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A Translator’s Apologia
No full textLiterary translators are often too shy to discuss their own practice. As the penury of translators’ prefaces would attest, they have assimilated the fidelity imperative only too well and, even though they may be masters at transforming the literal into the literary, they prefer to remain invisible behind their author as if only the latter were real and they merely fiction(al) workers. Such doesn’t appear to be the case for two translators of Tres Tristes Tigres by the Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante: the first, Albert Bensoussan, working in French and the author of Confessions d’un traître (PU de Rennes, 1995); the second, Suzanne Jill Levine, working in English and the author of The Subversive Scribe (Graywolf Press, 1991). While it is undeniable that their respective collaboration with authors of the calibre of Cabrera Infante must have played a large part in their desire to write of what must have been an unforgettable experience, this paper will focus on different questions in order to gain insight into the theorization by translators of their own practice: Why and how do both Bensoussan and Levine produce prize-winning translations of famously difficult and considered “untranslatable” works? Why, in spite of their success and ability to push translational creativity to its limits, are they ultimately incapable of dispelling a sense of betrayal? Rather than providing definitive answers, exploring these questions leads to reflect on possibly constant factors in literary translation and on teaching or evaluating translations as well as training translators
Theorizing in the Absence of a Theory:The Case of the Aramaic Targums to the Pentateuch
No full textTargums are a kind of ancient Jewish translation literature that may have played an important role in synagogues, private devotion, and education. The reason scholars adduce such widespread use for the targums is because they translate the Hebrew Bible from Hebrew into Aramaic, another ancient Semitic language widely used by Palestinian and Babylonian Jews. Despite their supposed popularity, there are no sustained discussions in ancient Jewish literature concerning how to produce a targum, or what makes a quality targum. This is in direct contrast to some of the early theoretical discussions that informed ancient Christian translations of the Bible. Similarly, internal evidence from the targums suggests they underwent extended diachronic growth, thus eliminating the possibility of a single author, translator, or—as conventionally designated—targumist. As a result, theorizing the situation of a targumist is extremely difficult, in that to do so modern scholars must rely exclusively on the evidence presented by the targums themselves. Furthermore, the targumist must remain at the level of a hypothetical composite in order to reflect the historical realities of targumic production and development. Nevertheless, in this paper I will examine three issues that might give some insight into the situation of the Pentateuch Targums (targums to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible): 1) the targumic “shadow” of the Hebrew Bible; 2) the basic unit of meaning in the targums; and 3) the possible translational role of the targumic narrative expansion—extended portions of text that add new material to the Hebrew Bible narrative. By examining these issues I hope to tease out some of the translational dynamics and cross-cultural issues that likely influenced the production of the targums. And although the targumist must remain a hypothetical construct, the consistency of translational dynamics within the Pentateuch Targums probably reflects a tacit consensus of approach among the targums’ producers. As a result, it becomes possible to theorize in the absence of a theory
Language attitudes and opportunities for speaking a minority language: what lies ahead for Ozelonacaxtla Totonac
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From Northern Alberta, Rachel started studying Spanish in her undergrad degree. She finished with a minor in Spanish language and literature and a major in Linguistics. After a six-month exchange to La Universidad de Guadalajara, she began her Master\u27s in Applied Linguistics. She also returned to Mexico during her degree to gather interviews for her research. Currently she teaches Introductory Spanish at the University of Alberta and has plans to begin a doctorate degree in the future.
Abstract
The present research describes the sociolinguistic situation in the minority indigenous community of San Juan Ozelonacaxtla in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Both Ozelonacaxtla Totonac and Spanish are spoken in the speech community. However, some bilingual parents use only Spanish in the home, ceasing the transmission of their native language to their children and placing the community in the early stages of language shift. Spanish is seen as the language of opportunity in the context of recent and significant social, political, educational, and economic changes in San Juan Ozelonacaxtla. Parents claim they teach their children Spanish because it is more useful than Ozelonacaxtla Totonac, it enables their children to avoid discrimination associated with speaking an indigenous language, it is necessary for their children to do well in school, and it allows for more economic mobility. These factors are accelerating the integration of the community into majority Mexican society
Translating Fictions: The Messenger Was a Medium
No full textIn this article I will examine the ways in which the ethical gestures available to translators are inscribed in the etymologies of key terms and cognate pairs (especially in English and French) within the semantic field marked out by the category of translation: trade, transfer, transgress. translate / translater, traduire / traduce, betray / trahir. What emerges is a pattern dominated by themes of give and take, loss and gain, and above all, faithfulness and betrayal. Betrayal (like the French verb trahir) holds a pivotal position within this set, due to its two-faced character, given to both deceit and revelation.
Juxtaposed on and rooted in these themes are the timeworn types in which translators have been chronically cast (when not simply ignored): the loser (mainly in the sense of the agent of loss) and the traitor. Such associations throw into stark relief the intrinsically political and ethical nature of the act of translation, which Lawrence Venuti and others have forcefully theorized and which the fate of translators in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, have brutally embodied in recent times.
Drawing in part on my own thirty odd years as a translator of literary and non-literary texts, I will consider the implications of the figure of the translator as “double-agent” in the Canadian context, where a translation economy has grown against a backdrop of conflicts over loyalties and faithlessness. Furthermore, by way of dialoguing with Venuti’s project of “minoritizing translation,” I hypothesize a strategy of translators voluntarily affirming their “double-agency” or “traitorhood” as an additional challenge to prevailing textual and cultural assumptions and regimes
Cumandá: La jungle en voie de traduction
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This work begins by overlooking Ecuador\u27s socio-political context during its period of post-independence. It also examines Juan León Mera\u27s instrumental role as a politician as well as a writer in developing Ecuador\u27s national identity and inclusion of its native population. Furthermore, a study of Mera\u27s novel Cumandá is undertaken in order to illustrate the novel\u27s political and poetic values. Lastly, this work is followed by a translation of the novel\u27s first two chapters and a commentary discussing the difficulties encountered in rendering a French translation of this text and the choices made by the translator. The objective of this work is to revive Ecuador\u27s first nationalistic novel through its translation and to demonstrate its relevance in today\u27s societ
Translation and Censorship of English-Spanish Narrative Texts in Franco’s Spain and its Aftermath: TRACEni (1970-1978)
No full textDr. Cristina Gómez Castro is currently a lecturer in English at the Department of Languages at the University of Cantabria, Spain. She completed her Graduation in English Studies at the University of León, Spain, where she also held a scholarship in order to do her PhD. She has done research stays at the University of Leuven (Belgium), Aston University (Birmingham, UK) and Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal). She has published several articles in journals and books dealing with translation studies and has attended numerous conferences and seminars of specialization.
Abstract
The present Doctoral Thesis is framed within the study line developed by the research group named TRACE (acronym of CEnsored TRAnslations in Spanish) and it covers the area corresponding to the translated narrative texts from English into Spanish during the decade of the seventies (1970-1978). The objective of this research is to disentangle the translation practices of that time with the intention of establishing translation norms which can help us complete the mosaic that constitutes the history of translation in Spain. Thus, our theoretical and methodological framework is composed by the Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) implemented by the Polysystem Theory and a Corpus-Based Approach (CBS). After establishing the contextual and methodological framework and examining the ins and outs of its main determining factor, official censorship, a catalogue was compiled containing all the translated narrative texts between both languages during those nine years. The result was a pre-textual corpus or corpus 0 with 9269 entries. From these, a series of regularities were drawn which allowed the possibility of studying in more depth six textual sets consisting of best seller novels, which were the most prototypical kind of narrative at the time. The descriptive-comparative study of these was done taking into account the controversial topics of the dictatorial regime in charge by then, i.e., politics, religion, sexual morals and improper language and by means of a list of “anchor terms” which helped locating the instances for the analysis. This list of "anchor terms" is similar to the “anchor words” used in parallel corpora: we translated those taboo areas into terms which allowed us to search the aligned texts with the software available for that means, thus improving the methodology used in the TRACE studies so far. Thanks to this analysis the behavior of the translators in each of the cases could be observed and it was thus possible to determine that the translating activity is closely linked to the place where it is carried out. The translators’ tendency towards the acceptability pole could be seen in the instances relating to sexual morals and improper language, whereas regarding religious and political matters the norm was to tilt towards adequacy, in harmony with the progressive deterioration of the dictatorship and liberalization of the Spanish society by then and confirming the fact that “translators and interpreters shape their words to the needs of the moment” (Tymoczko 2006: 453).
 
Play for Two Voices: On Translating the Poetry of Anja Utler
No full textWritten in the form of a dialog between translator and translation theorist, this article considers both the difficulty and the necessity of a reciprocal, mutually informed relationship between translation theory and practice. The starting point of the article is my experience translating the poetry of Anja Utler, a contemporary Austrian poet whose linguistic experimentation poses a significant translation challenge. Utler\u27s poetry functions in part by means of what she calls “interweaving” (“Verflechtung”), making use of highly polysemous words to efface boundaries between landscape, body, and language. In addition to blurring semantic lines, Utler also employs certain syntactical and grammatical characteristics of the German language (such as separable prefixes) in unorthodox ways that multiply possibilities of meaning. One of the greatest difficulties for a translator, then, is to find ways of approximating this semantic and syntactic play and innovation in a language that rarely offers a one-to-one equivalent. In addition to addressing specific practical issues in translating Utler\u27s poetry, I consider the role that translation theory played in shaping my translation strategies, and more generally the interaction between the theoretical conceptualization of translation and its actual execution. I also describe my communication with the author, who has contributed greatly to the translation process, supporting an idea of translation as collaboration. Translation theory and practice appear less as correctives to each other than as a cooperative undertaking, part of a conversation between translator, theorist, author, and reader from which, ideally, all sides benefit in the end. By portraying this exchange as an internal dialog, I hope to demonstrate that the realms of translation practice and theory are not alien to one another, but rather engaged in constant, productive exchange, both within the mind of the individual translator/theorist and on the level of translation as a social phenomenon
Translation between Pacification and Polarization
No full textIn the context of the growing lack of understanding and even cultural conflict that plague the heterogeneous societies of today, translation naturally has its place in mass communication. Seen as the privileged locus of intercultural communication, translation is not only the expression of the necessity of intercomprehension between differences, but also, and more importantly, the necessity of the determined search for areas of incommunication (Wolton). Hence, taking into account the difficulties and the points of discord as a priority instead of aiming for compromise and pacific appeasement in the citizen-translational operation takes the shape of an emergency. Translating means, first and foremost, translating that which is not going well, that which we understand the least. In the same vein as Jakobson\u27s project, who suggested the three categories of translation, it is our aim to show the relevance of going beyond those categories in light of a short case study undertaken in the context of the media\u27s discourse in Quebec concerning the management of cultural diversity. It is in this sense that we are submitting, in this article, the outline of an ongoing reflection pertaining to a fourth category of translation, which we will call “inter-referential translation”
The Navigators de Ken Loach: Une analyse de la traduction audiovisuelle
No full textThis thesis proposes an analysis of the French translation of the British movie The Navigators, by director Ken Loach. The movie takes the spectator into the lives of the British working class and holds at its center an important political message. Loach tries to recreate a strong sense of realism and presents characters who are victims of the privatisation of their industry (British Rail). This thesis aims at analyzing the way in which the film is translated into French : how can dubbing, a technique that disguises a film by giving new voices to the actors and destroys the soundtrack by replacing it with a new one, keep a sense of realism? Subtitling is a technique which presents numerous contraints in terms of the translation of dialogues, but enables the film to remain authentic. How can these two techniques affect the reception of the movie
Antología de cuentos traducidos del francés al español de la autora ruso-francesa Irène Némirovsky
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This thesis is an anthology of short stories translated from French into Spanish written by Irène Némirovsky, a Russian French writer. These short stories were published in the book entitled Dimanche, in the year 2000. My thesis also includes an introduction in which the author is presented within her historical and literary context; an analysis of the main challenges and difficulties of the translated texts as well as a brief discussion of certain theoretical aspects, such as the notion of transparency in translation, follows