Seeking the golden mean:

Babel ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Wong
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
The West ◽  
Golden Mean ◽  
Source Language ◽  
The Past ◽  
Usage Frequency ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World

If one is to draw up, in order of usage frequency, a list of words whose authority has most often been invoked in translation studies during the past decades, <i>domestication</i> and <i>foreignizing</i> will most likely appear at the top. When they were first coined or given their new <i>signifiā</i>, these words may well have been applicable to the approaches or strategies used by certain translators in certain periods, certain cultures, or certain parts of the world. One should not, however, be misled into thinking that they are applicable to all translators or all translations, for, apart from the “domesticating” and “foreignizing” approaches or strategies, there is a wide range of other possibilities into which the vast majority of translations can fall, and to which the concepts of “domestication” and “foreignizing” do not apply.<p>This paper looks at <i>Monkey</i>, Arthur Waley’s English translation of the classical Chinese novel Xi you ji (Journey to the West), and shows how the above-mentioned concepts are not universally relevant, and how the translator, as an empathic and creative mediator, moves freely between the source language / culture and the target language / culture to seek the golden mean with respect to the effectiveness of the translation in artistic and communicative terms, neither “domesticating” nor “foreignizing.”<p>

Translation studies in China or Chinese-related translation studies

Babel ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 332-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunshen Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Language ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Source Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Entity ◽  
Positive Engagement ◽  
Partial Translation

Abstract The paper begins with an observation of the paradoxical status of Chinese as a lesstranslated source language but a much-translated target language, and that of Chinese translation studies as a much studied subject in China but a little-noted branch of translation studies in the world. It then analyzes the implications of the two current conceptions of Chinese translation studies: either (1) as a self-contained system of "translation studies in China", with China construed as a geopolitical body; or (2) as an open system of "Chinese language/culture-related translation studies", with the Chinese as a nation, a linguistic and cultural entity in an anthropological sense. It points out that the fi rst, exclusive conception has for too long kept Chinese translation studies from advancing a positive engagement with translation studies in other traditions, encouraging polarization of Chinese and non-Chinese translation studies into two opposite systems; while the second, inclusive conception relates the discipline more closely to other fields of Chinese-related academic study in the world, as well as translation studies in other languages/cultures. As such, Chinese translation studies, alongside an "applied" parallel which is more language-specific and practice-oriented, represents a linguistically medium- and culturally area-restricted branch of Partial Translation Studies under Pure Translation Studies. To substantiate its argument, the paper shows how the two conceptions may have infl uenced the interpretation of the time-honoured tenet of faithfulness-accessibility-elegance in Chinese translation studies for its conceptual sensibility and explanatory power. Résumé L’article commence par souligner le statut paradoxal du chinois, qui est une languesource moins traduite mais une langue-cible frequemment traduite, et dont les etudes de traduction chinoises constituent un sujet frequemment etudie en Chine mais une section peu cotee de la traductologie dans le monde. Il analyse ensuite les implications des deux conceptions actuelles de la traductologie chinoise : soit (1) un systeme independant de traductologie en Chine., la Chine etant consideree comme un organe geopolitique ; soit (2) un systeme ouvert d’etudes de traduction liees a la langue et a la culture chinoises., les Chinois etant une nation, une entite linguistique et culturelle au sens anthropologique du terme. Il montre que la premiere conception exclusive a trop longtemps empeche la traductologie chinoise d’avancer un engagement positif avec les etudes de traduction dans d’autres traditions, en encourageant la polarisation de la traductologie chinoise et nonchinoise en deux systemes opposes ; tandis que la seconde conception inclusive rapproche la discipline plus etroitement d’autres domaines d’etudes academiques liees au chinois dans le monde, ainsi que des autres etudes de traduction dans d’autres langues et cultures. En tant que telle, la traductologie chinoise, a cote d’un parallele .applique. qui est plus specifique a la langue et oriente vers la pratique, represente un moyen linguistique et une branche culturellement limitee a un domaine d’etudes partielles de traduction dans les etudes de traduction pures. Pour etayer son argument, l’article montre comment les deux conceptions peuvent avoir influence l’interpretation du principe, consacre par l’usage, de la fidelite — accessibilite — elegance dans la traductologie chinoise pour sa sensibilite conceptuelle et son pouvoir explicatif.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

A New World Economic order formation

2021 ◽  
pp. 932-950
Author(s):  
Vladislav Vyacheslavovich Emelyanov
Keyword(s):  
Oil And Gas ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Order ◽  
The West ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
World Economic Order ◽  
The Impact

Every few decades, the world order changes due to various geopolitical, economic and other circumstances. For example, as a result of globalization, the world order has undergone significant changes in the last forty years. Globalization has led to the destruction of the postwar world order, as well as to world leadership by the United States and the West. However, in recent decades, as a result of globalization, the U.S. and the West began to cede their leadership to developing countries, so there is now a change in the economic structure of relations in the world system. Today the center of economic growth is in the East, namely in Asia. There are no new superpowers in the world at the moment, but the unipolar world will cease to exist due to the weakening of the U. S. leadership, which will lead to a change in the world order. A new leader, which may replace the U. S., will not have as wide range of advantages as the USA has. Most likely, the essence of the new order will be to unite the largest countries and alliances into blocks, for example, the USA together with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the EU, etc. The article outlines forecasts of GDP growth rates as well as the global energy outlook; analyzes the LNG market as well as the impact of the pandemic on the global oil and gas market; and lists the characteristics of U. S. geopolitics.

scholarly journals Historiographical traditions and modern imperatives for the restoration of global history

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Global History ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Times

This essay has been written to serve as a prolegomenon for a new journal in Global History. It opens with a brief depiction of the two major approaches to the field (through connexions and comparisons) and moves on to survey first European and then other historiographical traditions in writing ‘centric’ histories up to the times of the Imperial Meridian 1783–1825, when Europe’s geopolitical power over all other parts of the world became hegemonic. Thereafter, and for the past two centuries, all historiographical traditions converged either to celebrate or react to the rise of the ‘West’. The case for the restoration of Global History rests upon its potential to construct negotiable meta-narratives, based upon serious scholarship that will become cosmopolitan in outlook and meet the needs of our globalizing world.

scholarly journals Western Objections to the Islamic Concept of Gender Equality: A Critical Review

Fahm-i-Islam ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Dr Aurangzeb
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
View Point ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Viable Solution ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamic View

Over the past several years, despite the constant evolution of the legislation the problem of gender equality in the West has been steadily increasing. What is the reason why there is no significant progress in solving gender equality issues in the West yet? Several reports and researches have pointed out to this problem. On the contrary, Islam provides a viable solution to this ever increasing problem; for Islam has a comprehensive yet simple view of gender equality. But the West, instead of understanding Islamic principles objectively, raises objections without a thorough study. However, the Western principle of gender equality has completely failed. In this article a critical analysis of the western gender equality and Islamic principles has been carried out. It also highlights Islamic view point of gender equality. The study argues that the contemporary gender equality problems and issues that have engulfed the world particularly the Western countries can be mitigated by employing the Islamic principles of gender equality

scholarly journals THE EQUIVALENCE IN TRANSLATION OF PUJA TRI SANDHYA FROM INDONESIAN TO ENGLISH

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Anak Agung Inten Mayuni
Keyword(s):  
Native Language ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Dynamic Equivalence ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
The Government

Puja Tri Sandhya is Hindus prayer known in all countries. The original prayer came in Sanskrit language, but every Hindus believer already translate the prayer into their native language. In 1950, Balinese Hindus used Puja Tri Sandhya to get the recognition from the government allowing Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia (PHDI)—the major reform movement and Hindus organization in Indonesia—to translate Puja Tri Sandhya into Indonesian. This translation aimed to make every Hindus believer in Indonesia knows about the meaning of the mantras. Besides Indonesian, Puja Tri Sandhya is also translated into the universal language that 20 percent of the world spoke, English. English is believed to give the best medium to other people who want to learn more about Hindus or simply just curious. As a reminder, in this paper Indonesian will be the source language (SL) and English will be the result of the translation so we shall call it target language (TL). In translation, equivalency will be the point to show if the translation is well translated or not. In their book The Theory and Practice of Translation (1959), Nida and Taber state two kinds of equivalency that the translator can use as their reference they are: formal and dynamic equivalence. Here, Puja Tri Sandhya in Indonesian and English versions will be analyzed using 2 kinds of equivalences by Nida and Taber.

The status of but in documentaries and their Romanian subtitles

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 133-152
Author(s):  
Mihaela MLADENOVICI (IONESCU)
Keyword(s):  
Target Language ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Complex Word ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Status ◽  
Discourse Connectives ◽  
Core Meaning

The aim of this article is to describe the status of but functioning as a connector of contrast in documentaries and their subtitles, with English as the source language and Romanian as the target language. But is a complex word, serving as a connectivity evince, comprehension facilitator and argumentative indicator, acquiring therefore a host of roles, both within and beyond the sentence. As theoretical support, I will employ the idea put forward by Fraser (2009) that but conveys one core meaning, that of contrast and that pragmatically it has a wide range of interpretations which are to be inferred from the context, but I will also draw on the Relevance Theoretic approach to discourse connectives elaborated by Diane Blakemore (1987, 2002, 2004) who referred to these functional items as encoding procedures rather than concepts, their meaning being interpreted based on what they indicate, not on what they describe. As for its role in argumentation, but will be analysed within the pragma-dialectical framework. Using my own research, but also that carried out by Halliday and Hasan (1976), Quirk et al. (1985), Biber et al. (1999) and Fraser (1999, 2009), I have made a list of connectors of contrast and the conclusion I have reached so far is that there are roughly 66 such items in English. However, in documentaries, there is a tendency to use only a few of them, approximately 15 (but, yet, still, however, though, although, even though, despite, rather, in reality, better, while, whereas). But is at the top of the list, having by far the largest number of occurrences and therefore being of outmost importance in constructing the idea of contrast. However, there is a certain inconsistency with respect to the rendition but in Romanian. When it functions at the level of the sentence, it is very rarely omitted as it displays a strong syntactic dependence. Conversely, when it functions at the discourse level, its translation does not always have the same degree of salience, in certain cases the subtitler resorting to its omission as part of his/her strategy of text condensation. I will identify and analyse the types of situations in which but is omitted in Romanian and those in which it is not, focusing on its role according to the various patterns typical of documentaries that include this connector.

Sites of Girlhood

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-127
Author(s):  
Tiffany Rhoades Isselhardt
Keyword(s):  
Advisory Board ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Virtual Museum ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Past ◽  
Girl Culture ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Bear Witness

Where are the girls who made history? What evidence have they left behind? Are there places and spaces that bear witness to their memory? Girl Museum was founded in 2009 to address these questions, among many others. Established by art historian Ashley E. Remer, whose work revealed that most, if not all, museums never explicitly discuss or center girls and girlhood, Girl Museum was envisioned as a virtual space dedicated to researching, analyzing, and interpreting girl culture across time and space. Over its first ten years, we produced a wide range of art in historical and cultural exhibitions that explored conceptions of girlhood and the direct experiences of girls in the past and present. Led by an Advisory Board of scholars and entirely reliant on volunteers and donations, we grew from a small website into a complex virtual museum of exhibitions, projects, and programs that welcomes an average 50,000 visitors per year from around the world.

scholarly journals The Effect of Collocation on Meaning Representation of Adjectives such as Big and Large in Translation from Two Languages Used in the Article to English Language Texts

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Malahat Minaabad
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Meaning Representation ◽  
Contextual Meaning

Translation is the process to transfer written or spoken source language (SL) texts to equivalent written or spoken target language (TL) texts. Translation studies (TS) relies so heavily on a concept of meaning, that one may claim that there is no TS without any reference to meanings. People’s understanding of the meaning of sentences is far more reliable than their understanding of the meaning of words. Since what people know when they know the meaning of a word is important, but the skill of incorporating that word appropriately into meaningful linguistic contexts is more important. Our interest here lies in the shift of emphasis from referential or dictionary meaning to contextual meaning of adjectives such as big, and large in translation to English language texts or vice versa. Since big and large are synonyms, it is not surprising that they can be used to describe many of the same nouns. However, they are not perfect synonyms, and there are some differences in the distribution of these adjectives which make some problems for translators especially from those languages which these kinds of differences are not so obvious.    

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