scholarly journals Aporias in Literary Translation: A Case Study of The Prophet and Its Translations

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 396
Author(s):  
Maya El Hajj
Keyword(s):  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Challenging Tasks ◽  
American Author ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Critical Discourses ◽  
Target Culture

Literary translation is one of the most challenging tasks in the field of translation. This paper focuses on the aporias in literary texts written and/or translated into Arabic, French, Italian, and English. I contend that some terms/phrases are difficult to render in the target text. This argument is bolstered by examples extracted from The Prophet of the Arabo-American author Gibran Kahlil Gibran. I selected this particular oeuvre given its immense success in terms of vast cultural diffusion and translation into various languages. Also, The Prophet, has been translated several times into the same target languages in addition to the large number of languages to which it has been rendered. I will discuss the translator’s dilemma when undertaking the task of faithfully conveying the aesthetics of the original text into the same, or into the closest version of the original. This paper concentrates on the cultural differences between languages by emphasizing on untranslatability and various retranslations. It analyzes how these elements were rendered into the target culture and language. The argument put forth in this paper attempts to shed light on the importance of literary translation, as one of the most critical discourses of translation.

scholarly journals From Dostoevsky to Yeltsin

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muireann Maguire
Keyword(s):  
Language Translation ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Wide Readership ◽  
Target Culture

This article proposes the metaphor of prizemlenie (landing) as a new investigative approach to Translation Studies. Prizemlenie refers to literary texts which ‘land’ in the target language’s literary field without acquiring wide readership or becoming integrated in the target culture. Focussing on literary translation from Russian to Irish, I survey the record of An Gúm, the Irish Free State’s official publishing organization, with regard to literary translation; undertake a close reading and case study of the first Irish-language translation of Dostoevsky in 1938; and examine the habitus of three of the most significant Russian-to-Irish literary translators. In conclusion, I argue that even the minimal cultural interaction sustained by prizemlenie plays an important role in preserving the target language.

TRANSLATION AS MENTAL INTERPRETATION ACTIVITY IN LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (28) ◽  
pp. 43-53
Author(s):  
Svitlana Gruschko
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Cross Language

In the article the phenomenon of translation is regarded as mental interpretation activity not only in linguistics, but also in literary criticism. The literary work and its translation are most vivid guides to mental and cultural life of people, an example of intercultural communication. An adequate perception of non-native culture depends on communicators’ general fund of knowledge. The essential part of such fund of knowledge is native language, and translation, being a mediator, is a means of cross-language and cross-cultural communication. Mastering another language through literature, a person is mastering new world and its culture. The process of literary texts’ translation requires language creativity of the translator, who becomes so-called “co-author” of the work. Translation activity is a result of the interpreter’s creativity and a sort of language activity: language units are being selected according to language units of the original text. This kind of approach actualizes linguistic researching of real translation facts: balance between language and speech units of the translated work (i.e. translationinterpretation, author’s made-up words, or revised language peculiarities of the characters). The process of literary translation by itself should be considered within the dimension of a dialogue between cultures. Such a dialogue takes place in the frame of different national stereotypes of thinking and communicational behavior, which influences mutual understanding between the communicators with the help of literary work being a mediator. So, modern linguistics actualizes the research of language activities during the process of literary work’s creating. This problem has to be studied furthermore, it can be considered as one of the central ones to be under consideration while dealing with cultural dimension of the translation process, including the process of solving the problems of cross-cultural communication.

El estilo del traductor en el tratamiento de las onomatopeyas del chino al español

Babel ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-463
Author(s):  
Helena Casas-Tost
Keyword(s):  
Creative Writing ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Spanish Version ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Phonological Features ◽  
Translation Techniques ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

Onomatopoeia are words with peculiar phonological features and expressive capacity which distinguish them from other types of words. These traits together with other elements related to their use in each language often pose a challenge for translators of specific language combinations. This article analyses how Chinese onomatopoeia are translated into Spanish, and it is based on a case study of the Spanish version of the Chinese novel Huozhe (活着) (To live). This piece of creative writing has been chosen because the original text contains many onomatopoeia and because the target text can be regarded as a fine example from a translation point of view. The article begins with a brief overview of the main features of these words and their role in literary texts, as well as the general results of the analysis of a corpus of seven contemporary Chinese novels and their translations into Spanish. Subsequently, the study explores the translation of onomatopoeia in the selected work of fiction in order to identify the mechanisms and translation techniques the translator has adopted and the results in the Spanish target text.

scholarly journals Transcultural memory and literary translation: Mapping the Field (with a case study on Lydie Salvayre’s Pas pleurer and its Spanish translation)

2021 ◽  
pp. 175069802098876
Author(s):  
Claudia Jünke
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Spanish Translation ◽  
Literary Memory ◽  
State Of Research

The purpose of this article is to map the role of translation in literary and cultural memory studies and of memory dynamics in transcultural contexts. “Translation” is understood both as interlingual translation, that is the rephrasing of a literary text in another language, and in a broader and more metaphorical sense as transfer, transmission and relocation across different kinds of spatial and temporal borders. The first part gives an overview of the state of research, presents basic theoretical and conceptual reflections regarding the intersections of literary memory and translation, and proposes a general framework for analyses of literary texts and their translation that want to elucidate the role of translation for transcultural memory circulation. The second part is dedicated to a particular case study: the translational aspects of the literary memory of the Spanish Civil War, the anarchist revolution and exile in Lydie Salvayre’s novel Pas pleurer and the role of Javier Albiñana’s Spanish translation No llorar as a medium of transcultural memory.

scholarly journals Translating selves of Mykola Dmytrenko

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
Olena Pavlenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Sociocultural Context ◽  
Professional Skill ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Detective Stories ◽  
Selection Of

This paper reflects on the key issues of literary translation approaches suggested by Mykola Dmytrenko, an outstanding Ukrainian prose translator. Despite the vast research made by Ukrainian and foreign scholars regarding the translation (A. Bennet, S. Bassnet, M. Strykha) little is known about the contribution made by Ukrainian translators to the promotion of the Ukrainian literature on the international arena. Mykola Dmytrenko’s original arguments coming from value-based interview questions reveal the nature of translating process in terms of cultural transfer with a special emphasis on the literary standards and the distinctive nature of translation paradigm. As many translation theorists and researchers claim, there has been an accepted recognition of the fact that the use of the strategies and techniques of contemporary linguistics shift away to cultural studies. This article attempts to outline the scope of translation as a process by syndicating various extralinguistic phenomena as they occur in Mykola Dmytrenko’s translation project. Firstly, his translation programme embraces the issues of self with their close relation to the problems of cultural identity and the ones connected with tracing the target text within its new sociocultural context. Secondly, Mykola Dmytrenko’s translations provide his exceptional position in developing general principles through which he adequately clarifies the algorithm of choosing literary texts for translation and sheds light on the author selection as well as the ways literary translation networks function in a number of respects. Furthermore, the translator aims his works to be viewed in a broader context of building up the relations with the author of the original on the equal basis so that the target reader would feel he deals with the original text, not with the translation. With this purpose, Mykola Dmytrenko claims that he not only aspires to getting Ukrainian readers acquainted with the masterpieces of world literature, but also aims to develop the ability of cultivating their deductive skills as well as sharpening observation and forming the power of imagination. These explicate the reasons for the translator’s selection of literary texts by A. C. Doyle («A Scandal in Bohemia», «The Red-headed League», «A Case of Identity», «Boscombe Valley Mystery», «Thе Five Orange Pips», etc.). All these have been illustrated by the examples from A. Conan Doyle’s collection of detective stories «The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes» («The Reigate Puzzle»). So, the translator’s pragmatic view comes to be both from an inborn talent and a professional skill to produce the target text of the highest quality.

scholarly journals Intersemiotic Translation in Adaptation: The Case Study of the Adaptation of Narrative Poem The Tale of Kiều (Nguyễn Du) to Cải lương Film Kim Vân Kiều (Nguyễn Bạch Tuyết)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hieu Le Quoc ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Semiotic System ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Narrative Poem ◽  
Target Culture ◽  
Cai Luong

We are living in the age of adaptation. In contemporary art, the power of adaptation is evidenced by the fact that a textual semiotic system is continuously passing through the different genres and means to establish new texts. Adaptation is also an intercultural translation as each work adapted experiences a cultural shift so as to adapt to the target culture. Although The Tale of Kieu (Nguyen Du) made use of the plot of Kim Van Kieu, written as the pseudonym Qingxin Cairen (青心才人, Pure Heart Talented Man), in the Vietnamese artistic context, the tale can be considered as the “original text” that provides superabundant materials for other adaptations. The Tale of Kieu is one of the Nom poetries that has been most adapted to other art forms, particularly “cải lương” (reformed theatre). In this study, we analyze the case of video-cải lương Kim Van Kieu (directed by Nguyen Bach Tuyet), to determine modes of semiotic transposition from the narrative (narrative poem) to the performance/showing (video cải lương). This inter-semiotic translation process requires that the author adapts, selects, renounces, transforms as well as encodes/decodes, as semiotics, genre, and materials belonging to the verbal semiotic system to the nonverbal semiotic system, or vice versa. To concretize this, we analyze factors that were involved or omited during the adaptation of The Tale of Kieu to Kim Van Kieu.

scholarly journals Translation and Stylistics: A Case Study of Tawfiq al-Hakeem’s “Sparrow from the East”

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 1074
Author(s):  
Muna Alhaj-Saleh Salama Al-Ajrami ◽  
Esra’a Mujahed Al-Muhiesen
Keyword(s):  
Vital Role ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
The Relationship

Having a background in major linguistic disciplines gives the translator a better understanding of the text, which leads to producing a more adequate and accurate translation of the text. This study aims at showing the problems that translators encounter in the translation of literary texts. It also shows the relationship between translation and novel stylistics. This study is based on translating a novel titled “Sparrow from the East” by Tawfiq Al-Hakeem. The text was translated by the researchers from Arabic into English. The researchers also came into three major challenges in terms of syntax, lexis, and stylistic. As a result of this study, the researchers used several translation strategies to overcome those problems and concluded to the fact that stylistics has a vital role in literary translation.

scholarly journals Vladimir Nabokov’s Self-Translated Lolita: Revisiting the Original Alliterative Modes

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (27) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artūras Cechanovičius ◽  
Jadvyga Krūminienė
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Investigation ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Russian Translation ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Original Text ◽  
English Novel ◽  
Russian Version ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Writing Activity

This paper is a case study comparison of Vladimir Nabokov’s self-translated Russian version of his English novel Lolita with its original text within the frame of the theory of literary translation. Here, self-translation is referred to as a branch of literary translation whose distinctive feature is that the work is both composed and translated by the same person. It is interesting to observe that, for the most part, the authors who translate their own works into another language are bilingual. Theoretical investigation into the field of self-translation is a recent endeavour; the term only appeared around 1976. Before it appeared in A Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation, self-translation was thought to be related to bilingualism, and was therefore approached from the perspective of linguistics.This paper analyses some alliterative modes, including suballiteration, produced by Nabokov in the two versions of Lolita. Throughout, the process of translation is viewed as a “two-stage reading-writing activity.” The novel’s translation into Lithuanian, which was performed from Nabokov’s Russian translation, is used to show the difference between translation and selftranslation, and to reveal the clash or the interplay between the foreign and the domestic in the development of alliterative appeal.

scholarly journals GENDER BASED PROBLEMS IN TRANSLATION OF LITERARY TEXTS

2019 ◽  
pp. 96-105
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Artistic Images ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Gender Factor ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Gender Specific

The study focuses on the investigation of the impact of gender on translation of literary texts.To be more specific, the article is aimed to explore the distinctive features of translated work by male and female translators. Previous researches and studies in this area of investigation have been gathered and analyzed. The aim of the following paper is to identify gender-specific language and the influence of the translator’s gender identity on the translation result, at the morphological, lexical and syntactic levels, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the original and translated texts.Studies of gender differences on the material of the literary texts allow to consider the implementation of gender as a parameter reflecting the gender identity of the author, and affecting the pragmatic potential of translation the work into target languages. The choice of fiction as a research material is not accidental. Since, gender factor in literary translation may act as a structure-forming element of the text, affecting the embodiment of the artistic images and the plot lines.

Peculiarities of Communicatively Equivalent Translation of Literary Text (based on the novel “Chess King” by A. Cheng translated from Chinese into English and Ukrainian)

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (26) ◽  
pp. 139-148
Author(s):  
Tetiana Stoianova ◽  
Halyna Chernopiatova
Keyword(s):  
Literary Text ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Original Text ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Communicative Translation

The research is dedicated to the study of peculiarities of literary texts and the means of their interpreting when translating from Chinese into Ukrainian and English. The tactics of pragmatic adaptation of the text, preserving the regional flavor of the original text, and recreating the stylistic peculiarities of the original text are thoroughly studied in the article. The use of operations employed in the process of literary translation within the strategy of communicative translation are regarded.

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