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Missionary position: The grammar of Philippine colonial sexualities as a locus of translation
No full textIn this paper, I shall examine how Spanish missionaries during the colonial period described the sexual mores of early Filipinos in missionary grammars and vocabularies, and how such description should also be regarded as a locus of translation. Since these missionaries wrote the first systematic analyses of the languages of the archipelago to aid their work of evangelizing early Filipinos, it is in their writings that sexualities were first interrogated through the lens of a colonial religion and polity. By looking into the lexicographical approaches for defining sex-related terms in a Tagalog missionary dictionary, and the authorial choices in incorporating sexualities in two bilingual confession guides, I shall argue that proselytization served as an important translational constraint that created a space where Filipino sexualities were exoticized, and where a particular vision of colonial polity was articulated from a privileged position of colonial rule
Handmaidens to Translators versus Feminist Solidarity – Opposing Politics of Translation in the Galician Literary System
No full textLori Chamberlain’s eye-opening article “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation”, originally published in 1988, first described translators in general as “handmaidens to authors”. This fruitful analysis helped open up interesting avenues for feminist translation. On the one hand, it highlighted the need for a reformulation of the actual theoretical concepts underlying traditional translation theory; while on the other, it opened up questions regarding the status of women translators in practice. However, further studies have questioned this idea of the translator as female and inferior. For example, postcolonial approaches have shown that Western translators have usually exercised their power to interpret the Other in ways that were complicit with colonial endeavours. It is in this framework that this article explores the power implications of translation for the Galician literary system. The Galician literary system may be interesting as it can be seen as a non-hegemonic system (inside Europe) or a hegemonic one (outside Europe). The analysis of two translations, that of Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea by Manuel Forcadela, and that of Sandra Cisneros’ Loose Woman by Marilar Aleixandre shall explore two opposing trends. The first one is a trend in which the discourse of the non-hegemonic position of Galician actually allows for patriarchal and colonial interventions in translation, while the other one takes feminist solidarity as a base for a relationship with the female postcolonial Other
What is Gained in Subtitling: How Film Subtitles Can Expand the Source Text
No full textThe problem of translation and loss is a cardinal concern in translation studies. Conventional wisdom tells us that translation must necessarily entail loss. However, some translation studies scholars have argued that translation can yield significant originality in the target text. Christiane Nord, for one, argues that literary translators can claim authorial presence by actually causing the source text to “grow” in a way that is quantitative and qualitative. Although Nord’s idea applies mainly to literary translation, it raises questions about how this could apply to translations of other types of creative source texts, such as audio/visual translation. The format of interlingual subtitling between two disparate languages, such as English and Japanese, burdens translation with severe constraints and considerable loss text is taken for granted. But what is lost? Meaning? Nuance? This paper argues that these need not be lost in subtitling. In fact, by applying Nord’s model of source text growth to subtitling, we can see how subtitling produces new value to the source text. Through a close analysis of the Japanese subtitles of the 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, this paper will demonstrate that despite the severe constraints placed on the translation found in film subtitling, subtitles can promote “qualitative growth” by transferring the poetic function of the source text into new configurations in the target text, prompting target text viewers to interpret content in new ways
Staying Alive and Finding the Balance - An Interview with Scholar-Translator Dr. Kathryn Hellerstein
No full textAn interview with Kathryn Hellerstein, a translator of Yiddish poetry into English, a poet, and a professor of Yiddish at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted on March 11th, 2015
The Translation of Images and Words in the Asterix Comic Books
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Adriano da Silva has a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics (Translation) at the Institute of Language Studies of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, and currently he’s a PhD student in Translation at the same University. His field of research is Comics Translation. He has presented and published several works on Translation and Comics at congresses and symposiums in Brazil. His post-graduation studies have allowed him to delve into paramount areas such as Applied Linguistics, Semiotics, Psychology, Anthropology, Communication and, of course, Translation, always associating this knowledge to comics research. In 2014 he worked as assistant professor in a two-month training course on Translation, offered to the general public at Unicamp.
Abstract
There are few academic papers exploring the possibilities of the translation in multisemiotic environments, like the Comics, although the consumption of them is increasing, including the translated ones. In the comics, the images, as the words, have different meanings in each society and, therefore, need to be considered in translation. Images, words and exclusive comic elements (ECE) - as the balloon or onomatopoeia - represent a major challenge to the translator, especially when the images and the ECE cannot be modified by copyright issues. The aim of this study was to understand how non-verbal elements affect the translator\u27s choices. The methodology was qualitative, documentary, descriptive and interpretive, i.e. dependent on the sensibility and interpretation of the researcher. Data analysis was conducted using four printed comic albums of the French character Asterix, with their versions in the original language and their translations for the Brazilian public. The research has been proved fruitful and profitable because it required, in addition to the theoretical foundation in the field of translation studies, the search for other theories in the fields of Arts, Applied Linguistics, Semiotics and others. Special emphasis was given to Multimodality and Paratranslation, theoretical tools that allow rethinking of the images and translations. As a result, it was concluded that the images and ECE really influence the translator\u27s choices, since their work and freedom are limited to places such as interior of balloons, the title, the footnotes and other rare places in a frame. More than limited, the translation has to fit into spaces originally not planned for it. And it must be in "harmony" with the images and what the ECE are "saying" in each frame and in the general context of the album, strip, cartoon or any of the possible genres of the Comic Supergenre. The translator, therefore, must not only know the source/target languages and cultures, but must also know the pictorial elements and other semiotic and symbolic systems that affect the numerous social contexts that arise in the interplay between images, ECE and words
Translating Feminism into Telugu: A Socio-Historical Study of Agents
No full textRajkumar Eligedi is working as an Assistant Professor at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, KSA. He has worked as an Assistant Professor at Symbiosis International University from 2015 Dec to 2016 January. He is recently graduated from the English and Foreign Languages University with a Ph.D. in English (Translation Studies). He worked on gender in translations at Technische Universität Dresden (TUD) for a semester. He has made presentations on translating feminism, and Dalit feminism at NeMLA in New York, Stuttgart, and Potsdam.
Abstract The study attempts to understand the role of intermediary agencies in the area of translating global feminist knowledge into the Telugu society. Identifying translators, organizations, publishing houses and magazines as such agencies, it provides an analysis of the Skopos (purpose) and function of this feminist knowledge. The study further discusses the intentions/ ideologies of agents in using translation as a significant socio-political instrument in the construction of the feminist discourse in the Telugu society. While demonstrating how translation was used as a transmitter for the circulation and distribution of feminist ideas in the Telugu society, it will try and gauge the influence of International feminist thinking on Telugu feminist translators, writers and activists. It also throws light on the opposition met in translating feminist ideas into Telugu, and the intellectual efforts and resistance provided by the feminist translators, writers, activists and publishers as agents of social change, thereby bringing acceptability to the discussion on feminism in public sphere is also attempted. The study attempts to discuss “feminism” as a travelling concept journeying from one space to another through translation: from socio-political contexts across the world to the Telugu context and vice versa. The first significant feminist translator in Telugu was Volga. To protest against male domination, she left revolutionary organizations and began translating feminist texts and ideas into the Telugu language. Basic concepts of feminism like patriarchy, oppression, sexuality, motherhood, reproductive rights and sexual freedom were worked on to educate and enlighten progressive groups and others. This was met with severe criticism. Numerous translators like, Popuri Lalitha Kumari, popularly known through her penname as Volga, P. Satyavathi, a few organizations like, Stree Shakti Sanghatana, Feminist Study Circle, Anveshi and Asmita, the publishing houses like Hyderabad Book Trust, and magazines like Bhumika and Mahila Margam played a key role in translating feminist ideas and bringing their acceptability to the discourse on feminism in Telugu. In the globalised world, ideas travel from one setting to another including from one language to another, one culture to another and one society to a different one. Feminist ideas, just like all other ideas and ideologies, have travelled across the world through translations. Likewise their ‘travel’ from the international context into the Telugu society was necessitated by the needs of women and demands of women’s movement. Ideas of feminism have travelled across the world through translation in the context of the international feminist movement. Ideas are considered important determinants of change in a society. We need to consciously acknowledge Telugu Feminists in their characteristic role in trying to bring social change to the existing patriarchal society by introducing a certain version of feminism, made accessible through translation, which combined theory with practice to the Telugu-speaking readership. They sought to do this by bringing to light painful narratives of women’s sufferings, voicing different forms of their suppression and subsequent stories of their journey to liberation from dominant patriarchal institutions. This dissertation consists of six chapters. The introductory chapter surveys debates and reviews of existing studies that lie at the critical juncture of Feminist thought and Translation Studies. The second chapter analyses Volga’s role in stimulating a debate on feminism in Telugu, through her translations, original texts and her role as an activist. Here, it particularly discusses the opposition met in translating feminist texts or ideas into Telugu and the struggles of Volga in establishing feminism as a serious discipline of thought. The third chapter discusses the emergence of feminist organizations like Stree Shakti Sanghatana, Feminist Study Circle, Anveshi and Asmita and the influence of international feminist thinking on Telugu feminist writers, translators and activists. The fourth chapter attempts to study the role of Gita Ramaswamy as a publisher of Hyderabad Book Trust (HBT) in translating the feminist knowledge into Telugu. The fifth chapter analyses the role of the translations published in two Telugu feminist magazines Mahila Margam and Bhumika between 1989 and 2008 in translating feminist ideas into Telugu. Thus, this dissertation shows how translation has played a significant role in the dispersal and dissemination of Feminist ideas and knowledge in the Telugu public sphere. As an agency of knowledge production and dispersion, its function was carried through various functionaries, both individual and institutional, and this dissertation attempted to locate them within the socio-historical frame. KEY WORDS: Feminist Translation, Agency, Ideologies, Skopos, Social Change, Translation Historiography, History of Ideas, Translation/Globalisation of Knowledge Completion of thesis: Place: The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India Year: 2015 Supervisor: Prof. H. Laxmi Advisors: Dr. V.B. Tharakeshwar, and Prof. K. Satyanarayana.
 
Very Feminine, Yet Unmercifully Intelligent. A Portrait of the Dutch Critic and Translator Elisabeth de Roos (1903-1981)
No full textThe Dutch author and translator Elisabeth de Roos has largely been ignored by literary historians. Nevertheless, she played a major role in the literary scene in the Netherlands between 1925 and 1955. She was a very productive and respected essayist, critic, journalist and translator, but in the rearview mirror of literary history her husband Eddy du Perron outshined her. The contemporary gender discourse, in which de Roos herself took part, created a blind spot for the contribution to innovation and poetical conceptualisation of female authors. The infamous journal Forum to which both she and her husband contributed was a mouthpiece for a masculine discourse: being a fellow was the highest goal. After their marriage her husband pursued his writing career, whereas de Roos took care of the household and was the family breadwinner by writing journalistic pieces instead of literary work. After her husband’s death at the start of the Second World War, de Roos started to work as a translator, a profession in which she soon gained a high degree of expertise and professionalism. She wrote lengthy and substantial essays as prefaces to her translations, revealing her thoughtful literary ideas that preferred intellect and lucidity to melodrama and sentimentality and partis pris to half-heartedness. An analysis of her translation of Wuthering Heights suggests she didn’t smoothen the source text to please the target audience, in accordance with her poetics
The Shoushtari Poem "Priceless Youth"
No full textEnglish translation of a poem written in Persian by Mohammad Ali Mehdi-Abadi (known as Salehe)