scholarly journals A STUDY ON THE CHINESE TRANSLATION OF “ANNA KARENINA” FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL CONTEXT ADAPTATION

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-125
Author(s):  
Shi Pei ◽  
Hu Guming
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Context Adaptation ◽  
Anna Karenina

The dynamic socio-cultural interactions in translating musicals’ librettos

Babel ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 696-718
Author(s):  
Stella Sorby
Keyword(s):  
Network Theory ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Dynamic Network ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Global Arena

Abstract When translating musicals’ librettos from one culture to another, what rôles do socio-cultural factors play? How are they negotiated during the development of the target text? Drawing on some of the major concepts from Actor Network Theory, this study looks at an example from the Mandarin Chinese translation of Mamma Mia! which has recently been performed on the Chinese mainland. It investigates how translators respond to the target socio-cultural context during their libretto translation. The findings suggest that, when translating Mamma Mia! into Chinese, translators operate in a dynamic network of multiple perspectives. Their consumer-oriented interactions with the stakeholders, together with socio-cultural factors, play important rôles in creating resonance with the target audience, and thus contribute to musicals’ commercial success in the global arena. This study leads to a view of the translator as a mediator in the network responding to multiple stakeholders and factors to facilitate the development of the target text.

scholarly journals Slavic Antiquities and Forgeries as Means for the Shaping of Canons

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Róbert Kiss Szemán
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 19Th Century

The study deals with the role of Slavic antiquities in the age of national revivals and with the forging of such antiquities. It discusses the subject of Slavic antiquities and forgeries in Central Europe, bringing in the cultural context of Western Europe as well. ‘Antiquity’ is understood to mean a kind of medium that conveyed textual or visual information. The collecting of antiquities became fashionable during the first decades of the 19th century and led to the need for antiquities to be described and categorized. In turn, antiquities served as corpuses for the shaping of modern national cultural canons. It contends that these artefacts, authentic and forged alike, played an important role in moulding the cultural canons of the Slavic nations in Central Europe. An antiquity's canonical value stemmed from its age most of all and an antiquity needed to be linked as specifically as possible to the history and culture of a given nation. The worth of an antiquity was further boosted when it could be connected with historical personages of great significance. Finally, the more mysterious the history of an antiquity, the greater the degree of speculation permissible in regard to interpretations of it. A forged antiquity is basically an objectification informed by the forger's thinking and imagination. A forgery bears not just marks characteristic of past times but also marks of the forger and those of the time in which the forgery was made. It is something which calls an entire system into question, thereby causing bewilderment. From this perplexity, only one phenomenon can derive benefit, namely, the national culture. Important among the motives for the forging of Slavic antiquities was the circumstance that framers of canons felt that the structures of their national cultures were incomplete. Researching the reasons for the forging, the study points out structural gaps in the canons in Central Europe as well as traumas stemming from forgeries. Using four examples taken from Kollár's oeuvre (the Poison Tree of Java, the Slavic idols of Prillwitz, the Queen's Court and Green Mountain manuscripts and Derzhavin's poem God in Japanese and Chinese translation) it presents the most common motives behind Slavic forgeries along with the kinds of fake most frequently encountered; it also shows the processes by which forgeries were exposed for what they were. These examples show that when Kollár worked with antiquities and fake antiquities, playing the imposter and pecuniary advantage were very far from him. On the other hand, as a philologist he became a prisoner of contemporary national canonical and emblematic structures.

scholarly journals Difficulties in Translating Concepts that Denote Objects and Phenomena of Material Culture of Central Asian Peoples, and the Principles of Overcoming Them (on the Example of the Translation of V. G. Yan’s Novel “Genghis Khan” from Russian into Chinese)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Airong Wu ◽  
◽  
Kun Liu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Translation Errors

The concept of national-oriented translation as a part of the cultural translation theory becomes most relevant during the translation of fiction books into languages where the native speakers’ cultural context is far from what is narrated in the text of the translated work. The problem may be even more complicated if the language of the translated work is not the language of the described culture. This problem is exemplified by the Chinese translation of V. G. Yan’s novel “Genghis Khan”, which was written in Russian and depicts the complexity of socio-cultural processes in Central Asia during the 13th century. The description of the most important elements of material culture presented in the novel reflects the diversity of the material culture of the peoples of Central Asia. The article analyzes typical errors and inaccuracies in the translation of concepts that denote objects of material culture of Central Asian peoples. The authors attempt to identify the causes of translation errors: translator errors that arose due to differences in the semantic systems of the Russian and Chinese languages, as well as errors related to cultural differences between the peoples of Central Asia and China. The methodological basis of the research is Yuri Naida’s concept of dynamic equivalence as well as the principles of functional equivalence of the original and translated texts proposed by L. K. Latyshev. The source of material for the comparative analysis is the translation of the novel “Genghis Khan” into Chinese by Chen Hongfa. As a result of the analysis of errors and generalization of theoretical provisions, the authors propose three translation principles in order to avoid errors in the translation of names for objects of material culture, namely: the principles of “Double definition”, “Semantic correspondence” and “Addition of translation by explaining the connotative meaning of the word”. Adherence to these principles will allow translators to bring the translated text closer to the original text in both functional and communicative as well as semantic and structural ways.

scholarly journals Traductology, linguistics, and culture: the contrastive function of omissions in English-Chinese translations of the intercultural collision in Little Red Riding Hood

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiuyang Pan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
English Language ◽  
Chinese Version ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
English Version ◽  
Chinese Translation ◽  
Little Red Riding Hood

AbstractThe study examines omissions in the English version of Little Red Riding Hood in contrast to the Chinese one. The research is aimed at studying the linguistic effects of inculturation and the choice of translation strategies to convey a truthful intercultural component. The study examines the Little Red Riding Hood story by Leray (2011) translated into Englishand Chinese languages. The Chinese version of the story was edited and published by Green and Green (1953). The analysis of the translation in a cultural context is based on the omission strategy. The analysis of semantically redundant words and sentences in the English version of Little Red Riding Hood has been carried out in contrast to the Chinese one, where no omissions were found. The purpose of the study is to analyze the relationship between the versions of Little Red Riding Hood and the evolution of European and Chinese moral ideology. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that two translations are considered in the context of the Tehrani’s (2013) method using a phylogenetic approach and the strategy of omission to determine moral codes. As a result of a comparative analysis of the target translation, ten omissions were found: four brief descriptions and six complete omissions. The omission strategy reflected the cross-cultural and informative ideological features of the two cultures. Adhering to the phylogenetic concept by Tehrani, the target language of Little Red Riding Hood was identified as English because the Chinese version of the story was translated from English (Zhengzhong Bookstore, 1967). There are also some distinguishing characteristics of the initial collision: the characteristics of the protagonist, the characteristics of the villain, the methods of deceiving the future victim by the villain and the ending options. The folk European collision of the fairy tale originates from the story The Wolf and the Children. It is also found in Chinese culture—The Girl and the Tiger; however, it is described at the level of other concepts, which confirms the genetic relationship of intercultural conflict. The nature of the extended Chinese translation testifies to the flexible structure and aesthetics of the style, in which traditions and family values play an important role, while in the English version some elements of culture are omitted due to a different mentality and structure of the language. Chinese culture is characterized by respect for elders, a tribute to traditions, and respect for people who are higher in social status. Undoubtedly, greetings in the English language carry a similar semantic load, but due to the peculiarity of its grammatical structure, omitting or transferring a greeting during translation does not harm the context of communication. Thus, it has been revealed that folk tales are a joint imprint of different cultures. The linguistic progression makes them change and adopt new information in accordance with the mentality of the people. There are three clusters of autonomous versions of the fairy tale: far Eastern, African and European; all of them are based on one common ancestor that has not been yet identified.

scholarly journals Tellegens dieren in het Poolse bos. De dubbele bodem en het visuele aspect bij Toon Tellegen in Poolse vertaling

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
Kaat Buelens
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Context Adaptation ◽  
The One

This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of two works by Dutch (children’s) author Toon Tellegen and their translations into Polish. The article focuses on the cultural context adaptation of the dual address for children and adults in his works on the one hand, the textual and visual cohesion on the other. The analysis will show that, while the translated text favors a foreignization approach, treating the child as a full-fledged reader and allowing the adult to find merit in these stories, too, the visual adaptations lean towards domesticating it for the Polish cultural context.

Cultural-context Adaptation in Translation of Children's Short Stories from English to Persian

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Asghari ◽  
Bahloul Salmani
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
New World ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Traditional Form ◽  
Context Adaptation ◽  
Emotional Harm

The importance of children’s literature in comparison with the traditional form of translation is something trivial and this is regrettable since translating for children should be done so skillfully that there may be no mental or emotional harm for children. Puurtinen (1994) believes that writing and translating for children which is often regarded as a simple and insignificant matter will be governed by numerous constraints, which normally vary from culture to culture. The present study makes an effort to examine the implications of different adaptation methods proposed by Klingberg (1986) in children’s literature to investigate the claim that the process of translation in children’s literature should consider the level of target text reader’s knowledge and their understanding. In this study, the level of adaptation is evaluated through Klingberg’s theories, in which undue adaptation is disparaged since an undue adaptation keeps children away from new world knowledge.

Culture and the plasticity of perception

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lifshitz ◽  
T. M. Luhrmann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
The World

Abstract Culture shapes our basic sensory experience of the world. This is particularly striking in the study of religion and psychosis, where we and others have shown that cultural context determines both the structure and content of hallucination-like events. The cultural shaping of hallucinations may provide a rich case-study for linking cultural learning with emerging prediction-based models of perception.

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