Strategies of Translating Martial Arts Fiction

Babel ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Mok
Keyword(s):  
Martial Arts ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Martial Arts Fiction ◽  
Jin Yong ◽  
The One ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

The strategies of translating Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, a martial arts novel by Jin Yong, into English are determined mainly by the skopos of bringing Jin Yong’s work to life for a Western audience, shaped also by the translator’s ideology and the poetics dominant in the receiving culture. It follows that the functions associated with translating this literary text, a major genre in contemporary Chinese literature, would include introducing martial arts fiction as a literary genre; introducing Jin Yong as a master storyteller; and presenting genre-specific devices employed in penning a classic work. An overriding strategy adopted by the translator proved to be extensive rewriting into the target language as the translated work only materialized after serious efforts at recreative translating. The fluent translation strategy, when aptly used, is the one that effects transparency, thereby evoking authorial presence in a literary translation.

Translation of Persian Mystic Terms into English: A Case Study of Conference of the Birds by Attar

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 552
Author(s):  
Sadaf Khosroshahi ◽  
Ahmad Sedighi
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Strategy ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Direct Transfer ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
English Translations ◽  
The One ◽  
Persian Translation

Translation of mystic terms or metaphors is a very important portion of rendering a text from a source language to a target language, because some of mystic terms do not exist in the target language and this point makes the translation harder. This paper aimed at identifying the translation strategies and procedures used by Darbandi and Davis (1984) in The Conference of the Birds of Attar Neishabouri. To achieve the objectives, Attar’s Persian original work (Shafiei Kadkani, 2010) was read carefully to extract mystical terms.  Then, the translated text by Darbandi, and Davis (1984) was carefully read and the corresponding English translations of Persian mystical term were found.  The original mystical terms and their Persian translation were analyzed based on Van Doorslaer’s (2007) map to find out translation strategies and procedures used by the translators on the one hand and indicate the dominant strategy and procedure in the whole work of translation on the other. The result showed that literal translation strategy (72.41%) was the most frequently used strategy and direct transfer procedure (68.96%) was the most frequently used procedure.  This paper may have some implications in literary translation and help translation instructors and translation trainees as well in translation classes.

scholarly journals Literary Translation Teaching/Learning as a TRI-PHASE PROCESS: Case Study: Arabic-English and English-Arabic Translation of Novels

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Mohammed MEDIOUNI
Keyword(s):  
Literary Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Phase Method ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Figures Of Speech ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
The University ◽  
Phase Process

The aim of the present work is to demonstrate a tri-phase method for teaching literary translation. The first pre-translation phase consists in introducing the author, his/her works, style and the text to be translated. The second phase, the translation proper, is divided into three sub-phases: (a) the identification of problems (connotative meanings, figures of speech, idioms, uncommon collocations, culture-bound items, …), (b) the treatment of these problems by opting for the adequate procedures which should be in tune with the overall translation strategy opted for, and (c) the translation of the whole text into the target language. The final third phase is of revision and assessment. The criteria to be taken into consideration are genre-related and the focus is on the stylistic match or mismatch between the source and target texts. The present process-oriented method of literary translation is illustrated through three in-class translations of three literary texts from Arabic into English and vice versa. The targeted students are enrolled in the Master of Translation Science and Linguistics during Fall-Semester 2017 at the Faculty of Humanities at the University Abdelmalek Essaadi. The study concluded that literary translation should be taught as a creative tri-phase process throughout which students are made fully aware of the significance and impact of the strategies they opt for in order to deal with the different literary translation problems and attain the perfect stylistic equivalence so aspired for by literary translators.

scholarly journals The constraints of translating martial arts fiction

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-264
Author(s):  
Andrea Musumeci ◽  
Dominic Glynn ◽  
Qu Qifei
Keyword(s):  
Martial Arts ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Martial Arts Fiction ◽  
French And English ◽  
Jin Yong ◽  
Target Culture

This article comments on the notion of ‘constraint’ by analysing the specific difficulties in the translation of a martial arts (‘wuxia’) novel into French and English. The Legend of the Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳, she diao ying xiong zhuan) is the first part of the ‘Condor Trilogy’ (射鵰三部曲, she diao san bu qu), the masterpiece of Chinese writer Jin Yong (金庸). Little known in the West, the novel was recently translated by Anna Holmwood and Wang Jiann-Yuh. This article studies the strategies adopted by each translator to render the cultural specificities of the source context in the target culture. By so doing, it contributes to theoretical debates concerning transfers between two distant literary and cultural systems.

Translation and the Authorial Image: the Case of Federico García Lorca’s Romancero gitano

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella Linn
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Social System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Federico Garcia Lorca ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Target Culture

Abstract Despite Barthes’s claim that the author is dead, leaving the scene for his work, freed from its all too personal origin, I would like to argue that the author image is far from absent in the practice of literary translation. On the one hand, the author’s image within a particular literary and social system may determine which work is translated, and even how it is translated. On the other hand, it seems likely that some characteristics of a persona will be highlighted more than others, depending on which source texts are selected for translation and on how the author and his or her works are presented in prefaces and commentaries accompanying the translations. Moreover, the translation strategy may enhance the prevailing tendencies within reception and thus contribute to a certain perception of the author in the target culture. In this paper I will investigate these hypothetical connections, taking as an example the Spanish author Federico García Lorca and a number of translations of his Romancero gitano (1928) into French, English, and Dutch. I will examine a possible correlation between the prevailing “folkloristic” image of Lorca in the early literary criticism, and the emphasis on romantic, naïve and mythological aspects in translations of his work, and conversely, the later, more complex and gloomy image presented of the author, and translation strategies which highlight elements that correspond to that view.

One Belt – One Way: Perspectives on the Research and Distribution of Contemporary Literature in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-185
Author(s):  
Salida Sharifova
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
The World ◽  
World Cultural Heritage ◽  
The One ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

Project One Belt – One Way opens up new opportunities. On the one hand, to provide for the translation of contemporary Chinese authors into foreign languages, and on the other, to carry out a literary analysis of these works in terms of principles and methods characteristic of Western literary criticism. And this will allow the literary circles of various countries to consider contemporary Chinese literature as part of the world cultural heritage.

scholarly journals Strategies of Audiovisual Translation

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Gennady Petrovich Bakulev
Keyword(s):  
Universal Access ◽  
Extreme Points ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Considerable Impact ◽  
Audiovisual Translation ◽  
The One

The issue of audiovisual translation (AVT) seems particularly important in contemporary cinema. As argued, translation is delivered between cultures rather than words. The text is seen as an integral part of the world, but not as its separate fragment. Therefore the translation process is regarded as a crosscultural transfer, defined by the level of the prestige of a source and target cultures, as well as their relationships. The article discusses two main strategies of translation in cinema - dubbing and subtitling, which differ in the degree of interference in the original text. On the one hand, dubbing modifies the original text to a greater degree, making it more comprehensible for the audience. Whereas subtitling, i.e. presenting the dialogue in the target language in the form of synchronous subtitles, makes the least changes in the source text. The choice of a translation strategy generally depends on the view of the target culture and is often influenced by the political factors. Dubbing and subtitling represent two extreme points on the translation range, defined by two opposite types of cultural systems - domestication and foreignization. To suppress or to accept the foreign nature of imported films is the key to how a country regards itself in relation to the others and how it realizes the importance of its own culture and language. Fast changes characteristic of our time exert a considerable impact on audiovisual translation. One of the consequences of globalization-localization process is growing diversification of audiovisual production. Scientific and technological progress forms the basis to develop new methods of AVT and means of its realization. Such tendencies testify to huge potential capabilities of amelioration of the translation quality and specialization, providing more universal access to mass media for all social categories thereby accelerating their social integration into modern society.

scholarly journals Domestication in the Translation of D. Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (29) ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Gintarė Aleknavičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Da Vinci ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Cooperative Principle ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
The One

Literary translation is one of the most widely discussed topics in Translation Studies. There are different opinions and approaches to literary translation. On the one hand, some theorists and translators suggest that linguistic aspects such as syntax, lexis, etc., are of great importance to literary translation; one must keep to the rules of the target language without digression from the original meaning, after all. On the other hand, some scholars believe these factors are insignificant, because turning translation into a linguistic exercise undermines the more important textual, cultural, and situational factors (Leonardi 2000). However, the application of Grice’s Cooperative Principle to literary translation allows the mixture of both the linguistic aspects and all that is left beyond the meaning. The study was inspired by Kirsten Malmkjaer, Gideon Toury and Kristina Shaffner’s debate on Norms, Maxims and Conventions in Translation Studies and Pragmatics (Shaffner 1999). The aim of the article is to analyse the Lithuanian translation of D. Brown’s The Da Vinci Code within the framework of Grice’s Cooperative Principle and the strategy of domestication by reviewing domestication and foreignization and introducing Grice’s Cooperative Principle. The research proves that even though it is virtually impossible for a translator to convey the meaning of the source text exactly as it is given, the insufficient use of domestication in the Lithuanian translation of The Da Vinci Code emphasises the presence of the translator and disrupts the ease of reading.

scholarly journals 拆迁普店街：二十世纪末中国都市小说中摧毁和复兴主题的含混 (Bulldozing Pudian Street: Destruction or Renewal? Ambiguities in Big City Novels in Late 20th Century Chinese Literature)

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xia Li
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Literary Representation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Eminent Scholar ◽  
Big City ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

There is little doubt that the most cogent literary representation of the experience of modernity has been realised in big city fiction and cinematographic masterpieces such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926). Despite the formal and aesthetic incompatability of early twentieth century (predominantly Western) works of this literary genre and more recent ones, East and West, the underlying dialectic tension between progressive optimism and disorientation, existential up-rootedness, alienation and angst (Rilke's loss of soul) as archetypal manifestation of mega-city reality and its social structure and organisation, constitutes a generic hallmark, regardless of time and place. Significantly, the relevance of this problem is reinforced, theoretically and practically, by the eminent scholar and architect Rem Koolhaas whose reflections have China as a principal reference point of the global "out-of-control process of modernisation". This paper focuses on the literary representation of the complexity and universality of the problem and the social implications of the blurred and ambiguous vision of urban reality with particular reference to contemporary Chinese literature.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document