TranscUlturAl (Journal)
Not a member yet
272 research outputs found
Sort by
Alexander’s Gate and the Unclean Nations: Translation, Textual Appropriation, and the Construction of Barriers
No full textThe Alexander Romance and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius deserve a place in any discussion of the impact of the translator’s work on the construction of memory in multicultural societies. Both works are remarkable as the products and the objects of translation throughout the middle ages. Successive recensions of the Alexander Romance were translated, either from the original Greek or from Latin translations, into numerous vernacular languages until there were popular versions of the Romance in circulation from Iceland to Indonesia. The Apocalypse was first written in Syriac at the isolated monastery of Singara, but under the impulse of the initial Arab conquests it was translated into Greek and then Latin for a readership that stretched from one end of the Mediterranean to the other; translations into various vernaculars were made throughout the middle ages in places as far apart as England and Russia. The remarkable extent to which translation made both the Romance and the Apocalypse available to ever wider audiences has long been recognized. What has not necessarily been appreciated to the same extent is the cultural impact of these translations, especially in regard to the contact and conflict of cultures. I would like to redress this neglect by drawing attention to the implications of a single episode, one borrowed from the Apocalypse into a later recension of the Romance and perhaps the most famous incident in either work: Alexander walling up the Unclean Nations, the agents of the End Times, beyond the Mountains of the North. Up to the appearance of this incident Alexander had been seen, as he perhaps still is, as a conqueror who extended not only his own realm, but the cultural sphere of the Greeks as well, drawing barbarian peoples into the civilized world of the oikoumene. Under the impact of the Arab conquests, I will argue, Alexander was given the very different, but just as formidable, task of excluding foreign and exotic peoples from a world which was ideally homogeneous, represented by his confining of the Unclean Nations. This act symbolizes the reaction which characterized the next several centuries of Byzantine strategy, of retrenchment, defense of the frontiers, and assimilation of all deviant groups (pagans, heretics, and Jews) within the borders. The memory of Alexander inspired by repeated translations of the Romance and Apocalypse spawned this xenophobic response not only in Byzantium, but throughout Europe, until the Turks were at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Perhaps its legacy can still be discerned today in the inclination toward eschatological hysteria provoked by the perceived aggression of the Muslim world
A Mother-in-law / Princess Smiley
No full textEnglish translation of a feuilleton and a poem written in Polish by Magdalena Samozwaniec
“Hey Guys , Once Upon a Time was Sexist Language ...”
No full textThis article adopts a contrastive approach and focuses on sexist practices in language – in French and in English – affecting women. It investigates the extent to which these practices are embedded in both languages, along with the recommendations the communities speaking those languages make to encourage the use of a more inclusive language. It also centers on the use of non-sexist language by James Finn Garner in his politically correct bedtime stories and their translations, as a practical case study revealing the challenge that reformulating sexist language into non-sexist language poses, not only on an intralingual level, but also on an interlingual level
The Slovak Stories of Timrava and their English Translation
No full textBožena Slančíková Timrava (1867-1951) is an eminent Slovak writer. Her highly regarded realistic novels dealt with the rise of the modern Slovak nation. The intricate historical circumstances of the early 20th century, and the eventual emergence of the Slovak nation within complex European culture, made Timrava’s effort even more important. Due to the multicultural nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Timrava’s work is also meaningful in our trans-national and trans-cultural Global village. Timrava and other Slovak literary women were virtually unknown outside Slovakia until the extensive work done by Professor Norma L. Rudinsky (1928-2012), whose translation of six “Slovak stories by Timrava” was published in1992. However to truly understand and appreciate the importance of Timrava’s work, the English-speaking reader needed cultural and historical context. Rudinsky’s life-long effort culminated in the publication of “Incipient Feminists: Women Writers in theSlovak National Revival,” which was meant as a preamble to the works of Timrava for the English-speaking world. This paper introduces the life and work of Timrava within the intricate historical context of Slovak nation-building. It further outlines the importance of Rudinsky’s work and describes some interesting aspects of her translation. Attempting to present a practical cultural and historical approach to translation, the paper stresses the significance of so called ‘cultural grids’ and identifies the key elements, the ‘historical grids’, as well as author’s and translator’s biography, all within the wider context of the translator’s historical and sociological ‘matrix’ which ultimately determines the success of any translation of realistic historical literature
Translating Women’s Silences
No full textAnita Desai’s latest story collection, The Artist of Disappearance, includes a novella titled “Translator, Translated.” In it, a naïve young woman begs a former classmate, who now runs a publishing house, to give her the chance to render a beloved Oriya author into English: “She is such a great writer and no one here even knows her name. It is very sad but I am sure if you publish a translation of her work, she will become as well-known as – as – Simone de Beauvoir!” (Desai 2011, 58). It is no accident that the great feminist theorist is referenced here; gender and translation have long been closely linked. Translation makes it possible for us finally to see the previously invisible, hear the previously unheard, countering at least some of the effects of linguistic, cultural and gendered obscurity, but these acts of transmission or transcreation are often problematic. Important questions need to be addressed: who chooses what gets translated? Into which languages? From which languages and cultures? Who dares speaks for whom? What is my own complicity?
This paper will briefly discuss some very different examples of my work in the area of “women in translation”, such as helping bring to light previously unknown women’s voices from India’s Orissa province, suggesting non-existing readings that (if only they did exist) might have allowed women’s silence to be broken in inspiring ways, and bearing witness to the great range of responses to Classical Japanese women’s writing through exploration of its highly complex Western translation history
The Factor of Author\u27s Reputation in Retranslations: Edgar Allan Poe on the Turkish Literary Scene
No full textThis paper investigates the validity of André Lefevere’s assumption that “a canonized author is translated more on his own terms (according to his own poetics) than on those of the receiving system” (2000: 237) through a case study of Edgar Allan Poe retranslations in the Turkish literary system. The first part of the paper includes extratextual analysis carried out according to Gérard Genette’s categorization of “metatexts” and “paratexts,” and a further category which includes the social media. Poe’s poetics and the poetics of the Turkish literary system, as well as Poe’s reception in the system are explored through extratextual analysis to determine whether Poe gained more canonicity or reputation. The extratextual analysis reveals the author’s increasing influence, reception and reputation in the Turkish literary system over a time span of almost ninety years. The second part of the paper presents the textual analysis of Poe’s two tales, “Hop-Frog” and “The Masque of the Red Death”, in eight translations published between 1928 and 2002. Textual analysis serves to reveal whether Poe was translated more according to his own poetics as he became more reputable in the target literary system. The paper concludes that factors other than reputation of an author have also a role to play in translating an author according to his own poetics
