Knowing and not knowing: Style, intention and the translation of a Holocaust poem

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Boase-Beier

My aim in this article is to consider the role of the literary translator both as close reader of an original text and as creator of a new text which preserves essential characteristics of the original. Questions such as the intentions and choices of the original author will clearly play a large part in decisions on how to translate, and, using the notion of translation as interpretative use developed within relevance theory, I shall argue here that a translator cannot avoid such questions, and must use clues in the style of the poem to provide answers. As an illustration I look at a German poem about the Holocaust and consider how its central ambiguity can be rendered in English.

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasheed S. Al-Jarrah ◽  
Ahmad M. Abu-Dalu ◽  
Hisham Obiedat

AbstractThe purpose of our current research is to see how Relevance Theory can handle one specific translation problem, namely strategic ambiguous structures. Concisely, we aim to provide a conceptual framework as to how the translator should cope with a pervasive ambiguity problem at the discoursal level. The point of departure from probably all previous models of analysis is that a relevance-theoretic analysis would, we believe, require that a “good” translation benotthe one that representsan interpretationof the text, but the one which leaves the door open for all interpretations which the original text provides evidence for. Hence,the role of translator is not to ‘interpret’ but to ‘translate’. If this is true, ambiguity resolution should not be a viable alternative. In other words, what the translator should do is empower the audience with all it takes to let them work out all the explicatures (linguistically inferred meanings) and entertain themselves with the implicatures (contextually inferred meanings) of the original. Direct Translation, along the lines laid down by Gutt (1991/2000), is the method of translation which can, we believe, bring about the desired results because “it tries to provide readers with contextual information that enables them to draw their own inferences” (Smith 2000: 92).


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-29
Author(s):  
mayer kirshenblatt ◽  
barbara kirshenblatt-gimblett

Mayer Kirshenblatt remembers in words and paintings the daily diet of Jews in Poland before the Holocaust. Born in 1916 in Opatóów (Apt in Yiddish), a small Polish city, this self-taught artist describes and paints how women bought chickens from the peasants and brought them to the shoykhet (ritual slaughterer), where they plucked the feathers; the custom of shlogn kapores (transferring one's sins to a chicken) before Yom Kippur; and the role of herring and root vegetables in the diet, especially during the winter. Mayer describes how his family planted and harvested potatoes on leased land, stored them in a root cellar, and the variety of dishes prepared from this important staple, as well as how to make a kratsborsht or scratch borsht from the milt (semen sack) of a herring. In the course of a forty-year conversation with his daughter, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, who also interviewed Mayer's mother, a picture emerges of the daily, weekly, seasonal, and holiday cuisine of Jews who lived in southeastern Poland before World War II.


Author(s):  
Максим Глебович Калинин

Продолжая публиковать оригинальный текст и русский перевод новонайденных фрагментов «Книги глав о ведении» Иосифа Хаззайи (VIII в.), одного из ярчайших представителей восточносирийской мистической традиции, предлагаем вниманию читателей главы 75-162 из фрагмента, представленного восточносирийской рукописью Paris. syr. 434. Эти главы включают в себя комментарий Иосифа Хаззайи на видение Иезекииля, другие экзегетические пассажи, изречения о смирении и любви, описания мистического опыта и пространное рассуждение о роли ангелов в жизни человечества. We proceed to publish the original text and Russian translation of the newly discovered fragments of «Book of the Chapters on Knowledge» of Joseph Ḥazzāyā (8th c.), one of the brightest representatives of the East Syriac mystical tradition. Now the readers are offered the original text and Russian translation of chapters 75-162 from the fragment of Joseph Ḥazzāyā’s work known from the East Syriac manuscript Paris. syr. 434. These chapters include the commentary of Joseph Ḥazzāyā on Ezekiel’s vision, another exegetical passages, sayings on humility and love, various descriptions of mystical experience, and a lengthy discourse on the role of angels in the life of human beings.


Author(s):  
Ethan Kleinberg

This article attempts to understand Levinas as a reader of Jewish texts, with particular attention paid to his Talmudic commentaries. To do so, the entangled relation between oral and written texts is explored; one must be able to properly “read” but also “write,” and there is the related issue of the methodology and training to be able to do so properly. Levinas offers commentary on each issue. Several interpretations of Talmudic texts and an important discussion of reading Scripture are analyzed in order to elucidate Levinas’s reading strategies, what this tells us about his relation to the larger tradition of Talmudic commentary, and Levinas’s particular historical moment, especially the role of the Holocaust for his approach to reading the Talmud and traditional texts.


Author(s):  
Susanna Brogi ◽  
Elisabeth Gallas

Abstract Marie-Louise von Motesiczky’s painting Gespräch in der Bibliothek (Conversation in the Library) relates back to a specific historical constellation insofar as it highlights the interwoven stories of Elias Canetti, Franz Baermann Steiner, and the painter herself, but also of H. G. Adler during the early years of their British exile. Although the painting does not include and likely does not even explicitly refer to H. G. Adler, he saved Steiner’s library from destruction, which made him an integral part of the intellectual exchange that is depicted here, since the library plays a central role in the portrait. Numerous notes and letters in Steiner’s and Adler’s estates testify to the close net of all four protagonists. The article discusses the crucial role of book collections as a mainstay of the three authors’ self-conception and intellectual self-positioning in the wake of the Holocaust, and the continuing impact of this intellectual network visible throughout the dispersed papers of the authors and the painter.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Kaur Dhamoon

AbstractIn settler societies like Canada, United States, and Australia, the bourgeoning discourse that frames colonial violence against Indigenous people as genocide has been controversial, specifically because there is much debate about the meaning and applicability of genocide. Through an analysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this paper analyzes what is revealed about settler colonialism in the nexus of difficult knowledge, curatorial decisions, and political debates about the label of genocide. I specifically examine competing definitions of genocide, the primacy of the Holocaust, the regulatory role of the settler state, and the limits of a human rights framework. My argument is that genocide debates related to Indigenous experiences operationalize a range of governing techniques that extend settler colonialism, even as Indigenous peoples confront existing hegemonies. These techniques include: interpretative denial; promoting an Oppression Olympics and a politics of distancing; regulating difference through state-based recognition and interference; and depoliticizing claims that overshadow continuing practices of assimilation, extermination, criminalization, containment, and forced movement of Indigenous peoples. By pinpointing these techniques, this paper seeks to build on Indigenous critiques of colonialism, challenge settler national narratives of peaceful and lawful origins, and foster ways to build more just relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-146
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  

Abstract Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German (2006), while grounding itself in WWII, casts a wide net as it attempts to examine the role of memory, the difficulty of assigning guilt, determining justice, defining the past, and writing history. Its nuanced treatment of these issues is enhanced by its complex ethnic characterizations and its contextualization among a group of WWII American cinematic classics. This ultimately leads to a shift in viewer reception aimed at creating greater understanding and empathy.


Jurnal Bahasa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-230
Author(s):  
Julaina Nopiah ◽  
◽  
Nur Maizatul Maisarah Nasrong

This study researches the meanings of implicit utterances in Mat Luthfi’s vlog. This qualitative study employs relevance theory, a linguistics-based theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson drawn from the discipline of pragmatics. This theory foregrounds three main concepts comprising the role of context, cognitive effects and processing efforts. The research data consists of implicit dialogue uttered by characters in the video. Data were identified, transcribed, and subsequently analysed based on Relevance Theory. Library research was also used to further explore the implicit and Relevance Theory-based expressions. The findings show that there are ten utterances in the vlogs with implicit elements. These in turn indicate that the speaker wished to convey specific messages to listeners. This study explains that in the Malay community, utterings are various in meaning and are not merely confined to their literal meanings for correct understanding and interpretation. Hence, the meaning of an utterance is more easily understood when interpreted using the Relevance Theory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (08) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Hayat NAJI

The translation of religious texts has always been a perilous undertaking, especially when it concerns a sacred text. Indeed, seeing translation as an act of communication requires a knowledge of the communicative parameters that constitute it. The translator-speaker, who plays the role of intermediary, must create an interaction at the level of meaning and its semantic components. From this emerges the role of the addressee as the main protagonist and the only interpretative force of the message. Thus, the process of negotiation manages the translating activity, since the transfer of a message is not only reduced to a process of reformulation of the source text in another language, but, largely exceeds this compartmentalization. We will first discuss the challenges and stakes of the translation of religious texts, which we have chosen to illustrate with examples that make this aspect clear. Then, we will insist on the question of the translation as a semantic negotiation, considering that there is a confrontation between transmitter and receiver from the point of view of knowledge, historical and linguistic references. Indeed, this facet of the pyramid where the cultural dimension of translation and interpretation is played out remains unknown and implicit. It is quite easy to reveal what is related to the cultural, social and historical reality of a particular receiver. But that is not enough to communicate, it is also necessary to question the cultural references of this one, the representations conveyed by the language. Indeed, we have chosen to present examples of the Holy Qur'an translated by translators of different religions, and given that some translations have deviated from the noble mission of translation, in this case, the faithful transmission of the meaning, without any objectivity whatsoever, especially when it is a sacred text whose inimitability is not to be proven or tested. Thus, the difficulty in our choice stems, on the one hand, from the sacred character of the chosen writing, and on the other hand, from the nature of research in this field which is condemned to remain always relative. Since several elements control the translation of the sacred text, namely, the language, the tradition and the personal factors of the translator. Finally, the field of religious translation requires a great deal of precision and neutrality, and a constant rethinking of the fact that the slightest subjective or cultural interpretation could call into question our research work. Thus, when it comes to cultural transfer, the translator's task is to take into consideration the knowledge that already exists in the target culture about the source culture. Indeed, it is necessary to know how to relate the knowledge concerning the target culture to the knowledge via the source culture. The translator is the first receiver who receives and interprets the message; he will therefore try to understand the source culture with his own knowledge and value judgments. The translator is indeed a mediator because he assumes two roles, that of receiver and reader of the source message, however, the translator having a task of reader which must be different from that of the normal reader, since he must undoubtedly appropriate the competence of mediator in communication which crosses with the function of transmitter of the translated message. Moreover, this same message undergoes a second transfer; the target reader receives it and interprets it in turn according to his own ideological and cultural schemes. Thus, the process of the translated text is not limited to a single phase, but, it enchains back and forth during which the text acquires the imprint of the translator who makes the transfer. Without forgetting to negotiate the meaning by respecting all the circumstances of the original text. So, to what extent can this semantic negotiation communicate the said and the unsaid of the text? .


2015 ◽  
Vol 90 (6) ◽  
pp. 699-700
Author(s):  
Matthew K. Wynia ◽  
William S. Silvers ◽  
Jeremy A. Lazarus

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