TranscUlturAl (Journal)
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Getting from Here to There
No full textThe task of translation is obviously impossible. But since we are the kind of creature that is programmed to succeed at failure, we are constantly propelled forward toward transcendence of limitation. Translation is the paradigm of all human striving, doomed to failure yet married to desire, and is therefore the inescapable expression of being human
Pottering Around: Harry Potter in Translation
No full textBy May of 2008 worldwide sales of Harry Potter books hovered around the 400 million mark, making these texts the most widely-read works of children’s literature in history. To date the books have been translated into 67 languages. Given the particular translation issues involved in the translation of these highly imaginary English texts (culture, rhymes, anagrams, acronyms, invented words, proper nouns and names, among many others) combined with the series’s incredibly lucrative sales success, it is not surprising that the international translation process has become highly competitive as well as highly problematic. Unauthorized or pirate translations, fake translations, Americanization as translation—all of these lead us to a basic questioning of the role of the translator and just how much of an impersonator s/he is required to be by the task of translation
The Translatability of English Profanity in Arabic Subtitles
No full textI declare that the abstract has not been published yet. Supervisor: Dr. Mohammad Ahmad Thawabteh Abstract The present study aims at investigating the translatability of English profanities into Arabic subtitles. The study argues that English profanities pose a translation challenge within the English-Arabic context. The data comprises three American movies, shown on MBC2, MBC4 and MBC Action from March to April, 2010, very much replete with profanities. The examples of English profanities (thirty in total) are categorised according to their occurrence in the Source Text (ST), then analysed against their Arabic subtitles. A descriptive translation approach, namely House’s (1974) model is pursued for the sake of the study. The study focuses on subtitling and reviews concepts and constraints of subtitling cultural- and lingual-related issues, taking cue from audiovisual translation (AVT) theorists, namely, Gottlieb, Delabastita, Schwartz and Karamitroglou. The study concludes that translation loss is inevitable in AVT, especially in the translation of English profanities into Arabic subtitles. Translation owes problems to the diversity existing between English and Arab cultures in terms of beliefs, traditions and linguistic values. Finally, the study reveals that English profanities into Arabic subtitles are deleted, clichéd, reduced or substituted insofar as strategies are concerned. Keywords: Audiovisual translation, subtitling, swearwords, profanity, deletion, English, Arabic
 
Quand la chair de l’interprète européenne hante la chaire des hérauts européanistes…
No full textOn the one hand, there is a great number of « national » fictions. To various degrees (patriotic, nationalistic) and consciously or not, these fictions participate in the construction of a nation. On the other hand, there are also a lot of fictions that we can characterize as cosmopolitan or postnational and which are situated outside any clear national boundaries. On the contrary, one can count very few fictions on the construction of a European supranationality. To my knowledge, Constellation by Alain Lacroix (2008) is the only one in French and that is the one I am going to write about in this essay.
My goal here is threefold. It is first to show that although the interpreter seems to play a minor role (according to the number of pages) and although she is apparently considered an insignificant quantity by both male protagonists, as her regular and obsessive return in the text proves it she is actually important since she haunts the characters sexually and ideologically. I will also show that this haunting spreads through the whole novel through the issue of the interpretation of signs. The second goal is to show that the interpreter, who is explicitly presented as an impersonation of Europe, actually incarnates the ambivalence of any « europeanist » project. She is indeed a bridge not only between two languages & cultures but also between both faces of any European policy. The first one, concrete, tries to incorporate the real life of the Europeans, their daily concerns which themselves are often inscribed within their « national habitus», and the other one to exceed it within a transnational project which is often perceived as too abstract. Finally, I will conclude showing how Constellation “foreignizes” (Venuti, 2008, 6) its translation of the European realities, not by its choices but by the choice of avant-garde esthetic techniques
Translating Alejandro Morales’ Reto en el paraiso into French : the Implications of Translating a Spanglish Text as well as its cultural dimensions.
No full textThis thesis first analyses the context and linguistic mechanisms of Spanglish within Chicano literature. Then the issue of multilingual translation is examined through the case study of A. Morales’ Reto en el paraiso. After looking into the many difficulties stemming from the translation of a Spanglish text into a third language, namely French, I will propose my own translation of the first chapter of the novel. In general, a foreignizing approach was preferred, although some complexities of Spanglish occasionally forced the translator to adopt a more domesticating approach. In sum, this dissertation endeavours to provide practical as well as theoretical answers to the challenges of translating multilingual texts.
 
Translation: Unlocking the Mystique of Change—a theoretical experiment on “translation” as “postcolonial identity” in cultural globalization, with a case study on Hong Kong postcoloniality through the Infernal Affairs film series
No full textDr Cynthia Sau-kuen Tsui is currently teaching as Assistant Professor in translation at the School of Chinese, University of Hong Kong
Abstract
This is a project about “translation” and the “intermediate”. Translation has often been described as something occurring in the middle “black box”—as a highly sophisticated operation in the translator’s mind that turns a “source text” into a “target text”. In theoretical terms, this means a complex trans-lingual and cross-cultural process that involves linguistic interchange and cultural transfer, constituting an epistemological and ontological reorganization of meanings. This thesis attempts to probe into the mysterious “black box”, by investigating the concept of “translation” as transition, mediation, negotiation and rewritings between linguistic, cultural, national boundaries and beyond. The idea of “translation” hence acquires autonomy in the theoretical perspective: as a third, active and independent agency that facilitates a dynamic dialogue and explicates vital phenomena in the hidden yet crucial space of the “in-between”. Starting by an experiment using theories in translation studies to reflect on four central notions in cultural studies (“subjectivity”, “différance”, “hybridity” and “power”) based on the theme of “postcolonial identity”, the importance of the “translation” concept and its strength in academic interdisciplinarity is brought into the discussion of cultural crisis in globalization, especially in the reconciliation of the “global-local” conflict on identities. This wide pertinence of “translation” in the cultural sense also engages the concept as a meta-structure concerning the movement of ideas, drawing focus to the moment of occurrence and the substantiality of the experience. These new theoretical outcomes will be further applied and ruminated in the case study. The unique and unusual postcolonial character of Hong Kong, which envisages a distinctive and peculiar space of “cultural translation” vividly shown by the Infernal Affairs film series (the original source for the Oscar-winning The Departed), renders novel thoughts to the existing orientations that correlate translation, cultural identity, postcolonialism and globalization. The concept of “translation” can be a key to scrutinize the longstanding mystique of change in the global age.
 
Translating Gjergj Fishta\u27s epic masterpiece, Lahuta e Malcis, into English as The Highland Lute
No full textThe Highland Lute, the Albanian national epic poem, contains 15,613 lines. It mirrors Albania’s difficult struggle for freedom and independence which was finally achieved in 1912. It was important for Robert Elsie and I to achieve an atmosphere similar to that of other important European epics such as Beowulf (England), The Kalevala (Finland), and the grand medieval poems of the eleventh and twelfth centuries such as The Song of Roland (France), Nibelungenlied (Germany), and Poem of the Cid (Spain). Rhythmically, The Highland Lute is very much like the American writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow\u27s epic poem, Hiawatha, parts of which I loved to recite as a young girl.
Our task with translating The Highland Lute into English has been to make the language relevant and understandable for the modern reader while still retaining its colloquial, archaic, majestic, and heroic feel which gives a strong sense of the past. Quite a challenge! We translated many expressions unique to Gheg, and did our best to describe symbols of Albanian mythology and legend such as oras (female spirits), zanas (protective mountain spirits), draguas (semi-human figures with supernatural powers), shtrigas (witches), lugats (vampires), and kulshedras (seven-headed dragon-like creatures). We kept the octosyllabic rhythm consistent throughout, and we captured the qualities common to all epics: alliteration, assonance, repetition, hyperbole, metaphor, archaic figures of speech, concrete descriptions, colour, drama, passion, a range of emotions, intensity, sensuality, lots of action, rhyme where possible, and an exalted, dignified tone
Interpreters’ Identities: An Exploratory Study of Vietnamese Interpreters in Vietnam
No full textThis qualitative exploratory study of Vietnamese interpreters in Vietnam argues that the progressive dispelling of the interpreters’ invisibility myth must be accompanied by an increased importance paid to interpreters’ identities during their training. Indeed, the type(s) and extent of interpreters’ visibility depends on the type of identity(ies) they assume in interpreted-mediated events. The success of these events affects not only interpersonal relations but also the socio-cultural and economic development of nations, especially when developing countries are concerned