIWi1cbWNmHqR-a3ePhvZ0eaG-UCmVKVIQ9FTF4za6BvY.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gutenberg.org%2ffiles%2f2527%2f2527-h%2f2527-h.htm" target="_blank"><span class="Hyperlink__Char" style="color: blue;"><span class="Hyperlink__Char" style="color: black; font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline;">http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2527/2527-h/2527-h.htm</span></span></a><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[Accessed 6 August 2013]</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Coleman, J. (2012)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Life of Slang</span>, Oxford: Oxford University Press</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Constantine, D. (tr.) (2012) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The Sorrows of Young Werther,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Oxford: Oxford University Press</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Ghassempur, S. (2011) in F. M. Federici (ed)<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Translating Dialects and Languages of Minorities,</span>Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 49-64</span></div>
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<span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Plenzdorf, U. (1973)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Die</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: Cambria, Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">neuen Leiden des jungen W</span>., Frankfurt: Suhrkamp (the extract quoted here is from page 36 of the original text and is my own translation).</span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-21945860982226188992013-08-25T08:20:00.000+01:002013-08-25T08:20:00.351+01:00Letting Go
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">At the end of this one-year course, we have to write a
dissertation. I have chosen to write a translation with a commentary. The
subject of my dissertation was to translate 10000 words of a book entitled<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="normalchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Petit traité de l’abandon</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">written by Alexandre Jollien who is a disabled
writer and philosopher. In this book, he shares his thoughts, and reflects on
moments of his life influenced by authors he has read, encounters he has had
and approaches to life, religion, relationships and love. Because of his
disability, Alexandre Jollien cannot physically write anymore but talks through
a recording machine, which gives a distinct oral quality to the book. The
commentary is, as I have called it, “a little investigation” on
‘untranslatability’. Indeed, as a translator, I have always been attracted by
what we can call the paradox of translation. The idea that some texts seem
impossible to translate yet translatable, has drawn me to attempt to produce a
translation of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="normalchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Petit
traité de l’abandon.</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> </span></i></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">I have
chosen this source text because of the unique connexion between the author’s
background, the source text and its style, which in my opinion makes this text
appear impossible to translate. The leading idea of this book is the paradox
that Jollien explains of ‘l’abandon’. ‘L’abandon’ means ‘abandonment’ in
English but also it is also used in the sense of ‘letting go’. Throughout his
book, Jollien explains how paradoxically, ‘l’abandon’, which could be seen as
negative, because of its first meaning of ‘giving up’, has actually become the
goal of his life. In his own words, the purpose of ‘l’abandon’ is to “follow
the flow of life.” (personal translation, 2012: 11)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Thanks to this source text and to the process of the translation,
I realised that this concept of ‘letting go’ could be applied to
translation. Indeed, as I have explained in my commentary, during the process
of translation, the translator has not only to translate the words, but he or
she also has to become the author of the translation. In order to do so, the
translator has to read, research and even talk to the author of the source
text. However all this research will never produce a target text able to
recreate similar effects on its readers than the source text readers had. The
translator has to combine his or her knowledge on the author, the source text
and on the cultural differences with his or her creativity. Translating is
‘letting go’. There will be a moment in the translation process where the
source text will not be enough anymore to create a good translation and the
translator will have to ‘let go’ of the source text and all its constrains in
order to allow his or her creativity to come across.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">I realised during this translation that at some point in the
process I was ‘letting go’ of the source text without being aware of it
and that only then I was able to allow myself, the translator, to translate for
the target text readers. I wanted to share this realisation in this blog-post
because I am convinced that it can be helpful for young translators just like
myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Charlotte Laruelle translates French and English, currently doing
the MA in literary translation at UEA. Can be contacted at
charlotte.bdf@hotmail.fr<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-64789278191388853282013-08-19T00:30:00.000+01:002013-08-19T00:30:02.148+01:00Literary and Non-Literary Translation: Studying Translation and a Little Work Experience
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<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">One
of the best things about the UEA's MA in Literary Translation course, and there
are many good things about it, is actually what's not on the course. What I
mean is that the lecturers on the course and the staff at the university work
very hard, and are very helpful, when it comes to getting students involved in
translation related activities outside of class. Internships at the BCLT, the
BCLT Summer School, a publishing internship, translation editing workshops in a
coffee shop, public lectures with award winning translators, attending
conferences, attending the London Book Fair, an award ceremony, talks on
comic-book translation in a pub and going to professional networking events are
just some of the activites and schemes that have been on offer. It was at the
last one – a networking event encouraging UEA students to think about using
their language skills in their futures – that I met representatives of a Norwich
based data capture company. I then ended up working for them on an interesting
translation project for a supermarket in China. I want to say a few things
about it here because it's made me think a bit about what do you do as a
'Literary Translator', and what's the difference between translating
Literature, and something like a brand of toothbrushes?</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">So,
first of all, what do you as a 'Literary Translator'? Well, I don't feel that I
can answer this with any great authority as I'm not published, but it's still
an interesting question for me, as it's something I want to pursue. I get the
impression that, from a fascinating talk from the Translators in Residence at
the Free Word Centre during the LBF, literary translators do a lot. A
surprising amount, actually. They teach, write articles, organise games, take
part in 'Translation Slams', edit, travel, translate words and, of course,
translate literature. In this past year it's been wonderful to see so many
literary translators, including teachers at the UEA and translators in London,
being involved in different projects linked to their communities. It seems like
a major part of literary translation is actually using language skills,
critical thinking and decision making skills to work in other areas and fields
of study. My experience of working outside of literary translation has been
with this company in Norwich. The job involved translating and writing product
descriptions for 'everyday' items. In fact, it was more like everyday items in
China; some of the names for such items had never been translated into English,
and many of the items are rarely seen in the UK. I was challenged by having to
translate such words casually appearing on packaging as</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">阿胶</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">牛皮糖</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">蛇胆</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">and</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">灌肠</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">,
(a quick google translate will let you know why these words might be
problematic, and give you a few giggles too!) Being faced with such oddities
made me realise that decision making and arguing your case are important parts
of being a translator – arguments of whether</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">牛皮糖</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">should be 'Chewy Sweets'
or 'Leather Sugar' went on for a while – and I think that literary translators
develop such skills and apply them to many parts of their working life. I also
feel that studying translation has better equipped me with such skills (although
I do have room to improve and will keep trying to do so).</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Having
looked back at a few of my translation problems outside of literary translation
has made me think about the difference between literary and non-literary
translation. In terms of translating Chinese to English, and this may be true
of many other languages including translating from French and Spanish, I don't
think there's much difference in the actual process, but there is a difference
in the product. Chinese works so differently to English that translating it
involves changing almost everything; adding articles, reorganizing sentences,
deleting measure words, deciding on tenses and so on. These processes were
pretty much the same between my prose translations and the translations for the
supermarket. With the supermarket translations, however, the translations had
to fit the company's strict guidelines; limited character numbers, information
order, use of particular measure words and so on. I've found that with literary
translation there is a stronger emphasis on the feel and the style of a text. A
lot of the work of other Chinese to English translators, such as Howard
Goldblatt, have a distinctive literary feel, and I would also argue, the style
of the translator. For example, some Chinese to English translators like to use</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">pinyin</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></i></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">to translate the story's
characters' names, whilst others prefer to translate the meanings of the names.
Goldblatt's translation of Su Tong's</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Rice(</span></i></span><span class="defaultchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">米</span></i></span><span class="defaultchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">)</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></i></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">included
characters like Old Six and Five Dragons, and I think that the decision to do
this give the text a particular style, which allowed the translator to put
themselves into the text. The freedom to make such decisions about influencing
the style of a translated text is at least sometimes the difference between
literary and non-literary translation. At least it was in my experience,
although this might not be the case in other types of non-literary translation,
as there are a lot of types of text out there that need translating. The main thing
is that the process of making decisions about changing the text is in many ways
the same, even if the product of the translation is not.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Now
I'm wondering why I'm talking about non-literary translation on a literary
translation blog. Well, I want to say literary and non-literary translation are
both very close; literary translators often work on non-literary translation,
and they do lots of things to engage people with literature outside of their
own work. The UEA's Literary Translation course is well integrated with other
areas of translation, and it's given me the opportunity to experience
professional non-literary translation. The experience has given me an awareness
of some of the skills I have gained on the course, and has taught me a bit
about the relationship between literary and non-literary translation. I think
both areas work well together, and I'm glad to have had the chance to take part
in both (even if just a little). I also think that one of the possible benefits
of translators doing so much outside of their 'work', is that this might not
only raise awareness of translators and what they do, but also an awareness of
foreign literature.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">I
just want to say something (and feel it important as someone interested in
Chinese to English translation) about contemporary Chinese literature. Brendan
O'Kane, a great translator of Chinese and blogger, said in a recent interview
that 'The more we can do to demystify it [China], through journalism or writing
or documentaries, or through</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="emphasischar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Pathlight</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></i></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">to
introduce people to the idea that there are young Chinese writers working
through the same issues that they are – to get people used to the idea that
China’s just a place like any other, and not that special. I think that’s a
very worthwhile thing to work towards' (theanthill.org 2013:np). I agree with
pursuing</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">a
'demystified' view of China and its literature. I think that the brilliant work
of translators to intergrate their work with other projects and fields of study
can all help with this pursuit. China and Chinese are, for many people I know,
still both a far off place and a mysterious language. The problem with such a
distance in people's minds is that it can lead to misunderstandings. Working
towards clarity can often be, in my opinion, for the best. I hope that
brilliant work coming from Chinese to English translators, through routes such
as</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></span><span class="defaultchar"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Pathlight,</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"> </span></i></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">keep
up, and that the English language readership will become more and more familiar
with great writers such as Qian Zhongshu (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">钱钟书</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">),
Bing Xin (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">冰心</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">), Bei Dao (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">北岛</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">),
Can Xue, (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">残雪</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">), Jin Yong (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">金庸</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">),
Yu Hua (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">余华</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">), Zhang Yueran (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">张悦然</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">),
Liu Cixin (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">刘慈欣</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">), Ling Chen (</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: SimSun;">凌晨</span></span><span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">),
and many, many, many, more.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Now,
unlike Brendan O'Kane who is leaving China, I'm soon going to be off to China
to keep reading up on (and perhaps even try my hand at translating) some of the
new talent emerging from China.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="default" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; line-height: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="defaultchar"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Thomas
Newell translates from Chinese into English, and is currently studying for an
MA in Literary Translation at the UEA as well as interning for Arc
Publications. Contact him at thomashenrynewell@gmail.com.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-72652415438649794642013-08-12T00:00:00.000+01:002013-08-12T00:00:00.316+01:00Beyond the Mother Tongue; Or Translation to Live with<div class="Normal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Your trip lasts until you reach home. This is something I heard when I was little, in Japan. This saying, or something like a saying, means that you need to be aware of your journey until you get home. It appears to me when things are about to reach their end. My MA year is about to finish. Over the course of the year, translation and literature have been stuck in my mind – I was thinking about both of them from morning until midnight, even in my dreams. The thing is, this is what I expected before coming to the UK. Indeed, now is the end of the MA, and I am writing my MA dissertation at the moment (as of 5<sup>th</sup><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Aug.).</div>
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For my MA dissertation I am working on exophony, a literary phenomenon, where writers choose to write in a language other than their mother tongue. I have been fascinated by this word ever since I came across Yoko Tawada’s collection of essays,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Normal__Char" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Exofonii: bogono soto ni deru tabi</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[エクソフォニー:母語の外に出る旅] (Exophony: Traveling Outward from One’s Mother Tongue) (2003), several years ago. Tawada is a Japanese writer, but she writes novels and poems in German as well as Japanese. Although there are many exophonic writers such as Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky and Joseph Conrad, I am looking at Hideo Levy, an American writer who uses Japanese in his texts. Needless to say, last September I did not have any clues about analysing exophony or having it linked to translation. I have found them, instead, over the course of the year studying the MA in Literary Translation at UEA. This MA has provided me with solid research skills and knowledge in all aspects of translation studies, giving me a new perspective on translation and removing the old. Indeed, I am writing my dissertation with insight I have acquired from four modules: Translation Theory; Stylistics for Translator; Case Studies and Process and Product in Translation. After starting research for my dissertation, I felt translation studies has never paid much attention to the anthropological and ethnographic dimensions of 'foreignness', even though these might provide new kinds of creative exploration, new cross-overs of style and form and genre. Exophony is at the center of these areas; but though my researching of it, however, I also found that it has not been much dealt with in translation studies. Then, I approached some academics outside of my MA, and they kindly advised me about my dissertation. As Google Scholar says, I felt like standing ‘on the shoulders of giants’. I would like to thank Dr. Chantal Wright, Dr. Christopher D. Scott, and Prof. Clive Scott.</div>
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In spite of still writing my dissertation, I have come up with many interesting topics apart from that of my dissertation. I think this is because, as an international student, a non-native English speaker, studying and living here is inevitable when thinking of two languages. Every time I read text written in both English and Japanese, I think how such text is translated into one of two languages, just as a translator would. It seems that even my personality has been changed by the MA. Studying in bilingual condition reminds me of the concept of ‘pure language’ (Benjamin 1923), provoking my monolingual mind. What I have leant best though the MA is that exploring between languages is<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>one of the most pleasurable things in life. </div>
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Hiromitsu Koiso translates from English into Japanese. His literary interests include world literature, exophony and translation as a creative form of text making. Contact: hirokoikoi@gmail.com</div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-67189904113964608742013-08-05T14:17:00.001+01:002013-08-09T07:03:44.954+01:00My Spanish Summer School and its Challenges<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">As BCLT intern since January, I’ve had the
opportunity to do some really great things that I couldn’t have done otherwise
– making posters for the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=E21jHDQzokON8oa9ypOtRs09yK86ZdAIBmlsE_ZdI8dU4HZPYhYq-CqZWWV6677MPPhG7mkNNCw.&URL=https%3a%2f%2fwww.facebook.com%2fgroups%2f176199845732936%2f%3ffref%3dts" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlinkchar"><span style="color: blue;">International
Literature Reading Group</span></span></a>, interviewing Pushkin Press, going
to the London Book Fair, and, most exciting of all, attending this year’s
Summer School. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect apart from, of course, a
bit of translation. And, it turns out, a bit of translation was what we did,
along with a bit of editing, a bit of reading aloud, a bit of running around
printing (for me anyway) and a lot of laughing. I was in the Spanish group with
author Javier Montes and workshop leader, Anne Mclean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">We had two texts to work on, one which we
translated in advance and one which we launched into on day one. The text we
worked on together, an extract from Javier’s second novel,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="normalchar"><i>Segunda
Parte</i></span>, was quite difficult in Spanish and very funny – we wanted to
keep the humour and Javier wanted to keep the difficulty. One phrase gave us a
big challenge but also a lot of amusement. The Spanish text involves a father
reassuring his son that his boyfriend, who has disappeared without a word, is
bound to be ok. The father is rather absent-minded but takes time out from this
character trait to speak to his son with clarity. The Spanish text has it as
‘aquella tenía aspect de ser una de las sacudidas imprevistas de su despiste’
[that had the aspect of being one of the unexpected jolts from his
absent-mindedness]. We didn’t much like ‘absent-mindedness’ and a lot of debate
ensued. For a while we had ‘jolted out of his abstraction’ (a bit formal), then
‘jolted out of his daydreams’ (not quite right), ‘jolted out of his own world’
(popular but still not quite right), ‘back from being away with the fairies’
(Javier threatened to walk out). Things went rapidly downhill after this as the
debate digressed onto how shrews are related to elephants. In Spanish,
‘pensando en las musarañas’ means to be daydreaming but literally ‘to be
thinking of shrews’. Much google image searching ensued on how some shrews have
long noses like trunks , followed by much cooing over how cute they were. We
ended up with ‘shrugged off his absent-minded façade’ (all happy).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Another challenge was the word ‘cursi’
which, in Spanish, means a lot of different things all at once: tacky, corny,
snooty, pretentious, affected, kitch, la-di-da. To make matters worse the
specific word in question wasn’t actually ‘cursi’ but ‘cursilería’, a noun not
an adjective. The father says that he hates hearing ‘about the tacky/the
tackiness of/some snooty git mention’ the Cinque Terre. We went round and round
in circles with many solutions that were too blue to replicate. We wanted a
word/phrase that conveyed the pretentiousness of mentioning a holiday
destination which marks you as part of a certain set. In the end we went for
‘tacky waffle’ to explain the idea of someone going on and on about something
which bores you to death but which they think makes them sound good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">On the Thursday we were joined by editor
Ted Hodgkinson which was a very interesting experience, especially seeing as
Javier was not used to being edited, and this text had not gone through that
process the first time around. By this point in the week we all knew the
text back to front and it was great to have someone else come in to read it to
point out the parts where it didn’t really work. A lot of punctuation needed to
be changed and, taking advantage of Javier’s absence later in the day, we
changed it! A change we tried to make light of in our presentation with
‘live-action’ representations of brackets and dashes which went horribly wrong
– one phrase was opened with a bracket and closed with a dash.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">That text being finished, we moved on to
look at the other excerpt, from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="normalchar"><i>Los penúltimos,</i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span>which we had all translated in
advance. You might assume that already having different options written down
would make the process quicker but you’d be wrong! It almost made it harder
because there were too many options to choose from. For example, in the story a
girl is snooping around a boy’s house, she opens a fridge and sees some carrots
‘de poco fiar’, the translations for this were: unsavoury carrots,
untrustworthy carrots, dodgy carrots, dubious carrots and questionable carrots.
It’s not just that the carrots might be going off but that they might not tell
her what she wants to know (she’s examining the fridge to find information on
the boy – queue anthropomorphized fruit and veg). In the end the carrots were
dodgy. We also had trouble with a pun involving bananas. In Spanish the orange
in the fridge was very orange (pun kept as in both languages the word is the
fruit and the colour) and the banana was so weary - a banana is a ‘<span class="normalchar"><b>plátan</b></span>o’ and weary is ‘a<span class="normalchar"><b>platan</b></span>ado’.
In English, ‘banana’ is not a word that gives itself easily to punning. First
we had a banana which was so bananas (opposite to weariness), then we had a
banana that was banana-y (not a pun), then a banana that was banackered or
abanandoned (hilarious but no). We had to decide which was more important – the
pun or the meaning. If it was the pun then we could choose any fruit and any
adjective: melons being melancholy, blueberries being blue, peaches being
peachy or cherrys being cheery. If it was the meaning then the banana could be
very banana-like to match the orange orange. We went for the banana being so
bananaesque.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">In the end though, it wasn’t the
collaborative translation that mattered the most (though everybody’s texts were
amazing – the full texts will go up<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=E21jHDQzokON8oa9ypOtRs09yK86ZdAIBmlsE_ZdI8dU4HZPYhYq-CqZWWV6677MPPhG7mkNNCw.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.newwriting.net%2ftranslation%2f" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlinkchar"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></span></a>).
For me it was the process of looking closely at the text, hearing from the
author themselves what the text really means and about the nuances that I’d
never noticed and seeing other people’s solutions which was so helpful. I would
recommend the Summer School to anyone who is looking to be a literary
translator, or if you can’t make it/they don’t have your language, I’d also
recommend the free plenary sessions, they were extremely enlightening on how to
become a translator, how authors feel about being translated, what the editing
process involves and what support mechanisms are out there. It’s amazing
to be surrounded by people who share your passion and are perhaps in the same
position as you, and above all, it’s really really fun!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="normal" style="line-height: 13pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Emily Rose translates from French and
Spanish into English and is currently writing her dissertation on the
translation of gender in a 17<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>century
French text. Contact her here:<a href="https://ueaexchange.uea.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=E21jHDQzokON8oa9ypOtRs09yK86ZdAIBmlsE_ZdI8dU4HZPYhYq-CqZWWV6677MPPhG7mkNNCw.&URL=mailto%3aemilylindarose%40gmail.com" target="_blank"><span class="hyperlinkchar"><span style="color: blue;">emilylindarose@gmail.com</span></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-36265332463803762882013-05-16T08:16:00.000+01:002013-05-16T08:16:00.366+01:00This novel is absurd and unreal… oh wait! It’s set in Mexico
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Crime fiction is a genre of
literature that it’s full with cultural references, we all know that, but what
happens when these cultural references, that in the source culture sound normal
and natural, sound completely absurd and impossible in the target culture?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the things that
differentiate a crime fiction novel from one country to the other is how the
crime is handled. Let’s take Mexico for example. Mexico is a country in which
the police cannot be trusted. They are corrupt and even worse than the
criminals themselves. In the majority of Mexican crime fiction novels, even
though the main detective is part of the police force, policemen are there to
make the investigation more complicated. They do it either by not wanting to
work or by trying to talk the detective out of the case. This behaviour is
completely normal for the Mexican reader but it might be very strange for an
external reader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To look at this more closely let’s
look at an example from Martin Solares’ novel: The Black Minutes. (2006). This
novel contains a vast quantity of cultural aspects that would be seen as
strange for other cultures. There is one in particular that could cause so. At
one point in the novel the main detective gets into a fistfight with one of his
colleagues because he is doing some research on a closed case. The co-worker
does not want the main detective to find out more about what happened many
years ago, because he solved the case by blaming an innocent man of the crime.
The problem is not that the co-worker put an innocent man in jail and he is
afraid of others finding out. If the other policeman found out nothing will
really happen because the Mexican police is just focus on blaming someone no
matter whether that person is guilty or not. The real problem is that that
co-worker received a big amount of money for putting that person in jail and he
does not want to lose the money (because In Mexico in order to make the police
“work” the government needs to promise them extra money to keep them
motivated). The main detective is looking into this case because he is working
on a murder that could be related.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
could look as absurd for others would be the reaction of both detectives.
Instead of handling the problem as civilized people they start a fistfight in
the middle of the office. Everyone, including the chief of the police, is
watching the fight without doing anything to try to stop it. The fight
concludes with the main detective running out of the office with a broken leg
while the other policeman tells him to get out of it or otherwise he won’t live
for long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fist fighting and the lack of
formality are completely normal to the Mexican reader. In Mexico the police
forces are uneducated; therefore they use street Spanish and have no sense of
respect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All these cultural differences
could cause a misunderstanding to the reader in other culture. He/She might
consider the novel to be silly, and we as translators have the responsibility
to produce a target text that would be received with a similar impact as the
source text has.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Andrea González Garza translates
from English to Latin American Spanish. She is currently doing an M.A in Literary
Translation in the University of East Anglia. You can contact here:
Ahndiee@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-37137742647402684702013-05-09T14:48:00.000+01:002013-05-09T14:48:00.228+01:00The Translator’s Observation
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Writers/translators
or the relationship between translating and writing is something that really
interests me. This semester, I had the opportunity to explore it in my Case
Studies essay on ‘hard-boiled fiction’. Even writing this blog post, I’m still
thinking, in the same way as a detective about how to write my essay. I still
have time – today is the 15<sup>th</sup> of April, the deadline is the 24<sup>th</sup>
of April and my case is not yet solved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">In April 2013, I came
across news of Murakami’s new novel on the internet. The book is called </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="JA" style="font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年</span></i><span lang="EN-US">shikisai wo motanai tasaki tsukuru to kare no junrei no toshi [Colorless
Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage] by Haruki Murakami. His previous
novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1Q84, </i>which was based on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>George Orwell’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>, achieved record sales that rivalled well as
his other novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Norwegian Wood</i>.
Since the publisher announced the release of the new novel, Japanese readers have
been desperate to read it; needless to say, that includes me. Murakami is one
of the most popular writers in Japan. He is also one of the few world-famous
Japanese writers – I think it’s generally agreed that he is the best Japanese
writers outside Japan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Murakami is also
known as a translator: he translates mainly American literature into Japanese including
novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Tim O'Brien and
J. D. Salinger. According to Rubin (2012: 103), Murakami has learnt a lot about
writing fiction and fiction itself through the process of translation. As
Steiner states, ‘[i]n a very specific way, the translator “re-experiences” the
evolution of language itself, the ambivalence of the relationship between
language and world, between “languages” and “worlds”’(1998: 246). Presumably,
translation has enhanced his writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Several years ago,
Murakami published his first translation of Raymond Chandler’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Long Goodbye. </i>It can be said that
Murakami’s fiction had long been influenced by Chandler, as he is said that he has
been a fan since his teens. Indeed, Murakami made use of the word ‘hard-boiled’
style for one of his books <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hard-Boiled
Wonderland and the End of the World</i>, a fiction constituted by detective pop
narrative. Moreover, Murakami described the narrative structure of one of his
novels, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wild Sheep Chase</i> as being deeply
influenced by Chandler (see Rubin 2012: 81). However, the most important thing
Murakami has learnt form Chandler is, I think, a perspective or an; in other
word, he sees the world in the same way that Chandler’s detective Philip
Marlowe sees it, with an objective level gaze. I see evidence of this not only
in his fiction but also in his translations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">Thinking about the
translation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Long Goodbye</i>, there
are two Japanese versions in Japan: one by Murakami in 2007 and another by
Shimizu in 1958. The significant difference between the two translations is
their strategies for translating. In Shimizu’s version, I found many parts of
the source text are omitted by the translator. On the other hand, in Murakami’s
translation he makes his translation much more complete. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Therefore, Murakami’s translation comes to be
longer than Shimizu’s.) Murakami’s strategy is close to a ‘literal
translation.’: in other words, Murakami is more faithful to the original text –
he serves the original writer (Murakami and Shibata 2000: 20). He tried to
disappear listening the Chandler’s original voice and attempting to see the
world through his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US">To me, Murakami
seems a little like Marlowe himself, a detective, a cool observer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Hiromitsu Koiso
translates from English into Japanese. His literary interests include world
literature, exophony and translation as a creative form of text making.
Contact: hirokoikoi@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8978886115770541059.post-25841118469627135592013-05-02T13:50:00.000+01:002013-05-02T13:50:00.347+01:00Chinese Children's Literature
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">China has
lots of stories. There are all sorts of fantastic tales, about monsters,
warriors, ghosts and heroes. It's got the one about the naughty Monkey, who
goes on a great journey and fights all the time. It's got the one about the
cowherd who falls in love with a goddess. There's a festival in China that
celebrates their love. There's the one about a lady who lives forever on the
moon, with a rabbit and a lumberjack who can't chop down the cinnamon tree. The
stories capture the imagination of children across China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember wanting to read about them when I
was at school. But these are old stories. They're really more like folk-tales.
You can read them in English, some I did, but they aren't so much translated
into English as being written as an English 'version'. There are lots of new
ones in China that are popular with children too, but what I want to know is
whether or not they can be read in English. Can they excite children who read
English in the same way?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Over the
last few months I have been investigating translated children's literature from
mainland China. It hasn't been easy. I know that there is a lot of it in
mainland China; the four classics (</span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">三国演义</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">-<i>San
Guo Yan Yi</i></span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">,水浒传</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">-<i>Shui Hu Zhuan</i></span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">,西游记</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">-<i>Xi You Ji</i></span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">,红楼梦</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">-<i>Hong Lou Meng</i></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">) all have numerous children's
versions and picture books, readily available in book shops, supermarkets and
street markets. Writers such as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bing
Xin, Zhang Tianyi, Sun Youjun, Sheng Ye, Zheng Yuanjie, Zhou Rui and many more
besides are familiar names in China as children's literature writers. There is
also a wealth of online Chinese literature aimed at young adults; if you look
them up on book.kanunu.org you will find they are added regularly, and there
are plenty of sites that you can find through Baidu (</span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">百度一下您就知道</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">). The
problem is – an this could be because I haven't looked in the right place –
that I can't find much of it in English translation (I think only Sun Youjian
has some of his works translated and published that you can find on Amazon...).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">One<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>children's story that I have found from
mainland China and translated into English is in a collection of Ye Shengtao's
works. It's perhaps pertinent to note that Ye is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>one of the founders of children's literature
in China, or </span><span style="font-family: SimSun;">童话-</span><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">tonghua, </span></i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">which up until the 1920s did not
exist. Children read literature before this, of course, but they read the same
literature as adults. <i>Tonghua </i>came about when China was trying to adapt
to new ideas from foreign countries. The notion that children were different
from, and had different needs to, adults was one of these ideas (for more on
this see Dr Ho Laino's essay 'Children's Literature -Then and Now, 1997). This
idea seems to have stuck, as there are lots of stories and books published in
China, in Chinese, with children in mind. But what I want to know is why does
it seem like hardly any of it, if any at all, has been translated for children
in English?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">I've been
looking to the translation of Ye's '</span><span style="font-family: SimSun; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">稻草人</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">’ - <i>Dao Cao Ren</i> – to find out
more, as it is arguably his most famous children's story. The translation by
Ying Yishi was published in 1987. I've got to admit, the story is an odd one
for a children's story, and I'm not sure it's the most likeable one I've ever
read. I don't think that as a child (spoiler alert) that I'd like to have read
about a girl who gets sold by her alcoholic father and commits suicide, and
about a sweet old lady whose husband and son have died tragically, who's lost
her money and whose crops are destroyed. Even the helpful scarecrow of the
story can do nothing, and in despair drops down in the dirt of the field. It's
a bleak tale, and the translation doesn't sugar-coat it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">But the
translation is interesting. It captures the tone of the original, that of a
children's tale, very well. The issue that I have with it is that it was put
into a collection with Ye's adult literature – <i>How Mr Pan Weathered the
Storm</i>. Its publication like this suggests to me that the translation was
more about preserving Chinese 'Literature' in English than about translating a Chinese
children's story for children to read. The translation also omits a religious
reference from the original, which is perhaps politically motivated, and the
scarecrow talks of how he wants to cook up something nutritious, which is
translated in a way that would not sound very delicious to a child in English
(grub guts and gruel anyone?). I get the impression that although the original
was written with children in mind at the time, its translation in 1987 did not
share this aim.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">Because of
its<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>content, it seems like an odd story
to translate for children. But why is it one of the only Chinese children's
stories in English translation? Julia Lovell, in her article last February for
Prospect magazine, noted that anglophone publishers were generally only
interested in publishing something which incites controversy -'either sex or
politics; and ideally both'. It could be that these publishers think this way
because it is what readers want; sex and politics. I've been exploring
translating children's literature in terms of Gideon Toury's norms theory, and
perhaps such desires are the stronger literary norms in anglophone
cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe chinese literature, and
even more so for its sub-genres, is marginalised in English. If this is the
case, then I see very little hope for literature which is both 'Chinese' and
'children's literature' being translated into English and published.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">I am,
however, willing to think otherwise. There might be a cornicopia of children's
literature translated into English out there, and perhaps I just haven't come
across it yet. If so, I would love to hear about it and I would love to read
some of it. I hope that there is lots out there, and that there is lots more on
the way. The sheer size of the country suggests that China has all sorts of
interesting people with interesting things to say, and with all sorts of
interesting ways of saying them. I know that China has lots of stories to tell,
and lots of children's stories that can capture the imagination, and I want to
read more of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun;">Thomas
Newell translates from Chinese into English, and is currently a studying for an
MA in Literary Translation at the UEA as well as an interning for Arc
Publications. Contact thomashenrynewell@gmail.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Lit Trans at UEAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02627051308397666975noreply@blogger.com0