TranscUlturAl (Journal)
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Wanted - An Italian Husband
No full textEnglish translation of key passages from Voglio un Marito Italiano, a novel written in Italian by Marina Sorina
Dancing with Myriam: Creating and Staging a New Metaphor for the Process of Translation
No full textThis article tells the story, and analyzes the development, of a “staged metaphor” for the translation process, from its chance inception over ten years ago, to the more recent revision and staging of the script. In 2005, I was teaching world literature at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, while also researching the writing of Irish and North African women. I chose to focus on those women writing in Irish, Tachelhit, Arabic, or French, whose work had been translated into English. I was initially inspired by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill’s poem, “The Language Issue,” which compares the "sending forth" of her writing to a potential reader, to the story of Moses being discovered by Pharoah’s daughter. My ultimate goal was to produce a chamber theatre play, based on the Irish and North African texts, which would dramatize a metaphor for the translation process. This was an outgrowth of my doctoral work, in which I had drawn on oral interpretation theorists, who see the performance of literary texts as an accepted means of doing literary criticism. Accordingly, I also expanded the project to include the observations of translation theorists, and I incorporated these into the creation of the script for a chamber theatre performance. After directing a staging of the script in Morocco in 2007, I realized that I needed to add more choreographed movement, and to incorporate the character of Moses’s and Myriam’s mother into the metaphor. The addition of dance, and the foregrounding of the relationship between Myriam and her mother, draws unapologetically on female relationships. It is my conclusion that the revised metaphor, with the addition of these elements, is validated by Yves Bonnefoy’s and Henri Meschonnic\u27s depictions of “translation as relationship with an author,” and that, the metaphor does indeed “provide . . . fresh insights.
Meaning in (Translated) Popular Fiction: An Analysis of Hyper-Literal Translation in Clive Barker’s Le Royaume des Devins
No full textMost translation theorists agree that source text fidelity results in a translation that aptly transmits the foreign cultural values and meaning embedded within the source language to a target culture. While the preservation of foreignness might be beneficial for the propagation of international artistic diversity, when translating works of popular fiction, domestication is key to a novel’s successful incorporation into the target literary system. In popular fiction translation, the goal is accessibility rather than artistic influence or cultural exchange, yet the necessary domestication can be problematic. This article examines the reception of the English-to-French translation of an epic fantasy novel by Clive Barker. Online reviews written by the French-speaking readership describe the translated text as aberrant of Barker’s oeuvre and incomprehensible. While it may be easy to dismiss this translation as yet another example of poor translation practices, knowing that the translator, Jean-Daniel Brèque, is an award-winning translator and that he has translated many works by other popular artists such as Stephen King and Dan Simmons points the blame elsewhere. An analysis of Jean-Daniel Brèque’s translation of Weaveworld reveals the detrimental effect that strict adherence to the source text can have on the reception of popular literature in translation and affirms that domestication is necessary to transform the source text into a version digestible and understandable by the target audience
CONCRETE IMPRESSIONS: A POETIC VISION OF CUBAN GRAFFITI
No full textFor those familiar with the sight of Cuban streets, particularly that of Havana, the photos represented in this series of short poems will not be of surprise seeming as different forms of graffiti seen in words, phrases from famous revolutionaries, or quotations from Cuban patriarchs are a common sight and form of political and ideological expression in Cuban culture. Graffiti in this sense sparks not a feeling of societal rebellion in Cuba, but rather takes a very different place in urban Cuban culture promoting often revolutionary ideologies of the past through historical figures and words plastered along concrete walls and structures. Concrete walls, often the urban back drop of such graffiti, takes the form of a common motif throughout these five poems. Concrete represents a structure of durability and consistency that appeals to the message of graffiti throughout the island. Within such a metaphorical statement erupts a scandal of image versus reality in Cuban society, a society which arguably sees revolutionary ideology at work on walls perhaps at times more than within Cuba\u27s growing modern culture that eagerly seeks ways to break through the old concrete ridden streets. That is to say, one is left to question whether the image on the concrete is as "concrete" as it appears
The Power of the Periphery: Reassessing Spatial Metaphors in the Ideological Positioning of the Translator
No full textPositionality in translation is often framed in terms of spatial metaphors, using such concepts as the “periphery,” the “in between,” and the “borderlands,” among many others. Given that the Latin root for the word “translation,” \u27translatio,\u27 means “to carry across,” this tendency to think of the translator’s position in the concrete terms of travel through physical space is not surprising. However, because the movement of information and ideas no longer requires material transportation, it may no longer be theoretically useful to approach positionality in such concrete terms, and thus a reassessment and re-contextualization of these spatial metaphors is needed. Moreover, the sociological turn’s growing awareness of the translator’s contextual embeddedness reinforces the need to re-conceptualize positionality, shifting away from notions of physical space and toward an ideological construct. Indeed, upon closer examination, these spatial metaphors often prove problematic in several ways, not the least of which being the common undertone of peripherality that readily associates translation with marginality and subjugation. This article analyzes some of the spatial metaphors commonly used in translation scholarship in order to interrogate what they can contribute to a reformulation of the translator’s position in ideological rather than spatial terms. Turning to systems theory for a more nuanced and applicable take on peripherality and centrality, translation is removed from the subordinate position associated with physical notions of the periphery and shifted instead to an ideological position as an agent of inter- and intrasystemic transfer. The translator navigates the systemic periphery, a dynamic, fluid space of intersystemic overlap and interaction, but does not remain there. The translator’s position is therefore both a shifting and powerful one, as translating the peripheral experience of confronting otherness into the centre results in the need to reformulate the Self, for the individual as well as potentially on a larger, systemic level
Translating Prešeren\u27s ‘Wreath of Sonnets’: Formal Aspects
No full textThis article describes and evaluates a co-authored translation of France Prešeren’s “Sonetni venec [A Wreath of Sonnets]” (1834), which has been translated once before into English, namely by Vivian de Sola Pinto in 1954. Having sketched the background to the undertaking, the author describes the structure of “Wreaths of Sonnets” in general and mentions some examples from English literature. He then places “Sonetni venec” in Prešeren’s oeuvre. Next, he exemplifies two other translations of “Wreaths” into English (one from Danish, the second from Czech). Most of the article is devoted to the strategy employed in this latest undertaking, a very complex and challenging one. Three particular problems had to be solved, given that the aim was to produce a translation that, formally, would be as close near feasible to the original. The first involved metre: Prešeren’s original was in iambic pentameters with feminine rhymes in line-finals; the translators chose to reject feminine rhymes, and their reasons are provided. Second, which particular frequently-recurrent rhymes would be chosen, given that one had to occur 24 times and another 18 times? This choice, also, is described. Third, Prešeren’s original has an acrostic in the Master Theme: we decided to attempt one in our version. The whole evaluation, which is some details compares this translation with the one by Pinto, is limited to an extremely formal framework
Faking Translation in Hallstatt: A Visit to Hallstatt Revisited I
No full textNorbert Artner’s Hallstatt Revisited I is a series of ten large colour photographs taken in a southern China “copy town" for display in the original Austrian village that was copied. In our contribution, we show how Artner’s series represents a kind of “21st-century urbanism with Chinese characteristics” and makes clear the need to distinguish among different forms of copying
Graffiti Silence
No full textThese tricontinental ekphrastic poems feature graffiti art(ists) that have caught my heart off guard. The first poem titled “Graffiti of Silence” is a response to the anonymous “listen bird”, ubiquitous in Edmonton\u27s urban geography from 2003 to about 2008. Stenciled, spray painted or stickered, it always featured a speech bubble with one word: listen. It quickly became part of Edmonton’s local iconography, but the city’s Graffiti Management Program managed to eliminate the bird from its streets, but not from public memory. The second ekphrasis titled “The Fisherman” features the work of El niño de las pinturas (Raúl Ruiz), an internationally-renowned graffiti artist based in Granada, Spain. Known for his large-scale wall murals which are almost always accompanied by his own poetic text, he dresses the skin of this city in sienna strokes, covers its bruises with layers of light, becoming a source of symbolic pride for Granada. The third poem, “Monsters in Montevideo,” is inspired by Alfalfa (Nicolás Sánchez), an iconic street artist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. His unique style uses organic lines and bright colours to create fantastical creatures that add a sense of play and surprise to many of the city’s streets. These three ekphrastic poems are an attempt to translate the poetic experience of viewing street art. Through poetry, the impermanent art of graffiti is rendered immortal as a self-portrait of each city and each spectator
Beyond Translating French into English: Experiences of a Non-Native Translator
No full textThis paper documents a non-native translator’s experience in an academic setting, focusing on the challenges of translating different kinds of texts from French into English at the Institute of Languages, Makerere University. Makerere Institute of Languages (MIL) is composed of four clusters: Foreign Languages, African Languages, Communication Skills and Secretarial Studies, Service Courses and Soft Skills (Wagaba 97). The services offered include teaching language skills and culture to university students and the general public; communication skills to people who want to improve in English, French, German, Arabic, Swahili and local languages; and translation and interpretation in the languages mentioned above. These services are offered at this institute because there is no other well-recognised institution in Uganda that engages in translation or interpretation, yet there is always a big demand for them. The emphasis in this study is on teachers of French who also render translation services to a wide range of clients at the Institute of Languages. The main focus is on the experiences and opinions of non-native translators. The aim is to highlight the challenges a non-native translator encounters in the process of translating different categories of documents from French into English for purposes of validation of francophone students’ academic documents and their placement in Uganda universities, verification of academic qualification of teachers from francophone countries who come to Uganda in search of teaching jobs, and mutual understanding at international conferences held in Uganda whose delegates come from francophone countries. Selected texts will be critically examined to illustrate the specific challenges a non-native speaker encounters while translating from and into a language or languages which are not his/her first language or mother tongue. The paper deals with the following questions: What does the process of translating involve? What are the challenges encountered? Does every fluent French language teacher qualify to be a competent translator? What factors determine ‘competence’ in translation? What are the limitations faced in an academic setting? The discussion is based on the premise that competence in translation requires linguistic and intercultural competence, among other competencies. The outcome contributes to the understanding that translation in any setting is ultimately a human activity, which enables human beings to exchange information and enhance knowledge transfer regardless of cultural and linguistic differences