scholarly journals Dethroning Dante: Skopostheorie in Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Timothy Smith
Keyword(s):  
Literary Translation ◽  
Seamus Heaney ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
English Translations ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Rhyme Scheme ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Right

<p>Dante’s Commedia has been translated into English more than one hundred times. As a result, there are plenty of opposing opinions on how best to translate Dante’s masterwork. One can mimic Dante’s rhyme scheme (terza rima), utilize a more conventional English metre or rhyme scheme, or resort to a prose translation that abandons any attempt to reproduce Dante’s poetics. It is the purpose of this study to demonstrate that all of these are, in the right context, appropriate translation strategies; no platonic ideal translation strategy exists. To provide a more tolerant approach to translations of Dante’s poetry, I employ a translation theory called Skopostheorie (skopos theory). This theory argues that each translation has its own unique purpose (skopos); there are any number of (valid) strategies available to the translator. This theory is often seen as extreme, providing the translator with too much freedom to manipulate the text. Accordingly, this thesis first makes a case for the application of Skopostheorie in literary translation, attempting to defend it against its critics. Second, this essay exhibits how the theory may be applied in practice. To demonstrate its application, I look at three very different English translations of the first canto of Dante’s Inferno published during the 1990s. These translations are by Seamus Heaney (1993), Steve Ellis (1994), and Robert M. Durling (1996). In doing so, I hope to identify the various approaches of these translators, to demonstrate the breadth of options available to translators of Dante’s capolavoro, and to add to the discourse on the reception of Dante in the English-speaking world.</p>

scholarly journals Dethroning Dante: Skopostheorie in Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Timothy Smith
Keyword(s):  
Literary Translation ◽  
Seamus Heaney ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
English Translations ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Rhyme Scheme ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Right

<p>Dante’s Commedia has been translated into English more than one hundred times. As a result, there are plenty of opposing opinions on how best to translate Dante’s masterwork. One can mimic Dante’s rhyme scheme (terza rima), utilize a more conventional English metre or rhyme scheme, or resort to a prose translation that abandons any attempt to reproduce Dante’s poetics. It is the purpose of this study to demonstrate that all of these are, in the right context, appropriate translation strategies; no platonic ideal translation strategy exists. To provide a more tolerant approach to translations of Dante’s poetry, I employ a translation theory called Skopostheorie (skopos theory). This theory argues that each translation has its own unique purpose (skopos); there are any number of (valid) strategies available to the translator. This theory is often seen as extreme, providing the translator with too much freedom to manipulate the text. Accordingly, this thesis first makes a case for the application of Skopostheorie in literary translation, attempting to defend it against its critics. Second, this essay exhibits how the theory may be applied in practice. To demonstrate its application, I look at three very different English translations of the first canto of Dante’s Inferno published during the 1990s. These translations are by Seamus Heaney (1993), Steve Ellis (1994), and Robert M. Durling (1996). In doing so, I hope to identify the various approaches of these translators, to demonstrate the breadth of options available to translators of Dante’s capolavoro, and to add to the discourse on the reception of Dante in the English-speaking world.</p>

Translation of Persian Mystic Terms into English: A Case Study of Conference of the Birds by Attar

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 552
Author(s):  
Sadaf Khosroshahi ◽  
Ahmad Sedighi
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Strategy ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Direct Transfer ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
English Translations ◽  
The One ◽  
Persian Translation

Translation of mystic terms or metaphors is a very important portion of rendering a text from a source language to a target language, because some of mystic terms do not exist in the target language and this point makes the translation harder. This paper aimed at identifying the translation strategies and procedures used by Darbandi and Davis (1984) in The Conference of the Birds of Attar Neishabouri. To achieve the objectives, Attar’s Persian original work (Shafiei Kadkani, 2010) was read carefully to extract mystical terms.  Then, the translated text by Darbandi, and Davis (1984) was carefully read and the corresponding English translations of Persian mystical term were found.  The original mystical terms and their Persian translation were analyzed based on Van Doorslaer’s (2007) map to find out translation strategies and procedures used by the translators on the one hand and indicate the dominant strategy and procedure in the whole work of translation on the other. The result showed that literal translation strategy (72.41%) was the most frequently used strategy and direct transfer procedure (68.96%) was the most frequently used procedure.  This paper may have some implications in literary translation and help translation instructors and translation trainees as well in translation classes.

Foucault in English

Target ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Academic Culture ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Empiricist Theory ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
First Time

It is something of a cliché to affirm that translations into English are almost always domestications, privileging fluency and naturalness over fidelity to the source text. However, back in the 1970s, many of Michel Foucault’s major texts, which were introduced to the English-speaking public for the first time through Alan Sheridan Smith’s translations for Tavistock Publications, were not domesticated at all. Despite the fact that the originals are grounded in a non-empiricist theory of knowledge and use terms drawn from a universe of discourse that would have been completely alien in the English-speaking world, these translations closely follow the patterns of the French, with few or no concessions to the target reader’s knowledge and expectations. This paper analyses passages from Sheridan Smith’s English translations of Les Mots et les choses and L’Archéologie du savoir in order to discuss the long-term effects of this translation strategy. It then goes on to compare and assess two very different translations of Foucault’s lecture L’ Ordre du discours (1970), an early one by Rupert Swyer (1971), which brings the text to the English reader, and a later one by Ian McLeod (1981), which obliges the reader to go to the text. The paper concludes by reiterating the need for Anglophone academic culture to open up to foreign perspectives, and suggests, following Goethe (Book of West and East, 1819) that new epistemes are best introduced gradually in order to avoid alienating or confusing a public that might not be ready for them.

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.

General Relativity in the English-speaking World: The Contributions of Henry L. Brose

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi König
Keyword(s):  
General Relativity ◽  
Great War ◽  
De Sitter ◽  
Berlin Academy ◽  
English Translations ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Arthur Stanley Eddington ◽  
The Great War

The story of how the theory of general relativity found its way into the English speaking world during the Great War has often been told: it is dominated by the towering figure of the Cambridge astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington, who (in 1916, and through the good services of the Dutch physicist Willem de Sitter) received copies of the papers Einstein had presented to the Berlin Academy in 1915. Eddington engaged in promoting the new theory, and in order to put one of its predictions — the bending of light in a gravitational field — to the test, he arranged for the famous expeditions to observe the eclipse of 29 May 1919 to be mounted, the results of which, presented in November of the same year, were the major breakthrough of general relativity and provoked a public interest unprecedented in the whole history of science. But a history of general relativity in the English-speaking world would be thoroughly incomplete if it did not take into account the contributions made by another, nowadays almost forgotten but at that time probably the most prolific and most dedicated of its popularizers, the Australian physicist and translator Henry L. Brose. Largely overlooked in recent accounts of the history of general relativity, Brose's rendering into English of a series of excellent German works on the theory was decisive for its understanding in the Anglo-Saxon world. The texts he chose (including Moritz Schlick's Space and Time in Contemporary Physics and Hermann Weyl's Space, Time, Matter) were among the first and most important that had so far appeared on the subject, and their English translations were published at a time when accounts of what was to be called 'one of the greatest of achievements in the history of human thought' were scarce and badly needed in Britain. Also, it will become clear from a closer look at both Brose's biography and the tense political situation between Britain and Germany shortly after the Great War, that hardly any of those works would have made its way into England so promptly (if at all) if not for Brose's enormous personal efforts and dedication. This paper retraces Brose's role as a translator and promotor of general relativity in its early days, thus shedding light on the mechanisms of knowledge transfer during and after the First World War.

A corpus-based study on imagery and symbolism in Goldblatt’s translation of Red Sorghum

Babel ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng-Lin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Literary Translation ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Mo Yan ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Figures Of Speech ◽  
Literal Translation ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Translation Study ◽  
Key Word

Abstract Research on Goldblatt’s translation of Red Sorghum has attracted more attention in recent years after its author Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for this work. This translation study has addressed the imagery and symbolism in this classic Chinese work, an area that has yet to be investigated with the use of empirical data. The study employed the corpus-based approach, and analysed the translation of images and symbols based on a parallel translation corpus of Chapters 1 and 2 found in the text of Red Sorghum. Most important images and symbols are represented by 30 distinct nouns in the novel as successfully translated into English as a result of the translator’s adoption of a literal translation strategy. A more focused examination of a translation of the most prominent key word, sorghum, finds that the translator has faithfully adopted the imagery and symbolism techniques in the source text whenever conveying the images and symbols of sorghum across cultures. Based on the findings, this study argues that images and symbols in the source text may present themselves in the translation of novels if translators adopt a source-oriented translation strategy. Our analyses of the translation of figures of speech, namely similes, personifications and repetitions further highlight the importance of taking concert and literal translation strategies into the realm of literary translation.

scholarly journals Translation and Spreading of Folk Culture: The Case of The Last Quarter of the Moon

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 258-265
Author(s):  
Xiaowei Zou ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Right

With the deepening of globalization, mutual cultural communication has become a trend. China's comprehensive national strength is constantly increasing and its influence is also expanding. In the process of cultural communication, Chinese folk culture works are gradually favored by western readers and become one of the channels for the west to understand China. The Right Bank of Argun (2005) is the work of Chi zijian, a Chinese female writer who has won many awards. It was translated by American Sinologist Bruce Humes into English, renamed The Last Quarter of the Moon, and finally published in The United Kingdom in 2013. The spread of The Last Quarter of the Moon around the world is conducive to the spread of Chinese culture and plays a positive role. This thesis takes Susan Bassnett’s cultural translation theory as the theoretical basis, combines the analysis of related translation strategies, and analyzes the relevant corpora through examples, intensive research on the translation of folk culture in The Last Quarter of the Moon.

scholarly journals Audiovisual translation of puns in animated films: strategies and procedures

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Aleksandrova
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
General Strategy ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Animated Films ◽  
The Common ◽  
Target Culture

The translation of the pun is one of the most challenging issues for translators and interpreters. Sometimes puns, especially those containing realia, are considered to be untranslatable. Most translation strategies and procedures offered in previous findings for the translation of realia-based puns are not appropriate for audiovisual translations of animated films, for either dubbing or subtitling. It is caused by the specificity of the target audience, and the genre. The problem of choosing the most relevant strategy and procedures for realia-based puns is underexplored. To narrow the gap, the metamodern and semiotic approaches are applied to the translation of puns. In accordance with the semiotic approach, a pun is considered as a type of language game, based on the use of the asymmetry of the form, and the content of the sign. The “Quasi-translation” strategy offered in this paper reflects the attitude to the game in metamodernism, where the “game change” is one of the basic postulates. “Quasi-translation” involves three types of translation procedures: quasi-localisation, quasi-globalisation, and quasi-glocalisation. The term, “quasi-glocalisation”, is also used to denote the general strategy for the translation of audiovisual works containing realia-based puns, which involves: 1) oscillation between the need to adapt the translation to the target culture, and the need to preserve the culturally-marked components of the original; and 2) the reproduction of “atmosphere” (the common reality of the perceiver and the perceived). This insight can be used by audiovisual translator-practitioners, and university teachers in the course of translation theory and practice.

scholarly journals Yuri Tynyanov’s comparative studies in the light of translation theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-276
Author(s):  
Alexej I. Zherebin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Studies ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Translation Theory ◽  
Scientific Texts ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Strategies ◽  
Translated Literature

Against the background of the latest trends in the field of translation theory, the article attempts to distinguish between the terms “translation studies” and “translatology”. The material for analysis is a number of authoritative studies by Russian and foreign authors, in which literary translation and translated literature are considered as a fact of cultural transfer and the subject of comparative literary studies. Variants of the translatological approach are illustrated by an example from George Steiner’s monograph After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975) and Yuri Lotman’s “‘Journey to the Island of Love’ by Vasily Trediakovsky and the function of translated literature in Russian culture of the first half of the 18th century” (1985). The central part of the article is devoted to the comparative studies of Yuri Tynyanov in the early 1920s. An example of a more traditional translation approach is given by Tynyanovs study “Tyutchev and Heine” (1922), a classic example of Russian comparative studies that confirms the thesis that the delimitation and differentiated use of the terms “translation studies” and “translatology” allow us to more accurately describe the semantic structure of both scientific texts and those works of art to which they are devoted. On the contrary, in Tynyanovs study “Blok and Heine” (1921), which is close in theme and when created, both analytical strategies are present on equal terms; translation studies and translatology complement each other, forming a synthesis. A typological comparison includes both observations of Block’s translation strategy, supported by an aesthetic analysis of the works of both poets, and the posing of the question of the social function of art and the role of the artist in shaping the modernist metanarrative of personality emancipation.

scholarly journals A Short History of the Right-Holding Person

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-54
Author(s):  
Visa A.J. Kurki
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Legal Personhood ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Legal Sense

The chapter is a historical survey of the genealogy of legal personhood, offering context for how two central notions of modern legal philosophy—personhood and rights—developed. It traces how the Roman notions of personhood inspired Renaissance-era French and German scholars to start using persona in a distinct legal sense that would then, in nineteenth-century Germany, develop into a definition of persons as right-holders. This view was imported into the English-speaking world by John Austin, who had studied in Bonn, Germany. Austin would later influence the works of such influential jurisprudents as John Salmond and Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document