scholarly journals Howard Goldblatt’s Translations of Mo Yan’s Works into English: Reader Oriented Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishit Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Mo Yan ◽  
English Reader ◽  
Oriented Approach

This article examines the strategies followed by Howard Goldblatt, the official translator of Mo Yan while translating his works from Chinese into English. Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012 and critics argued that it was Goldblatt’s translation that was mainly responsible for Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Though Mo Yan’s works in translation are available in various languages, it is Goldblatt’s version that has become most popular. Therefore, from the perspective of Translation Studies, it would be interesting to identify the techniques used by Goldblatt that make his translations so special. The present paper compares titles, structure, and culture-specific expressions in the original and its English translation to identify the strategies followed by Howard Goldblatt in translating Chinese literary texts.

Translation and the representation of thought: The case of Herta Müller

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Boase-Beier
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
The State ◽  
English Reader ◽  
Narrative Perspective ◽  
Perspective Change ◽  
The Family

A number of recent studies consider how the style of a text is recreated by a translator, and what issues this raises for the study of the translated text and its reception, and for both stylistics and translation studies more generally. But the changes that translation makes to perspective and structures of narrative in the text have rarely been studied. In this article I suggest how one might consider changes of this nature that have come about when the works of the Nobel-Prize-winning German-Romanian writer Herta Müller were translated into English, and the possible effects of such changes on the construction of fictional minds by the English reader. These changes are of particular importance in this case because the novels deal with repression of various types – in the community and the family, by the state – and focus especially on the disjunction between thinking and speaking, and the uncertainty of what others are thinking. Considering how specific aspects of narrative perspective change when these novels are translated raises potentially interesting questions both for the study of translation and for the study of narrative.

Beyond imagery: new approaches to the analysis of literary antisemitism and a casestudy of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-64
Author(s):  
Franka Marquardt
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
New Approaches

The most common approach when analyzing literary antisemitism is to explore the “image of the Jew” in literary texts. At a closer look, this focus entails several problems, ranging from a neglect of other anti-Semitic elements in the text, to the risk that this method results in reproducing these anti-Semitic patterns of thought. By questioning this method, the focus shifts to other levels in the literary texts, which may reveal an anti-Semitic “sub-text” although the imagery seems harmless. What these literary levels are and how they interact is exemplified by two examples from Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrocks. The results shed new light on his Nobel prize-winning first novel.

scholarly journals Possible Worlds in Translation: Coleman Barks’s Rendition of a Story from Rumi’s Masnavi

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahid Medhat ◽  
Hossein Pirnajmuddin ◽  
Pyeaam Abbasi
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Narrative Worlds ◽  
The Way

This article applies the theory of possible worlds to the field of translation studies by examining the narrative worlds of original and translated texts. Specifically, Marie-Laure Ryan’s characterization of possible worlds provides an account of the internal structure of the textual universe and the progression of the plot. Based on this account, one of the stories from Rumi’s Masnavi is compared to Coleman Barks’s English translation. The possible worlds of the characters and the unfolding of the plots in both texts are examined to assess the degree of compatibility between the textual universes of the original and the translated texts and how significant this might be. It also examines how readers reconstruct the narrative worlds projected by the two texts. The analysis reveals some inconsistencies in the way the textual universes of the original and translated texts are furnished and in the way readers reconstruct the narrative worlds of the two texts. The inability of translation to fully render the main character results in some loss in terms of the pungency and pithiness of the original text. It is also shown that the source text presents a richer domain of the virtual in comparison, suggesting a higher degree of tellability in the textual universe of the Masnavi’s narrative.

scholarly journals Chinese Adversative Bèi Passive and Its English Translations in Literary Texts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Lester Zixian LIU
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Semantic Equivalence ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Narrative Perspective ◽  
English Translations

This research aims at finding the commonalities and distinctive features of translating bèi (被) passive into English in the context of literary texts and investigating different approaches translators adopt. Twelve English translation in the Spring 2015 edition of Pathlight will be analyzed as a way to develop translation resources. The main approaches to translation are: (1) retaining the original passive sentences and/or passive construction, (2) changing to corresponding active sentences, (3) changing into active sentences with the same narrative perspective, and (4) paraphrasing the original passives. Translation of adversative bèi passive sentences is evaluated from the perspectives of semantic equivalence and aesthetic effect in order to investigate whether they effectively and successfully express the original adversative meaning and represent the original aesthetic effect. Reasons for ineffective and unsuccessful semantic equivalence are analyzed, that include translators failing to recognize the adversative expression of bèi passive, and not paying sufficient attention to preserving the original lexical terms which express the adversative connotation and present the literary effect and adversative resultative compounds in bèi passive.

scholarly journals Pós-colonialismo e tradução: uma análise do romance Half a Life e sua tradução para o português

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-320
Author(s):  
Mirian Ruffini ◽  
Gabriel Both Borella
Keyword(s):  
Original Work ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Postcolonial Discourse

The publication of translations of postcolonial literary works is increasingly gaining space in the Brazilian publishing market. In this article, the articulation between Translation Studies and Postcolonial Studies is sought through the analysis of the post-colonial novel Half a Life, by V.S. Naipaul, and its translation to Brazilian Portuguese, entitled Meia Vida. Discussions of ideological aspects in the translation of postcolonial texts and the very choice of what is translated and by whom are questions raised by the text, as well as the challenges of translating postcolonial literary texts. Finally, it is discussed how the postcolonial discourse of the original work is transmitted through translation, ascertaining possible suppression or maintenance of the postcolonial tone of the original work in the translated work.

Traduire la culture poétique du français en anglais

Babel ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-353
Author(s):  
Tuesday Owoeye
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Poetic Translation ◽  
French And English ◽  
Poetic Culture

That literary texts appear to be more difficult to translate than technical ones is no longer a subject of debate. This truth is fundamentally as a result of obvious challenges the literary translator has to face, since he is under the obligation to translate not only the literal meaning of his source text, but also its literary style. Even within the literary field of translation, if the translator of prose or drama rarely has an easy task, the translator of poetry is likely to meet harder obstacles in the course of his exercise. Poetry — especially when it has to do with traditional poems – appears, thus, the most dreaded terrain for the translator.<p>This article presents a comparative study of the poetic culture of French and English with the principal objective of demystifying the theoretical and practical problems associated with poetic translation. Supported by a critical analysis of an English translation of a French sonnet, the paper argues that the work of the poetic translator would be made more simplified if priority is given to the culture of the target language. The article thus recommends faithfulness to the poetic culture of the target language in order to produce a translation that will be acceptable to the reader of that language.<p>

Die größere Hoffnung in englischer Sprache. Cornelia Schaeffers Übersetzung von 1963

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Bachleitner
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
German Version ◽  
Source Text

AbstractThe English translation of Aichinger’s novel appeared in 1963, that is at a time when her writing did not yet seem appropriate for a wider public. The American translator Cornelia Schaeffer therefore adapted the novel by ›clarifying‹ opaque phrases and ›normalizing‹ unusual expressions or by simply omitting them. She tries to provide her readers with a more or less realistic story of children trying to escape from Nazi terror. Furthermore, she does not adequately render leitmotifs such as Aichinger’s variations of the word »nachweisen « referring to the notorious (Arier-)Nachweis. Sometimes it is clear that deviations from the meaning of the source text are due to the lack of the translator’s command of German. Most interesting for comparative translation studies are passages that are open to interpretation in the German version, e.g. Ellen’s striving for the »Allererste«.

scholarly journals Examining the Appropriateness of Reiss’s Functionalist-oriented Approach to Trancism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 561-567
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Abdi
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Harry Potter ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Main Aspect ◽  
English Version ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Functionalist Approach ◽  
Persian Translation ◽  
Oriented Approach

Trancism is an activity that is put into Holmes’ (1972) applied branch of Translation Studies (TS). The aim of trancism is to make a fair judgment to help improve the translation through the constructive comments provided by the critic. Various approaches have been proposed to achieve an objective judgment in order to avoid making a subjective judgment. The present study investigated the appropriateness of Reiss’s (2000) approach to the critique of a translation. To do end, the English version of Rowling's (2000) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and its Persian translation were chosen as the corpus of the present study to evaluate the Persian translation on the basis of three categories included in Reiss’s model of trancism. This encompasses literary, language, and pragmatic categories. As the results indicated, the translator was successful in accomplishing her translation at almost all levels, except some part of grammatical and punctuation included in language category in which the translation she produced resulted in failure to some extent. In conclusion, Reiss’s functionalist approach was mostly appropriate to the critique of a translated text, especially expressive text types, because her model allows the critic to judge two main aspect of the translation: linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects.

scholarly journals Domestication and Foreignization in Key Cultural Text Translation: A Case Study of the English Translation of Lost in the Crowd

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mehri Ebrahimi ◽  
Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Dominant Strategy ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
Cultural Texts

Translation of key cultural texts is a challenging area since these texts not only present intricacies of cultures but also distinguish them from each other. In spite of it, investigating the translation of key cultural texts is one of the neglected areas in the field of translation studies. In the light of Venuti’s (2008) concepts of domestication and foreignization strategies, this research examines translation of Islamic religious cultural terms in Lost in the Crowd by Al-e Ahmad from Persian into English. It also investigates possible relationship between the accuracy of translation and the choice of strategy. The findings of the study reveal that domestication was the dominant strategy opted for by translators in the translation process. Moreover, the findings show that majority of the Islamic Persian terms were rendered into English adequately but the rate of adequate translation using a domesticating strategy was much higher than foreignizing.

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