A sociological study of Howard Goldblatt’s English translations of the ideological markers in Mo Yan’s three Chinese novels

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangjun Wu
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Relative Status ◽  
Diachronic Changes ◽  
Target Culture ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Over the last two decades, ideology has evolved into a major issue in translation studies. In terms of the ideological explorations of translation, previous studies focused on the explicit or implicit ideological manifestations in translated texts, or how translation was used to serve ideology. Studies on the diachronic changes of translator’s ideology, however, remain scarce. This study of Howard Goldblatt’s English translations of three Chinese novels over three different periods finds that translators’ ideology is dynamic rather than static. In their translations, translators may follow the ideology of the source culture or that of the target culture, depending on the relative status of the source culture and the target culture as well as the capital possessed by the author and the translator. A sociological account is provided to explain the changes in translators’ ideology over time.

scholarly journals Multipronged dental analyses reveal dietary differences in last foragers and first farmers at Grotta Continenza, central Italy (15,500–7000 BP)

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessia Nava ◽  
Elena Fiorin ◽  
Andrea Zupancich ◽  
Marialetizia Carra ◽  
Claudio Ottoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dental Plaque ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Abruzzo Region ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Fucino Basin ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Diachronic Changes ◽  
Dental Conditions ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Late Palaeolithic

AbstractThis paper provides results from a suite of analyses made on human dental material from the Late Palaeolithic to Neolithic strata of the cave site of Grotta Continenza situated in the Fucino Basin of the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The available human remains from this site provide a unique possibility to study ways in which forager versus farmer lifeways affected human odonto-skeletal remains. The main aim of our study is to understand palaeodietary patterns and their changes over time as reflected in teeth. These analyses involve a review of metrics and oral pathologies, micro-fossils preserved in the mineralized dental plaque, macrowear, and buccal microwear. Our results suggest that these complementary approaches support the assumption about a critical change in dental conditions and status with the introduction of Neolithic foodstuff and habits. However, we warn that different methodologies applied here provide data at different scales of resolution for detecting such changes and a multipronged approach to the study of dental collections is needed for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of diachronic changes.

Bridge building or armchair traveling? The reception of the English translations of Manuel Rivas and Domingo Villar

2021 ◽  
pp. 93-120
Author(s):  
Laura Linares
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Bridge Building ◽  
Manuel Rivas

The reader of translations has gained increasing attention in Translation Studies in recent years, with more focused studies looking into the reception of translated works either through textual analysis of reviews (Zhao 2009, Bielsa 2013, D’Egidio 2015, Saldanha 2018) or the analysis of interviews and focus groups with real readers (Arnold 2016). The reception of works by anglophone readers, in particular, has raised interest among scholars who wish to understand the expectations and patterns of literary consumption by a hegemonic, central culture. This article explores how Galician writers Manuel Rivas and Domingo Villar’s work is perceived and re-constructed by an anglophone readership through an analysis of professional (press) reviews and semiprofessional (blog) reviews based on the homogenization- eterogenizationexoticismcontinuum posited by Saldanha (2018).

Blood Wedding in (re)translation

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-207
Author(s):  
Patricia González Bermúdez
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Seminal Article

Abstract This article is a comparative study of four different translations into English of Federico García Lorca's play Bodas de sangre (1933) carried out in the United Kingdom and Ireland throughout the 1990s. Since the publication of Antoine Berman's seminal article on 'retranslation', this theoretical concept has provided a fecund framework for descriptive translation studies, illuminating the variety of solutions translators provide when confronted with the same original text. This article furthers that body of scholarship while simultaneously providing new angles on Lorca's dramatic work. The comparative approach to several English translations of this classic work concentrates on two key scenes of the play and discusses the linguistic, pragmatic and theatrical adequacy of each translation.

scholarly journals Dis-contenting Khayyam in the Context of Comparative Literature: An Invitation to Translating Rubaiyat with a Focal Shift from Content to Form

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Sajad Soleymani Yazdi
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Focus On Form ◽  
Home Culture ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Focal Shift

Since its conception in France in 1877, Comparative Literature, always subject to a critique of Eurocentrism, has been in a state of perpetual crisis. In “The Old/New Question of Comparison in Literary Studies: A Post-European Perspective” (2004), Ray Chow argued for a Post-European perspective in which comparatists begin with the home culture and look outwards to the European cultures, contrary to the dominant approach of doing just otherwise. Missing in Chow’s argument is the position of translation in this post-European perspective. In the 14 years between 2004 and 2018, the grandiose claims of comparative literature have been problematized and addressed; the lay of the land, however, remains predominantly Eurocentric, as it still focuses on content disproportionately. In this paper, through a study of English translations of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, and taking Chow’s argument further, I argue that with its commitment to transfer the form of a text as much as the content, translation studies can further help comparative literature to distance itself from Europe. To exemplify the implication of this, I suggest that a translation of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat from Farsi to English would be more faithful to the original if its translations were to focus on the poem’s form rather than the content. I argue that translating with a focus on form would foreignize Khayyam’s poetry, hence an act of resistance against cultural hegemony.

scholarly journals The past, present and future of Chinese MA theses in Interpreting Studies: A scientometric survey

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziyun Xu
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Statistical Techniques ◽  
Human Hand ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dynamic Field ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
In Cis ◽  
Over Time

This paper takes a scientometric approach to examining one of Chinese Interpreting Studies’ (CIS) most productive sources of research, MA theses, with the aim of answering the following questions: How has the discipline changed over time? What fields and theories influence it? And what are its most common research themes? The study’s comprehensive corpus of nearly 1,300 Chinese-language theses addresses a data-based limitation faced by earlier scholars. A range of state-of-the-art statistical techniques have made it possible to detect patterns in CIS that are difficult to tease out by human hand and eye alone. The field has grown rapidly in recent years and is now producing a steady and consistent stream of research: the majority of students in China draw inspiration from theories within Translation Studies, but no particular theories or topics have grown more popular over time. Despite this consistency, CIS remains a complex and dynamic field of academic enquiry.

Aligning Adaptation Studies with Translation Studies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Raw
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Ecological Models ◽  
Adaptation Studies ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Creative Workers ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

The relationship between translation and adaptation has remained problematic despite the appearance of two books on the subject. The difficulty lies in understanding how both terms are culturally constructed and change over space and time. Chapter 28 suggests that there is no absolute distinction between the two; to look at the relationship between translation and adaptation requires us to study cultural policies and the way creative workers respond to them, and to understand how readers over time have reinterpreted the two terms. The essay considers the lessons ecological models of learning in collaborative micro-cultures have to offer adaptation scholars and translation scholars alike.

scholarly journals The changing face of contemporary translation studies through polydisciplinary lenses: Possibilities and caveats

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 462-477
Author(s):  
Klaudia Bednárová-Gibová
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
After Effects ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Target Culture

This paper offers a meta-reflection of contemporary translation studies (TS) through tracing its polydisciplinary tensions which are approached as both formative forces as well as hindrances. Taking a form of an argumentative essay employing the methods of a reflexive introspection, synthesis and evaluation, the principal aim is to address the potentials and controversies in present-day TS which are connected to its polydisciplinarity. This is a result from the aftermath of Snell-Hornbys integrated approach (1988/1995), TSs cultural and ideological turns as well as cognitive, sociological, anthropological, technological and economic twists. Four major strands of the consequences of the polydisciplinarity in TS are addressed: (a) the clash between the focus on the epistemological core of TS as an antidote to the expanding boundaries of the meta-discipline and embrace of reciprocal interdisciplinarity; (b) the tension between academia as Ivory Tower and practice-minded language industry; (c) the diffusion of the outer boundaries of TS and erasure of its inner boundaries; (d) a multitude of different conceptualizations of TS foregrounding either the abstract or practical. Following TSs inward orientations, two outward turns are suggested, i.e. promoting its relevance to other disciplines and reaching out to translation practice, in tune with Zwischenbergers approach (2019). A continuation of the outward turns may be seen in Gentzlers post-translation studies focusing on the study of pre-translation culture and after-effects of translation in the target culture. Although the paper does not tend to conceptual extremes, it suggests that authentic transdisciplinary TS should be mindful of a constructive and mutually enriching dialogue with donor disciplines and interlacement between theory and practice, with a focus on real-world issues, becomes imperative in order to make TS viable.

scholarly journals From an Empire to a Nation State: Importing the Concept of Nation into Ottoman/Turkish Thinking

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Daldeniz
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Turkish Nationalism ◽  
Turkish Culture ◽  
Preliminary Research ◽  
Target Culture

During importation processes of concepts, the target context and the agents involved in these processes are central and shape the imported ideas. Hereby, translation, both in its narrow and broader senses, plays an important role. The aim of this article is to present preliminary research results on the importation process of the concept ofnationinto the Ottoman/Turkish culture as the target culture. The article provides research results gained from the analysis of dictionaries as well as of texts written by important figures of Turkish nationalism during the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. The research covers first-hand analysis of key texts by Yusuf Akçura and Ziya Gökalp whereby the use of the concept of ‘nation’ by other key figures are discussed on the basis of secondary sources. The analysis also includes translations. This study, which is linked to a study on the concept of ‘culture,’ was based on an interdisciplinary approach relying on the perspectives and notions of translation studies and on methodology developed in conceptual history. The theoretical framework and methodology adopted in this study are exposed in the first part, whilst the second part presents and discusses the research results.

Could “Subtle Words” have Conveyed “Praise and Blame”? The Implications of Formal Regularity and Variation in Spring and Autumn (Chūn Qiū) Records

Early China ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 47-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Newell Ann Van Auken
Keyword(s):  
Formal Analysis ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Event ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Home State ◽  
Single Author ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Diachronic Changes ◽  
Over Time

The Spring and Autumn (Chūn Qiū) is a highly formally regular chronicle of apparently objective entries recorded in the state of Luˇ for the period from 722 to 479 (or 481) b.c.e. The present study is a formal analysis of the Spring and Autumn (Chūn Qiū), showing that its records were written in adherence to strict prescriptive rules governing what types of events could be recorded and the form of those records. Entries recording the same type of event were recorded using the same form, including the same degree of specificity in date notation, style of reference to individuals, as well as main verb and sentence pattern. Other variables affecting the form of records included the rank of individuals mentioned in the record and their home state. Regular diachronic changes in form may also be identified, and their presence demonstrates that the Spring and Autumn (Chūn Qiū) accrued over time and was not the product of a single author or editor. Classes of records associated with events, persons, or states deemed to be of greater importance were marked by inclusion of more detail such as names or precise dates, or use of special (honorific or euphemistic) verbs. The use of formal marking to indicate the exceptional significance of classes of records apparently extended to individual records, suggesting that the value judgment associated with the class had been applied to an individual event. While the Spring and Autumn (Chūn Qiū) contains no explicit value judgments, formal irregularities may indeed have been used to express value judgments on the events recorded in the Spring and Autumn (Chūn Qiū).

The Leverage of Cultural Homogenization in Futurity of Translation Studies: HomoKult Model as the Right Switch

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Masoud Shahnazari ◽  
Alireza Akbari
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Cultural Translation ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Principle ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
The Right ◽  
Cultural Homogenization ◽  
Target Culture

Cultural Translation (CT) in general and translation of cultures in particular has come into the new horizon in a few years. Both diversity and homogeneity of cultures circle around translators' cynosure. Notwithstanding the fact that cultural diversification acts as the primary role in cultural translation, much attention has been paid to homogeneity and future of cultural translation in translation studies. In this direction, one of the latest movements in cultural translation is rooted in source-target culture reconciliation known as HomoKult (capital K) model. The core principle of HomoKult lies in four types of cultures namely: (1) purposive culture, (2) ameliorated culture, (3) circulated culture, and (4) diglossic culture. The present study opens up the new insight in cultural translation on the basis of purposive and diglossic cultures of HomoKult model for reconditioning off the futurity of intercultural translation between source and target languages.

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