Stylistics and the cultural context in literary translation

Babel ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-634
Author(s):  
Miodrag M. Vukčević
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
German Language ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
German Reader

Considering the example of the translation of Njegoš’s The Mountain Wreath into the German language, the paper analyses the translational solutions that are dictated by the principles of the subject. The translator Alois Schmaus chose to take this step in order to bring home to the modern reader a world which appears to be archaic. He made this decision for two reasons. First, the German reader is unfamiliar with the historical context that is the subject of this poem; secondly the rules of prosody in Serbian and German do not match. By choosing to carry over the Serbian epic decasyllable, Schmaus favours the Serbian poetic tradition. From the historical point of view German verse, constructed as an Alexandrine, is burdened with the context of courtly poetics. The hexameter, meanwhile, which was introduced into German literature by Klopstock and later popularised by Voss and Goethe, appears in the context of the rise of the bourgeoisie. Both verses require changes while being translated, which affect the poem’s characteristics. In order to maintain authenticity, Schmaus pleads for the “Serbian trochee”: iamb and dactyl, metrical feet that are closer to the German language, would have impeded the setting the diaeresis and affected the syntax. Because of this, Schmaus places a spondee at the end of every verse and sets the historical context in the tradition of martyrdom.

scholarly journals PRZEKŁAD NIEMIECKOJĘZYCZNYCH DOKUMENTÓW SAMOCHODOWYCH W ŚWIETLE KONCEPCJI PLURICENTRYZMU JĘZYKOWEGO

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 115-145
Author(s):  
Artur Dariusz KUBACKI
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
German Language ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Theoretical Part ◽  
Vehicle Registration ◽  
The Subject

The author analyses the translation of vehicle registration documents issued in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the light of linguistic pluricentrism. German-language vehicle registration documents, belonging to the genre of official documents, are examined from the point of view of their function, linguistic structure and translation problems which may appear while translating them into Polish. The translation of LSP texts in the context of pluricentrism of the German language has rarely been the subject of scientific analyses. In the theoretical part of the article, the author generally characterizes linguistic pluricentrism and Polish contrastive studies in that respect. In the practical part of the article, he discusses vehicle registration documents as a specific type of official documents, shortly describes them functionally and linguistically and considers translation problems connected with these documents from the perspective of linguistic pluricentrism. Finally, he indicates mistakes in the translation of Austrian vehicle registration documents made by a sworn translator of German.

scholarly journals ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ РОМАНТИЧЕСКИХ МОТИВОВ В РОМАНЕ ПАТРИКА ЗЮСКИНДА «ПАРФЮМЕР»

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (93) ◽  
pp. 117-128
Author(s):  
С.Л. Лобзова
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
German Language ◽  
Main Function ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Modern Novel ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Romantic Hero

The article attempts to highlight the main romantic motifs that the modern German writer Patrick Süskind used in his novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Symbolic for the contemporary cultural context figurative semantic constants (genius, loneliness, rejection, godlessness, etc.) are assigned to such motifs. The ways and means of rethinking romantic motifs in a modern novel are determined, the specifics of their transformation in a postmodern text is analyzed. The similarities between the work of Süskind and popular upbringing novels in the Enlightenment are noted: the main character of the modern German writer goes through the thorny path of formation, he improves his gift, thanks to which he hopes to change the world, subjugate other people to himself. The parody evangelical allusions that contribute to the deconstruction of the romantic figure of an unrecognized genius are analyzed. The postmodernist writer debunks and ridicules the hero, turning the imaginary king into a jester. Unlike the romantic hero, whose main function was to broadcast the divine will, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille refutes the truth of the Absolute by his existence and the ingenious gift inherent in him by nature. The article concludes that Süskind refers to a stable romantic model, implemented many times in literature and art, setting his own accents in his own way, bringing the romantic structure to its limit. This model goes through the second stage in its development, according to the Hegel’s triad, namely, the negation of negation, when any phenomenon turns into its opposite. Refuting the well-known Pushkin’s claim that “genius and villainy are two incompatible things”, the writer at the same time comes to the conclusion that evil, even without meeting a worthy opponent, is destructive to himself. We see further research prospects in the study of the novel in the context of the work of Süskind and modern German-language literature from the point of view of transforming the romantic tradition in the post-modern text.

scholarly journals OUT OF TIME CHARACTERS IN LITERARY WORKS OF 1859: “FAMILY HAPPINESS” BY LEV TOLSTOY, “OBLOMOV” BY IVAN GONCHAROV, “A HOUSE OF GENTLEFOLK” BY IVAN TURGENEV

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 859-869
Author(s):  
G.M. Rebel
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Process ◽  
Historical Specificity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lev Tolstoy ◽  
Xix Century

The article is a comparative structural, thematic and genre analysis of the works by Lev Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev and Ivan Goncharov. The study had the following objectives: to give the genre definitions of “Family Happiness”, “Oblomov” and “A House of Gentlefolk” on the basis of structural, ideological and thematic features of the works; to compare the novels of Turgenev and Goncharov as different genre modifications; to justify the ideological character of the novel “A House of Gentlefolk”; to analyze the ideological controversy of the characters of Turgenev’s novel. As a result, the following conclusions were made. Tolstoy's “Family Happiness:, which is traditionally identified as a novel, in this case should be qualified as a novella: it has the predominant point of view which belongs to the narrator; the subject of the description are the episodes of private life presented outside of the socio-historical context of the era. Goncharov's “Oblomov” and Turgenev's “A House of Gentlefolk” present a multi-faceted, epically voluminous, large-scale picture of reality in two fundamentally different versions of the genre novel modifications. Despite the fact that in both novels the main characters are out of time, both works recreate the pre-reform atmosphere of the late 1850s, but perform it in fundamentally different ways. A mythologically-generalized, elegiac image of the past serfdom of Russia is presented in “Oblomov”. In “A House of Gentlefolk” the socio-historical specificity appears in close connection with real historical events, the lyrical beginning is organically combined with the polemical acuteness of the problem. The plot and the destinies of the characters in Turgenev's novel are determined by the ideological controversy, in which not only the main but also the secondary characters are subjectively or objectively involved, which ultimately determines the ideological character of the work. The proposed genre differentiation of the works of the three leading writers of the era allows us to give a dynamic cross-section of the literary process of the second half of the XIX century in the defining 1859 year of this period.

Twentieth-Century Product Innovations in the German Food Industry

2009 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Spiekermann
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Point Of Sale ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Product Innovations ◽  
Scientific Innovation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
German Food ◽  
Technological Options

Product innovation, a decisive factor in modern economies, is usually analyzed from one point of view–that of the producers. A more realistic approach to the subject would add at least four dimensions to a consideration of the topic: the perspective of consumers and the cultural context within which they form their views; the differences in how experts and consumers acquire knowledge about products; the increasing influence of retailers at the point of sale; and the technological options available to producers and households. Two twentieth-century German case studies–on the scientific innovation of yogurt and the preserving and canning of food–connect the often separate perspectives of business, consumers, and culture.

scholarly journals Two English Chemists/Authors/Teachers: John Read and James Riddick Partington

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-69
Author(s):  
Zbigniew A. Szydło
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Educational Programs ◽  
Chemistry Teaching ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Reading Material ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Times ◽  
Teaching Programs ◽  
Literary Output

AbstractJohn Read and James Partington were both prominent and highly respected academics, chemists, authors and teachers during the middle decades of the 20th century. Their books were widely read throughout this period and played a major role in educating and raising the awareness of chemistry among young people and adults. Today their names are forgotten. The aim of the present article is to re-establish these two remarkable men and to bring them to the forefront of educational programs. An outline is given of their careers as chemists, set against the background of the times they lived in, giving an emphasis to their formidable literary output. Although they had widely contrasting personalities, and were specialists in three different fields of chemistry, Read: organic, Partington: physical and inorganic, they both recognized the great importance of setting chemistry in an historical context. Accordingly, they both wrote many works on the origins and development of chemistry and included much historical material in their textbooks. This added not only a great interest to the subject, but also set it in a broader cultural context, which is so clearly lacking in today’s chemistry teaching programs. A chronological list of their books is given and short contrasting fragments from four of them are analysed. Not only are these books of great interest, but they serve as an outstanding foundation for teaching the principles of chemistry today. A recommendation is made to incorporate one work of each author as compulsory reading material for students today, and in future years.

scholarly journals Death in Beijing

Poligrafi ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (93/94) ◽  
pp. 49-75
Author(s):  
Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
German Language ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Ancestor Worship ◽  
Funerary Rituals ◽  
The World ◽  
Funeral Practices ◽  
The Subject

Alma Maximiliane Karlin (1889–1950) was a world traveller, writer, journalist, and collector from Slovenia. She embarked on an eight-year journey around the world in November 1919, in the course of which she published a series of travel sketches in the Cillier Zeitung, a local German-language newspaper. In one of these she reported on funerary rituals and mourning practices in China. After returning to Europe, she was to cover the same topic in her three‑volume travelogue, published between 1929 and 1933. In this paper we analyse these two early accounts of Chinese funerary rituals by Alma Karlin. We also consider some material objects linked to mortuary rites and ancestor worship that she brought back from her voyage in order to gain a broader understanding of her views on Chinese attitudes towards the dead. Supported by a close reading of material and textual sources on Chinese funeral practices, we compare her treatment of the subject with other accounts written by Slovenian missionaries to China in the early twentieth century. In addition to discussing certain personal elements in these accounts, we attempt to place them in their socio‑historical context.

scholarly journals MUSICAL COGNITIVISM IN A NEW ASPECT: TURNING TO SUBJECTIVITY (BOOKS BY I. BOSTRIDGE AND J. E. GARDINER)

2020 ◽  
Vol 116 (5) ◽  
pp. 234-242
Author(s):  
Ekaterina N. Shapinskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Musical Piece ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Theoretical Reflection

The article examines the problems of understanding music from the point of view of interaction of emotional perceiving and theoretical reflection. Basing on the case of two works on Schubert and J. S. Bach, written by outstanding musicians of our time, I. Bostridge and J. E. Gardiner, the role of author’s subject position is examined as well as reconstruction of historical and cultural context of the works as the prerequisite for deeper understanding. The author of the article points out changes in the attitude to music pieces after reading these books, which shows relevance of music cognitivism, not diminishing the impact of music, but, on the contrary, showing its new aspects if the author combines personal experience and research capabilities. Since both books are about music containing verbal element (vocal cycle and cantatas and Passions) the problem of interrelation of music and word has been regarded. In analyzing I. Bostridge’s book the accent is placed on recreation of historical and cultural factors connected with different songs of the cycle. In examining Gardiner’s work attention is given to elements of biographical method which are used to get more versatile notion about the composer’s music through which different traits of his character, often ambivalent, are disclosed. Interaction between sensual perception and intellectual reflection is an important process not only in gaining knowledge about a musical piece, but in extending social and cultural experience of the listener and the performer. Special accent is placed on regarding subjective approach to the works performed and analysed used by the authors as the result of merging of performing experience and research work. Such approach is relevant for contemporary art studies in which the subject/object duality is deconstructed and multidisciplinary research prevails.

A Season in Hell: Paradox and Violence in the Poetry of Padraic Fiacc

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-356
Author(s):  
Aidan Tynan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
General Level ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
Irish Poetry ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
Northern Ireland Conflict ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

The work of Belfast poet Padraic Fiacc is an important but critically neglected contribution to the canon of Northern Irish poetry. This article explores Fiacc's work, giving particular attention to the collections published during the bloodiest years of the Northern Ireland conflict and to the anthology of poems on the subject of the conflict which he edited and published in 1974 with the Blackstaff Press. Beyond the intrinsic value of Fiacc's poems themselves, his work has the benefit of causing us to reconsider issues of canonicity in the Irish poetic tradition and to revisit some of the assumptions about the relationships between poetry, history, and politics which have become dominant in our understanding of this tradition. Fiacc's poetry, while located in a distinctly Irish cultural context, bears important resemblances to the work of continental figures such as Rimbaud and Celan. In addition, Fiacc's work raises crucial questions about the relationship between violence, poetry, and language at a more general level. The article addresses some of these questions through the insights of philosophers such as Slavoj Žižek, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin.

scholarly journals Modes of Interpretation of «The Tragedy of Coriolanus» by W. Shakespeare

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-28
Author(s):  
Vladimir I. Karasik
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pragmatic Aspect ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Identification Stage ◽  
To Come ◽  
Artistic Images ◽  
The One ◽  
Semantic Aspect

The paper deals with the hermeneutic approach to drama interpretation on the material of «The Tragedy of Coriolanus» by W. Shakespeare. The offered model includes a two-fold coordinate system: the analysis of the plot from the point of view of its identification, comprehension and attitude formation, on the one hand, and its semantic, pragmatic and stylistic explanation, on the other hand. The application of this approach to understanding of the tragedy in question makes it possible to define the subject of the play, its genre and the main characteristic features of its heroes. This is a semantic aspect of the identification stage of the play. A pragmatic aspect of the identification consists in describing the main evaluative positions of the heroes as expressed in their words and actions. A stylistic aspect of identification allows us to describe the main linguistic means used to create artistic images. The comprehension level of the text analysis viewed semantically is aimed at the reconstruction of its social and historical context explained by scholarly studies of Shakespeare and his epoch. The pragmatic aspect of analysis on the comprehension level is centered around the motives of the characters’ behavior, the logic of their actions, and the inevitability of their fate. The stage of action in interpretation corresponds to formation of attitudes to the meaning of the text connected with the present days. The tragedy of Coriolanus is a story about a great person who intentionally cuts off his ties with reality and about people around him who fail to come to rescue and thus make him perish.

V. The German Language in the Prussian Academy of Sciences

PMLA ◽  
1926 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-150
Author(s):  
Edwin H. Zeydel
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
German Language ◽  
Prussian Academy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

The outstanding history of the Prussian Academy of Sciences has been written by Adolf Harnack in his Geschichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, a monumental work which supersedes the earlier French account of Christian Bartholmèss in every respect. But naturally Harnack, in his voluminous treatise, does not offer a connected narrative of the fortunes of the German language in the Academy throughout the two centuries of the existence of that body. This phase is dealt with continuously and brought nearer to date in an article by Gustav Roethe. Roethe, however, is interested chiefly in the modern Deutsche Kommission and considers the entire question from the point of view of this interest. The present paper aims to direct attention once more to the subject as a whole, in the belief that it constitutes in a sense a chapter in the history of the German language.

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