Minority voices in literary fiction: a case study of translating multilingual practices

Multilingua ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arja Nurmi
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Second Year ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

AbstractTranslating multilingual texts is still a new field of inquiry. Transplanting a text where the function of embraced multilingual practices is strongly related to local ethnic identities can provide challenges for translators and readers alike. This study discusses the translation strategies adopted by second-year translation students on an assignment to translate part of Patricia Grace’s short story “The Dream” into Finnish. The strategies for dealing with the Maori passages in the story varied, both in terms of how many of the Maori passages were preserved and how much intratextual translation was included in the text. The strategies were investigated both in the translations themselves and in the accompanying translation comments the students produced. The degree to which the translators showed an in-depth understanding of the nuances relevant to the representation of an ethnic minority of another culture varied. There was more sensitivity to a Finnish reader’s insufficient familiarity with the Maori language and culture than to the meaning of the representations of Maori language and culture in the original text.

scholarly journals The Disappearing Medium: Remarks on Language in Translation

2011 ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
George Varsos
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
German Romanticism ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Language And Culture

This essay discusses problems pertaining to the disappearance of the language of the original text in the case of literary translation. After a reminder of recent criticism directed against ethnocentric translation strategies, the question is raised of the theoretical promises of alternative strategies. The text examines the different ways in which the relations between language and culture are theorized, taking two lines of inquiry that have strongly infl uenced contemporary translation theory: that of German Romanticism and that of Walter Benjamin.

Multilingualism, Identities and Language Hegemony

2020 ◽  
pp. 374-390
Author(s):  
Jing Li ◽  
Danièle Moore
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Minority Students ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Multilingual Students ◽  
Social Positioning ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
Mandarin Language

This paper presents the findings from a case study of how five post-secondary ethnic multilingual students (three Bai and two Zhuang) at a local university in Southwestern China experience multilingualism and ethnic identities (de)construction and invest themselves in an active negotiation for legitimate membership in mainstream educational Discourses (Gee, 1990, 2012). The authors seek to understand how the perceived hegemony of Mandarin has impacted their social positioning and delegitimized their multilingual assets and ethnic identities in mainstream educational Discourses, and how they managed to negotiate their identities as ethnic multilinguals in different social Discourses. The authors argue that through the legitimate dominance of Mandarin, these students are not merely being positioned as members of a negatively stereotyped ethnic group but also concurrently participating in reconstructing the Mandarin language hegemony in those very Discourses, which runs the risk of further expanding the existing educational inequalities between Han and ethnic minority students..

Representations of the dead and the afterlife in translations of Mudan Ting, a masterpiece in Chinese Kunqu theatre

Babel ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy S.B. Ngai
Keyword(s):  
Target Language ◽  
English Text ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Related Material ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Semantic Translation ◽  
Cultural Taboos ◽  
Peony Pavilion ◽  
Target Readership

The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze the strategies used to translate into English death related cultural taboos viz. death, ghost and resurrection represented in the prominent classical Chinese drama Mudan Ting. Particular reference is made to the articulation of these taboos in three seminal English versions of Mudan Ting (as Peony Pavilion) by Cyril Birch, Wang Rongpei and Zhang Guanqian, respectively. Although these translators all follow the source text closely, certain differences in their translation strategies warrant attention. Cyril Birch takes an acculturation approach to the translation of death-related material, whereas Wang Rongpei adheres to the original text and tends to use semantic translation. In contrast, Zhang Guanqian usually translates literally, infusing the English text with a “foreign” flavor. These differences are examined in light of the general propensity among translators to take an avoidance approach to death-related material. The strategies used to translate taboo subjects are found to depend on the translator’s intentions, the target readership, the specific nature of the culturally loaded elements and the availability of equivalent expressions in the target language and culture.

A Comparative Study of Two Major English Translations of The Journey to the West: Monkey and The Monkey and the Monk

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Ji
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Original Novel ◽  
Original Text ◽  
The West ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Textual Features ◽  
Journey To The West

As two major English translations of a famous sixteenth-century Chinese novelThe Journey to the West, Monkeyby Arthur Waley andThe Monkey and the Monkby Anthony Yu differ in many respects due to the translators’ different concerns and translation strategies. Whereas Waley’s translation omits many episodes and significantly changes textual features of the original novel, Yu’s translation is more literal and faithful to the original. Through a comparison of the different approaches in these two translations, this paper aims to delineate important differences in textual features and images of protagonists and demonstrate how such differences, especially the changing representation of Tripitaka, might affect English-language readers’ understanding of religious references and themes in the story. It also seeks to help us reconsider the relationship between translations and the original text in the age of world literature through a case study of English translations ofThe Journey to the West.

“Borderland Translation”

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 552-580
Author(s):  
Miya Qiong Xie
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
National Literature ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Northeast Asian

Abstract This paper explores the complexity of translation of borderland literature through a case study of the Japanese and Chinese translations of the Korean short story “The Red Hill.” Written by the renowned Korean writer Kim Tong-in (김동인, 1900–1951) in 1932, this story features the Korean agrarian community in the Northeast Asian borderland of Manchuria and is conventionally considered a masterpiece of Korean national literature. When it was translated into Japanese and Chinese and anthologized in inland Japan and the Japanese Manchukuo respectively, the three texts of the same story in three languages conveyed different and contradictory national/imperial claims over Manchuria, a Northeast Asian frontier. This case study demonstrates how the very act of translating and anthologizing, as a process of linguistic transposition across cultural and national constituencies, may crystallize the sense of territorial competition through revealing, reshuffling, and redefining the covert intricacy of national relations in the original text.

scholarly journals Beyond Translation: Clarity, Sensitivity, and Artistry in Benedict Anderson’s Reading of Indonesian Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Novita Dewi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Analytical Method ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Foreignizing Translation ◽  
Pragmatic Equivalence

This research was to reconfirm Anderson’s theory (and praxis) of translation, i.e., transfer of language and culture from one to another with clarity, sensitivity, and high artistry. The analytical method used the application of diverse translation strategies to achieve pragmatic equivalence, i.e., the use of footnotes and foreignization-domestication principles. To consolidate the discussion, this research examined closely Anderson’s English translation of part of Titie Said’s “Bidadari” in his analysis of the novel and his translation of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s short story “Nyonya Dokter Hewan Suharko”. The results indicate that what appears in his translation work is a broad range of discourses that help expound foreign-language (in this case English) intelligibility from the translating (Indonesian) one. His treatment of domesticating and the foreignizing translation is critically done owing to his gift of interests, passion, and persistence in the subject.

Sovietisms as cultural, social and historical realia in English retranslations of Bulgakov's The Fatal Eggs

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-253
Author(s):  
Natalia Kaloh Vid ◽  
Petra Žagar-Šoštarić
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Translation Strategies

AbstractMikhail Bulgakov's fantastic short story The Fatal Eggs (1925) was translated into English by five translators, Mirra Ginsburg (1964), Kathleen Gook-Horujy (1990), Hugh Aplin (2003), Michael Karpelson (2010), and Roger Cockrell (2011). The emphasis in this research is on the linguistic analysis of the translations of cultural, social and historical realia referred to as Sovietisms, which pertain to items characteristic of Soviet discourse in the 1930s. Bulgakov's language is brimming with Soviet vocabulary that refers to various cultural and socio-political elements of Soviet reality. A complete naturalization or even omission of Sovietisms may lead to loss of connotative meanings essential to understanding the context, while foreignizing through transliteration or calquing may disturb the fluency of reading. The purpose of the analysis is to assess the translators' choices and what they imply for the readers. Another aim is to test the assumptions of re-translation theory (Bensimon 1990; Gambier 1994), which states that early translations are more target-oriented than subsequent translations. The analysis employs taxonomies suggested by Vlakhov and Florin (1980) and Mokienko and Nikitina (1998) for the classification of Sovietisms, and Aixelá’s taxonomy of translation strategies (1996) as the grounds for the case study.

scholarly journals The return of the ethnic? Multiculturalism from an ethnic minority perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-394
Author(s):  
Krisztina Rácz
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Minority Youth ◽  
Ethnic Identities ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Minority Status

This article discusses theories of multiculturalism and ethnicity in light of the ethnic identification of minority youth. Namely, even though the primordialism vs. constructivism debate has led to an agreement about seeing ethnic identities as situational and strategic, often for members of ethnic minorities, including young people living in multiethnic environments, ethnic identities seem stable and salient. Relying on the case study of young Hungarian people in Serbia, the article argues that it is the minority status and the institutional setup building on ethnic divisions as the main social frame that make ethnic identities marked. Therefore I connect the case of Vojvodina Hungarian youth to more general debates on the multiethnicy, ethnic belonging and minority status.

“The Unhappy Mistake”: An Analysis of the Spanish Translation

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 316-329
Author(s):  
Juan de Dios Torralbo-Caballero
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Aphra Behn ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Spanish Translation ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Charles Ii

Abstract “The Unhappy Mistake” is a short story published in the late seventeenth century that has received little attention from critics. It has historically been attributed to Aphra Behn (1640–1689), but her authorship has been questioned by renowned critics like Janet Todd, Germaine Greer and Leah Orr. This article studies the translation produced by Jesus Serrano-Reyes (published in 2008 by Siruela) in order to draw attention to some of the translation strategies applied, showing (according to the principles of the Manipulation School and Polysystem Theory) the initial norm and type of equivalence. To this end textual binomials are analysed from the source and target texts, which consist of both key sentences, phrases, expressions, and even certain words. It also takes into account the style of some characters in Behn’s work, contrasting them with their depiction in the target text, specifically the style of the gentleman from Somertshire. Attention is also paid to the content of a political nature found in the story of Miles Hardman (whose flight from his country and domestic, and his return, constitute a metaphor for the exile of King Charles II and his Restoration), both in the original text and in the translation by Serrano-Reyes.

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